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Discipleship in the New Age II - Teachings on Initiation - Part V
Part V I would like in this instruction, my brothers, to make certain suggestions to you anent the approach to discipleship that humanity is making and the approach to initiation which disciples in every country and of all schools of thought and of religious persuasion are today making. I have told you in many places that the techniques for training disciples are changing in order to conform to the rapid progress being made in mass orientation, and that a new light upon the [295] entire theme of initiation is imminent. I would like, if possible, to be somewhat more explicit. You, at least, after these years of training by me, should be susceptible to some increased realization along these lines. Humanity - as has oft been said - is now the world disciple. Why is this? Primarily for two reasons: Men are rapidly awakening mentally. The whole world is thinking, primarily along political lines and along lines of current ideologies. Even peoples long dormant are now convulsed by mental processes. This shift in human consciousness involves a rapid focusing of human intention on mental levels. This mental polarization is essential to discipleship. It is as yet a general trend, but much progress has been made as a result of the tension of war. Men are rapidly developing an understanding goodwill. The world is full of movements for relief and for the amelioration of human distress, and this from the point of small and large communities and also nationally and internationally. To this the Red Cross, UNRRA and many analogous and well-intentioned affiliations of men everywhere bear witness. This indicates not only a mental polarization but responsiveness to the love nature of God; these together indicate a fusion and a sensitivity which is new in human history and which is most encouraging, testifying as it does to the success, at last, of the evolutionary process. The time, therefore, when the Hierarchy had to deal almost entirely with the emotional devotee is past, and this has come about far more rapidly than had been anticipated. The task of the Masters before the eighteenth century was to take emotional aspirants and train them in the technique of mental polarization, prior to permitting them to enter their Ashrams. This was the best that could be expected, and in the last analysis was all that was required, because mentally polarized aspirants to accepted discipleship would have been of little use in the work of lifting mankind nearer to the light; the Ashrams exist primarily for that purpose. But the [296] mentally focused humanity of today cannot be reached by emotional workers alone. The mental approach is called for and a higher type of disciple is needed. The training to be given aspirants (and this must be begun in our educational centers) will concern the dual use of the mind, the nature of energy, the indication of an evolutionary plan which includes more than the physical forms, and later of a definite and clear purpose for humanity as well as modes and methods of developing the subjective and subtle powers of the human being. This will involve a study of the constitution of man and the relation of its lower and higher threefold nature to the three aspects of divinity. You will note how increasingly, with all of you, I am emphasizing man's essential duality and not his temporary triplicity. I would have you try to ascertain and understand my reasons. As this curriculum is firmly established it will revolutionize modern educational systems upon a planetary scale, and then man the reorienting aspirant, will become man the accepted disciple. I wonder whether you have ever considered the widespread effect of all the reflective thinking, the aspirational prayers and the meditation work - untrained or as the result of training - done by people in their millions down the ages through the entire planet? Its quality is altering; its strength is increasing; its livingness is producing changes in the human organism. The tide of spiritual life is today so strong and striving that the next one hundred and fifty years will demonstrate the factual nature of the Kingdom of Souls or of God. This, as you can surely appreciate, will produce fundamental changes also in the immediate objectives before human progress, and in the Masters' plans, in the teaching given, and in the training presented. This brings me to the objectives which are now before disciples in training for initiation. Instead of the past objectives - contact with the soul and entrance into an Ashram - the following might be listed, but must be understood esoterically and not literally: 1. A sense of planetary relationships. Instead of the emphasis [297] being laid upon the relation of the individual to his sold, to his Master and to the Ashram, his consciousness is consciously expanded (if I may use such an apparently redundant phrase) in order to bring about a realization upwards into kingdoms hitherto unseen and unknown, downwards into kingdoms which we call subhuman, outwards into the human environment and into the human kingdom, and inwards (a meaningless word, my brother) toward divinity itself. This means towards synthesis, towards wholeness, towards the sense of the entire, towards totality. For all these four directions (of which north, south, east and west are symbols) there are specific techniques, but today I may only indicate direction. 2. A sense of "intelligent supervision. This must be esoterically understood. What does this mean? One of the most deeply spiritual qualities which would-be initiates must unfold is the constant recognition of a focused control upon daily life, circumstance, the future and fate. This is as yet an embryonic sense or entirely new avenue of perception and relatively close to and an aspect of the will aspect of divinity. It makes man conscious of his destiny, develops in him predictive power and gives him initiate insight into purpose and its unfolding plan. It is a faculty which you would do well to consider and try to imagine as a step towards development. 3. The sense of orientation to humanity. I presume you will recognize the truth of what I say when I express the opinion that your individual or personal love of humanity and the focus of your attention upon human need is very largely theoretical. It is transitory and experimental in practice. Your intentions are good and fine but you have not yet the habit of correct orientation and much that you do is the result of imposed sacrifice and at a cost; it is not natural to you; it is still the result of hopeful endeavor; you are still bewildered over the problem of flow to be oriented to the Hierarchy and your soul, and at the same time to be oriented to humanity and your fellowmen. But the time will come which you are personally so decentralized that automatically the sense of "others" is [298] far stronger in you than the sense of personality or of the lower self. Let your imagination run wild for a moment, picturing the condition of the world when the majority of human beings are occupied with the good of others and not with their own selfish goals. Such a play of imaginative thought is good and constructive and will aid in bringing out into manifestation that new world and that new type of humanity which the future will inevitably demonstrate. On this I shall not enlarge; the practice of goodwill will lay the foundation for this new type of sensitivity.
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