MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:

Much that I have written to S. C. P. is also of prime importance to you. I refer not to it here as I have other things about which I wish to speak to you. I urge you from my heart (which enfolds you in its constant love) to look away from yourself and dwell not with such constancy upon your failures to achieve. Recognize failure - if it is there - but then with a face lifted to the light and a smile upon your lips, turn your back upon such failure and go with steadfastness forward.

D. A. 0., a member of my group of disciples, learns not with ease the lesson of self-discipline, and the glamor of the fear of authority has descended upon her. She has asked permission to leave my group and for some one else to function in her place. I am suggesting to her that she regard herself as suspended from her group endeavor and from my so-called control and take one year for careful thought, prior to taking final decision. To prove to you that your failure is basically superficial I am asking you to do for me a definite service. I could not so ask you if you had failed. For the space of a year I would ask you to take over the work and place of D. A. O. in my group and so help preserve the integrity of the group relationship. This is not the first time that you have done this and hence my immediate thought of you. But though instinctively my mind decided to ask this service of you, I have a twofold reason. You have a surety of touch and a freedom from glamor which is sorely needed by the immediate associates D. A. 0. in my group. You succumb somewhat yourself to the glamor of failure but are seldom glimmered where the principles of group work are concerned. I can trust you to give what is needed. Secondly, you have a clarity of vision which is true and constructive - in those cases where your personality love is not involved. Where it is involved, you are prone to over-estimate the loved ones and see too much for them. Is this not so, my brother? [367]

In this case however, your vision will be clear and true. So take the place of D. A. 0. and give of your best in the situation. But vacate not your own place in my group.

D. A. O. 's concept of freedom - as is the case with all such concepts - can act as a prison. Her idea of liberty can be a chain, holding her down. This is the lesson she must learn. Her service in my group comes second to her love of her own progress and this I shall have to point out to her. Disciples, working in an Ashram, are none of them entirely free agents. Each is held by a soul link to his co-disciples. Responsibility undertaken and karmic relationships recognized cannot be lightly set aside and must ultimately be worked out. The discipline of the group life is a higher living discipline than any self-imposed ideas of life and truth. When a disciple sees and relates his individual dharma and his group responsibility - then he can take right action.

Will you assist me in this problem? I know you will, my brother. And will you take this as an evidence of my faith and trust in you and also as evidence of the needless astral anxiety under which you so constantly labor?