SOUND THE NOTE OF LOVE,
Question 4. Of what value is it to know about the seven rays?
Question
four is of importance on account of its vital practicality. In the last analysis, definition conveys
mental satisfaction but is no criterion as to applied knowledge.
Above
everything else, it is necessary that the aspirant be practical. The days of a mystical and dreamy
consciousness are rapidly passing away, and as man, through understanding of
psychology, comes to a more accurate knowledge of himself he will begin to act
with precision and with intelligence; he will know with exactitude the way that
he should go, and will comprehend the forces in his own nature which will lead
to specific action when brought into touch with the forces of his
environment. Aspirants should endeavour
to make practical application of the imparted truths, and so minimise their
responsibility. Where there is acquired
knowledge and when no use is made of it there exists a condition of danger and
subsequent penalty.
Much has
been given in previous books which awaits your adaptation and useful
service. Much will be given in the
present volume, but students need to remember that they themselves evoke and
call forth the teaching they receive.
The position between me and those who are reading is not that of a
teacher imposing a system of knowledge upon a group of waiting pupils. The group is simply the channel through which
a particular aspect of the Ageless Wisdom can reach a waiting world. I do not regard you as a body of good men and
women, who, because of your point in evolution, are deemed worthy to receive
something esoteric and unusual, and hence withheld from the rest of the
race. I regard you as sincerely
interested in the spiritual life, as concerned with the endeavour to be intelligent,
and as willing (more or less) to try to live as souls, and to use as much of
the imparted teaching as can be understood.
What use students make of it is entirely their own affair. But the value of any group of aspirants and
disciples consists [Page 111] in this: They
can—if they so choose and if their united aspiration is strong enough—draw
forth the teaching, and so form a centre through which that teaching may go
forth and begin its work of moulding human thought, of throwing light upon the
problems of psychology, and of so expanding the point of truth (anent the seven
rays, an ancient septenate, but little comprehended) that a new realisation may
be evolved and a new science of psychology may be launched upon its career.
You ask,
therefore: What must we as a group do that we may be of service, and so
constitute a good channel for the helping of humanity?
First of
all, you must see to it that your attitude towards all teaching is that of
willing service, with no thought of self.
The growth in spiritual realisation and the lifting of humanity is that
which is of moment, and not your own personal growth or development, nor your
own satisfaction at receiving special and new information. You will grow, and your soul will take
increasing hold upon its instrument, when your mind and effort are turned
towards group service, and when your tongue is rendered harmless, through the
inflow of Love.
Secondly,
let not your mind be occupied with idle speculations as to the identity of the
teacher. What matters it who he is? Can you prove his identity in one way or
another? And of what value is it to
accept the statements of any fellow student who may claim to be informed on the
matter, be he who he may? You cannot
prove him right or wrong, and therefore it remains a waste of time which could
well be given to more fruitful service, to closer study of the life-essentials,
and to meditation.
What is
taught should matter. The aspects of
truth which I present to your consideration should count; the measure of help which
I can give and the spiritual and mental stimulation which I may impart are of
moment to you. The training [Page 112] of the intuition to recognise spiritual
truth should be the subject of your effort.
The sole authority is the teaching, and not the teacher; upon the rock
of authority many schools have foundered.
There is but one authority—each man's own immortal soul, and that is the
only authority which should be recognised.
Learn to
grasp the teaching correctly, and see it for what it is. Some of it is written for a distant time, and
the true significance of this Treatise on the Seven Rays will begin to emerge
as part of the general knowledge of humanity only towards the close of this
century, unless the imminent outpouring evokes greater change than is now
deemed possible by the watching Hierarchy.
Some of the teaching is of immediate usefulness to all of you. Some of it will throw light upon the problems
of modern psychology, and link the many aspects of the science of the
soul. Disciples grow these days by
finding out the reservoir of their soul's nourishment; they will discover that
the source of their strength is to be found in group teaching and in group
endeavour. We are training men to live
as souls and not as children to be nursed and cared for in a protected nursery
run by rules and orders. As souls, men
derive their life from the ocean of the universal, and not from the tiny well
of the particular. Carrying their little
pitchers, they find their way to that ocean, and for themselves they draw into
that receptacle that which they need. In
the light of your own intuition and illumined mind (developed and brought to
usefulness through meditation) take that aspect of the teaching which suits and
aids you, and interpret it in the light of your own need and growth.
The days
of personality contact, of personality attention and of personal messages are
over, and have been over for quite a while, save in the vale of illusion, on
the astral plane. This is a hard
message, but no true disciple will misunderstand. From [Page 113]
the depths of his own experience and struggle he knows it to be so. It is the group of Masters, the Hierarchy as
a whole, that is of moment and its interaction with humanity; it is the
Masters' group of disciples that counts, and its relation to probationary disciples
on the physical plane, who are seen by the group as existing in group formation
all over the world, no matter where its units may be; it is the body of
teaching that can be made available, and its effect upon the collective mind of
the thinkers of the race, that is of vital importance; it is the interplay
between the subjective group of world workers and—on the outer plane of
objectivity—the lovers of humanity which seems to us, the teachers, to be of
supreme importance. The satisfying of
individual aspiration, the meeting of the desire of the probationers and the
feeding of spiritual ambition appeal to us not at all. The times are too serious, and the crisis too
acute.
