Alice Bailey - Autobiography

To Netnews Homepage Previous Next Index Table of Contents

Autobiography of Alice A. Bailey - Chapter V

Life in this postwar world is too important to any man or woman to occupy themselves with defaming and running down people who have been dead for decades. There is work to be done in the world today; there is truth to be recognized and proclaimed and there is no room for muckraking and personality slandering by those who want to make a few hundred dollars from the enemies of a teaching. This is one reason why I am writing this autobiography. The facts are here.

In these early days of which I write no one would have believed that the time would come when the teaching that I was just beginning to give out and the work to which Foster and I dedicated ourselves would assume such proportions, that its various branches are now internationally recognized and that the teaching would have helped so many hundreds of thousands. We stood alone with, perhaps, a few unknown followers against one of the most powerful so-called occult bodies in the world. We had no money and we saw no future ahead. Our joint finances on the day when we sat down to size up the situation and to lay plans for the future were exactly $1.85. It was the end of the month, the rent was due, the grocer's bill for the past month was not paid, nor was the rent or the gas, light or milk bill. As we were not married none of these were Foster's responsibility but, even in those days, he shared all things with me. We were drawing no salaries [179] from the T.S. and my very small income was not available. There seemed nothing for me to do.

Personally, though I am recognized all over the world as a teacher of meditation I have at the same time never relinquished my habit of prayer. I believe that the true occultist uses prayer and meditation interchangeably according to need and that both are equally important in the spiritual life. The trouble with prayer has been that the average human being makes it entirely a selfish thing and a means of acquisition of things for the separated self. True prayer asks nothing for the separated self but it will always be used by those who seek to help others. Some people are too superior to pray and regard meditation as far more exalted and more fitted to their high point of development. For me it has always been enough that Christ not only prayed but taught us the Lord's Prayer. To me, also, meditation is a mental process whereby one can acquire clear knowledge of divinity and awareness of the kingdom of souls, or the kingdom of God. It is the mode of the head and of the mind and is greatly needed by the unthinking people of the world. Prayer is of the emotional nature and of the heart and is universally used for the satisfaction of desire. Both should be used by the aspiring disciples of the world. Later I will touch upon Invocation which is the synthesis of the two.

Anyway, in this time of material need I - again as usual - stuck to prayer and that night I prayed. The next morning when I went out on to the porch I found there the needed cash and, within a day or two Foster Bailey got a letter from Mr. Ernest Suffern offering him a position in New York in connection with the T.S. of that city at a salary of $300 a month. He also offered to purchase a house for us in a small commuting-town across the Hudson. Foster accepted the offer and left for New York whilst I [180] stayed behind to see what the developments were and to take care of the children.

Living with me at that time was Augusta Craig, commonly called "Craigie" by all of us who knew and loved her. She lived with us off and on for many years and was greatly loved by me and the children. She was a unique person, rippling with wit and mentality. She never approached a problem in the ordinary way or from the ordinary angle. Perhaps this was because she had been four times married and had a vast experience of men and matters. She was one of the few people to whom I could go for advice because she and I so thoroughly understood each other. She had a caustic tongue and yet was so permeated with "It" that no matter where we were the postman, the milkman and the iceman, if unmarried, all tried to beguile her away from me. But she would have none of them. She decided life with me was interesting enough and she stuck with me until a few years before her death when she went into an old ladies' home in California, largely, she told me, because she had no use for old ladies. However, being an old lady and over 70 when she left me she thought they might profit from some of her experiences. I do not think she enjoyed the other ladies but she felt she was very good for them and I'll guarantee she was. She was always very good for me.

The time came at the end of 1920 when Foster wrote to me to join him in New York and I left the children in Craigie's care, knowing they would be safe, cared for and loved. I travelled to New York where Foster met me and took me to an apartment house in Yonkers, not far from the lodgings in which he was living. We married very shortly afterwards, going to the City Hall one morning, procuring a license, asking the man at the license bureau to recommend a clergyman for the marriage ceremony and [181] getting married at once. We returned to the office immediately for the afternoon's work and from that moment we have carried on for 26 years.

To Netnews Homepage Previous Next Index Table of Contents