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SECTION FOUR - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - Part 11

You chose and have faithfully followed the second method of handling this present incarnation. With a frail and seriously injured physical body and a partner who is ever the cause of constant concern (though withal you owe her much), you have gone ahead with the task of a working disciple; you [676] have done much good and have helped our work greatly and—as the Master said—the Hierarchy is never ungrateful, for gratitude is the hallmark of an enlightened soul and a basic releasing agent from an occult and scientific angle. I am not ungrateful to you, my brother; I hope to move you on into a closer relation to myself provided you succeed in handling a somewhat difficult situation with which you are now confronted and dominate an aspect of your nature which must be controlled before the move I contemplate in connection with you can be consummated.

At this time I have the responsibility of deciding whether you will accept what I say and then set in to change certain attitudes or whether you will refuse to recognise their existence and go your own way. That would make it impossible for me to offer you an esoteric possibility which will next life orient you in such a manner that, when you face the Initiation of Decision, the Path which you must follow will clearly appear to you.

I wonder whether you have ever studied the reasons why the various members of the groups of nine stopped their work with me and are not (for this short period) participants in the work of my Ashram. Please note that I do not use the phrase "participants in spiritual work." Many of them are still just as spiritually motivated. An Ashram exists for work and not primarily for training disciples. That training is necessarily given, but the prime object of an Ashram is to accomplish a particular phase of work. This is a sentence which I would beg you here to pause and reflect upon. It is of prime importance to you at this time.

The work of the Hierarchy is an integrated whole; each Ashram within the Hierarchy is dedicated to that whole and to that particular aspect of it which can be best carried out through its members of all degrees—the disciples in training for some initiation or another. To insure that the work goes forward as desired, necessarily (as I said) the individual disciple or initiate receives training, injunctions as to character development and personality attitudes. A close study of Discipleship in the New Age (Vol. I) will disclose to you that it was on this point of personality correction—if I may use so [677] harsh a word for the hints and suggestions I gave—that defection occurred. In spite of sincerity, dedication and wide knowledge, and even a subjective recognition of the accuracy of what I said, they would not accept it; rebellion set in; self-justification through rationalisation took place and temporarily—very temporarily—they became inactive, though still disciples on the periphery of my Ashram.

If I now address to you certain comments upon your attitude the past three years, towards the work which has its spiritual focal point in New York, do I risk losing you after all these years? Will you, for the remainder of your life, go your own way? I am going to believe that such will not be the case.

As you well know, my work in the outer world has taken the form of three major activities.... You have done much to help with this work and the door of opportunity stands wide open to you, provided the work is held true to the original picture, given prior to World War II. There are, however, one or two things you are apt to forget.

1. The centre from whence the Goodwill work goes out and the source of its spiritual potency is located in New York at this time, though later—if deemed wise—it may be moved to London. This I mentioned several years ago and I would remind you also that both these cities are among the five focal points of spiritual energy through which hierarchical activities can be set in motion. Your city is not.

2. The major task of the Goodwill work is threefold:

a. It must mobilise world goodwill.

b. It is responsible for the distribution of the message The Reappearance of the Christ and for a great deal of the work preparatory to His coming.

c. It must aid in drawing the attention of the masses as far as may be—to the problems of humanity, and thus help create the thoughtform of solution.

This F.B. and A.A.B. have already realised and are laying plans in line with the above. All over the world before long [678] (and already in different countries) much is being accomplished by students and others, always under instruction from New York, so that their work fits in with the general picture and the plans of the New York workers.

3. There are, my beloved brother, three things in connection with your relation to the work which I would like to call to your attention:

a. You have a strong feeling that all the Goodwill work should be completely divorced from what you choose to call occultism. Do you mean from the spiritual centre, the Hierarchy? If this is done, in what way will the goodwill work you propose to do differ from the thousands of goodwill movements so ardently and actively working in the world today?

