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Discipleship in the New Age I - Personal Instructions to Disciples - D.P.R.
August 1936 MY BROTHER AND FRIEND: The past six months have seen you subjected to much outer change; you have passed through difficulties of various kinds and many adjustments and readjustments; you have known physical suffering and pain, accompanied, at times by bewilderment. Is this not so? But none of these things have held you or destroyed you, nor have they succeeded in tarnishing the white shield of your fiery faith. This you have held ever before you. Such conditions of difficulty must be expected by all aspirants who have reached the point in their evolution when they can find their way into these groups. All of your group brothers have experienced a hard time and, without exception, have been tested and tried, or are being tested and tried. They are wrestling with glamor, apparently bewildered and held back by physical liability; their usefulness is apparently curtailed through financial stringency; readjustments through loss of some kind is apparently crippling the endeavor of others, even [395] to the point of producing a temporary inertia. Such is the group history at this particular time. Let me put this still more clearly so that the group need and problem (which is formed by the sumtotal of the needs and the problems of all its members) may stand revealed and thus spur you all on to a closer cooperation with each other and a more loving understanding. Let us look at the situation, as I see it, of the various members. Several have had readjustments to make of a very drastic nature in their daily life. The entire rhythm of ordinary existence has been changed. This I foretold many months ago, and time has proved the exactness of my foretelling. The difficulties have been real, but service to others has increased. One of your co-disciples, as her correspondence shews, has had deeper inner problems to solve, based on her immediate point of view and the fact that she is swinging more potently on to mental levels, as a result of her concentrated work with me. This has brought about an inevitable reaction to the rhythm and tendency of the mental plane to produce a sense of isolation (which can be enjoyed in the earlier stages). All this has been complicated by financial anxiety, with its power to cloud the vision. She is on her way out, but her mental stress is definitely affecting the group life. It will enrich the group life if she achieves the grace of standing steady until she has time to clarify her vision in either direction, and until she realizes that no one achieves anything of reality by the laying down of any assumed responsibility. Another has been subjected to the strain of constant and, at times, serious ill health, with its consequent reactions on the thought life and on the emotional life. The struggle with sickness and with fatigue, plus an equally constant urge to serve and to help, constitute no simple problem. This problem, she complicates by an undue analysis of circumstances and people. One of my disciples, close to all of you, has had a long period (extending over many years) of strain, incident to environing conditions, much monotony in his life outline and certain deep disappointments. He is dealing with them as one might expect. You, my brother, know to what you have had to rise, as the months have slipped away. You have met this with wisdom, [396] good intention and self-sacrifice. May I say (and I say it with a twinkle in my eye and with love) that you have not yet learnt to enjoy them. D. H. B. has been through the fire. His tests and difficulties have been greater, fiercer and deeper than any that have come to the other group members. Pressure incident to his home karma, frustrations coming from his environment, misunderstandings of differing kinds, basic bad health at all times, plus the serious accident of the immediate past, loneliness, pain and clouds of recognized glamor have sought to engulf him. They cannot do so. This he also knows and is coming through. A member of your group of co-disciples has been through deep sorrow, as all of you know. The processes of readjusting the rhythm of her life, becoming accustomed definitely to changed conditions, to loneliness and loss is weighing heavily upon her. She must realize that she is on her way to a greatly enriched life of service, and that her only present need is to stand steady and to give herself time to stabilize into her new rhythm. Still another brother is fighting deep discouragement, and the glamor of futility (after so many years as a disciple) is seeking to swing him off the Path. His characteristic life tendency of pushing unemotionally straight ahead will save him here, for he will penetrate the glamor in time and come out into the light of the "Lighted Way," but the clouds at times and at present seem to him very thick. L. T. S-K. is experiencing a new opportunity to "come clear," but the trial, testing and bewilderment are severe. He feels alone. He believes himself misunderstood and underrated. There can be many close to one and watching over one in a fog, and yet they can remain unrecognized. The point I am seeking to make, as I give you all this brief resume of the immediate and basic problems which confront each of you is that these conditions do have a potent effect upon the group life and the group integration, and that the quicker they are handled and ended the better for the group. They are to be handled by the assuming of a right inner attitude and not by the changing of outer circumstances. When an individual is occupied and preoccupied with a particular and [397] peculiar problem, he is necessarily introverted. The life of the group then necessarily suffers and becomes starved, limited and curtailed. When the group members realize this fact more clearly, then they will endeavor to go through their experiences together (which prevents the development of an unwholesome and selfish introversion) and the problems of one will become the problems of all. Not idly have you all been brought together into this close relation with each other. Therefore give to each other more freely, but without criticism and enquiry; love and steady each other as you go through the needed fusing and testing. This has to be undergone and more rightly handled before I can give you any definite world work to do along the line of breaking up the world illusion. How can you destroy (on a large scale) that which you do not understand, handle and disperse (on a small scale) in your own lives? This future work should be possible some day. I seek not to change your meditation, except to alter its monthly theme. These monthly themes should, during the next six months, be as follows: 1st month - Why is happiness needed in order to: a. Tread the Path of Revelation. b. Meet the needs of others. c. Clear away the obstacles I find? 2nd month - What is the relation of happiness to joy? a. What do I know of each? b. Which is characteristic of the soul? 3rd month - How can the words and the understanding of "the joy of the Lord is your strength" affect my daily life? a. In what ways can I demonstrate joy? b. How can I shew forth happiness? c. What are the differences in these two? 4th month - In what way can joy and happiness undermine fear, and liberate me from fears? 5th month - How can I enter into the joy which the Masters know? a. Upon what is this joy based? b. What effect can joy have upon the world of illusion? [398] 6th month - Why must I bring joy to my group brothers? a. How can I do this in each specific case, for each case differs? b. What are the major hindrances to my own joyfulness? Thus, my brother, you can train yourself to build in that quality of joy which is the characteristic of a personality which is consciously anchored in the soul realm.
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