It
is a truism in occultism that no new teaching can be given until
that already given has been put into practice. This is a law.
There is no way you can take in anything higher until you have
put into practice what you have already received.
Mainly,
people approach esotericism as if it were an academic subject
in which you take exams and get a degree. It is not like that
at all. Certainly there are degrees, degrees of initiation, but
you can become an initiate without knowing anything about esoteric
theory or practice at all, by living naturally, intuitively, the
life of a disciple. You have to do it one way or the other. You
can do it intuitively, or through the acquiring of knowledge and
the application of the rules and precepts in your life, moment
to moment. It is an all-day affair.
In
my experience, most people set about being a disciple in a very
lukewarm way. He/she fits it into their everyday life when there
is a moment to spare. The average disciple does not realize that
the disciple is a different person from the rest of humanity.
The rules and laws which apply - even the laws of cause and effect
and of rebirth - which affect humanity willy-nilly - affect the
disciple differently, according to his ability to work within
them and to manipulate them to the soul's needs.
A
disciple, or anyone who has the aspiration to become a disciple,
must recognize first of all that he is an ordinary human being
who has made a pledge and has taken in hand the development of
his own evolution. He is learning to work with the soul and to
carry out its purpose. The soul's purpose, whatever other purposes
it may have, is, under the Law of Sacrifice, to work with the
plan of evolution in so far as the disciple can intuit it and
put it into effect in his or her life. Only the rudiments of the
plan may become real in his or her consciousness, but in so far
as these aspects do become real, it behooves him or her to put
it into effect in life. Actually doing this is very rare indeed.
It
is not the forces of evil that worry the Christ and the Masters
of the Hierarchy. They can cope with the forces of evil rather
well. Most people think that the main obstacles to the externalization
of the Hierarchy and the spiritualization of the life of humanity
are the problems involved with the forces of materiality. There
are such problems. But some of the quickest responders to that
materiality are the disciples of the world. It is the ingrained
materiality, and, above all, inertia, of disciples as well as
everyone else that keeps humanity in thrall to the forces of materiality,
the forces of evil as we call them. Disciples are doubly responsible.
They have the responsibility of ordinary humanity but extra responsibility
because they know some aspects of the truth.
They
have taken upon themselves to do something about changing the
situation in the world, and to change their own nature in such
a way as to work intelligently with the Plan. Yet people are so
steeped in materialism - it is so ingrained in the vast body of
even the world's disciples, that little or no action is taken
by any of us to remedy the situation. We remain as engrossed in
materialism as anyone else. That is the problem for the Christ
and the Masters: not the forces of evil, but the inertia, the
crippling inertia of the disciples of the world.
I learned recently from my Master that the average number of minutes
in which people in the Transmission Meditation groups around the
world are actually aligned, in which the physical brain and the
soul are aligned - and so they are being transmitted through and
therefore doing the work of Transmission - is astonishingly small.
Why is this? There has to be a reason why, after 10 years, you
are still doing so poorly - for example, this is the 10th year
in which I have come to the United States and the 10th year in
which some of you have been doing Transmission Meditation. "What
have you been doing all these years?" I ask myself. Of course
it is a question of polarization. If one is astrally polarized
- and the majority of people in these groups are - it is more
difficult to hold the attention at the ajna center and so be aligned
for longer than a few minutes at a time.
Also
people do not seem to know the difference between being aligned
and not being aligned. They really think they are aligned. I am
sure all of you are shocked by this statement. You imagine you
are aligned yet, quite frankly, most of the time you are not.
What are you doing if you are not aligned? I suggest that you
are in a state of reverie. You are ruminating. You are in a state
in which your attention is hovering around the solar plexus. But
since you know that Transmission Meditation involves focusing
your attention at the ajna centre, and since from time to time,
when you remember, you can bring the attention back there, you
forget that it has dropped. But within a few minutes it has dropped.
If you add up the few minutes in which it is really held at the
ajna centre and in which you are transmitting, it comes to - on
average - four to five minutes in the hour. Some people do only
an hour's Transmission in the week. That is four to five minutes
in the week. It is not a lot.
'The
Role of Transmission Meditation in the Development of the Disciple'
(the title of a previous talk, printed in Share International
July/Aug 1989) is something which does not apply to people who
are doing four or five minutes' actual Transmission in the week.
Little can be expected to happen in that time. Nevertheless enough
happens to make Transmission Meditation a powerful way to serve.
If you are transmitting four or five minutes in the hour even
for only one hour a week, you are receiving the benefit of these
spiritual forces through the chakras in a way still more powerful
than you would have achieved by any other method, given the same
amount of time and effort. The point is, people do not make much
effort. They think they do. They mean well. Everyone means well.
Everyone imagines that they are working quite hard. But from a
Master's point of view they are only playing at being in a Transmission
group, playing at helping the world.