This A.A.B. told you, since which time you have never spoken to her, bade her farewell even by phone or written her a letter. These personality details matter not to her and are of no importance except as they indicate a strong reaction on your part of almost violent disagreement. F.B. and A.A.B. have done what they could to "absorb" you into the work of the new cycle, but hitherto quite unsuccessfully.

b. You tend to emasculate the work and rob it of all potency by a drastic elimination of any word or phrase or paragraph which could be considered to have an occult meaning or implication. Yet, my brother, in the years 1932-1936 the goodwill literature went out practically as dictated by me and it met with enormous and overwhelming success. It had the spirit and the rhythm of the Hierarchy behind it. Today the demand for things esoteric and occult and of the new era is greater still, and the unique thing which the Goodwill work has to offer is the Plan for humanity which the Hierarchy is seeking to implement.

c. Then, my co-disciple, you have lately succumbed to [679] two personality faults or weaknesses which seriously hinder your work for me, and in the Ashram, and for humanity.

You are again intensely critical of all who do not see things your way and—when their ideas do not coincide with your conception as to how the work should be done—you refuse to cooperate. I would remind you that the Members of the Hierarchy are highly individual even though relatively free from personality reactions. Each Ashram has its part to play in materialising the Plan and some project to carry through connected with that Plan. Sometimes this will require the joint cooperation of two or three Ashrams. All the senior workers called in to help may not see eye to eye with the Master responsible for a certain aspect of the Plan, but (when united in a cooperative task) they work under the direction of the Master Who is responsible. Here lies a great deal of your difficulty.

You want to work your own way many thousand miles away from Headquarters where I have established my work, instead of working out the plans as proposed to you.

We come, therefore, not only to the field of criticism in which you find yourself stranded but we come to that latent ambition which, you have oft admitted over the years, is perhaps your deepest rooted failing.... You are anxious to see the new seed group members take control of the organisational situation should anything happen to A.A.B., forgetting that the work of that group is mainly to create a subjective channel of spiritual love, light and power—a point to which few of the members pay any attention at all. You would like to run the work with your own chosen group of workers. You are not working with love and in cooperation with the workers at Headquarters; you are forgetting, are you not, that unless such a plan as the Goodwill work is founded and engineered by a group of disciples [680] who are working in the closest rapport with each other and (in the case of world goodwill) with the Hierarchy (via my Ashram and the Ashrams of the Masters M., K.H., and R.), the work cannot go forward as desired.

My brother, your choice is clear and one of two paths is open to you. You can work with loving cooperation with F.B. and the other goodwill workers so that there is unity of approach and uniformity of technique, or else—you can create, engineer and run your own goodwill movement, which may turn out to be a big thing numerically but a poor little thing specifically because you are not in your place and doing your work in my Ashram as had been your soul's decision. This latter choice is not what I seek to see happen but at present you stand isolated and relatively useless between these two alternatives.

The new cycle is upon us, brother of mine; there is no time now for personality plans, for criticisms and for disagreements. I have asked you to cooperate with those who have been asked by me to undertake the task of bringing the Goodwill movement to the world.

An era of frustration has swept the world, due to certain planetary influences; the work that I have sought to do has consequently suffered. This period will not last. I need you in the new cycle and in the new expanding work. There is no place today for personal ambition, personal criticisms, hard feelings or self-pity.

Deepen your spiritual life, my brother. Much that interests you is not constructive. Also the cleaning up of your country by ardent search for undesirable citizens can well be carried on by others than yourself. Your work is and must be for the Hierarchy and the furthering of its plans. Take again your place as an outpost of my consciousness in the activities of my organisations. Be humble. F.B. needs you but he knows that the Goodwill work is not an American movement but an international one; he has travelled much and seen the need. This you cannot really know as your life circumstances and your karma have confined you largely to [681] one single and distant locality. Broaden your horizon and bring in Europe, Australia and distant Asia and—as your vision quickens—you will arrive at understanding. Contribute your ideas and suggestions to the reservoir of plans at Headquarters and learn to consider and take part in other people's plans besides your own.

What more can I say to you, my brother? We are ancient co-workers and those with whom you are associated with in New York are your true co-workers, far more than those well- intentioned aspirants you seek to dominate in your environment. Work closely with your co-disciples and with the Ashram members. They all love you and want your cooperation. A.A.B. wants to see certain things accomplished in the relatively brief interlude which is left to her. Will you help? F.B. is going to need you and many like you as the work expands in the new cycle. Will you stand by him, by my work, and by me?

