MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:

It is two years since I last communicated with you, via A.A.B., and they have been years of great stress and strain for you. Every disciple in these troubled times carries three kinds of stress; no, my brother, I would say the major stresses are of four kinds:

1. There are the stresses and the strains incident to the disciple's family life or his immediate daily relationships, and of these you have had your full share.
2. There are stresses and strains due to the deep interior life of soul relation; these bring with them their own unique difficulties which can be shared with no one (except the Master, when the disciple has reached the point of unfoldment which you have now reached), and yet which bring about a life of inner tension which can lead inevitably to the next point of revelation.
3. There are the problems and circumstances which arise out of the period in which our modern humanity lives; these today are unique and of disturbing importance; they involve the balancing of values which is going on in every department of human living and which evokes in the disciple an almost unendurable pain and anxiety.
4. There are also peculiar complications and tests which have their origin in ashramic relationships which the disciple realizes through his contact with the Ashram. [472] These are the result of his attempt to lift the burden of humanity and the measure of his understanding of the Plan, in unison with the entire Hierarchy. This produces an inevitable crisis and constitutes a load which - when added to the other three spheres of difficulty - often make the disciple feel that his cross (his vertical and his horizontal life) is more than he can bear. The Fixed Cross becomes a reality, and he begins to learn its true meaning.

All these factors have been active in your life, my brother and co-disciple. I would like to commend you on one point. You have proceeded with your Ashram work, your thinking and your service in spite of all that has been going on. This has been noted by us and it is for this quality of spiritual stability that we watch. The field of your work remains the same; it is part of your karmic obligation which may not be avoided, but the mode of work and the nature of the work which should be done will have to be altered for reasons which I am confident you will understand...

The work outlined for you will require only one discipline for you and that is a hard one. It is the drastic organizing of your time, irrespective of personality claims, or the hindrances of an etheric body which is too loosely knit, and a sensitivity which makes life very hard for you. The great need of the service which you can render and the desperate task involved in the reorganization of your time and plans will do much to offset the above difficulties and - in time - to cure them. You do not, my brother, belong to your family any more. You belong to humanity - a lesson which A.A.B. had much difficulty in learning.

I give you no meditation to follow. You may feel it necessary to make certain changes in the one you are now doing; feel free to change where you deem it desirable and seek constantly and daily a closer contact with your Master and with mine - the Master K.H.