A
Transmission Meditation group contacts spiritual energies which
transform the whole world - politically, economically, socially
and so on. Most people are contributing to this only for a few
minutes a week, yet they feel that they are in a very potent,
powerful situation - which they are; but only because these energies
are so potent, so powerful, are these short minutes of actual
Transmission worth anything at all. Discipleship, for most people,
is an activity which they fit into their general life. They go
through the motions. Their first priority is to earn their living.
Everyone - almost everyone - has to earn their living. That is
true for everyone at every level. That takes precedence, it would
seem, over everything else that people do. Then you must have
vacations. That is the second priority. If you have family, you
have to look after them and clothe and feed them and take them
on vacation and so on. People will spend enormous amounts of time,
energy and money on vacations, on restaurant meals, on having
a nice, pleasant, civilized time. There is nothing wrong with
that. Except that it has nothing to do with discipleship.
Commitment
Discipleship
means commitment to the life of the disciple and that is distinctly
different from the life of the average human being. He is in the
world, part of the world, totally identified with and serving
the world, and yet, in a curious way, he is isolated from the
world. He is in the peculiar position of isolation amidst the
maelstrom of everyday living. And the disciple feels things more
powerfully, more painfully than other people. Everyone can see
the pain, the suffering of the world - the starving millions,
poverty, earthquakes, the terrible diseases which ravage humanity.
Everyone is moved by that. But the disciple very often sees it
more clearly than others. And being more sensitive to that suffering
because aware of being a soul in incarnation and committed to
serving and relieving it, he/she feels it more than most people.
So why does he not act on it? Well, of course, people do act on
it.
Many
people devote themselves totally to the service of the world,
to removing the agony of the world. But they tend not to be students
of esotericism. They tend to be people who could not care less
about esotericism, who have no sense of being anything very special,
but are simply committed to service. They are disciples carrying
out the actions and undergoing the training of discipleship through
service without even giving it a thought. How much more can you
do when you do give it thought. When you do know yourselves as
disciples, consciously seeking to fulfil the requirements of discipleship.
What is missing in the life of the average disciple is a sense
of vocation - of vocation as a disciple. Discipleship in a sense
is a vocation. You are called to it: not by God but by your own
soul. Your own soul makes you a disciple.
You
are a disciple as soon as you contact your soul and your soul
drives you forward. The average disciple, however, simply fits
his vocation into his everyday life. He does not see it as the
aim of this particular incarnation. He does not, therefore, generate
the fire which makes discipleship what it should be: a path which
will take him as fast as possible to the door of initiation. You
cannot enter the door of initiation lukewarm; it has never been
done. Sooner or later that lukewarm attitude has to change. If
not in this life, then in the next or the one after. The soul
is in no hurry. The soul has endless time, all infinity. But if
you are in a hurry, if you sense the world need, you can be sure
that just being a disciple when it is convenient, when there is
nothing better on television, when you are feeling better, when
you are no longer in pain or your stomach is not upset, is not
enough.
People
allow all sorts of little things to prevent them from being a
disciple: the fatigue of the physical body - which everyone shares
- is nothing special. Everyone's body is deficient in some way
and they have pains, illnesses, suffering of all kinds. The point
is not to let it get you down or prevent you from carrying out
your actions. Two of the great disciples of recent years known
to us - Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Alice A. Bailey - were ill
for a great deal of their lives. But they never let illness prevent
them from serving the world as few have done.
As
you know, for 30 years Alice Bailey served as the amanuensis of
the Master DK. For much of that time she was ill and sat up in
bed writing until she could not write any more, literally could
not write another word. Then the Master changed the procedure
and she was able to read His teaching on a kind of internal screen,
which she read out and recorded on tape for someone else to type
from. For years she worked under extreme disability.
Madame
Blavatsky was ill with kidney and half a dozen other diseases
for the last 13 years of her life. Only her Master, the Master
Morya, kept her in the body so that she could finish her work:
bringing to the world The Secret Doctrine.
These
two initiates brought the will to bear on the work. They ignored
the physical body. They ignored their upset emotional states brought
about by family discord and very often calumny and treachery from
those closest to them. They ignored all that and got on with the
work of being disciples: doing their work for the plan. If they
could do it, others can do it. Of course, being third and fourth
degree initiates, respectively, made it easier for them. They
were not only mentally but spiritually polarized. If you are spiritually
polarized you are living and working as a soul and the soul's
energy is propelling you forward all the time and carving the
path for you. But the will still has to come into play - especially
if the physical body is disabled or the emotional body disturbed.
If you are polarized on the astral plane, however, as most people
are, you are subject to all the limitations and illusions of that
plane. What can you do about it? You must bring the mind to bear.
