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Discipleship in the New Age II - Teachings on Initiation - Part I
SECTION THREE TEACHINGS ON INITIATION Part I Prior to profiting by more information and thus piling up increased responsibility, there is a vital need for the majority of aspirants and disciples to assume a different attitude towards the opportunity to prepare for initiation with which they are all faced. The more advanced among them are conscious of impending possibilities. The significance of the proffered training has made its just appeal. Others are so immersed in the tests and difficulties incidental to the clarification of the vision prior to the processes of initiation, that they have neither the time nor the strength to do more than live through the time of trial and, at the same time, to serve as best they can. Both the vision and their service suffer from their failure to develop that divine indifference which is the hallmark of the true initiate. Added to all this is the world situation with its inevitable all-enveloping psychic atmosphere, its attendant strains and its constant wearing anxiety, plus the hold which war sufferers have on all hearts and sympathies. Most aspirants and disciples believe that they are bearing enough and are tried to the limit of their capacity. This is not the case. The deeper sources of strength in them have not yet been evoked, and the tension under which they should act and live from day to day is only as yet a feeble one - it is not all-exacting. Ponder on this last phrase. The objective demands being made upon all disciples and therefore upon all of you, are not simply to enable you to live through the present period as successfully - emotionally, mentally and spiritually - as possible. It goes far deeper than that, or should. Apart from the demands upon your spiritual resources (incident to the particular initiation which it is desired that you take) there is also the demand upon all [244] disciples to participate in the effort of humanity, as a whole, to take the first initiation with all the physical relinquishments, and the agony that ever precedes the birth of the Christ in the heart of the individual - only this time it is the hearts of all humanity. Preparatory to this first initiation, there has always to be - individually and now collectively for the first time - the denial of the lower self and the fervid acceptance by the personality of the loss of all the material factors which have held the soul a prisoner in the womb of time. Hence, my brothers, the wide extent of the material destruction to be seen on every hand, the depths of physical poverty into which all men have been and are being plunged, the detachment from the priority of things which is being enforced, and the necessity for rebuilding human life on sounder values than the physical. In all this disciples and initiates are today sharing and (when understanding is present and right orientation) the help which those can give who have already undergone the first initiation, is great. To this you are called, and upon your understanding response to the collective need will depend the rapidity with which you will be enabled to achieve the next expansion of consciousness or initiation which may be, for you as an individual, possible. You have, therefore, to consider your individual response to the demands of your own soul and your collective response to the collective need. It is the initiate in you, the Christ in you, which is now called to this collective service and the radiation today of the Christ spirit, actively present in the hearts of all disciples is the one thing which can salvage mankind, enable humanity to move forward on - to the Path of Discipleship and thus evoke that new spirit which can and will build the new world. I would like to deal somewhat with the theme anent the attitude of the accepted disciple towards his Master and towards the general subject of initiation, and then consider the immediate steps ahead which the disciple must take, where he is and with what equipment he has. This is the first and necessary step. Disciples must clarify their position and must continue to learn from their Master, in spite of [245] the crises of initiation. Unless they act upon the proffered instruction and have confidence in his occult intention, all that the Master may say or do is of small usefulness. It serves only to increase grave responsibility with its attendant liabilities; knowledge and the pressure of spiritual energy become a danger if not used. This is a basic and important statement. There are, my brothers, two major prerequisites which are needed by all of you in connection with group integration, and they follow upon what you have had earlier when I sought to help you to integrate with your brothers. I gave you, as you will recall, as part of your group meditation the following simple integrating formula: "I am one with my group brothers, and all that I have is theirs. May the love which is in my soul pour forth to them. May the strength which is in me lift and aid them. May the thoughts which my soul creates reach and encourage them." Of the two prerequisites to which I now allude as needed by all of you, one of them refers to your integration into my group of "practicing chelas," and the other relates to your capacity to contact me at will - a thing as yet only permitted to three of you at this time, and this because they seldom avail themselves of the privilege. Our first task is therefore to attend to these requirements which call for a right attitude on your part and the use of the first of the ancient formulas which it is my intention to give for deep consideration and eventual experimental use. Before I give this formula, however, I would like to deal with a question which is bound to arise in the minds of those of you who are senior in this group. The question might be voiced thus: "If I am in preparation for the second or the third initiation, I must have been in a group of disciples - presumably the Tibetan's - for some lives at least. Why then the need for an integrating formula?" Because, my chela, though you have been in a group of disciples prior to this, it was not my group but [246] the group of either the Master M. or the Master K.H. Owing to the fact of world urgency and the immensity of the work to be done by them and owing also to the fact that they are preparing to pass through one of the highest initiations, these two Masters have handed all but a few of their senior disciples to me and to two other of their initiate disciples, themselves Adepts or Masters. They have also retained in their groups of disciples those who have started specific work under their direction in some previous life, and a few disciples who came into incarnation in this world period having the brain and the mind awakened to their relationship to these Masters. These conditions do not exist in this group in relation to me - the Master chosen to lead you forward. Yet (though you remember it not) all of you knew me well when working with the two Chohans, and hence the decision for you to work under my instruction and guidance. It has worked happily and with no delay so far. Another reason for the use of this formula of integration by those who have had experience of group work is that there are some in the group who are as yet far from true integration, and the experience of the older chelas can be of inestimable help if they will thus to serve the group and me. Much of what I said in the earlier instructions (Vol. I) on the relation of chelas to their Master could well be applied here and with profit.
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