| 5. and 6. Stabilization and Resurrection. The bridge is
now built. Thin and tenuous may be its strands at the beginning, but time and active
understanding will slowly weave thread after thread until the bridge stands finished,
stable and strong and capable of being used. It must perforce be used, because there is
now no other medium of intercourse between the initiate and the One Whom he now knows to
be himself. He ascends in full consciousness into the sphere of monadic life; he is
resurrected from the dark cave of the personality life into the blazing light of divinity;
he is no longer only a part of humanity and a member also of the Hierarchy, but he belongs
to the great company of Those Whose will is consciously divine and Who are the Custodians
of the Plan. They are responsive to impression from Shamballa and are under the direction
of the Heads of the Hierarchy. The "freedom of the three Centers" is Theirs.
They can express at will the triple energy of Humanity, the dual energy of the Hierarchy,
and the one energy of Shamballa.
Such, my brothers, is the goal of the disciple as he begins to work at the building of
the antahkarana. Reflect upon these matters and proceed with the work.
(In some Talks to Disciples, the Tibetan makes the following remarks which apply
here with peculiar force. A.A.B.) [496]
"Your
major need is for an intensification of your inner spiritual aspiration. You need
to work more definitely from what might be called a point of tension. Study what is said
about tension and intensity. It is intensity of purpose which will change you from the
plodding fairly satisfactory aspirant into the disciple whose heart and mind are aflame.
Perhaps, however, you prefer to go forward steadily, with no group effort, making your
work for me and for the group an ordered part of the daily life, which you can adjust
pretty much as you like, and in which the life of the spirit receives its reasonable
share, in which the service aspect is not neglected, and your life presentation is neatly
balanced and carried forward without much real strain. When this is the case, it may be
your personality choice or your soul decision for a specific life, but it means that you
are not the disciple, with everything subordinated to the life of discipleship.
"I
would like here to point out two things. First: if you can so change your tension that you
are driven by the life of the spirit, it will entail a galvanic upheaval in your inner
life. For this, are you prepared? Secondly: it will not produce any outer change in your
environing relationships. Your outer obligations and interests must continue to be met,
but I am talking in terms of inner orientations, dynamic inner decisions, and an interior
organizing for service and for sacrifice. Perhaps you prefer the slower and easier way? If
that is so, it is entirely your own affair, and you are still on your way. You are still a
constructive and useful person. I am simply here facing you with one of the crises which
come in the life of all disciples, wherein choices have to be made that are determining
for a cycle, but for a cycle only. It is pre-eminently a question of speed and of
organizing for speed. This means eliminating the non-essentials and concentrating on the
essentials - the inner essentials, as they concern the soul and its relation to the
personality, and the outer ones as they concern you and your environment.
"I
would give you three key thoughts for deep reflection [497] during the next six months;
will you ponder on them, one each month for three months, within the head, and during the
second three months brood on them in the heart. These key thoughts are:
1. The necessity for speed.
2. The reorganization of standards of thought and of living.
3. The expression of: Sincerity, Sacrifice, Simplicity." (Discipleship in the New
Age, Vol. I. Page 538)
In the many
strands of light, woven by the aspirants, disciples and initiates of the world, we can see
the group antahkarana gradually appearing - that bridge whereby humanity as a whole will
be able to abstract itself from matter and form. This building of the antahkarana is the
great and ultimate service which all true aspirants can render. |