My love goes out to you. Much in your present situation and spiritual dilemma reminds me of myself when I was in preparation for the third initiation; therefore, I understand and with this thought I leave you and will not fail you.

To D. I. J.

January 1940

For you, my brother, I have somewhat the same message as I gave to S.C.P. Free yourself from the glamour of inherited ideas and national concepts and prejudices. The world picture is clearer and more beautiful than you know, seeing it as you do today through the windows of prejudice, pain and limitation. If I sound harsh in so speaking, it is simply because I, the Master D.K., value what you will be able to do and be when you have released yourself from the glamour of prejudice. You have made real progress in this condition but there is much still to be done and this your heart of love can accomplish once you see clearly and with understanding the true nature of your glamour. There are many points of view, coming from the many types of men, the many races [682] and the many nations and grades of human beings. Who, my brother, are you to determine what is right and which point of view is correct? The Hierarchy sees the beauty in them all. Ponder on this and seek to see it too.

August 1940

MY BROTHER:

A.A.B. has told me of your comment on the quality of my communications with the group, that you felt the need of a greater expression of love. There was no need for her to tell me as I had "listened in" on the group (as you call it in radio language) and I saw your thought, but she wanted to ask me to deal with this matter as it will be of service to the group; she also sensed your sincere desire.

I wonder, my brother, if you realise that the basis of your feeling lies in your reaction to the short instruction I gave you earlier in the year? This you did not like, nor did you truly agree with what I said, nor have you really freed yourself from the prejudices to which I referred and for two reasons:

1. Your judgment is clouded by your resentment to what you, perhaps naturally, regarded as a criticism.

2. Your sensitivity and your reaction to glamour tunes you in very frequently on a certain section of public opinion and when this happens (as it is happening today) you are no longer a free agent.

My underlying thought when giving you that instruction was to awaken you to the fact that your feelings and loyalties are based on a class idea and on class resentment and not on clear thinking through to the facts which should condition all loyalties and partisanships. It is not the objectives or the decisions of those loyalties with which I am dealing. Those are entirely your own affair and are of no real importance in the light of eternity, but I am endeavouring to awaken you to the condition of your emotional reactions and to the quality [683] which motivated you—not clear thinking and then decision, but prejudice, resentment and fear.

But today I shall not deal with this. You know enough to deal with it yourself or at least to realise the truth of my criticism of your attitude but not of your decision. That which works out into expression upon the physical plane is not the concern of the members of the Hierarchy. They concern themselves with motives and predispositions and it was with these that I was dealing.

Brother of old, we have worked together for some time—for some years. I have chosen you for instruction and to be part of my group of disciples and this choice, being accepted and responded to by you, indicates relationship, activity, and an allegiance which will confront you for many lives. Have I ever, since the time that our relationship started in this life, failed to meet your need when that need was of a spiritual nature, determining character and conditioning the future? Is not such a response on my part an expression of true love? Love is not making the object of the love feel comfortable superficially. If I induced that reaction in you, I would not merit your confidence and trust and in the long run I would not thus hold your respect. Love is far-seeing wisdom which seeks to keep alive in the object of that love those sensitivities which will guarantee safe progress. Love is, therefore, guarding, stimulating and protective. But it is not a personal matter. It is a positive protection, but does not lead to a negative attitude of being cared for on the part of the one who is the recipient of the love and protection. It is the stimulating power of divine love which I seek to pour out upon you and upon all whom I serve as Master and Teacher. This will lead you wisely to protect yourself from glamour, illusion and personality reactions, also from error and prejudice in order the better to serve both Humanity and the Hierarchy. Ponder on this.

These are days of terrific stress and strain, far greater and more far reaching than you can guess or grasp. We who work on the inner side of life and who deal with the mass movements and reactions of humanity, and who have kept [684] the light shining with radiance no matter how dark the night of human affairs may be, have ourselves to rest back on the understanding selflessness of our disciples. We have not the time or the inclination (in the light of greater need) to waste in useless gestures or loving phrases, of teaching so tactfully worded that much of its import might be lost, and in making our disciples aware of their personal relation to us. There is a personal relation or you would not be in my group, but it is of secondary importance to your group interrelation and activity. There is no need for me thus to explain but it seemed advisable once and for all to make clear that my failure (should I call it that, my brother?) to express love in words to any of you and also my expressed intention to waste no time in indicating weaknesses in character and areas of failure in performance must not be and should not be interpreted by you as harshness, failure to understand or a detachment so cold that my very impersonality would defeat its own ends. What all of you need to grasp with greater clarity, both as individuals and as a group, is the present need of humanity and the law of cycles. The urgency of the time and the uniqueness of the opportunity seem little understood by most of you.