It is the light of the soul focused through the mental body, through
the mind, that dissipates the glamour. You must look at the glamours,
not be content with them but work continuously to overcome them,
instead of saying, "That's how I am, I am afraid, what can I do
but live in fear?" You do not have to live in fear. No one has
to live in fear. Fear is a glamour like every other glamour, the
worst there is, underlying, I believe, most other glamours. It
must be overcome by anyone who has any hope of standing before
the Initiator. You cannot take initiation, become initiate, while
you live in fear. You can never become a Master until you have,
not just courage, but the total absence of fear. You need courage
to tackle the fear and to demonstrate in your life that forward
looking, advancing impetus and effort of a true disciple.
Let
me quote a few statements which the Master DK gave through Alice
Bailey to show you how the Masters have always looked on this
matter:
"When
the Self is known and not simply felt, and when the realization
is mental as well as sensory, then truly can the aspirant be prepared
for initiation. I would like to point out that I am basing my
words on certain basic assumptions, which for the sake of clarity
I want briefly to state. Firstly, that the student is sincere
in his aspiration and is determined to go forward no matter what
may be the reaction of and upon his lower self. Only those who
can clearly differentiate between the two aspects of their nature,
the real self and the illusory self, can work intelligently. Secondly,
I am acting upon the assumption that all have lived long enough
and battled sufficiently with deterrent forces of life to have
enabled them to develop a fairly true sense of values. They are
not to be kept back by any happenings to the personality or by
the pressure of time and circumstance, by age or physical disability.
They have wisely learned that enthusiastic rushing forward and
a violent energetic progress has its drawbacks, and that a steady,
regular, persistent endeavour will carry them further in the long
run. Spasmodic spurts of effort and temporary pressure peter out
into disappointment and a weighty sense of failure. Nevertheless,
intention and effort are considered by us (the Masters) of prime
importance and are the two main requisites for all disciples,
initiates and Masters. Plus the power of persistence.
The
whole secret of success in treading the occult path depends upon
an attitude of mind. When the attitude is one of concrete materialism,
of concentration upon form, and a desire for the things of the
present moment, little progress can be made in apprehending the
higher esoteric truths. The moment a man becomes consciously powerful
on the mental plane, his power for good is a hundredfold increased.
Most men do not yet distinguish with accuracy between themselves
as the thinker, persistent in time and space, and the vehicle
through which they think, which is ephemeral and transient. One
of the first lessons which a disciple needs to learn is that where
he is strongest and where he finds the most satisfaction is very
frequently the point of greatest danger and weakness."
Everyone
wants higher teaching. Everyone wants something they have never
read or heard of before - whether or not they have put into effect
what they already know. People are greedy in their curiosity.
They want more sensation, the sensation of the new. But the sensation
of the new will never take you to the door of initiation - only
the application of certain laws: the Law of Service, the Law of
Sacrifice, the building of the Antahkarana, the removal of all
perception that the physical, emotional or mental bodies are of
any consequence at all to the soul, except as vehicles of expression.
Once
understood, this relates you to the path of discipleship, and
will bring you to the door of initiation more directly than anything
else. It is not a question of more teaching, though everyone wants
more teaching, more techniques, more tools. They have all the
techniques, the tools, the teaching, more than enough, more than
they could ever use, or ever do use. Most do not put into practice
the teaching already given. There is no higher teaching than that
which we can actually put into practice. If it cannot be put into
practice, it does not matter whether it is so high that it can
be understood only by eighth degree initiates.
It
does not mean anything to you unless you can put it into practice.
Use the teaching which has already been given. Put it into practice
and you will advance faster than your greatest expectations. When
you do this, when you put teaching into practice in this way,
it becomes your own, no longer an abstract teaching, an academic
subject. It becomes yours. You become the path. The path unfolds
before you as you practise the requirements of discipleship. The
path is not over there, or in that book, or in this technique
- it is something which unfolds out of your consciousness. The
path for everyone is unique. Of course, there are certain basic,
fundamental requirements which never change, which are of the
nature of deity itself. Remember that the path of discipleship
leading to initiation, and the path of initiation leading to Mastery,
is the path to God. It is the path of the unfolding of one's divinity.
That is what it is about, and one should never forget that. Most
people tend to forget it. It becomes peripheral to their lives,
which is like saying that my very nature is peripheral to my life;
my life peripheral to me. But I am my life. If I am not my life,
I am nothing.
How
can your own life and the movement towards the expression of that
divinity be peripheral to your day-to-day life? You have to make
it your vocation. If you want to become a disciple, you must become
fiery with enthusiasm. You have to move in a state of joy, of
commitment, of high expectation that you are following a path
which will lead you to initiation. Otherwise your action will
be so lukewarm it will take the next 50 incarnations to reach
what you can reach in this incarnation.
Reprinted
with the kind permission of Share International Magazine.
