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Discipleship in the New Age I - Personal Instructions to Disciples - I.B.S.
November 1935 MY BROTHER: The past year of effort should have prepared you for changes and for increased usefulness in service. That your will is directed to service is well known to me and to your fellow disciples but your field of service should be greater at this time than it is. Wherein lies the difficulty? Why are you not more [244] potent in helping others than you are? Shall I tell you why, my brother? The reason is to be found in the difficult combination caused by your two rays in expression - the sixth ray and the first. When your sixth ray personality can work, free from the influence of your soul ray and be one-pointedly directed towards some determined program, there is no hindrance in your physical plane expression. When your first ray ego can likewise so work, then much will be accomplished by you. But, at the present time, your first ray expression in conjunction with your sixth ray personality produces more destructive work than a manifestation of the divine purpose of your soul. In your efforts, for instance, to help people, your sixth ray devotion is apt to frighten them away from you and your first ray power oft shatters that particular inner body which is for them their weakest point; you are then left as ever the "one who stands alone." This is characteristic of the beginner in the conscious life of a first ray soul. Is this not oft the case with you, my brother? It is not that people do not love you, for they do; it is not that you do not love them, for you do. It is that you are too dynamic in your approach and the force that flows through you destroys as quickly as it builds and drives away by its "blast of outgoing power" that which you sought to attract and which has been temporarily attracted. You lose so many people out of your range of influence, and this you well know and it bewilders you. The fault lies primarily in you and not in them. You see, my brother, I am seeking to begin your training as a worker; hence my emphasis upon this first ray characteristic of your soul (as it vitalizes your sixth ray nature) . You must begin to handle it wisely if you are ever to be of use. In an earlier teaching, I endeavored to awaken you to the risk of constantly assuming the position of the "one in the center." That attitude, as well as the one to which I today refer, is also distinctive of a first ray soul and the presence of these two attitudes (of the one in the center and the one who stands alone) are indicative of the fact that your first ray soul is beginning to assume some control over your personality. Is this not a real encouragement? You are on the verge of seeing the [245] results of your work with your own nature. If you can accept that which I have to say in connection with the destructive aspects of your soul contact, you can save yourself much difficulty and trouble and save other people too. You might rightly ask me how and in what manner you can offset these tendencies. I can but reply to you with simple and ordinary truths - so simple and so ordinary that their scientific value is easily overlooked. I say to you: Lose interest in your personality life, in its contacts and affairs by substituting a dynamic interest in world work. Do not arrive at this detachment through an intensification of your sixth ray personality attitudes; we do not desire to have fanatics in association with us. Arrive at it through a deepening of your love nature as it includes others and excludes your own lower nature. I say to you: Work with detachment and, because you are demanding nothing for the separated self, all things will, therefore, come to you. You will not then stand alone but will function as an attractive magnetic unit in group service. Here, therefore, lies your immediate problem. You have to learn to be decentralized and to step out of the center of your own picture. You have to learn to be magnetic and to build and not destroy. Ponder on these suggestions and work simply, quietly and happily at your problem. You are facing strange and new contacts and hence you can, if you so choose, expand your field of service. Forget not, however, that every expansion of consciousness, resulting in increased scope for service, is to be taken at a cost and for this you will have to be prepared. But you are a strong and steadfast soul, provided you can keep a poised and steadfast attitude of mind and emotion and preserve yourself free from personal ambition. Then you can win through to your goal. Leave people free and seek not to influence them or to impose your ideas upon them. Your interpretation of them and of their need (no matter how close they may be to you) is not necessarily correct. Leave people free in all respects - with the freedom that you demand and expect for yourself. May I, in all love and tenderness, suggest that the ideas, methods, formulas and ways of living which seem right to you (and are right for you) may be entirely undesirable for others and that, if you force them on those others, their souls may remove them from [246] your influence in the cause of freedom to expand. In this suggestion lies for you the clue to much that is destructive in your best effort and this should convey to you the method for your and their deliverance. You may now resume your full quota of work and I suggest for your consideration the following breathing exercise. Please continue with the same meditation. Do a simple breathing exercise each morning and as you work at it, regard it as your meditation process, and so run a dual line of thought and work. Proceed as follows: Inhale on 8 counts, and as you do so, say to yourself, retaining the entire process in the head and on mental levels: "With self-forgetfulness I gather what I need for the helping of my fellowmen." Then follows an interlude of 12 slow counts, during which you ponder on the strength, the wisdom and the love which must be shown to your fellowmen. Exhale on 10 counts, saying: "With self-forgetfulness, I breathe out love upon my fellowmen." Then comes an interlude of 12 counts in which you ponder upon love to all beings. Then repeat the process, only this time carry on the work entirely in the heart instead of in the head.
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