It is of
course a fact that there are today groups of aspirants receiving definite
instruction, and disciples being subjected to definite training. But it must be remembered (in spite of all
statements by the devotees of the world to the contrary) that no training is
given in these cases as to the handling of the details of the personality life;
the specific problems of health, finance and family concerns are not dealt with
nor considered; nor is comfort given or time taken to reassure or satisfy the
unstable personality. Training aspirants
as to the technique of spiritual growth is undertaken; correction of the hidden
factors producing emotional conditions may be suggested; meditations may be
arranged in order to bring about certain results; and instruction in the laws
governing soul union may be offered; but no personality work is attempted. Disciples handle their own
personalities. In the pressure of world
work, the Masters are finding Themselves with less and less time to give even
to Their disciples. How then do those
who are not in the [Page 114] ranks of accepted
disciples expect the Master to have the time to deal with their little affairs?
In the
future, however, groups will be formed increasingly, which will function on a
new basis, and some of these new "group organisms" are forming in the
world at this time. They are still in
the nature of an experiment and may prove premature or undesirable. The teaching given in these new groups, the
suggestions made, the experiments in training to be attempted, and the
technique imparted will not be given personally and privately to an individual
group member, but all of it is open and can be read, known and considered by
every other member in the group. These
groups are as yet necessarily few, and very small in number. They are in the nature of an attempt to see
if it will be possible eventually to externalise the groups gathered around a
Master on the inner planes. These groups
of accepted disciples on the inner side are sensitive organisms, and each
member of these circles gathered around a Master is aware of that which concerns
his fellow disciples' spiritual unfoldment, within the radius of the circle in
which he finds himself. These small
outer attempts at a tentative duplication are in an embryonic condition as yet. It is a test and a trial effort, and may
fail. The members of these tiny outer
groups (whose membership and grouping are known only to those who form part of
them) have to be willing to be instructed and developed as group units, with
the other members of their group aware of their failures or successes. They have also to preserve complete silence
as to the existence of the group, and a breaking of this silence warrants their
elimination from the group. The
personnel of these groups is forgotten in the life of the group entity as a
whole. The members are trained in the
group, and the group is trained as a whole, with no emphasis upon the
individual but only on the group interplay and interaction, its integration and
growth. [Page 115] Only those factors in the life of the
individual are noted and handled which would hinder the growth of the group
life and expression. It is the group
note, the group colour, and the group development which count with the training
staff of workers, and the individual is never considered as an individual, but
only in his relation to the group. What
he is told to do, and the discipline applied, is all based on the desire to
preserve the group balance, and not on any personal interest in the
individual. In this experiment a man is
tried out to see his fitness. He will be
tested early in his career as a group unit.
If he passes the test and makes the grade, the group is enriched and
grows thereby. If he fails, he drops out
and others take his place until such time as the group unit is attuned and
completed, and those who are sincere and true, impersonal and mentally poised,
self-forgetful and loving, are found to work together in harmony. Thus they can, as a group entity, form a
focal point for the transmission of spiritual force to a needy and waiting
world.
But it is
important to remember that the attitude of the training initiate or teacher is
one of complete detachment and impersonality; he is aware of the soul light and
condition, and of the mental state, but he does not turn his attention to the
handling of the affairs of the aspirant on the physical plane, nor to the
training of his emotional nature and his astral development. Aspirants learn to be master and adept by
handling their own physical plane affairs and their astral idiosyncrasies. This they must do in the light and strength
of their own souls. We who teach would
break a law and hinder their development if we attempted to enforce conditions
which come not naturally. We should also
overstimulate their lower natures. When
will aspirants learn that the teachers and senior disciples in charge of them
work only on mental levels and with the soul?
When will they grasp the fact that until a man has contacted his own [Page 116] soul, and has learned to function as a
controlled mind as well, there is little we can do for him? Again I say, we are not interested in
personalities and their small affairs.
We have neither the time nor the inclination to interfere with the way
and method of a man's daily life. Why
should we, when enough has been printed and taught to occupy the attention of
the aspiring man for many a day? When a
man is beginning to live as a soul, and when his consciousness has shifted away
from the world of illusion, then he can be useful. The first lesson he has to learn is a sense
of values in time and space, and to know that we work with souls and do not
nurse the personality.
Seems this
too hard a saying to you? If it is
indeed so to you, it means that you are as yet somewhat self-centred and in
love with your own individual soul, having not yet duly contacted it, and
having but perhaps sensed its vibration and no more. You have not yet that true picture of the
world's need which will release you from your own ambition and set you free to
work as we (on the subjective side) work, with no thought of self or of
spiritual happiness, and with no desire for any self-appointed task; with no
longing for glittering promises of future success, and with no demanding ache
for the tender touch and contact with those greater in consciousness than
ourselves. If this lies still beyond
your realisation, recognise the fact, and understand that there is no blame
attached. It only indicates to you the
ground whereon you stand, and that the illusion of the astral plane still holds
you in its thrall and still leads you to place personality reactions before
group realisation. As long as you walk
on that plane and function on that level of consciousness, it is not possible
to draw you consciously into the Masters' groups on mental levels. You are still too destructive and personal;
you would be apt to hurt the group and cause trouble; you would see things
(through the group stimulation) with a clarity for which you are not yet [Page 117] ready, and would be shattered thereby. You have need to learn the lessons of accepting
guidance from your own soul, and of learning to work with harmony and
impersonality on the physical plane with the group or groups to which your
destiny impels you. When you have learnt
the lesson of self-forgetfulness, when you seek nothing for the separated self,
when you stand firmly on your own feet and look for aid within yourself, and
when the trend of your life is towards cooperation, then you may pass from the
stage of Observer to that of Communicator.
This will happen because you can be trusted to communicate only that
which is impersonal and truly constructive, and which will not feed the
emotional nature and satisfy the desire-self.
(Alice Bailey, Esoteric Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 110-117)
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