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Letters on Occult Meditation - Letter IX - Future Schools of Meditation
Personnel of the Advanced School October 16th, 1920 ...Today we will take up the personnel of the advanced school, and the rules of admission to both the preparatory and advanced. This latter part will be largely technical. The first point I seek to make here is that these advanced schools will be numerically small, and this for a very long time to come, and the personnel will be [318] correspondingly small... At the head of the school will always be found an Initiate of the first or second degree, the aim of the school being to prepare pupils for the first initiation. This necessarily requires an Initiate head. This Initiate head will be definitely appointed by the Master Who has the school in charge, and he will be - within the confines of the school - sole judge and autocrat. The risks of occult training are too great to permit of trifling, and what the Head demands must be obeyed. But this obedience will not be compulsory but voluntary, for each pupil will realize the necessity and will render obedience from spiritual recognition. As aforesaid, these different occult schools will be practically ray schools, and will have for their personnel teachers on some one ray or its complementary ray, with pupils on the same ray or complementary ray. For instance, if the school is a second ray school - such as the one in Ireland is purposed to be - teachers and pupils on the second, fourth and sixth rays will be found in it. At least one fifth ray teacher will be found in every school of occultism. If a first ray school, the personnel and pupils will be first, third and seventh ray, with again a fifth ray teacher among the others. Under the initiate Head will be two other teachers who will be accepted disciples, and every pupil under them must have passed through the preparatory school, and graduated from all the lower grades. Probably these three will comprise the entire teaching staff, for the pupils under them will be relatively few in number and the work of the teachers is supervisory more than didactic, for the occultist is always esoterically self-taught. Much of the work done by these three will be on the inner planes, and they will work more in the seclusion of their own rooms than in class room with the students [319] themselves. The pupils are - it will be presumed - ready to work for themselves and to find the way to the portal of initiation alone. The work of the teachers will be advisory, and they will be available to answer questions and to superintend work initiated by the pupil himself, and not compelled by the teacher. Stimulating vibration, aligning the bodies, superintending the work on inner planes, and the pouring in of force with the shielding from danger by occult methods, will be the work, in part, of the Teachers, added to the supervision of definite and strenuous meditation. At intervals they will conduct the pupils to the Master, advise as to their passing into the different grades of discipleship, report at intervals on the quality of their life service and assist them in building their buddhic vehicle, which has to be in an embryonic condition when the first initiation is taken. The teachers likewise superintend the working out in practice of the theories anent the other evolution, the deva evolution, laid down in the preparatory schools; they watch over the manipulation of matter by the pupil and his demonstration of the laws of construction; they safeguard him as far as may be in his contact with subhuman and superhuman evolutions, and teach him to wield the law and to transcend karma. They enable him, through their instructions, to recover the knowledge of past lives and to read the akashic records, but as you will see, the pupil is the one in this school who initiates and does the work, superintended and guarded by the teachers, and his progress and the length of his residence within the school depend upon his own effort and initiatory powers. The rules of admission into the preparatory school will be somewhat as follows, but I only indicate probabilities and not ascertained and fixed facts: [320] The pupil must be free from obligatory karma and able to take the course without neglecting his other duties and family ties. There will be no fees or money charged, and no money transaction. The pupil must be somewhat self-supporting and able to earn the means of livelihood whilst in the school. The schools in both their divisions will be supported through the voluntary contributions of people, and through a knowledge of the laws of supply and demand occultly interpreted. The pupil must be able to measure up to the average educational standards of his day and generation and must show aptitude for some line of thought. He must be seen clairvoyantly to have a certain amount of coordination and alignment and the causal body must be of a certain grade or quality before he is admitted. Teachers of occultism waste not time on those not ready. Only when the inner light shines forth, only when the causal body is of a certain capacity can the pupil profit by the curriculum. Therefore, with the Head of the school will the final verdict lie as to whether a pupil may enter or not. That word will be final, and will be passed after due inspection of the pupil by the Head of the school through clairvoyant and causal vision, and after reference to the man's own Master. He must have demonstrated, by a previous period of service, his ability to work in group formation and to think in terms of others. [321] His past incarnations must be somewhat looked up, and the indications given through their study will guide the Head in his final decision. The pupil must be over twenty-one and under forty-two years of age. His etheric body must be in good condition and be a good transmitter of prana, and there must be no physical disease or handicapping physical deformity. These are the fundamental rules which it is at present possible to give. There will be others and the problem of selection may pass through some vicissitudes in solving. The rules for admission into the advanced school are far more esoteric and fewer in number. The pupils will be chosen from out of the preparatory school, after having passed through the graded courses. But selection will depend not on the mental development and the assimilation of concrete knowledge, but upon the inner comprehension and the occult understanding of the student, upon the quality of the tone of his life as it sounds forth in the inner world, upon the brilliance of the indwelling light, and upon his power in service. This suffices for today; tomorrow we will deal with the final division of this third point, the buildings of the school.
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