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SECTION FOUR - PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS TO DISCIPLES - Part 13

You are a dedicated disciple and have proven yourself so to be; you are a member of my Ashram, but your mental fluidity has militated against your passing into any closer relation within the Ashram. You still remain upon the periphery, whereas you should have advanced to within the first circle of working disciples, at least. This, however, has been impossible and will remain so until you have brought quietness and rhythm into your physical plane life. It was the realisation of this which prompted A.A.B. to beg you, not long ago, to settle down. She could not give ashramic reasons, for she intrudes not into that which I perforce must do, but she earnestly sought to help.

My brother, no matter where you are, a settled place of abode is needed for all disciples, and this for several reasons. Over the months or years, where a true disciple is concerned, this settled abode becomes a shrine, something is built which becomes magnetic and responsive to the Ashram, and occultly speaking, "the sensitive receiver of the disciple's physical brain can be located and found to be at peace." I trust you understand, and I would have you ponder on these words and reflect upon my suggestion. I would have you seek (and you will find) a place of suitable residence which will be of prolonged usefulness to you and from which you will not move, except in response to the normal procedures of life. Because of the instability with which you have come into incarnation and which constitutes your major life problem, you know that you need the steady rhythm and the heartbeat of the Headquarters in New York, through which I work; this should condition your choice of a place in which to settle and, my brother, I emphasise and re-emphasise to you the word "settle."

This is for you a spiritual necessity, and will eventually mean for you health and peace and a stable settled personal rhythm. This again will signify a step towards liberation. Your restlessness and instability have been accepted by you as conditioning factors in your life, and herein lies a major mistake [723] which you have always made. Both are a serious detriment to your spiritual progress and usefulness and one reason why you are not as useful as you should be to those around you.

For whatever time lies ahead of you, my brother, let this constant movement end. Endeavour to be where you can be found; gather around you what you need for peaceful, quiet and useful living, and there abide. I cannot too strongly urge this on you. Fill your life with interests related to my work (a work which has evoked your sincere dedication), but give not time to meditation. It is this constant urge to meditation which is responsible for much of your difficulty, because meditation overstimulates your fluidic and active mind; this, in due course, results in a restless, constantly changing physical plane life. Talk this over with A.A.B., who has watched you with loving concern for many years and is peculiarly disturbed over you at this time.

There is much that you can do, if you are willing to do the little things. You have given generously of your means and have made much of my work possible; for this I am grateful, and for this I tender to you the thanks of those of us in the Hierarchy who stand behind the work for which A.A.B. and F.B. are responsible. We shall always be grateful for that help, as are the two who work with us; we shall be grateful for your continued help along this line if your soul so prompts you, provided you ever retain that which is needed for your quiet, gracious, restful living in a suitable abiding place, close to the centre of our work.

We are endeavouring to prolong the life of A.A.B., which should have ended this year; we are doing so, much against her wishes, in order that the work in Europe can be stabilised and the books completed. I put these two things in the order of their importance. Help her all you can. She asks me not to write this, but has my instructions so to do. Her life is harder than you know, and but for F.B. she would not be here at all.

Every morning, at noon, and each night before retiring to sleep, align yourself with your soul, with the Ashram and with me, and say very quietly and with no tension:

"I stand a point of peace, and through the point [724] which I can thus provide, love and true light can flow.

I stand in restful poise, and through that poise I can attract the gifts which I must give—an understanding heart, a quiet mind, myself.

I never am alone, for round me gather those I seek to serve, my brothers in the Ashram, souls that demand my help, e'en though I see them not, and those in distant places who seek the Master of my life, my brother, the Tibetan."

That is all the meditation I would have you do for the remainder of your life, except the meditations in group formation at the Headquarters of our work. You will find that these affirmations, affirmed by you three times a day, will suffice to calm your mind and turn the place where you abide into a shrine.

This communication may be somewhat surprising to you. Seldom do I deal with physical plane matters, and I deal with this matter of a "centre of peaceful abode" for you only because its lack and your refusal (an interior refusal) to seek a suitable place to live are indications of a mental condition which should be brought to an end by you. This restlessness affects the quality of your vibration, and this in turn, to a slight (a very slight) degree, affects your ashramic group of brothers.

A future of service opens wide for you if, I repeat, you are willing to do the little things and finish what you begin.

My blessing and my love for you—the love of a Master for his disciple, distant and close, remote yet near—is ever yours.

To L-T. S. K.