Again, my brother, have you realised that if I evoked from you a personality devotion I should be hindering you and in no way demonstrating to you that soul love which actuates all my reactions to each and all of you. Your sixth ray personality would respond to such an attitude on my part and then—what would that feed and develop in you? Just self-satisfaction and a settling back upon the fact of relationship and not upon the fact of the soul. It would produce an increase of the glamour to which you are prone. In past lives, your progress has been from one devotion to another, from one position of pledged fealty to another. In this life, you are faced with the opportunity to free yourself from such personality reactions and relations and become stabilised in soul behaviour. It is to this end that I help you. Disciples would do well to appreciate somewhat the problem of the Master. He has to watch the effect of all the energy which flows from Him to His disciples and to guard against its stimulating [685] unduly their personalities, and thus tend to the evocation of personality reactions.

Will you therefore rest back on facts and lived experience and waste not time in wishing and in emotional reactions? You have made much progress in this life, my brother. You are not young but that, in your case, need not deter you from further search for liberation, based on a planned relinquishing. Sixth ray aspirants have a particularly hard task at the close of this Piscean age, due to the sixth ray expression of the Christian era. Today the energies are concretising and working through that which is old and honoured, that which is "conditioned by gold" (as the saying is) and that which belongs to a passing age—an age which should pass. This affects also your sixth ray personality and, consequently, from many angles your allegiances and your loyalties are motivated by the sixth ray and based on personality decisions and not on the illumined vision of the soul. The fact, however, that you have broken with orthodoxy where theology is concerned indicates (to us who watch) a great measure of emancipation and of emerging soul control. You will find, if your intuition gets more dynamic and your first ray astral body (the ray of government and politics) does not unduly affect you, that an increasing measure of thought release will be yours.

In this connection and in order to enlarge your perspective, I would add that Christian Science is a fifth ray expression of thought and was one of the effects of the incoming fifth ray life. A very large number of Christian Scientists are either fifth or sixth ray egos, for this particular school of thought was one of the means whereby the fanatical emotional idealism (engendered by the potency of the sixth ray influence dominant for so many centuries) could be offset, and the mental grasp of truth and of life carefully fostered. Under its influence, the stage was set on which many mystics could begin to organise their mental bodies and discover that they had minds which could be used, and thus be prepared for the occult way. It is therefore a masculine or positive influence in its general effect, but its positivity is in relation to the personality—the mind as the factor dominating [686] the human expression. It can, and eventually will, be negative to the soul, revealing the higher mind. It is interesting whilst considering the pairs of opposites (the negative and positive factors) to study the following groupings:

   Spirit...................................................... Positive

I. Soul........................................................Balancing

   Personality ............................................Negative

   

    Higher mind ...........................................Positive

II. Soul ......................................................The point of balance

     Lower mind ..........................................Negative

 

     Lower Mind ..........................................Positive

III. Emotional nature .................................Field for balancing

     Brain ....................................................Negative

You have, in the above groupings, three great fields of reflection. These groupings can also be worked out in many ways. It must be borne in mind that (as H.P.B. points out) any such groupings, such as the seven principles, will vary according to the point in evolution of the investigator.

I will give you now a personal meditation which will serve, I hope, to lift the life of the astral body out of the solar plexus into the heart centre, thus breaking down some of the limitations which will disappear when the astral body and the sixth ray astral force are transmuted and love of the whole takes the place of love of the part.

1. Take up the position mentally of the Observer. Your fourth ray mind should enable you to observe with detachment the conflict between the personality and the soul.

2. Then, noting the dim light of the personality and the bright radiance of the soul, observe then another duality, i.e., the bright and powerful light or influence of the solar plexus and the wavering, fluctuating light of the heart centre.

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3. Then, through the power of the imagination, focus your consciousness in the radiant soul and hold it there steadily, linking the soul and the head centre, again by the power of thought.

