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Discipleship in the New Age I - Personal Instructions to Disciples - I.B.S.
February 1938 MY BROTHER: The coming year will see you facing two basic decisions. What they will be is not for me to indicate. Through recognition of the decisive crises in life, the disciple gains the strength to stand alone and detached, and, through the ability to stand detached, comes the power which the divine Observer can wield if he does not identify himself with circumstance. One of the things which will emerge during the coming century will be a better understanding of the Law of Cycles. There will then eventuate a comprehension of the life rhythm with its high moments, its dark and depressed hours (I speak not in terms of emotional reaction but of the alternates to the moments of altitude) and its difficult interludes wherein understanding is wrought out through the action of applied reason. It is particularly wise for sixth ray people to master the Law of Cycles and of rhythmic growth, for their predisposition to fanatical and violent activity can be offset by wise handling of the life rhythm. You have passed through a period of expanded service; it has carried you far from the life intent of earlier years and new relations and new forces motivate your days. See to it that enough of the old conditions and the old relations are preserved in order to guarantee continuity and stability. I seek to word the teaching which I give to you and your co disciples in this group in such a way that perception may come to those for whom the specific teaching is intended, yet nothing need be said which would foment curiosity in the minds of the other disciples in the group. You have traveled far during the past six years and your life trend (and by this I mean your spiritual life trend) is now definitely established. I use these words in order to express the idea of the soul's intention. Can you cast your mind back to [257] the year in which that orientation became definite? Such retrospects have real value, my brother. I seek today to deal with the mental problems of the disciples in this group. I told you earlier that your mental body was conditioned by the fourth Ray of Harmony through Conflict. This ray has been a factor which has resolved many of the difficulties set in motion by your sixth ray personality, focused and made more powerful by a sixth ray astral body. The personality is always predominantly allied with or focused in one of its three aspects. I will endeavor to show you now the vehicles through which the soul ray also outstandingly expresses itself: Soul energy, in your case, seeks expression through the vital or etheric body. Personality force is focused in the astral body. A little reflection upon these two facts will make clear to you wherein your life problem consists. It has been the problem of fusing and blending the personality so that the energy of the soul may control from mental levels, and so employ your fourth ray mental body that the over-activity of the vital and the astral bodies may be overcome. It is helpful to know this, is it not? There are certain great aligning qualities which are brought into play when the soul can grip and control the vital body, but they demonstrate more as physical vitality than as qualities in consciousness. This I think you know. During the remainder of your life, if you will work with and control (as a soul) your mental body, you will enter into your next incarnation with the control of the personality centered in the mind. That means a greatly expanded consciousness and far more power to serve - power adjusted to the need which is faced. What, my brother, are the characteristics of a fourth ray mental body? Let me list a few of them for you, leaving you to make your own application, in truthfulness and understanding.
Destructive | Constructive
An inner mental battle. | The resolution of the pairs of opposites. [258]
Many antagonisms. | Non-partisanship. The Middle Way.
Prejudice. | Tolerant understanding.
Personality unity and synthesis. | Group unity and synthesis.
Discord, interior and exterior. | Hamony within and without.
Environal problems. | Environal peace.
Imposition of the personal will. | Expression of the will-to-love.
There are, of course, many other qualities and tendencies but I have enumerated those of the greatest usefulness to you. I would remind you that the fourth ray is, when a part of the personality force equipment, the expression of the will-to-love (either in the material sense or in the spiritual). It is, therefore, allied to the first ray, through its will emphasis. It should not be so difficult for you, consequently, to shift your soul emphasis into the "mind area" and from there control the physical body instead of controlling it (as is now the case) by a great effort of soul control from soul levels. This is a hint to the way of release for you. However, as you seek to bring about this emphasis, remember always, my brother of old, that it must be the will-to-love which is essential to you; it is to this end that I suggest the assigned meditation. I would suggest that you concentrate upon this fourth ray, with its keynote of the will-to-love, expressed in harmony whilst in the midst of conflict. In your next incarnation, you should function through a second ray personality but this will depend upon the success of your present effort and upon your ability to grasp the outlines of your task. You have, therefore, to transmute your sixth ray devotional and fanatical tendencies into spiritual love and strength; your one-pointedness must be based on an inclusive orientation. It has, hitherto, been based on sixth ray aspiration. In the future, it must be founded on intelligent conviction - a very different thing, my brother, and mental in nature. I would ask you to make a careful study of all that you can find anent the fourth ray in A Treatise on the Seven Rays and make definite application to your own mental unfoldment and a practical interpretation of its desired effects in terms of your own life. You should ask yourself the following question: What will be the effect, in the personality life upon the physical [259] plane, of an established alignment between my first ray soul, my fourth ray mentality and my physical brain? I assign, therefore, the following meditation: Achieve alignment, conscious fusion and stability. Then definitely and consciously shift your attention into the mental body.... Next, consider the pairs of opposites with which your personality must deal in this life. Do this by the aid of your fourth ray mental body. Visualize these pairs of opposites as two high mountains, separated by a narrow pass between them; this is, for you, the symbol of "the narrow way." See these mountains, standing on either hand, one in the shade and the other in the light. See the narrow way between as a golden pathway. Then picture yourself as "passing between." As you do this remember that your soul is observing you, the personality, progressing on this Middle Way. Then take the following seed thoughts for careful reflection: 1st month - I stand in light, the One Who can observe. 2nd month - The distant, wandering one, who is my little self, I call to me. 3rd month - Between the Pillars of the Way, I pass, I leave these twain on either hand. 4th month - The Middle Way leads to a bridge and on that bridge I stand. 5th month - And on that bridge I meet my Self. 6th month - And thus the two are one and harmony is now established.
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