September 1943

BROTHER OF MINE:

Our association together has existed for many years. It also began many lives ago. You should have advanced to a more intimate stage of discipleship had it not been for your always ready and still persistent response to the unreal, the [725] unnecessary, and to that which comes in between you and the clear, steady enlightened progress upon the Path which should be yours. You will note that I use not the word glamour here. The reason is that it is apparently an entirely meaningless word to you, and I felt that I should emphasise the fact that glamour (as far as you are concerned) means that which sidesteps you from the desired service, that which engrosses your attention and prevents you from concentrating on the realities of life and circumstance, that which places you always at the centre of some big scheme as the master-mind making some discovery, as the architect of some building which is intended to house humanity, and that which comes between you and the simple duty of a pledged disciple—for that you unchangeably are.

You have, my brother, a good illustration of what I mean in the two plans which you have evolved during the past six months for world salvage and unity. One of them was supposed to be in response to my request for a paper, but another paper which I asked you to write is still unwritten and that paper was more important than the other. These plans were drawn; time was taken in submitting them to various people, and to what end? There was in them nothing new. The minds and some of the best minds in every country in the world are formulating them. Your plans were simply compilations of familiar suggestions which have already been presented in better form to the public. What end, therefore, did they serve? Only to sidetrack you from the simple duty of today; only to feed that inclination on your part to do something great; only to prevent you from a true and practical cooperation in my plans which you know well and which the disciples in my Ashram are pledged to materialise. It is their group duty, not from the angle of authoritative demand, or in a spirit of blind obedience but because from free choice and identity of purpose (as far as they can realise it) they are in my Ashram; they have willingly responded to my planned intentions and in a spirit of dedication to the good of humanity.

All this indicates to me that you are still prone to slip into the thraldom of the vague vision, the grandiose formulations [726] of something and are negatively responsive to the collective ideas of forward-thinking men, for you do no positive or original thinking of your own. Glamour still holds you.

You might well ask, my brother: Why then keep me in your group? Why not wait until I have learnt better and have dropped this tendency? Because you need the protection of the Ashram and you need—from the centre of protection—to learn then to accept the duty of obedience to the ashramic intent and to work under the direction of the loving intentions of Those Whom you do recognise as more experienced disciples than yourself. You are in my Ashram also from old association and because you earned the reward of this recognition and opportunity by being the first to appreciate the significance of my books and the teaching that they convey, and to aid the effort of A.A.B. For that reason you earned the right to my appreciation and hers, and have had them both. That was the one clear bit of spiritual thinking you have done in this incarnation. Therefore, the Ashram protects you, and your brothers stand around you, and for this brief incarnation you are a liability—but a liability which can, with your cooperation, be changed in your next incarnation into a group asset.

There is consequently no need for the slightest discouragement and I say that with definite purpose and truth. There is only room for the acceptance of facts. What facts, brother of mine? Let me (with my usual frankness) tell you. Let me point out to you what I feel and those who know you best feel should be your attitude for the remainder of this life. If you accept these ideas and cooperate willingly, you will do much to free yourself; if you refuse to see the light, you will but delay the process and continue to exact the protecting care of the Ashram for a longer period. Let me first highlight your career of glamour so as to prove to you, intelligently, the points I seek to make.

I shall not deal with your life, prior to the recognition period which enabled you to render me and the world outstanding service. Your recognition and aid of the work I was doing has released certain energies which will have much to [727] do with the changing of the consciousness of humanity. Remember that the Hierarchy has this service of yours in mind.

There was the glamour of the wonderful discovery you were going to make, covering several years of experimentation and leading nowhere. Why? Because you had neither the training nor the capacity to do the work. It will be better done and in other ways and by better minds than yours. Your equipment was not adequate.

There was the glamour of spiritual power which led some of your group brothers astray for months. There has always been a glamorous response to personalities who have misled and glamoured you in the business world and led you into devious and difficult situations, and which forced you, eventually, to recognise that they were not the least what you had thought. What is this but the glamour of personalities? Until you have learnt to see people as they truly are, you cannot do the exoteric work of a disciple.

Then came an interlude. I asked for your resignation from the group, and the door of the inner Ashram closed upon you. That was very good for you and you endeavoured in that period to attend to the business of life, watching yourself with care. Then the door of the Ashram reopened and you were readmitted to the group life. For a year all seemed well, but the dual stimulation of the Ashram and the active work in my group proved too much, and glamour again enveloped you.

