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Discipleship in the New Age II - Personal Instructions to Disciples - D.I.J.
September 1943 BROTHER OF MINE: The years slip away, do they not? And each year sees and should see changes. In my last set of injunctions, if I may call them so, which I gave you a year ago, I asked you to prepare for changes. I have an idea, my brother, that you interpreted that to mean physical changes in your life - the changes which environment and circumstance impose upon a person, which cannot be avoided. But it was not to this kind of change that I referred. Let me see if I can make what I intended to convey to you somewhat clearer. There are certain changes which disciples must themselves initiate; these may not touch environing outer conditions, but concern inner developments, attitudes and mental processes. These self-initiated decisions can and do lead to [689] basic inner unsettlements (is there such a word?), and these inner disturbances are necessary to and preparatory to great inner crises. These inner crises lead to points of tension, as well you know, and from a point of tension the merging soul-personality can then move onward into greater light and a more surely realized Love. With devotion and steadfastness you have stood, down the years. Of this I am aware, and for all that you have accomplished I am happy. The question I now ask you, my brother, and am wording in a current phrase in order to arrest your attention is this: Where do you go from here? What is your next step? Can you take another step this life? Can you put your finger on something in your consciousness - subtle perhaps and unseen by others except by those with a truly perceptive attention - which, if altered or developed, discarded or intensified, would bring about a great and surprising unfoldment - an unfoldment much to be desired, prior to entering upon another incarnation. You are probably now assuming that I am referring to faults, handicaps or limitations. Perhaps I am. I might, however, be indicating the need to foster some divine quality, to move some latent spiritual attribute into a more prominent position in your life, or suggesting that you intensify some spiritual contribution that you are or could be making. That is for you to discover in the secret place of your own heart. At any rate, my brother and my tried friend, you know that until the final initiation is taken, all progress is a series of releases, and that from stage to stage of liberation we pass onward into light. You are not young. You have a somewhat frail body. You take with pain and distaste the impacts of life, and you seek ever to measure up in truth and sincerity to the presented opportunity. You are prone to think that life must be for you now largely a process of waiting; that there is little that you can further do; in this you are wrong. You can most definitely love more - with less devotion to the few and with a greatly increased inclusiveness and depth for the many; you can free yourself from certain thought-forms which condition much of your thinking; you can learn more easily the [690] lesson that to be a true disciple means desiring what is best for all humanity, and not what you think is best in terms of some group, some school of thought, or some historical, or political sequence. You must learn to think in larger terms than those of some national group or group of nations. That means an intensified study upon the Plan and this means quiet reflection within yourself, not reading books or subjecting yourself to deep meditation; it means the breaking down of ancient prejudices and preconceived ideas, so that that which is new and totally different to what you have surmised or thought can enter into your thinking and condition your future. Unless you can do this (and it is not easy for you to break loose from tradition and background) crystallization is apt to set in, and that is something which I know you fear and which need not happen. The great preventive to any growing hardness or rigidity of perception is Love, and the great lesson for all disciples is to love more and more until the Day be with its. I am not being very definite and specific with you, my brother. You need it not, for you are an experienced and tried soldier and you are singularly free from glamor, though susceptible to established and powerful thought-forms. These latter can always be dissipated by love - developed and consciously expressed - but it is not so with glamor. That is a much harder task, as you know well, having watched the struggles of L.T.S-K. for so many years with sympathy and comprehension. You have given him more of that than almost anyone else in the group and in his immediate circle of co-disciples. It is because glamor has no lure for you. As to your meditation, I am only going to give you certain words which you can incorporate into the general meditation at any point which you may deem appropriate. I would ask you to give five minutes at least to a dynamic concentration upon these words. Study them - as far as you can - from the angle of the world of meaning and in relation to your attitude to humanity as a whole. Do not consider them from the angle of your personal relationships or your personal environing circumstances. All that I have said indicates your need to [691] relate these ideas to universal concepts; that is for you the next practical step. I give you six words or phrases, and during the coming year you can therefore deal with them twice: 1st month... Humanity. The framework of Experience. 2nd month... Fluidity. Reaction to new Impression. 3rd month... The Ashram. The center of radiating Love. 4th month... Money. The medium of loving Distribution. 5th month... Recognition. The mode of divine Relationship. 6th month... Identification. The key to Understanding. These words are probably not what you might anticipate, but they will open up to you a group and mental approach to realization, and that is the way for you to proceed. Your keen analytical mind will know what to do with these matters. I would suggest, for the process to be employed, that you approach each phrase each month with three questions. Let me illustrate for you what I mean by taking two words out of the six: Humanity... What does humanity mean to me in reality? What new development faces the human family? Can I contribute by my thinking to this new unfoldment? Recognition... What does recognition mean tome? What new recognitions confront all disciples? How can I develop the power to recognize the new, the divine, and the reality which is already here? From these suggestions you can adapt three questions to each of the remaining words. It will be apparent to you, my beloved brother, that what I am really doing is training you for a special piece of service - the service of thought-form building in the New Age. This you can do if you will free yourself from prejudices and [692] from criticism of certain individuals. This service you can do in the quiet of your home and without undue effort, and you will learn to do this because you love and will love increasingly. I enfold you within my aura and with security, and from that point of safety I ask you to go forth upon the work of the Ashram.
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