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Discipleship in the New Age II - Personal Instructions to Disciples - R.A.J.
August 1946 MY BROTHER: It is in no way your fault that this group on the physical plane is being disbanded until the next life cycle of the majority of the members has arrived. It is distressing that the work on the physical plane has to end, but a close and honest analysis on the part of the group itself would probably show that the major reaction is a blend of two reactions: first of all, that they could not integrate and, secondly, a sense of loss because my communications with all of you have exoterically ended. Both of these are personality reactions. From the standpoint of a Master who knows the unimportance of [486] years, both of these reactions are of small importance. Few of you are really young; some of you are quite old, though none of you are as old as I am; in a relatively short time all of you will drop the outer handicap of the physical body and be ready for a fresh spiritual enterprise. Esoterically (if any of you so wish it), the situation remains unaltered, provided you keep it so yourselves. The inner contact is still there, exactly as it was before; the goal ahead for each of you is just the same and the door into my Ashram stands wide open to those who fulfil the requirements. What, my brother, is basically your goal? Taking into consideration your ray and type, it is to infuse your personality with soul energy. This is in the nature of a platitude and you may well respond that this is true of all aspirants. This is assuredly so, but your particular soul-objective in this life was to bring this soul energy down from the subtler bodies into the three worlds so that they can charge the brain. This charging will result in a hastened development of soul quality as it can be demonstrated upon the physical plane. As I have told you before, you are well developed on the inner planes, but your esoteric expression of this inner unfoldment is not adequately dynamic; it does not make adequate impress on the outer conditions of living. This you know. You have, I feel sure, pondered and studied the three words - Contact, Impression and Relationship - I gave you in my last instruction. I am equally confident that your approach was along the line of strengthening your contact with me, the Ashram and the group; to render yourself sensitive to spiritual impression, and also to see that your relationship was right in two directions: towards the Ashram and towards your fellowmen. That is all to the good but - for the sake of your own development and increased usefulness - I would have you take those same three words and (for the remainder of your life) direct your thinking towards contact with your fellowmen, towards the type of impression which you can establish - an impression which will enable them to impress others with the desire to discover truth and to persevere until the end. It will also involve your establishing with them an [487] educational relationship evoked by the quality of your approach to them and the "satisfying tincture" of your life, as one of the Masters has expressed it. Therefore for you, until I see you on the other side of the separating veil, there must be the expression of the three types of work - expressed in two directions: the stabilizing of that expression towards the Ashram (and that, with you, is well-nigh a habit and need not, therefore, form a drive), and also an intensified effort to work out the meaning of these words with your fellowmen. That will be very much harder. There is so much dammed up spiritual power in you; if you released it whenever possible and in all directions, you would be surprised at the result. You could then make the last years of your life fruitful and rewarding, far more than they have ever been in the past. Your life has been a life of loveliness, though somewhat dimmed by negativity. You are in process of stepping over the periphery of the Ashram towards its center. It needs only a little dynamic effort on your part to give you the unquestioning assurance that you are within the ring-pass-not of the Ashram and are functioning as a conscious disciple. Most of the group are not yet at that stage. The Ashram enfolds you all, but the next move is for each and all of you - without aid or help - to step over the mental barrier which keeps you from conscious knowledge and which (when accomplished) will enable the Ashram to give you "the freedom of the city." One of the ideas which disciples would find it helpful to grasp is that the process of passing over to the other side involves no discontinuance of the three processes of Contact, Impression and Relationship. These being the three words with which I earlier impressed you and which seem to me today to be of major importance in your life, I would have you grasp, if possible, somewhat the permanence of their importance. With the mass of ordinary humanity, focused in all their activities and their thinking upon the physical plane, the period after death is one of semi-consciousness, of a failure to recognize location, and of emotional and mental bewilderment. With disciples there is still contact with people (usually those with whom they have been associated) in [488] the hours of sleep; there is still the reception of impression from environment and associates, and there is still the recognition of relation with (as on earth) the assumption of responsibility. One of the students in this group asked me a question some time ago which I have been long in answering. As it has a bearing on the subject we are considering, I shall answer it here. After a few subsidiary comments the student said: "I can still the outer shells or bodies, but have not dared to let go the connecting cord. Is it safe? Can you see my condition and can you tell me?" My reply is quite simple and I know he will understand: Were you twenty years younger, my brother, with perfect safety you could break the connecting link, but owing to your age it is not, at this time, right so to do. There are some you have yet to help and one or two threads as yet to gather up. Undue strain upon the physical vehicle - no matter whether one is young or old - is never necessary and often of a harmful nature. Many aspirants in this group, in the Arcane School and elsewhere, are in training for work in the New Age and in the next life cycle, and their realization is often bigger than the present equipment of brain cells warrants. Therefore, knowledge and registered expansion of consciousness is temporarily withheld until a better physical vehicle is available. I mention this because some suffer from discouragement when, after years of work and the achievement of old age, they find themselves registering static condition, or what they deem to be static. There is no need for such a