You started by formulating large schemes for world regeneration and for a super-organisation, and yet all that time the work that I wanted done and the outlines of the work as indicated by me, and to which your group brothers and my Ashram are pledged, played no part in your planning. You have been unhappy and bewildered because of the lack of sympathy, yet what would you have your brothers do? Would you have them aid me in helping you to free yourself from wild schemes and planning, or would you have them back you up and strengthen the hold that glamour has upon you?

Here are my suggestions, brother of mine, given in all [728] love and understanding, and with a real appreciation of your sincerity of devotion, your great and beautiful staying-power, your essential humility and your very real need for protection.

1. Accept the fact that you need protection, and be grateful.

2. Accept the fact that in this life you have neither the mental equipment nor the clear vision to enable you to be a leader, an organiser or a drawer of blueprints for the Hierarchy.

3. Accept the fact that you are not young enough to make many basic personality changes, for the sixth ray crystallises too rapidly.

4. Accept the fact that in the performance of your home and business duties and in the effort to bring happiness to those in your environment lies for you the immediate solution of your problem. A simple, humble life of service and of self-forgetfulness will do more to free you than any violent endeavour to understand and combat glamour. You do not yet even comprehend what it is; it can only be overcome by the illumined mind, and there is therefore, for you, nothing else to be done but to strengthen your soul contact by practical spiritual living upon the physical plane, and by a complete refraining from all thought anent the future world, future scientific discoveries, future world orders, and the manner whereby they can be instituted.

The moment your mind becomes preoccupied with the universal aspects of life it is thrown into confusion; its thoughtform-making proclivities become violent, and the illumination of the soul is then unable to penetrate. You need to learn to bring that illumination into your personality daily life upon the physical plane. What measure of it you have received has been retained upon the mental plane and dedicated to matters far too big for you in this incarnation and with your present equipment. This has led to a chronic state [729] of glamour. Live practically, sweetly, humbly and lovingly for the remainder of this life, and demonstrate beauty in personality relations. You will thus release your mind from pressures too great for it, and so begin to tread the way of liberation.

Can you do this, my brother? Can you bring spirituality into business and live in the business world as a disciple? If you cannot do this, you will have to learn to do it, because discipleship leaves no aspect of life unlived, and business is an aspect of human living. Can you bring naught but peace, happiness and confidence into your home and into your association at the Headquarters of my work in the world? Can you begin to be one to whom the enquirer can turn for help, knowing that he will get enough practical assistance to enable him to see the next step ahead? You can do and be all these things, my brother. Your task is to demonstrate discipleship in the daily life, and not to duplicate the discipleship of those more advanced than yourself.

Do the group work and meditation as indicated. I assign you no special work. I seek to see you more closely integrated into the group in my Ashram of which you are a part. Have no doubts and questionings. You are a part of my Ashram, and that brings the needed protection, as well as certain risks of overstimulation. The love and understanding and gratitude of your group brothers stands with warmth around you. I have no need to assure you of my protecting care and constant interest. The years must have proved it to you.

November 1944

MY BROTHER AND FRIEND OF OLDEN TIME:

There is absolutely no need for the profound depression and for the process of self-accusation in which you so constantly live. Years ago, your dream was to serve the Master, to be known by Him and to be a part of His group or Ashram. You longed for the status, technically understood, of an accepted disciple. You have served the Master and rendered us, as I told you, notable service; you are known by me, and [730] it is perhaps the fact of this knowledge and its implications which disturbs you so deeply; you are an integral part of a group, affiliated with my Ashram; you are an accepted disciple. You have, therefore, every reason to feel encouraged.

You are, however, aware of weaknesses and of failure. So be it. But the fact remains that the major trend and purpose of your life has brought you into the Ashram. So be it again, my brother. All within the Ashram, except those of higher initiate status, fall short at times.

One of the things which I said at my last word with you was that your age was such that it was well-nigh impossible for you to change. Yet you have changed quite definitely during the past year, and by your refusal to cultivate the glamorous thinking which characterised you in past years and so oft proved your undoing, you have made real progress—more real progress than at any previous time. This has almost surprised me. When I raised the point with a member of my Ashram (known to none of you in this group which I am instructing), he remarked: "The soul is after all a Master, and when the force of masterhood is released, bringing quiescence and acquiescence, it is difficult to predict the happenings possible." Your quiescence, demonstrated upon the physical plane, largely as depression and fatigue, produced a negativity which made it difficult for any positive glamour to show itself; this greatly helped, weakening through attrition the hold which it has had upon your astral body. See that it gains no strength again. But be not depressed; simply be negative to all the suggestions of glamour and be encouraged at my words, for I speak not lightly or untruly. No spectacular progress will be made by you in this life. Accept that as factual and be happy at the quiet of the coming period before you pass over to the other side. Make full use of the time and read, study and think.

