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Discipleship in the New Age II - Talks to Disciples - Group Instruction
January 1946 TO MY GROUP OF AFFILIATED DISCIPLES: Since I last communicated with you the outer aspects of the world war, the carnage and the slaughter are over, except in a few sporadic instances. The struggle now being waged is to reach a point of stabilization in human thinking and understanding from which a true and reliable peace can emerge. On the emotional plane, there is as yet no peace. On the mental plane, a great and deep seated cleavage is going on and the occult significance of certain words, enunciated by the Christ when in Palestine, is being worked out. He gave them as the keynote for the particular subjective happening which is taking place at this time. He said: "He that is not with Me is against Me." This refers to the after effects of the conflict between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Evil. Great decisions have to be made all over the world, as to whether humanity moves forward into a New Age of cooperation and of right human relations or whether the materialistic groups will reassert their control and succeed in winning the day. This great cleavage is now in process of settlement. On the other hand, a deeply spiritual division is also taking place. In a peculiar sense, and speaking largely symbolically, [60] the first phase of the Great judgment is asserting itself. The sheep and the goats are forming into two distinct groups. The judgment being given is not the generally assumed one of assigning penalties or rewards; it is not the negation of all effort as the result of decisive moves, nor will it result in the emergence of major dividing lines. Such interpretations are man-made and are not true interpretations of the parable or word picture which Christ gave to his disciples nearly two thousand years ago. The judgment referred to has relation to a mysterious process which is going on in the thinking (if one dare use such a word for such a comprehensive process) of the planetary Logos. He is deciding at this time the mode by which a momentous event or happening within the Hierarchy shall take shape; he is timing the process of its externalization; he is deciding which Ashrams shall be externalized and who, within those Ashrams, should and must proceed with the purely inner and subjective work, and who should be chosen to work - consciously and openly - in the outer world of men, thus duplicating in their numbers what Christ experienced when he "descended into Hell." Many things have to be considered; the objectives in view of the Masters concerned, the rays in manifestation, and many astrological relationships. In this deciding judgment Sanat Kumara is being aided by certain Members of the Great Council at Shamballa, by the Christ and by the seven Masters who are responsible for the seven groups of Ashrams. He is also reaching certain conclusions as to the groups of disciples who have hitherto been under training during the final stages of the Path of Discipleship. This decision has to take under advisement the rapidity with which the entrance of men and women into the Ashrams can take place; it is also dependent upon the members of the Ashram moving forward according to their degree, and upon the power of the Ashrams to absorb and assimilate the much larger numbers, without upsetting ashramic stability. He has also to consider the ability of the neophyte under training to take and hold the far greater tension necessarily incident to true ashramic life in the New Age. [61] These points are all being most carefully considered, because a major expansion of the Hierarchy as a whole, and the consequent reaction upon humanity, again as a whole, is not a thing lightly to be undertaken. Expansion - if it is to be safely undertaken - must proceed hand in hand with consolidation. The expansion now contemplated in the highest quarters will greatly alter the potency of the relation of the Hierarchy to Humanity, and therefore of the second divine aspect to the third. Can Humanity take this increased potency correctly and safely? Will the aspirants of the world - given opportunity to pass off the Probationary Path on to the Path of Discipleship - be stable enough to stand steady under the impact of hitherto undiscerned spiritual energy? Can the Masters, tinder the pressure of their enormous task of world reconstruction, find the needed time to increase their training of their disciples? For they are still governed by the time equation where their disciples are concerned. Can the senior members in any Ashram relieve to some extent the pressures upon the Masters as well as upon the incoming and junior, and therefore inexperienced, disciples? If, however, the relation between the Hierarchy and Humanity is thus strengthened and there is freer access in both directions, there will clearly emerge the invocational pull or the magnetic potency of these blending centers; the pull will be upon Shamballa, which is the highest center of all. Is the etheric web of the planet sufficiently stable and balanced so that it can adequately respond to the new and potent forces which could and will pour through it into objective expression? I would remind you that the release of atomic energy has had a far more potent effect in the etheric web than in the dense physical vehicle of the planet. Three times the atomic bomb was used, and that fact is itself significant. It was used twice in Japan, thereby disrupting the etheric web in what you erroneously call the Far East; it was used once in what is also universally called the Far West, and each time a great area of disruption was formed which will have future potent, and at present unsuspected, results. The formation of the Triangles of Light and of [62] Goodwill - essentially the manipulation of energy into a desired thought pattern - has a definite relation to this area of disruption. It will in due time be found that the Japanese people, with their peculiar knowledge of thought power (used along wrong lines in the war period), will respond more intelligently to this type of work than many of the Western peoples. An effort should therefore be made to reach the Japanese along the lines of the Triangle work. I would like to point out that the distinction between the "sheep and the goats" is mainly hierarchical. The term "goats" is esoterically applied to initiated disciples and to those who have climbed the mountain of initiation. The term "sheep" is applied to those who are following blindly the inner urge of their souls and who are groping their way (in relatively large numbers) toward the Hierarchy. For them still has to come the great revelation that the "kingdom of God is within you." Such is the word for them at this stage in humanity's history. Once they have realized that, they are already being absorbed into the Hierarchy. Life will now for them simplify. For the "goats" must come the impelling call from the highest aspect of the Spiritual Triad, "Seek the way of Ascension" - ascension out of even triadal life into that of pure Being and of monadic existence. In this Great judgment all decision lies in the conclusive thinking of Sanat Kumara. It is his judgment; neither the sheep nor the goats, nor the great mass of men from among whom they have emerged, can affect that decision in the slightest degree. Any moment or climax of decision on the part of the Lord of the World institutes new law and brings into play new energies. Laws are only the unalterable conditions brought about by the activity, the orientation and the emanated decisive thoughts of the One in whom we live and move and have our being, just as the activities, the orientation and the thinking of a human being carry the cells and the atoms of his body along the line of his wishes. Energies are but the rhythm of his breathing and the results of the systolic and the diastolic action of his heart. From these energies we cannot escape, but - in a mysterious and peculiar [63] manner - the planetary Logos directs them or withholds them to suit the recognized planetary needs of the period.
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