4. Then sound the OM three times, breathing out the energy of the soul into the threefold personality and bringing that energy to rest (as in a reservoir of force) in the ajna centre. There hold it, enhancing the light of the personality with the radiance of the soul.

5. Next say:

"The light of the soul puts out the dim light of the personality as the sun puts out the flame of a small fire. Soul radiance takes the place of personality light. The sun is substituted for the moon."

6. Then, definitely throw the light and energy of the soul into the heart centre and believe—through the power of the creative imagination—that it evokes such a powerful, vibratory activity that it acts like a magnet in relation to the solar plexus. The energy of the solar plexus is lifted up or drawn up into the heart centre and is there transmuted into soul love.

7. Then still as the Observer, see the reversal of the earlier process. The solar plexus is dimmed. The radiance of the heart is substituted. The light of the soul remains unchanged but the light of the personality is greatly brightened.

8. Then again as the soul, united with the personality, sound the OM seven times, breathing it out into your environment.

This, my brother, is more of a visualisation exercise than a meditation, but its efficacy is dependent upon your ability as a spiritual observer to preserve mental continuity as you do it. Energy follows thought and this is the basis of all occult practice and is of prime significance in this exercise. You will discover that if you do this exercise with regularity and with no biassed idea as to results, that changes will be [688] wrought in your consciousness of a lasting nature and the light of the group will also be stronger.

August 1942

1. Much you have learnt, my brother on the Way, and closer to the centre of all life you stand. Let knowledge now be shown as lighted wisdom and gentle loving poise.

2. Let tenderness emerge like a stream of healing strength. Ponder the relationship of tenderness and strength when devoid of selfish interest and unrestrained devotion.

3. Guard well the servant of the soul, the bodily frame, and shorten not the term of service. There is much for you to do.

4. Prepare for changes and welcome each departure from the normal way. Cultivate a fluidness of living when demand arises.

5. Two there are upon the inward way whom you must carry in your heart and seek to reach. C.D.P. is one; the other is more easily attained.

6. Each Thursday night, when sleep descends upon your eyes, seek Me and know that I am there.

September 1943

BROTHER OF MINE:

The years slip away, do they not? And each year sees and should see changes. In my last set of injunctions, if I may call them so, which I gave you a year ago, I asked you to prepare for changes. I have an idea, my brother, that you interpreted that to mean physical changes in your life—the changes which environment and circumstance impose upon a person, which cannot be avoided. But it was not to this kind of change that I referred. Let me see if I can make what I intended to convey to you somewhat clearer.

There are certain changes which disciples must themselves initiate; these may not touch environing outer conditions, but concern inner developments, attitudes and mental processes. These self-initiated decisions can and do lead to [689] basic inner unsettlements (is there such a word?), and these inner disturbances are necessary to and preparatory to great inner crises. These inner crises lead to points of tension, as well you know, and from a point of tension the merging soul-personality can then move onward into greater light and a more surely realised Love.

With devotion and steadfastness you have stood, down the years. Of this I am aware, and for all that you have accomplished I am happy. The question I now ask you, my brother, and am wording in a current phrase in order to arrest your attention is this: Where do you go from here? What is your next step? Can you take another step this life? Can you put your finger on something in your consciousness—subtle perhaps and unseen by others except by those with a truly perceptive attention—which, if altered or developed, discarded or intensified, would bring about a great and surprising unfoldment—an unfoldment much to be desired, prior to entering upon another incarnation.

You are probably now assuming that I am referring to faults, handicaps or limitations. Perhaps I am. I might, however, be indicating the need to foster some divine quality, to move some latent spiritual attribute into a more prominent position in your life, or suggesting that you intensify some spiritual contribution that you are or could be making. That is for you to discover in the secret place of your own heart. At any rate, my brother and my tried friend, you know that until the final initiation is taken, all progress is a series of releases, and that from stage to stage of liberation we pass onward into light.