You have for long asked me to tell you the rays upon which your three personality bodies are to be found. I do so now, for you can profit from the information.

You have, as you know, a third ray soul and a sixth ray personality. Your task as regards the latter is to transit on to [731] the first ray, so that next life you will come into incarnation with the difficult combination of three and one. For this the training, discipline and discoveries of the present incarnation should have prepared you, and you can therefore face the future with caution but with surety.

Your mental body is on the fifth ray and hence your interest in things scientific; but the calibre of your mind is not yet of such a nature that you can profit from this, and this is a fact which you must accept.

Your astral body is first ray in nature and hence the potent hold which glamour has had on you—a glamour inherited from three previous lives and rendered one-pointed and powerful in this life through your first ray astral nature. You willed to deal with glamour; you ran, last life, a great risk of wandering on to the path of black magic. Your recognition of me and my work and your instantaneous cooperation, completely negated that possibility, but the tendency to glamour remained and still does.

Your physical body is third ray in type, and this has intensified the worst aspects of that ray, because soul energy (undirected by an illumined mind) at times stimulates it and the glamour can take effect in physical plane activity.

If you can develop mental perception to a fuller degree, and if you can achieve in this life and the next a measure of real illumination, all the difficulties now troubling you will be resolved. In your next incarnation, you should endeavour to work through a second ray astral body, for there is a real lack of second ray force in your most difficult equipment. There are too many energies in your present equipment along the line of the first ray, and your ultimate goal must be a second ray personality, following upon the coming first ray personality of your next life. Love and light are greatly needed by you, and their reception by you in your lower fourfold nature would produce great transforming results. These must be brought about by you through keen interest in and love of others, and by stern mental control and unfoldment.

[732]

August 1946

BROTHER OF OLD:

This is but a parting word to you as regards your physical plane affiliation with my Ashram. I will start by assuring you that the inner link remains unbroken and will persist, though even I have no idea when freedom will distinguish you or when you can advance with surety into the Ashram itself. Any progress that you could have made this life, as a result of my corrective teaching and aid, has been largely negated by your supine acceptance of failure, by your profound and lasting "conviction of sin" (if I may use so old-fashioned a phrase), and by your constant inner dwelling on your group relations. You did fail, my brother. But why stay overwhelmed by failure for year after year and remain with your eyes concentrated on the lower self that failed? All have failed and will again along some line. E'en the Masters fail at times to pass through one or other of the highest initiations at their first attempt and—from the hierarchical angle—that connotes failure. But the failure is scarce recognised; the effort is made to register what caused the failure and the inability to stand before the One Initiator, for all effects emanate from some ascertainable cause. So should it be on all levels of advancement, even such a relatively unimportant effort (from the point of view of hierarchical work) as your attempt to gain the right of entry into my Ashram or what is called "ashramic penetration," and then on and up through many graded failures, until you meet the well-known failure of the Buddha to attain His goal.

I have therefore for you a message based on the words of the initiate, Paul: "Forgetting the things which are behind, press forward." Dwell no longer on the past but make the relatively few years which are left you of this life, years of usefulness and of purpose in my work. This will require the acquisition and the recognition of a spirit which is unembarrassed by ambition but which is pledged to the perfecting of each day's relationships. Preoccupation with the beautifying and the spiritualising of the day's affairs will give you no time for any reaction to glamour; your mind and desire [733] (your kama-manasic nature) will be—with definite purpose—physically oriented; your demonstration of right living upon the physical plane will be to you the factor of major importance.

Your spiritual focus will remain unaltered, and it is this tenacity (which you have ever demonstrated) which has preserved untouched your relationship with me and with your brothers; you need therefore have no concern in relation to your spiritual expression on its own plane. It is your physical expression which has been at fault. Reflect with assiduity on these words of mine. A focussing of your spiritual attitude and nature upon the physical plane will result in a more dynamic life, instead of the basically negative life you at present demonstrate; you will be surprised at the results which may eventuate.

I am giving you no meditation. I seek to see the flow of your spiritual life downward into daily life, and I seek not to see you raising your human soul towards a soul contact you seldom achieve, consciously at least, this life. Your problem has been due to the fact that in the past you at one time achieved a most definite soul contact, but knew not how to handle the force engendered. In this incarnation, this force flowed into the astral body to a very great extent and evoked the glamour and the deception which have coloured your life. But—you have a vast stored reservoir of spiritual potency on higher levels than the astral, and can perhaps draw upon its source of love and light if your major concentration and preoccupation is the perfecting of your daily living in the place where you are and in the environment and the circumstances for which you are responsible.

