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Glamor - A World Problem - The Nature of Glamor
Time and again, along the Road, he will revolt from control and will fall back into the glamor of his supposed freedom. There is freedom from the control of the personality. There is freedom from the control of personalities. But there is never any freedom from the Law of Service, and from the constant interplay between man and man, and soul and soul. To stand really free is to stand in the clear unimpeded light of the soul, which is basically and intrinsically group consciousness. Therefore, when one of you is beset by uncertainty and unrest, desiring and demanding to walk free and that no authority be imposed upon you, see that you are not submitting to the glamor of a desire to be freed from your group impacts, and make sure that you are not seeking - as a sensitive soul - a way of escape. I am using this phrase in the modern psychological sense. Be sure to ask yourself the question: Is your comfort and your peace of mind of such definite importance to yourself and to others that it warrants your sacrificing the group integrity in order to have it? [49] Does your own interior satisfaction provide an adequate excuse for delaying the planned group purpose? For delay it, it certainly will. Whatever you decide will constitute, in its turn, an authoritative decision with all the consequent reactions upon the group... What is this occult obedience, my brothers, about which we hear so much? Not what many occult groups make it out to be. It is not the control of an external organization, dedicated to so-called occult work. It is not the imposed conditions of any teacher of any rank. It is not the exchange of the prison of one set of ideas for those of another set with perhaps a larger range or import. A prison is a prison, whether it is a tiny cell or an isolated island of vast extent, from which escape is impossible. The authority to which we, the teachers on the inner side, respond is twofold in nature, and to it you are just beginning (as units in a group) to respond. To what do you respond? To the slowly emerging realization of the "light beyond," using that phrase as a symbol. This light is different in its appeal to the individual. Yet it is ONE LIGHT. But its recognition reveals new laws, new responsibilities, new duties and obligations, and new relations to others. These constitute an authoritative control. None can escape this authority, but can disobey it in time and space and for a temporary period. To the authority of the Rules of the Road which are imposed upon one as one passes from the Path of Probation on to the Path of Discipleship. Yet it is ONE ROAD. Upon this "narrow, razor-edged path," one learns to walk with discipline and discretion and [50] with the desirelessness which one experiences in unison with one's fellow disciples. What, briefly and succinctly, are these rules of the Road? Let me give you six of the simplest rules, begging you to remember that they are not authoritatively imposed by an arbitrary Board of Directors, such as a group teacher or teachers (of whom I might, of course, be one) but are the outcome of the conditions to be found upon the Path itself. They carry the warrant of a man's own soul and are the result of the experience of millions of travelers upon that Path. I will give you these six rules (even as I gave them to another aspirant, see Discipleship in the New Age, pp. 583-594) in ancient and symbolic form, translating them as well as I can from the ancient records, stored in the Hall of Wisdom, and available to all earnest disciples, - such as you.
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