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A Treatise on White Magic - Rule Fifteen - The New Age Groups and Training
It might be pointed out that there are three main points of danger in the life of service. I am not here dealing with the individual training of the disciple but with his life of service, and with the activities in which he is engaged as a worker. His temperament, equipment of characteristics (physical, emotional, and mental) do have a potent effect on his environment and on the people he seeks to help, and also his family background, his world training and his speech. The first point of danger is his physical condition. On this I cannot enlarge beyond begging all disciples to act with wisdom, to give themselves sufficient sleep, right food (which must vary for each individual), and those surroundings, if possible, which will enable them to work with the greatest facility. The penalty for the infringing [637] of these suggestions works out in lack of power in service and in the growing thralldom of the physical body. Where the physical body is in poor condition, the disciple has to add the liabilities incident upon the bringing in of force which he finds himself unable to handle. The second point of danger is to be found in the astral illusion in which all humanity lives, and its power to glamor even experienced workers. I have considered this at length in this treatise, which is, as you know, a treatise on the control of the astral body and a right understanding of its laws. Only mental control, plus true spiritual perception, will suffice to pierce this illusory astral miasma, and reveal to the man that he is a spiritual entity in incarnation and in touch - through his mind - with the Universal Mind. The penalty which overtakes the disciple who persistently permits himself to be glamored is obvious. His vision becomes fogged and misty and he "loses the sense of touch" as it is called in the old commentaries. He wanders "down the lanes of life and misses that straight highway which will lead him to his goal." The third danger (and one that is very prevalent at this time) is that of mental pride and consequent inability to work in group formation. The penalty for this is often a temporary success and an enforced working with a group, which has been devitalized of its best elements and which has in it only those people who feed the personality of the head of the group. Because of the emphasis upon his own ideas and his own methods of working, a disciple finds that his group lacks those factors and those people who would have rounded it out, who would have balanced his endeavor, and given to his undertaking those qualities which he himself lacks. This is, in itself, a sufficient punishment, and quickly brings the honest disciple to his senses. Let a disciple who is [638] intelligent, honest and basically true so err, and in time he will awaken to the fact that the group he has gathered around him are molded by him or he is molded by them; they are oft embodiments of himself and repeat him. The law works rapidly in the case of a disciple, and thus adjustments are speedily made. I would like to point out to the student that, having with steadfastness gone forward he will discover that the exoteric and esoteric linking of the outer schools and inner school or rank of knowers of truth is so close that not one earnest student goes totally unrecognized. In the press of the work and in the burden and toil of the day's labors it is an encouragement to know that there are those who watch, and that every loving deed, every aspiring thought and every unselfish reaction is noted and known. Bear in mind, however, that it comes to the recognition of the Helpers through the increased vibration of the aspirant and not through a specific knowledge of the deed accomplished or the thought sent out. Those who teach are occupied with principles of truth, with vibratory rates and with the quality of the light to be seen. They are not aware of, nor have they the time to consider, specific deeds, words and conditions, and the sooner students grasp this and put out of their minds any hope of contacting a phenomenal individual whom they call a Master, with so much leisure, of such developed powers that he can occupy himself with their trivial affairs in time and space, the more rapidly will they progress.
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