You need have no fear that I shall withdraw from you the attention and the careful thought which I have given you all these years. I earnestly desire to see you achieve success; I have been sorry when you failed. I seek to have you within the Ashram, which is not as yet the case. A move forward can, however, be made this life if—in your closing years—you obey instructions. Go forward in confidence, my brother; the group has never left you or deserted you, and you need no assurance from me that I hold you in my thought.

[734]

To R. S. W.

January 1940

Your glamour is, as you know, that of psychic sensitivity. Like S.C.P. you function on the astral-buddhic line; but, having a trained mind from the educational angle (for you passed through college, did you not, my brother?) you have a somewhat different problem. Your task is to use your mind for the unfoldment of the intuition and for the control of the lower psychic nature. This psychic glamour does not unduly distort your point of view but its very presence constitutes a disturbing element to you. You neither like nor desire this psychic sensitivity or the knowledge which it brings, but it constitutes an environment in which you have to learn to walk with freedom and with grace. It is not some situation from which you must aim at escaping for it is part of manifestation and you must learn to work with it and function in it but with complete detachment from it—just as you do not identify yourself with physical phenomena such as rain or storm. Glamour exists. It is. The higher glamours are goals towards which the lower psychics must work and your work may lie along the line of helping them in the midst of the glamour and by this remark I may aid in reorienting your thought and dissipating some of your concern.

A person, for instance, who has been astrally and psychically controlled by the glamour of selfish desire and material aims will have made a real step forward when he escapes into the glamour of devotion to a teacher—a glamour which, for you, would be a thing lying behind in your experience and no longer of controlling importance.

Ponder on this and, if you care to do so, list the higher and lower glamours and indicate how the lower can be transmuted into the higher powers, leading to a later liberation. In this problem of the glamour of psychic sensitivity, you can do much to solve it by the right handling of the time equation (for time in reception of contacts, as it is called at times, has a real relationship to the growth of glamours) and [735] in the elimination of nonessentials. Go forward, therefore, in service with joy and with confidence. The glamours hold you not in truth but you need more understanding of their nature.

August 1940

BROTHER OF MINE:

I would ask you whether the implications as to the relationship between your soul and personality rays to the rays of your astral and physical vehicles interests you in any way? The two lower rays are the same as the two higher and in between stands the ray which is, par excellence, that which provides the battleground for the disciple in training. Twelve of the group members have the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict controlling the mental body, hence consequent conflict and proffered opportunity, plus an expressed ambition for the achievement of psychic harmony between the soul of form and the soul itself. It is through the conflict between these two that harmony becomes possible. This is the ray of testing, the energy which brings about trial. People struggle with ideas, with attaining the goal of their current idealism and are driven by longing to find peace, joy and divine assurance. After the cycle of lives in which the mental ray varies from life to life, there arrives an incarnation wherein the ray of harmony through conflict dominates; then the disciple is specifically put to the proof and is tested and tried in order to demonstrate to him the gain or the non-gain of the past cycle of living experience. Such a proposition faces many in this group today as it, in its turn, faces humanity, one of whose controlling rays is the fourth.

You can, therefore, expect to have to face up to a life of testing and of change. This is not to posit that the testing and change and battle will be of a physical nature or on the physical plane or will involve physical plane decisions. This ray produces the "harmonising" strain and stress on any of the planes (using these words technically) and for the majority of you it is pre-eminently active upon the astral plane. [736] There the tests will come, with repercussions—if I may use such a phrase—upon the buddhic or intuitional plane.

You are facing changes in your life. I would here point out to you that changes in the life of a pledged disciple can be due to two main causes: the working out of karma which is unavoidable but which presents opportunity, or it can be due to the free choice and free decision, involving direct initiating activity on the part of the disciple; these decisions can be carried out or avoided according to his own planning. This line of activity has, therefore, little to do with precipitating karma but is concerned with intelligent initiating of new karma which will, in its turn, produce its inevitable effects later. I call this to your attention, my brother, because you are reaching the point in your career as a soul where you can consciously engineer situations and conditions which are not effects or results but are the commencement of new cycles. It is a momentous time in the soul's progress when conscious decisions can be made with due appreciation of consequences.