You are not young. You have a somewhat frail body. You take with pain and distaste the impacts of life, and you seek ever to measure up in truth and sincerity to the presented opportunity. You are prone to think that life must be for you now largely a process of waiting; that there is little that you can further do; in this you are wrong. You can most definitely love more—with less devotion to the few and with a greatly increased inclusiveness and depth for the many; you can free yourself from certain thoughtforms which condition much of your thinking; you can learn more easily the [690] lesson that to be a true disciple means desiring what is best for all humanity, and not what you think is best in terms of some group, some school of thought, or some historical, or political sequence. You must learn to think in larger terms than those of some national group or group of nations. That means an intensified study upon the Plan and this means quiet reflection within yourself, not reading books or subjecting yourself to deep meditation; it means the breaking down of ancient prejudices and preconceived ideas, so that that which is new and totally different to what you have surmised or thought can enter into your thinking and condition your future.

Unless you can do this (and it is not easy for you to break loose from tradition and background) crystallisation is apt to set in, and that is something which I know you fear and which need not happen. The great preventive to any growing hardness or rigidity of perception is Love, and the great lesson for all disciples is to love more and more until the Day be with us.

I am not being very definite and specific with you, my brother. You need it not, for you are an experienced and tried soldier and you are singularly free from glamour, though susceptible to established and powerful thoughtforms. These latter can always be dissipated by love—developed and consciously expressed—but it is not so with glamour. That is a much harder task, as you know well, having watched the struggles of L.T.S-K. for so many years with sympathy and comprehension. You have given him more of that than almost anyone else in the group and in his immediate circle of co-disciples. It is because glamour has no lure for you.

As to your meditation, I am only going to give you certain words which you can incorporate into the general meditation at any point which you may deem appropriate. I would ask you to give five minutes at least to a dynamic concentration upon these words. Study them—as far as you can—from the angle of the world of meaning and in relation to your attitude to humanity as a whole. Do not consider them from the angle of your personal relationships or your personal environing circumstances. All that I have said indicates your need to [691] relate these ideas to universal concepts; that is for you the next practical step. I give you six words or phrases, and during the coming year you can therefore deal with them twice:

1st month.............. Humanity. The framework of Experience.

2nd month............. Fluidity. Reaction to new Impression.

3rd month.............. The Ashram. The centre of radiating Love.

4th month.............. Money. The medium of loving Distribution.

5th month.............. Recognition. The mode of divine Relationship.

6th month.............. Identification. The key to Understanding.

These words are probably not what you might anticipate, but they will open up to you a group and mental approach to realisation, and that is the way for you to proceed. Your keen analytical mind will know what to do with these matters. I would suggest, for the process to be employed, that you approach each phrase each month with three questions. Let me illustrate for you what I mean by taking two words out of the six:

Humanity.....................

What does humanity mean to me in reality?
What new development faces the human family?
Can I contribute by my thinking to this new unfoldment?

Recognition....................

What does recognition mean to me?
What new recognition confront all disciples?
How can I develop the power to recognise the new,
the divine, the reality which is already here?

From these suggestions you can adapt three questions to each of the remaining words.

It will be apparent to you, my beloved brother, that what I am really doing is training you for a special piece of service—the service of thoughtform building in the New Age. This you can do if you will free yourself from prejudices and [692] from criticism of certain individuals. This service you can do in the quiet of your home and without undue effort, and you will learn to do this because you love and will love increasingly.

I enfold you within my aura and with security, and from that point of safety I ask you to go forth upon the work of the Ashram.

November 1944

MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:

I would like to start this instruction with a word of commendation. The entering stream of love is much more potent now than it was. Years ago and even months ago this was not so. Today, the second ray strains (if I may call them so) in your equipment are far more dominant than heretofore. Had you realised how over-potent was your first ray astral body? It conditioned you unduly and it hindered you from seeing all around the picture of your relation to humanity. It forced you almost fanatically to adhere to certain ideas and concepts which were emotionally aroused and which were related principally to the people and the relatives with whom you associated. You frequently failed to see life from the angle of the ordinary man and from the effect which karma produced in the life of the average citizen. You thought in terms of one group. This you are learning to negate and the loneliness of your present life has greatly aided your withdrawal from this astral concentration upon a group thoughtform.

I have earlier told you that you are being trained to work with thoughtform creating processes. Hence, another reason for the long hours by yourself which characterise your life at this time and which will be expressive of your days for the remainder of your life. To this desire of your soul you must happily reconcile yourself. Because of this planned training—planned with the consent of your soul and of me, your Master—you are already peculiarly susceptible to group thoughtforms; you must learn increasingly to work under the influence of the Law of Abstraction.

