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Discipleship in the New Age II - Teachings on Initiation - Part V
4. The sense of registered impression. With this new feeling out towards the unknown and towards that which requires a sensitive expansion of consciousness I shall not deal at this moment. It concerns the theme of training in telepathy; I shall deal with it as we consider that Science of Impression (Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, Pages 41-57.) which will eventually be the major objective of the educational systems which will be functioning at the close of the New Age, so rapidly approaching. Only now have those forces been permitted entrance into our planetary life which will present the new subjective environment which has ever been there though unrealized. The reason for this new sensitivity being the objective of hierarchical cultural training is that it is realized by the Hierarchy that man is now adequately intelligent to be trained in right interpretation. 5. The evocation of the will. This is, for disciples particularly, the new and most necessary development. As I oft have told you, the average aspirant confounds will with determination, with fixed intention, with self-will and one-pointed attention. He does not realize that the will is that divine aspect in man that puts him en rapport with and then controlled by divine purpose, intelligently understood in time and space and implemented by the soul as the expression of loving application. The mode par excellence by which the will can be developed is the cultivation of the recognition of the divine Plan down the ages. This produces a sense of synthesis and this sense of [299] synthesis ties the man into the plan through recognition of: Its inevitability, therefore demanding cooperation. Its success, therefore evoking wise activity. Its immediate objective - to which all the past has led. Its rightness - to which the intuition testifies. It is not easy for the disciple in training to associate the sense of synthesis and the use of the will together and to realize that a cultivation of this first ray perception is a potent mode by which the highest aspects of the spiritual will (as yet embryonic within him) can be unfolded. Elsewhere I deal in greater detail with the will, its nature and what it is. 6. The sense of that which is imminent. This concerns the "raincloud of knowable things." I would call your attention to the word knowable. It is not the recognition of that which is imminent in man, in nature, or latent in manifestation. Speculation along this line might be and frequently is of no true importance. It is what is spiritually imminent which concerns the true disciple, if I may be permitted this play on words. One of the first lessons in the esoteric field is the sense of timing, with which that which is imminent or impending is connected; the disciple has to awaken to that which is on the very verge of precipitation into human thinking, life and circumstance; he has to take those occult steps which will enable him to recognize not only that which is hovering over humanity on the point of revelation or of karmic usefulness (note the phrase), but also enable him to handle himself so correctly and wisely that he becomes a cooperator, step by step, in the process of aiding in this task of revelation. More light on this subject will come as we study the Science of Impression. The point, however, I seek to make here is that sensitivity to the over-shadowing cloud presupposed the subjective existence of a power or divine faculty hitherto not consciously used by disciples but which can now be intelligently developed, producing more rapid vision and a more acute revelatory perception. [300] That power has always been present; it is an aspect of the force of evolution and has led man on from one point of revelation to another, from one power to another, one sense to another, and from point to point of understanding. It first of all produced the physical senses; it led man on to emotional expression and to mental development; it is the secret behind spiritual understanding, but it has never yet been consciously employed. It is to the mind what the mind, as the common sense, has been to all the five senses. Think that out. This raincloud is hovering, heavy with portent and knowledge, over a world today in process of reorganization and regeneration. The Masters are seeking to hasten in their disciples this recognition of that which is imminent, so that they can be the intelligent agents whereby the needed precipitations can be brought about. There is a definite technique for producing this peculiar form of cooperation, but it will not be possible to work with it or apply it for another twenty-five years. Here I have very briefly outlined for you the new developments which are possible if the disciple is rightly focused and oriented. These are within latent possibilities. If you will pause and consider, you will realize that the task of the Master in the past, as he sought to prepare the disciple for initiation, was largely concerned with awakening him to the need for occult obedience, for right orientation, for persistence, and for devotion to his objective. But all that lies far behind the true modern disciple. Today, the Master indicates to him the over-shadowing cloud of knowable things; he assures him that he has within him undreamt of powers which will, when brought to the surface of consciousness, demonstrate to him his own essential adeptship and enable him to share in the great hierarchical task of illumining, precipitating, and lifting. Today the Master - having done the above - leaves the disciple to work through to knowledge and cooperative usefulness; he neither pushes him into premature action nor constantly supervises him; he surrounds him with the aura of his presence and the protection and [301] stimulation of his Ashram; he gives him occasional hints, and as the disciple acts and works upon the hinted suggestions, the hint becomes a clear direction and a luminous area of enlightenment.
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