I am also referring to this because you are meditating steps (are you not, my brother?) which will produce effective change. I seek to have you ponder upon the responsibility involved and know with clarity your motive. Lives of indecision come wherein the man balances back and forth between decision and indecision, arriving apparently at no action. They are lives of apparent futility but nevertheless of great value. Needless to point out that such incarnations are frequently lived under the sun-sign of Libra or have Libra as the rising sign. Prior to that particular life, the man has had little difficulty. He is conditioned by precipitating karma and at the same time experiences little difficulty in arriving at decisions, because his choices and aims will be motivated by the personality and determined by the lower self. Later, after a life or lives of balancing, the die is cast and the period of inactivity and of indecision ends and the soul begins to determine action; karma then comes under the processes of conscious transmutation. Motives become purified [737] and objectives shift from those of personality ambition to the spiritual goals of humanity.

Such a life is upon you now, my brother, and I am therefore seeking to make the issues clear to you. Personality decisions are not for you; and for you, likewise, the period of indecision must end and it will end when you see soul purpose more clearly. You might here ask: In what way can I know? How can I arrive at right decision? First of all by eliminating selfishness and arriving at that unconcern as to the happiness or the experience of the personality; secondly, by refusing to move hurriedly. The disciple has to learn that when he has arrived at right—and therefore for him irrevocable decision—that this very motive and decision starts energy working along the indicated lines and that, having decided, he now moves slowly in the wake of that energy. There are deep significances in what I am here telling you and I beg you to strive to understand my meaning.

I would ask you (in order to help you to see clearly and so be of greater service to others) to make a study this winter of the Law of Karma. Read the books upon the subject but take not too seriously their deductions. Gather out of that which I have written all the information you can find concerning this theme. And, my brother, having done so, you will then arrange that material in its right and spiritual order and significance, and at the same time reduce your ideas to written form for your own clarification and the helping of your brothers. This teaching has a group significance.

I am not referring more clearly to your life decisions and plans. They are your own concern. I have sought to widen the "spread" of your consciousness so that you can bring to any planned life of service a reasoned judgment and a seasoned experience. These two phrases should express the personality quality of the trained disciple. For your personal meditation I suggest the following:

Take ten minutes twice a day for deep reflection on one of the themes listed below, viewing them in two ways: the individual interpretation and, secondly, that interpretation which concerns humanity as a whole. If you will do this [738] regularly, you will build the bridge between the part and the whole.

a. The dharma of the individual in the home.

b. The duty of the individual in the group.

c. The obligation of the individual to humanity.

d. The responsibility of the individual to life.

e. The reaction of the individual to karma, personal and human.

f. The relation of the individual to the Hierarchy.

You have there six months' work in meditation. It will involve the practical relation of man to karma, individual life to the mass life as it flows through him, and life also as it actuates the group to life and as it expresses itself through nations and through humanity as a whole.

The blessing of the soul rests upon you, my brother—your soul, my soul and the soul of all.

August 1942

1. Shift your consciousness into the lighted mind, for lit it is, and look not down but up; be not so conscious of the outer form.

2. For two years study, read and serve within the circle wherein your soul has placed your feet. Then look for greater scope, perhaps within that selfsame circle or perhaps within another. But relinquish not the first.

3. Develop joy in self-forgetfulness and serve your brothers in my Ashram. Two of them need you much.

4. Ponder the usefulness of shock, applied by you in love and yet with full detachment and clarity of speech.

5. You need to learn the art of reverence, my chela. The chain of Hierarchy is a fit subject for reflection.

6. Upon that chain you have your place. Some move ahead of you. Some move along with you. Others again move on with hands out-stretched to you. True occult reverence holds the key. This means recognition, not obedience, not stooping down or looking up.

[739]

September 1943

MY BELOVED BROTHER:

I have been concerned about you. The strain under which you work and live is not good, and has a definite physical effect which is not desirable. I foresaw this risk, and it was for that reason that the first of the six statements I gave you enjoined you to:

1. Shift your consciousness into the lighted mind.

2. Look up, not down.

3. Be not so conscious of the outer form.

In these words I sought to have you turn your eyes away from the form aspect of the present world catastrophe, because your sensitivity led you to assume too close an identification with it. Such identification is a handicap and not a help. It feeds the life of the solar plexus, because the solar plexus centre of humanity as a whole is in a condition of appalling riot—if I may use so peculiar a phrase.

The next statement sought to swing you into the circle of your service in relation to your group brothers and the senior group within the Arcane School. Circumstances, however, moved you from my Headquarters, and this became difficult of fulfilment.