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This is a law which is ever present in the world in relation to the processes of death. The aspect of its importance in connection with physical death is deemed of slight importance in comparison to its emphasis in connection with the world of thought. The training given to a disciple when he enters the periphery of an Ashram lays an emphatic emphasis upon the need of abstracting one's consciousness from phase after phase of thought. The lesson of detachment in relation to one's possible emotional attachments is hard to learn, but a disciple must have mastered much of it, prior to entering the Ashram. When he does this, the inference is that detachment is now one of his established processes. However, the process of abstracting one's mind from all imposed thoughtforms—imposed by one's background, one's tradition and one's social group—is a very difficult and subtle undertaking. It must definitely be learned, prior to mastering the science of thoughtform building. The disciple has to stand free from mental impression and mental concepts before he can successfully create under direction of the Ashram.

When the Law of Abstraction is wielded consciously by you from within the Ashram, you will discover that it has (as it might have been expected) various meanings and policies which will function on the different planes of consciousness, such as:

1. Death or the effect of the Law of Abstraction upon the physical plane. This can refer to the abstraction of the life principle from the physical body in response to soul command; it can refer to the death of an old physical plane relationship; it can also refer to a cycle of physical plane conditioning or circumstance, to the termination of a relation to a physical plane group, or to the abstraction of an interest regarded hitherto as basic.

2. The termination of an outgoing affection towards a person or a group of persons upon the astral plane. This can precipitate a definite emotional crisis which brings about the withdrawal of devotion to people or causes. This statement covers the intensity of the emotion, [694] expressed in many and varied directions. Emotional abstraction is the hardest lesson which a disciple has to master.

3. The severing of connection with specific lines of thought. This may refer to the preconceived need which may dawn increasingly upon the disciple as he draws closer to the Ashram to which he is assigned; it may and will lead him to sever connection with schools of thought and with social, political, religious and circumstantial thoughtforms (using the word "circumstantial" to mean the mental conditioning brought about by circumstance), prior to being immersed in any ashramic thoughtform.

These specific abstractions are being rapidly learned by you; you should therefore enter your next life infinitely more liberated than you now are, and should function freer for service. Your present life condition is very favourable to your progress along these lines, and this I think you know, even if it displeases you to recognise the truth.

The entire process is one of abstraction, involving pain. There is a close relation between pain and the law with which I am dealing. It is the Law of Abstraction which lifts a disciple out of the three worlds of human endeavour; it is this same law which brings about the upward drive which all units of life express and the search of all of them for identification with the ONE; it is with this law that you—along with all disciples—must learn to work.

I would give you the following words for meditative reflection:

1. Abstraction                                         5. Renunciation

2. Detachment                                        6. Withdrawal

3. Liberation                                           7. Negation

4. Relinquishment                                  8. Rejection

                                 9. The OM

All these words embody certain major preparatory lessons. You will note how increasingly, as this particular group [695] develops, I have ceased to give stanzas and symbolic phrases and have endeavoured to centre your attention upon words. I would have you deal with these words from the purely physical angle, from the quality angle, and from the purpose angle, as well as that of divine identification. Please use the process outlined for disciples in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. [xx]* In these words you have adequate work for the remainder of your life. Approach them with consideration from the angle of personality detachment, from the angle of soul detachment, particularly when the antahkarana can be consciously used. In this way, great divine potencies can be used, and as one abstraction after another is mastered an increasing liberation will be sensed by you. Keep full notes and in a year's time (if you care to do so) bring these monthly notes all together and write a paper upon the Law of Abstraction as it makes its presence felt in the mind of a typical disciple. This will be of service to you and also to your group brothers.

Strive to cultivate a happy spirit. Let not life, loneliness or any circumstances unduly depress you. Dwell not too much upon world horror, but aim—in meditation—at conveying strength and wisdom to the world leaders as they seek (as they do) to bring order out of chaos. I would like to see you resume your work in the teaching group. You have the time, my brother, and a definite service which you needs must render would be good for you. Your help is needed.

