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Discipleship in the New Age II - Personal Instructions to Disciples - H.S.D.
November 1944 BROTHER OF OLD: This is the last specific and individual instruction I shall give You. It is not my intention to continue repeating what I seek you - and all of you - to be, to become or to do. You have had much given to you over the years which still needs to be worked out in practical effectiveness. I wonder if you have noticed how frequently, in this series of group and individual instructions, I have used the word "effective"? This has been deliberate upon my part, for the word conveys something which I would see each of you express. True effectiveness is the result of a merging of soul energy with personality force, and through this etheric merging, the physical [718] demonstration becomes adequate to the demand and commensurate with the forces blended. Each of you who have been admitted in the Ashram has already established a measure of definite contact. The way into the inner circle of the Ashram is through a still closer rapport with the soul, and upon this rapport you must definitely concentrate. You are making a real effort to cooperate and to carry out my instructions; this has not been easy for you. It has taken you a long time to get down to work since receiving the last instruction I gave you; it has taken you long to arrive at a point of focus upon some definite activity, as I enjoined you some time ago. This again is the result of your over-rationalising mind which in dealing with all life circumstances is - in your case - prone to make complicated and intricate the simplest of physical plane matters. You are apt to make important, things which are not of the slightest importance whatsoever. Your goal for the remainder of your life should be simplicity in all affairs and in all relationships. To this simplicity I would have you add a greater sense of personal dignity - a dignity which will work out as a physical reticence; of this, you as yet know little, but it will reveal itself to you as you reflect upon the word. To these two necessities of your physical plane expression I would have you add understanding - an understanding based upon love and not upon any mental process. This will be hard for you, for it involves being guided by your heart, unprompted by your versatile and fluid mind. If you will develop these qualities - simplicity from the mental angle, understanding from the emotional and astral angle, and dignity from the physical angle - and will work at these qualities during the rest of this incarnation, you will start your next life equipped for fuller service and with a more reliable physical instrument. A.A.B. tells me that it distresses you that you are what you call "behind" the others in the new seed group, as far as the reception of the series of group instructions is concerned. She asks me what she should do, as she would not withhold them from you if it is my wish for you to (using your own [719] words) "catch up." Catch up with what and whom, my brother? A reception of the written instructions is no indication of capacity or status, for in the spiritual life and in all life free from physical brain awareness (as you understand it) such a "catching up" is non-existent. From the angle of esotericism, which is concerned with the soul aspect of life, time is simply a sequence of states of consciousness as registered by the physical brain. It does not in reality affect the inner spiritual man. Could you but know it - and this is a point which all disciples need to grasp - you, the true Being, need no instructions. The task of any Master is only to bring to the attention of the man, working through the medium of a physical brain, that phase of the Ageless Wisdom which his own soul is seeking to have him register. In reality, you have had the instructions at closer and more rapid intervals than have your group brothers, because of your importunity and the grasping demand of your agile, unsatisfied mind. But you have by no means mastered what has been imparted, nor have you done the needed meditation; you will therefore only receive the current group instructions after the sun has moved northward, and I will intimate to A.A.B. the right time. As regards your meditation work, you may now begin to follow the meditation outline given in the last series, but you must do it with no undue pressure; you must do it without any eager expectancy, but simply as a demanded duty. I would have you watch yourself with extreme care and I would ask you to refrain from using the Sacred Word, except when in group meditation, when the aura of the group will absorb the incoming energies and you will not then be unduly stimulated. The mind, when awake and active, is the great transmitter of the energies loosed by the Sacred Word. When sounded by the emotional type, it fortunately proves ineffectual in the majority of cases, and no energy is drawn into the mechanism of the personality. But when the mind is active and en rapport with the soul at certain points of evolution, it can and does draw out soul energy, and relates it [720] rapidly and immediately to the brain. Hence much of the difficulties connected with over-stimulation of which you are the victim. Adhere strictly to this injunction. One of the factors in ashramic relations which you need to find and express is the assured peace and inner confidence which characterize its vibration. There is too much fever in your life. You ascribe it to a delicate body, my brother, but this is not so. It is due to a feverish mind; until calm and peace and tranquility distinguish your mental processes, it will not be wise for you to penetrate any further into the Ashram than the point where now you find yourself. So endeavor to keep the mind quiet. The physical vehicle is far stronger than you think, and a much larger measure of real health will be yours if your mind can be better regulated. An Ashram is a place of quietly confident, regulated effort. The plan and the immediate service-activity are known, and disciples and initiates - each aware of his task and equipment - proceed to carry out the phase of the One Work which is theirs. Each senses its relationship to the phases of the work undertaken by his group brothers; it is in learning to see the picture whole (as the Master ever sees it) that confidence and security are developed. In the place of your Sunday morning dedication, I want to give you four pictures upon which to reflect, seeking to read behind their symbolism the message of your soul to you, the personality. A quiet sea of midnight blue. Above, the shining, round-faced moon. Across the sea, a path of light, and moving slowly down that path a little boat and - smiling, with the oars in hand - H.S.D. is seen. A pillared cloister, dappled with the sun and broken by the shade cast by the pillars. A garden spreads on either side, redolent with the smell of many flowers and noisy with the hum of many bees and gay with butterflies. Ten times a bell rings out. Its tone is deep and clear and musical. But the one who sits and writes and thinks beneath the cloister's shade [721] moves not. He writes, and measures to, the task assigned. A room in shadow, full of peace and calm, of books and enterprise. And at the desk, the Master sits and works and thinks, projecting thought, working within, above and all around, whilst through the room pass many. It is their right to pass. A golden door, wide open to the sun. Before the door lie rocks and bits of stone. A path winds towards that door, and o'er its lintel are the words: Enter with calm; speak low and only if a need is there. Enter the stream behind the door and wash away the stains of travel. Then face the Master, but only when the quiet of evening light shines forth and all is still within. Take these pictures - one each Sunday in the month - and work creatively with them. At the close of a year, send in to A.A.B. (for the helping of the group) your interpretation of these symbols. Speak truth through them and fear not criticism. You are making progress, my brother, and can - if you so will - be of service to your fellowmen. Forget not that at the center of the Ashram I can be found at all times, but only when you can penetrate there with simplicity, understanding and dignity.
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