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Discipleship in the New Age II - Personal Instructions to Disciples - D.H.B.
August 1940

MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:

So much have I said to you anent glamor that in this instruction I shall not deal with it. If you have not developed an instinctual reaction to it at this time, then there is little that I can say. This instinctual recognition of a fault, a quality, a tendency and, eventually, of a revelation is one of the first steps that the disciple takes towards the transcendence of the astral plane. I would point out to all of you (for glamor is general as well as particular) that the dissipation of glamor brings revelation.

For you, this is a time of interlude in service on a large scale and it is not easy for you to accept it. The conflict of the nations has brought about an exoteric interlude in spiritual action on earth. It is also causing (and this must not be forgotten) a deepening inner growth and a subjective spiritual reorganization which - when the war is over - will bear much fruit. It is a period of preparation for disciples and is an opportunity for greatly increased inner, spiritual relation which later will produce that outer synthesis for which all men wait.

My message to you at this time is to retreat inward and achieve a deepening which will, in its turn, produce wisdom and truth. I do not urge you to cease any of your exoteric activities, but I urge you to carry them forward in a spiritual silence. Pursue your physical plane activities and your spiritual dharma but live within yourself an intense life of aspiration, of questioning and (if I might so express it) of questing. Become, brother of mine, spiritually dissatisfied for this will produce in you an intensification of the major qualities which I suggested you cultivate many years ago. There comes a time in the life of the disciple when he goes through a process of detaching himself esoterically (though not necessarily exoterically) from his chosen and designated task and from all past achievements and thereby learns his next step upon the Path of Liberation. This detachment, based on a phase of spiritual dissatisfaction engenders also humility of heart - a quality you much need to cultivate. Humility of head is [658] largely theoretical and imposed; humility of heart is practical and inherently spontaneous. I would have you ponder on these distinctions for you will learn much thereby.

Consecrate therefore the period until the war ends to the cultivation of depth, of detachment, of humility. This process you will never regret, and in the coming period of reconstruction you will then bring to the task much that you cannot now give. As you know, it is the heart quality in you which needs intensifying and purifying. Your first ray astral body and mind produce too much of the will nature in all your activities. You need to bear this in mind particularly in connection with the astral body, for it is through that body that the love energy of the soul must pour on its way to the heart center. It is, therefore, the second ray quality which must - in connection with your first ray astral body - be imposed and that means two things in relation to you:

  1. That your soul contact must be intensified.
  2. That your life problem today involves primarily three factors:
    1. The soul second ray.
    2. The personality sixth ray.
    3. The astral body first ray.

This constitutes an interesting and somewhat unbalanced triangle of energy, for the sixth ray personality is quick to respond to soul energy but the effects work out in a fanatically oriented and powerful astral body. The consequent interplay produces much of the glamor which besets you and which it is the task of your first ray mind to dissipate.

You are perhaps surprised at my use of the word "fanatical" in connection with you for you in no way regard yourself as a "fanatical devotee." Nor do I so regard you. The fanaticism which you display is in respect to your own judgment where other people are concerned and it involves also an almost proud dependence upon the wisdom which you have undoubtedly developed during many lives. This tends to give you a surety of opinion, in relation to others, which conditions and your decision do not always warrant; it produces [659] also a willingness to impose your own ideas and your judgment upon others when, my brother, it may be neither your duty nor your right so to do. This quality (oft found in disciples who are learning the nature of true spiritual humility) is esoterically called "the fanatic opposition of the wise person to the facts." This statement is most paradoxical but it is one which it would profit you much to consider and study.

Disciples like yourself (and they are fairly numerous and constitute some of the most promising material for training that we possess) are apt to be hard and unyielding - both to themselves and others. They have learnt much and surmounted much in the crucible of suffering and nothing has prevented them from a steadfast pursuit of reality. This capacity leads them to judge with harshness those who do not, apparently, achieve results or possess their own staying power. When such a disciple is naturally upon the teaching line as you are, he then handles opportunity on the basis of his truly enlightened personality but his methods are nevertheless personality ones and when - as in your case - the personality is on the sixth ray, one is apt to have a disciple fanatically identified with his own way of approach and one who expects others to go his way; he will be wedded to his own methods and anxious to impose them upon others. He is convinced that the techniques he employs are the best for all. All disciples have to learn to recognize the many ways, the many methods and the widely differently developed techniques. Their attitude (when they have learnt this lesson) is ever the fostering, the interpreting and the strengthening of the ways and the methods which suit those with whom they are associated and working, or those whom they are endeavoring to help. Remember this, my brother, and aim at decentralization without diffusion. Think about this statement and seek to understand it and make it practical. If you can learn this lesson, there will open for you a wider field of opportunity. Decentralization in mind from yourself and identification with the self in all should be your steady and practical objective.

To aid you in this, I suggest the following short meditation exercise which should be done each day at the close [660] of your group practice. Its objective is the increase of the flow of energy to the heart center, remembering always that the heart center is a twelve-petalled lotus.

  1. Visualization exercise.
    1. Achieve alignment as rapidly as possible.
    2. Hold in the mind, imaginatively, the straight line of the spinal column, the head center, the sutratma and the antahkarana - thus linking the centers in the body with the soul.
    3. Then carry the line which your imagination has constructed, from the center at the base of the spine to the closed lotus bud in the center of the twelve petalled egoic lotus.
  2. Having done this, recognize your identity with all souls who constitute - in their entirety - the One Soul.
  3. Then sound the OM as a soul, as far as in you lies, breathing it out from soul levels with no fixed objective in your mind. Do this six times.
  4. Then sound the OM again after a pause (thus making seven in all) sending it out into the ajna center and from there carry it down to the heart center and hold it there for later use. Do this as a soul whose nature is love.
  5. Then, bearing in mind that the heart center is the repository of twelve forces or energies, seek to develop them by pondering upon the virtues through which these energies express themselves, taking one each month for a year.
    1. Group love, embracing individuals.
    2. Humility, signifying your personality attitude.
    3. Service, indicating your soul's preoccupation.
    4. Patience, signifying the embryonic immortality and persistence which is a soul characteristic.
    5. Life, or expressed activity which is the manifestation of love because it is essential dualism.
    6. Tolerance, which is the first expression of buddhic understanding.
    7. Identification with others, which is embryonic [661] fusion, carried eventually to synthesis when the head center is developed.
    8. Compassion, which is essentially the right use of the pairs of opposites.
    9. Sympathy, which is the consequence of knowledge and of the unfoldment of the knowledge petals. Such energy then is in touch with the heart center.
    10. Wisdom, which is the fruit of love and indicates the awakening of the love petals of the egoic lotus.
    11. Sacrifice, which is the giving of the heart's blood or life for others.
  6. After a quiet meditation on one of these qualities of soul expression as they manifest upon the physical plane, sound the 0M three times.

I would remind you that these soul qualities, which express themselves through the heart center, must be interpreted esoterically and in terms of relation. Bear this in mind and as you meditate, seek ever the inner significance and not just the assembling of thought upon these qualities. Most of the thoughts and ideas which will come to you in this connection will be well known and so purely exoteric. There are, however, secondary meanings which are of real significance to the disciple though almost unknown to the average man. Endeavor to find these.

I would ask you, my brother, as a service to the group, each month to write a short paper on these twelve qualities as expressions of soul energies, thus giving your brothers the fruit of your month's meditation. Be of good courage and let not physical liability hinder your inner life and joy. Seek closer contact with me, your Master, and look for response.
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