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Discipleship in the New Age II - Personal Instructions to Disciples - I.S.G-L.
To I. S. G-L. August 1940 MY FRIEND AND BROTHER: For several lives we have been associated, though this is only the second incarnation wherein you have been definitely regarded by me and by my Associates as a pledged disciple. I am pointing this out to you as it infers a consecration and a dedication which you have preserved inviolate and evokes a response which only increases as time goes on. You are pledged as a disciple to further our plans and to occupy yourself with definite group work. Our disciples learn the processes of initiation in the fire and heat of the daily life battle in the world of the present. They grasp eventually the processes also of group work and the rules which govern group endeavor. These rules govern the Hierarchy. They recede increasingly into the background as the group grows in function, purpose and usefulness but this withdrawal into the silence of the Hierarchy is not based and never will be based upon any outwardly imposed silence by the initiate or disciple upon either himself or his group. The silence concerns himself, and is based upon a humble appreciation of the whole of which he is simply a part and is not based upon a silence and a technique which simply emphasizes mystery. The only true mysteries are those points of revelation for which the mechanism is inadequate and which, therefore, find no response in the one whom the initiate or disciple contacts. Of these mysteries you, the teacher and leader, may be aware but the pupil remains unmoved when presented with them. He simply does not recognize them. The outer imposition of silence and mystery is focused consequently around the teacher in the mind of the taught and only serves to distract his attention from the reality to an imposed glamor surrounding the teacher. I would have you ponder on this, my brother, for your service is needed, but is today - if you will permit me to say so - handicapped by the intensity of your devotion and the psychic pulsation of your solar plexus. [512] You will recognize the condition to which I here refer. It affects also at times the quality of your impact upon people and occasionally the fruitfulness of your service. The careful and considered following of the group meditation should do much to relieve the situation and so release you for fuller service. You would find it useful also, once and for all, to face up to the complexities of your own nature and to do so joyfully. You could also try to simplify your own approach to truth, to me and to humanity. There lies your immediate problem - simplification. This involves the elimination of imaginative reactions, all hinted implications and a withdrawal from the center of your group life (I refer here not to the group which I am here teaching) just in so far as you feel yourself a center. It involves also the effort to become a potent living influence radiating from above and not from the center and yet without any sense of being above. I wonder, my brother, if I am making my meaning clear. It is not clear to A.A.B. who is taking down my words but it should be clear to you, for it concerns your established technique of service and your group activity. You have accomplished a good and fruitful life service. You have aided many towards the light and have demonstrated a physical plane selflessness which has been powerful in releasing others. You need now to demonstrate an equal selflessness upon the plane of aspiration and of devotion. There lies for you the battle ground, and victory must be yours prior to taking the initiation for which you are being prepared. Your capacity for suffering is abnormal; this must be ended through the cultivation of that divine indifference which changes or shifts the present almost too violent emotional reactions into that calm, understanding, compassionate wisdom which - through identification with the soul of those you seek to help - inevitably aids suffering personalities. I think you realize the significance of my remarks. Your intense desire to serve us and your deep love for humanity must be preserved but not forgotten in the strenuous activity of your life. You are as yet a comparatively young man. The crux of your whole problem is to be found in the shift which you [513] are supposed to make this incarnation from the minor ray, the sixth Ray of Devotion, to a major ray, the second Ray of Love-Wisdom. When you have accomplished this, you will take initiation. The task is however a stupendous one because as an accepted disciple in the technical sense of the word, the characteristics of the sixth ray - owing to your having a sixth ray astral body - are very pronounced and dominant. This condition is aggravated (if I might so express it) by your having a first ray personality. When, as in your case, the polarization is in the astral body and so the energy of power pours in, the situation becomes acute, which is to be expected. Fortunately, disciples are driven by intensity and devotion to take the needed steps which will bring release and a consequent moving forward, and the incarnation wherein they do this is always peculiarly circumstances, subjectively at least, even if the exoteric life is of no major interest. This is not so with you. In your case the following conditions embody your problem and hence your opportunity: The intense difficulty of shifting from one ray-to another ray. The aspiration of your sixth ray astral body must be lifted on to the plane of knowledge. The power of sense realization must become divine wisdom through surety. Vision must give place to intuitive focused perception - a very different thing, my friend. You were born in the sign Gemini which again presents its own peculiar problems. You vibrate between the pairs of opposites in a very pronounced and definite manner - as does A.A.B. The point of balance and of equilibrium is ever a difficult one for the disciple to achieve in this sign. Your first ray personality works through a physical body which is on the same ray so that a triple first ray energy again complicates your life theme because all these forces are concentrated in the lower nature. This could lead (in the case of a pledged disciple) to a powerful and distracting spiritual ambition which in a group leader - such as you are - would be a detriment to the group. Where the astral body is on the sixth ray [514] and devotion is dominant, the glamor of devotion can veil the reality of any existent ambition. The present world conflict enhances your problem and makes the whole life cycle one of the utmost pain yet one of prime importance. There are, my brother, many lives of such a negligible nature that they warrant no comment. Then may come a life when the attention of the soul, of the Master and of the group upon the physical plane are focused upon the struggling disciple, thus bringing intensification of his situation and forcing him to "struggle into the light of day," watched by those who understand and by those who do not understand. This causes much suffering to the sensitive worker. All this applies to you. You hate publicity and yet much that you do courts it. You are sensitively humble and yet can be trapped and misled sometimes by personality pride; you love deeply and sincerely but are apt to express this through devotion instead of through wise identification. I have for you, however, no real concern. I tell you that you need haste in discarding impediments upon the Way but am assured, through study of your soul contact, that you will not be hindered. I ask myself what I can do for you and so aid the process of transmutation and release through right meditation. I would suggest the following experiment in subjective attitudes. That, in the last analysis, is a definition of meditation. The end of all meditation is concerned with: The attitude of the personality to the soul. - This is self-control. The attitude of integrated man to humanity. - This is service. The attitude of the disciple to the Hierarchy. - This is intuitional sensitivity. The attitude of the hierarchical worker to the Plan. - This is selection of activity. Ponder on these points, particularly the third which [515] concerns aptly your sensitive reactions to us. This reaction will be felt in your soul as a complete surrender in time and space; in the personality it will register either as a glamor or a purificatory process, and in the group as a force, having either a good or a bad effect, according to its coloring by the higher or the lower nature and the activity it will succeed in evoking when it impinges upon the personnel of the group. The following exercise can be done four times and repeated three times each day: Stand with your arms outspread in the symbol of the Cross. Take six long slow breaths, thus establishing a rhythm. Then take one long breath and gather up by the power of imagination the energy of the solar plexus. Then carry it along the spine and upward to the head, not to the heart as is usually the case. Focus the dedicated aspiration and emotional energy in "the secret place" and then sound the OM. - Breathe it down into the throat center. This can be regarded as an act of breathing in and breathing out and constitutes an activity carried forward on one breath with an interlude of conscious focusing. You will notice that, in combination with the group meditation, you will be working actively upon the solar plexus, the head, the heart and the throat. It will require careful watching of process, results in the centers and consequent activity. Let me be ambitious for you, my brother of long standing. That I am. I have watched you with loving understanding for a very long cycle. My love ends not and my care of you is all-surrounding.
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