The need for you at this time is to study deeply and to do work which is practically entirely along occult lines. The study of psychology which interests you so much and for which you are in so many other ways so eminently fitted, tunes you in at this time too rapidly on world distress and you should avoid it. The duties of the home, the bringing of joy to those you daily meet, and the keeping of the mind upon things occult will do much to offset the astral sensitivity which is one of your major assets in helpful service, but which under the pressure of the world events has become almost too strong for you to handle. The "chain of Hierarchy" is a good subject for your constant reflection, and I want you to pay close attention to my recommendation that this concept form the background of your daily thinking. As [740] you keep that chain in mind, it tunes in on the Ashram, and therefore on the Hierarchy, for you are a disciple of some standing. This will offset the astral sensitivity, for the energy of the Ashram stimulates the head and heart centres and draws up the astral forces from the solar plexus.

I set no meditation of a special kind for you. The group meditation will suffice. I ask you to do much occult study and much teaching and helping of occult students. Your work for another year should be primarily with the senior students, and you should endeavour to have a larger and more organised output of work in that connection; it will serve to focus the consciousness more firmly in the head. If it were possible at some time in the near future, I would suggest that you go and talk to A.A.B. She had your problem in a worse degree, but had more experience to offset it and less time in which to succumb. I have told her certain things anent you which I do not wish to write, and she will give you all the time you need, if you will come to where she is.

It is for this reason I write no more today. Also, my brother, I give you at this time much attention in the Ashram, and my strength surrounds you. There is no cause for anxiety, for the future is assured, but seek during the coming year to take advantage of my suggestions.

November 1944

MY BROTHER:

Last year my instructions to you were very brief, but they were full of suggestion and potent to bring you release, had you followed them with exactitude. There are certain forms of pride from which every one suffers more or less, though the degree and quality may differ according to ray or type. Yours is a determination, or I might call it predilection, to use your mind at times when the simple acquiescence of a loving heart is what you need. L.F.U. has a form of pride also and makes a fetish of his personal liberty, consequently putting himself in bondage to the concept of freedom; he needs to learn that no one is really free, a disciple least of all. [741] You, my brother and disciple, love the activity of the mind, and you enter—with your eyes open—into situations in order to learn and experience the delight which comes from analysis, reflection and mental activity, followed by some decision.

I am speaking thus frankly to you, my tried and loved disciple, because I see more effective service to be rendered by you if you can master a difficult lesson at this time. You are exceedingly well equipped to serve. Your second ray energy, coupled with your seventh ray force, makes for almost unique and unusual service; however—and here lies a hindrance—your fourth ray mind, constantly presenting fields of conflict which you must conquer, deflects the energy which, pouring through your soul, could lead to a planned and organised activity upon the physical plane. But it does not. The descending soul energy and the ascending personality aspiration meet upon the mental plane, and there both of them are arrested by your over-analytical mind. You need not infer from this that you are not of service to people; but it is an individual here and there that you assist, and there is no rhythm or organisation in your service, owing to the constant mental conflict.

From the very first time you were admitted into my Ashram, I have tried to aid you to centralise all your forces upon the physical plane. When a disciple does this, and when he is one-pointed in his activity, there is much that he can do. When to these tendencies of inflow and of concentration there is added a trained and illumined mind, then the disciple becomes a focal point of spiritual attraction. He can reach many, yet ever remain polarised at his own centre; his life then has an ordered rhythm, and there is a steadfast adherence to a plan which is carried through at all costs. He takes also his rightful position as a representative of an Ashram.

Forget not that the Masters choose Their disciples, not only from karmic relation (if such a relation exists), not only because the disciple demands light and has a powerful aspiration towards spiritual things, but because the disciple is equipped to render some definite service which fits into the ashramic intention of the moment. You are thus well [742] equipped; your health is good, even if you think it not, and will be better still when rhythm enters into your life. You have a free mind and much, very much, intuition. You have (could you but realise it) what many people dream of possessing—time and leisure. You do not believe this, but that is because your daily life is full of the nonessentials—nonessential in view of world emergency. You are magnetic and attractive and can reach people through the expression of your potent love nature. Yet at the close of each year you realise that you have not accomplished very much. You may have helped a person here or there and your general influence is good. But I look for more than that from those in training and in preparation for initiation. You are in your forty-seventh year. By the time a disciple reaches the age of forty-nine his pathway of life service should be clearly defined. Yours is not. You have, however, two years left in which to bring through on to the physical plane all the energies with which you are endowed and to produce that ordered rhythm and arranged living which are required to make a definite impact upon the minds of those around you.

You play around with ideas all the time; you experiment all the time, but that should now be past history. I ask you now, for the sake of a needy world, and because I seek to see you fill your rightful place in my Ashram, to readjust your living conditions in order to serve more adequately. I would call your attention to the words, "your rightful place in my Ashram." Do you know what that place is? I would have you find out.

An Ashram is ever in a state of constant flux and movement. Disciples are passing out of it to form their own Ashrams or to take up a specific place in another Ashram as they meet the requirements of more advanced stages. They are shifting from one degree to another; they are moving forward steadily from the periphery to the centre, from the outer ring-pass-not to the lighted dynamic centre. As they move forward, preserving ever the close inner unity, place is made for new disciples—to be admitted and trained for service.

Part of the service rendered by members of an Ashram is [743] to make way for new aspirants. This they do by hastening their own progress and moving forward. When disciples take one of the final initiations, or when they are admitted to a higher and more potent Ashram, vacancies occur which are always promptly filled. The occult law which governs all progress in an Ashram is sometimes called the Law of Fulfilment. By this is meant the full compliance of a disciple with the service demands upon the outer plane. When his service is as full and as effective as he can render it, then—under a condition which is in the nature of a group occult paradox—his outer effectiveness produces an inner effectiveness. You have all been taught (though theoretically for the most part) that inner effectiveness produces illumined and potent service. Now learn the reverse side of this truth. I will elucidate no further, for your own thinking should suffice.

You have, my brother, three things to do:

First of all, you must so think, reflect and meditate that your brain will be the recipient of your planned thinking, and not simply a sensitive registering instrument. Through right meditation, the energy from your soul and mind must be focussed, via the head centre. Speaking in symbols which you easily understand, "the lighted triangle of soul and mind and head will awaken the centre between the eyes and bring into activity the eye of direction"; this is at present closed, and only occasionally opened. You have been greatly concerned for years over the direction of your thoughts and the trend of your thinking; shift now your attention to directed service. Undertake a task for me and bring it to accomplishment.

The second thing you have to do is to assess your equipment and ascertain—from within yourself—where lies your field of service—one field, my brother, not many. A disciple of your standing serves a group and not just a person here and there, and frequently persons of no spiritual importance whose destiny can be well left to their own souls or some teacher not of discipleship grade. I do not choose to be more explicit. Your field of service is clear, could you but see it, but of no use to you unless you enter it voluntarily, freely and with understanding.

[744]

The final thing which calls for your attention is to grasp in a new and dynamic manner the dual life of discipleship. Your field of service and your field of karmic obligation must never rule each other out, but you must learn to function efficiently in both careers. Your time for learning, technically understood, must now give place to the use of what you have acquired of understanding and wisdom.

I suggest for your helping, the following meditation. You must bear in mind that it is only of service to you if followed steadily and with continuity. It is largely in the nature of a visualisation exercise.

1. Rapid alignment and the sounding of the OM three times.

2. Focussing the consciousness in the soul with a corresponding concentration in the head at as high a point as possible.

3. Then sound the OM four times. This is followed by a pause.

4. The following visualisation exercise is carried forward from the point of concentration attained. If your attention wanders, sound the OM again. This is sometimes called the "recalling OM."

a. See in the mind's eye a sea of light.

b. Then see yourself standing and awaiting direction upon the physical plane. Hold these two thoughts quietly for a little time or picture them simultaneously.

c. Then you—the disciple upon the physical plane—sound the OM inaudibly, dynamically and clearly, and as you do so, see a movement or current in the sea of lighted energy, converging towards you.

d. See it take form as a stream of down-flowing energy—the energy of love, of strength and of understanding.

e. Imagine next that divine flow sweeping through your mind and your astral body and settling into your etheric vehicle, awaiting a Word of Power.

f. Then again sound the OM and feel the impact of [745] the tidal wave (if I may so call it) of spiritual energy, entering into your head centre, passing from thence to the ajna centre, and involving in its flow the centre in the medulla oblongata—the alta major centre.

g. Then, at the exact moment of this realised dispersion, say, "This source of power is all I am and have; I send it forth to serve my fellowmen; I thus prepare the way into the Ashram, thus drawing men toward the source of power and strength."

5. Having completed this exercise, then meditate for ten minutes upon the service you are asked to render; see it motivated and implemented by the energy just received, and let your creative imagination build for you a structure for your service.