feeling, but there is need for care and the progression of the interior work, e'en when the external recording is apparently lacking. To resume with your own instruction, if you would care to increase the capacity of the three activities - contact, impression, relationship - you might follow a simple exercise when going to sleep at night. After achieving complete comfort, as far as may be possible, attempt to assume an inner attitude of planned, quiet discarding of the physical body, keeping, the whole concept upon the mental plane, yet realizing it to be a simple brain [489] activity. The heart is in no way to be involved. Your objective is to preserve consciousness as you withdraw it from the brain and pass out on the subtler levels of awareness. You are not discarding the physical body permanently, therefore the life thread anchored in the heart is not involved. The aim is, for a few hours and whilst clothed in the astral and mental vehicles, to be consciously aware elsewhere. With determination you become a focused, interested point of consciousness, intent on emerging from the casing of the physical body. That point you hold, refusing to look backward at the physical vehicle, or at the worries, interests and circumstances of daily life, fixedly waiting for the moment when your negative attitude to the physical plane and your positive attitude to the inner planes will bring a moment of release, perhaps a flash of light, the perception of an aperture of escape, or the recognition of your surroundings, plus the elimination of all surprise or the expectation of any phenomena. You are (as you practice this exercise of withdrawal) only going through an ordinary everyday process. If facility in doing this exercise is achieved, the hour of death will find you automatically and easily - because the physical body is making no resistance but remains quiescent and negative - able to make the Great Transition without concern or fear of the unknown. This is an exercise I would like to see all the group undertake. It involves only the steady preservation of an attitude, a fixed determination to hold on to the point of consciousness which is your persistent Self, plus a live expectancy. I have chosen these words with care and would ask you to study them with equal care. I would like also to formulate your meditation along these three concepts of Contact, Impression and Relationship. The length of the meditation is entirely dependent upon your own choice or temporary need; it is susceptible of application to all or any circumstances and you could use it for the remainder of your life (many years or few) without exhausting its possibilities or usefulness. The outline is not a rigid form, as are so many which I have given to the group. It is intended simply to be suggestive. You can make your life a rich experience by the use of these suggestions: [490] Poise yourself at the "door of exit" in the head. Realize that that point is one from which you can look outward upon the world of physical living, inward upon the world of the emotions or of mental perception, or upward towards the soul. These three directions form a triangle of projected sensitivity. Then sound the OM three times, bearing these directions in mind. Take then the word Contact into your consciousness and ponder upon these three fields of contact in which it is possible for you to move - the physical plane, the kama-manasic plane, and the kingdom of the soul. Study these planes of possible and unavoidable contact (for the aspiring disciple) and study them from the angle of things as they are. When you have somewhat exhausted this work of familiarizing yourself with the possible contacts, remembering that this particular work will make your life fruitful in all three directions: Then again sound the OM and attempt to withdraw to a point of silent contemplation upon the mental plane. Again sound the OM. The fact of the possibility of Impression now must engross your attention. You begin to study the general tenor and the outstanding lessons which physical, astral or mental contact makes on you, what they have done for you during this life cycle or during the past week or day; then definitely and with full concentrated interest and attention - you orient yourself to the soul; you stand consciously ready for impression. What that impression will convey, what thought will come to you or what call to service will sound forth, you know not. Your attitude is one of a radiant, silent, poised expectancy, and nothing else is permitted. This you must work to attain. Note (if it comes) the emergence of some clear thought, the clarification of some bewilderment, the expansion of some mental perception into an intuition, with its consequent expansion of [491] consciousness. You can give as long or as short a time to this as you choose, but never less than ten minutes. Then orient yourself to me, your Master and friend for many years, and again wait. Perchance there may be something I may have to say to you. You will note that I have used the word "orient" in both cases; I have not said "achieve contact." The task of receiving impression is not an easy one, and you may have to work some time on these different levels before you register any definite response from an achieved contact, for that is what it then will be. Then sound the OM twice. Having reached as high a point of contact as you can, at any given time, you then begin to reorient yourself to the physical plane and the life of daily experience through a systematized process of Relationships. You assume - as a disciple on the physical plane - responsibility for those relationships (to the Ashram and to me) through service planned and rendered; to the soul through fusion, rendered expressive on the mental plane; to the group emotional expression, and to your fellowmen. Grasp these recognitions of relationships, both as they affect your daily life expression and in relation to others with whom you live and work, down on the physical plane. Again, you bring this concept of essential relationships to the effect you have, as a human being on the Path to all you meet and seek to aid. Couple ever with this thought the idea of responsibility. Then sound the OM. Next say the Invocation beginning with the stanza "From the point of Light within the Mind of God Let Light stream forth into the minds of men. Let Light descend on Earth," and sound the 0M three times. Please note that the OM in this meditation is to be sounded inaudibly. If you will follow these suggestions, my brother, you will make rapid progress into spiritual objectivity, and your light [492] will shine forth more radiantly. I, your Master, know your inner radiance. Permit the world of outer things to know it too. The wishes, coming from my heart for you, surround you.
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