You can, if you so desire, move forward into a clearer and closer relation to me and to my Ashram. You must, however, bear in mind that every step forward into the light and into a closer relation to the Hierarchy is made under the influence of the Law of Abstraction. Be strong, therefore, and know that the powerful qualities of your second ray soul relate you to D.H.B. and J.S.P. Take them into your daily meditation upon the plane of the soul, and remember that you three form an inner triangle which has certain spiritual activities for an esoteric objective for which this present incarnation is only preparatory.

My thought is yours, my brother, and I am not abstracting [696] or withdrawing my love or my attentive care of your interests.

August 1946

MY BROTHER AND LOVED FRIEND:

In publishing the book Discipleship in the New Age, your friend and teacher, A.A.B. made the remark at the end of your instructions that you "still persist in your endeavour to work in the Tibetan's Ashram and remain steadfast and sure." A.A.B. knew what she was saying, but I wonder if you yourself realise the esoteric values of steadfastness and surety? The rarest compliment was knowingly made to you by A.A.B., but you probably did not understand its significance. A stable vibration is the keynote of the universe; surety is the sign of the Knower. These are two qualities of which you are in possession to the point of expression; I would have you realise it and count upon their registration in the Ashram you so much love.

In your hours of loneliness, and when you realise that life for you is mainly a waiting process, you are apt to forget these two facts which I have brought to your attention. Fight not against disability or against what the world calls "old age." This is a thing you are very apt to do, and it is a normal reaction. Why not welcome Transition? Learn to glory in experience, which is the gift of wise old age, and look forward to the Great Adventure which confronts you. You know well—in your highest moments—that that Transition means realisation without any physical plane limitations.

My brother, the ray of your astral body is the first; the failure, weakness or sin of the astral body is delusion. In your case, it is the delusion of pride—social pride—and of this you must rid yourself. It is not a mental quality, for if it were, sound thinking would soon show the futility of social pride. In the eyes of the Masters of the Wisdom, there are only human beings at various stages of unfoldment, of developing selfishness or of unfolding service. There are no classes such as the world recognises, neither is there any age, except the age of the soul; that need cause you no concern; your soul [697] is old in its expression on the physical plane, and you know this to be so.

Pay not undue attention to the physical vehicle. Its preservation is of no moment and can—as in your case—become of too prominent importance. The time of your liberation is set by karmic law; this ever determines the demise of the real man within the body, but if the physical body is unduly nurtured, and if it becomes the recipient of undue care, it can hold that real man in prison in defiance of karmic law. That is a sorry spectacle to watch, for it means that the physical elemental is assuming power. Be careful in this connection, for the ray of your physical body would easily produce this situation.

Not so long ago—two years ago, I believe—I gave you nine words for your mature consideration. Today, I will give you twelve seed thoughts which (for the remainder of your life) should govern your morning reflection, following a definite process of linking with me and with my Ashram. Here are the seed thoughts:

1. Looking forward.    7. Life purpose, persistent ever. 
2. Hope.    8. Friendship. 
3. Immortality.    9. The triangle: yourself, D.H.B., J.S. P.
4. Radiation.  10. Eternal persistence. 
5. Freedom from partisanship.            11. Quality. 
6. Anticipation.  12. Future Mastership.

 

These ideas are suggestive and would prove fruitful and lead to much expansive thinking.

You are in my Ashram and for ever have naught to fear.

To L. U. T.

August 1942

1. The path of the pledged disciple is one of constant rending. The disciple does the rending. You have not yet [698] achieved the beauty of acceptance—the acceptance that releases.

2. Project your values to a higher sphere and know that nothing matters connected with the earthly role of life, save learning understanding. To that attain.

3. There are three souls who can in differing ways lead to achievement of your liberation: one, close to you, because she needs a guiding, loving understanding heart; one you will meet and needs must save; the other is Myself. For three lives now I have sought to serve your need. Respond in love to all these three.

4. Break through the double cloud which has so long erased the vision from your heart. You have the vision but it is ever on ahead. When will it pierce the cloud and settle in your heart?

5. Health, strength and opportunity confront your steps. A new departure can today open the door to greater, fuller life. Move on.

6. Let the ray of your soul dominate the man of everyday and become a radiant centre of saving force.

November 1944

MY WARRIOR (OR SHOULD I SAY "WARRING"?) BROTHER: