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Discipleship in the New Age II - Personal Instructions to Disciples - L.F.U.
September 1943 BROTHER OF OLD: There are certain key points in all lives which are deciding and frequently releasing factors. A major one for all disciples occurs around the age of thirty-five, and still another at the age of forty-two. It was when you reached that age that I intensified my observation of you. You had, if I may so express it, wandered (unconsciously to yourself) to the very edge of the aura of my Ashram. Later, when you entered the Arcane School and became one of its workers, you penetrated deeper into the Ashram in response to a certain drawing power which I deliberately exerted. I had long registered your "seeking vibration." Another key point comes ever at the age of fifty-six, and as you neared that age, the pressure exerted on you by the conflicting pull of the Ashram, of your own soul and your personality mental processes created a dominant test in your life. In consequence of the reaction of the personality, of the soul test thus drastically imposed, and of your response to circumstances, your life is today conditioned as it is. You will understand whereof I speak and there is no need for me to be more explicit. The age of sixty-three will see another and lesser crisis, and upon the decision then made by you (and it can be physical, emotional, mental or of soul origin) [534] will depend the future of your life in this particular incarnation. If your decisions - then and now - are made esoterically within my Ashram and where the focus of your life does persist, all will be well; if they are made through the use of the lower mind and under the influence of its rationalizing influence, you are liable to make mistakes. Always in your life crises, you have been confronted by the way of love and by the way of mind, and usually your decisions have been the rational decisions of a somewhat aloof and self-focused personality. Your last decision and chosen line of activity (which was of a definitely determining nature) was, for you, quite the most difficult, because you did not see as clearly as usual; your concrete lower mind did not apparently display its usual keen vision, and the "alternatives which love presents" - as one of the Masters has oft expressed it - blurred the usually clear lower vision but made decision on a higher level than heretofore possible. You underwent a period of much training and inner adjustment. Is this not so, my brother? I watched with love and understanding, for that emotional disruption (well concealed from the outer world) was not concealed from me. I rejoiced, for it let in so much light that you have made more progress in the past three years than at any previous time in your life. You might ask me: Along what line? My reply would be: Along the line of an inclusive vision which sees the future of humanity more clearly in the light of the present than has ever before been possible to you. That is a great step onward. For years I have emphasized to you the need for heart-love, and consistently and steadily you have tried to develop it through meditation, by theorizing and by a conscious effort to love. Love, my brother, when present and of the right kind engenders a sense of personal responsibility. These are phases of responsibility which are based on love and not on work to be done, positions to be filled, people to be laboriously understood and the performance of your duties as a citizen, as an executive, or as an employee. Such phases have been curiously lacking in your life. You have evaded them, and this evasion has had its roots in an unrecognized fear of [535] failure should responsibility (through love for others) be shouldered by you; you have reacted to a profound distrust of yourself and to a fear of the intrusion of others unduly (not altogether, but unduly) in your ordered, planned life. Most things can be viewed as too late for changing if approached in terms of one incarnation, but the soul thinks in terms of life cycles. A full and rich life cycle will open up for you as a consequence of this present incarnation, if you will handle your remaining years in a spirit of selfless responsive love - asking nothing for the separated self. I have no fears for you, my brother. I would recall to you that the disrupting of life processes and the upheaval of an ordered point of view and of a planned and reasoned approach to daily living is in a measure a great releasing - a releasing of hidden beauties, unsuspected and seeking the light of day. Have you not read that the bombing of London by high explosives produced great upheavals and that ancient layers of soil - hidden for centuries from the light of day - were brought to the surface? As a result, strange, rare, unknown and beautiful flowers have this summer appeared to excite interest and investigation and to hide the ruins with beauty and color. Ponder on this, for so it can be with a human life. Beauty is beginning to flower in your life, bringing its own responsibilities, engendering its own magnetic field, bringing to you those who otherwise might not have ventured to come, and who will give you a love which may at first arouse questioning in your mind but which will greatly enrich your life. It will also evoke responsibility. This responsibility will definitely extend your field of service. Be willing, therefore, to descend into the deep water to which I made reference in the last of the six statements given to you last year. The higher the wall, brother of mine, from which you fall, the deeper into the water you will go, and that, paradoxically, will be your salvation - my beloved brother. Look for this development and welcome it. In view of all the above remarks, I am going to ask you to write - during the coming year - three short papers. In the first will you give seven concise definitions of love - not of emotion or sentiment or feeling, but of soul or heart love. [536] Make three of these definitions practical and four of them abstract and esoteric. This will not be easy, and this distinction itself will increase your difficulty. Then write a short paper on love as it expresses itself through emotion. I mean the love of the soul as it defines itself astrally and uses the astral body as a medium of expression. Finally, write another paper on the mental expression of love. For this assignment of work much occult and psychological knowledge will be needed; you are however adequate to the task, and these distinctions and interpretations are badly needed by aspirants today and by disciples everywhere, struggling with the practical application of occult truths; you can help much by clear thinking upon this theme and consequent clear exposition. Ideas become individual possessions as you think them and write them down, and this is the way, par excellence, for you to learn, to absorb and to demonstrate. Guard your physical health, my brother. Be not unduly concerned and cautious, but be reasonable whilst unafraid. There is work for you to do and your next unfoldment of work will come to you through the means of a breaking down of a wall of pride, and a conversation - and in that order. The thread of gold which "passes from your heart to mine" is now an unshatterable chain of golden links, and there is work for you in my Ashram.
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