Studies of Individual Instructions
R.S.U.
commentary by Michael D. Robbins1. The meanings of the letters in RSU’s ‘Developmental Formula’ are: Restraint, Strength, and Understanding. The emphasis is placed upon the word “Restraint”, although, interestingly, RSU had no evident sixth ray in her ray formula.
2. The ray formula of RSU is as follows: 23-117
a. Soul: second ray of Love-Wisdom
b. Personality: third ray of Creative Intelligence
c. Mind: first ray of Will and Power
d. Astral: first ray of Will and Power
e. Etheric-Physical Body: seventh ray of Order and Ceremonial Magic
3. Despite no evidence of the sixth ray in RSU’s ray profile, much sixth ray seems to exist; perhaps, in fact, a great deal as a legacy energy. This could be one reason for the choice of a first ray astral influence. It would contribute to the necessary “Restraint” which DK indicates as the primary term of the ‘Developmental Formula’. The first ray can have a very restraining effect upon the sixth ray. Capricorn also is a sign of restraint.
4. The birth data of RSU is as follows: January 16, 1883, Budapest, Hungary.
5. The chart has been rectified by Elena Dramchini for 15:32 CET, or 3:32 pm. This was her first rectification. She later changed the rectification time to 15:30 CET. The following analyses were done using the 15:32 time, but the reader should keep in mind that 15:30 is also a possibility and should evaluate which of the two charts seems more correct. The 15:30 chart will be used for progressions, directions and transits. It is located between the first of ED’s proposed charts, and another earlier chart for 15:26 which I think should be considered in some respects. Local time was in effect in Hungary at that time, but standard time has been used. As long as the Ascendant is correct, either CET or local time can be used. This 15:30 chart will be considered the primary proposed chart. The 15:32 chart is very close, having the same Ascending degree and a slightly earlier MC.
6. Another birth-time quite close to the one proposed is proposed as a secondary possibility: 15:26, CET. Evidence between them must be weighed. Presently the evidence is greatest for the primary chart, but a few features of the secondary chart may be worthy of consideration. Between these two charts, we probably have the birth time within five or six minutes.
7. The main astrological features of RSU’s chart are the proposed Cancer Ascendant, the Sun in Capricorn and the Moon in Taurus. These are signs in which the Moon rules (Cancer), is in detriment (Capricorn) or is exalted (Taurus).
8. We should also note a tremendous preponderance of the element, earth, with seven of the usual planets in earth placements, and Chiron as well. The resistance to change typical of the earth element (in this case, physical change) was one of RSU’s greatest problems.
9. The meanings of the various astrological positions are referenced at various points in this document.
10. The justification for the primary proposed rectification will appear in ED’s analysis of RSU’s first series of instructions from the Tibetan from DINA I.
11. RSU (Regina Keller to whom the book Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I was dedicated) was one of Alice Bailey’s closest coworkers, and was responsible for bringing many of the AAB books into preparation for publication:
12. This is the Dedication written by AAB on the frontispiece of DINA I:
“DEDICATED TO REGINA KELLER
a fellow-disciple who for more than twenty years has walked with me upon the Way13. As always, however, we will continue to refer to this disciple (and all disciples) in terms of their three or four-letter ‘Developmental Formula’. Doing so is the proper impersonal approach and places the attention on soul qualities rather than on a personality with its very temporary given name.
14. Below are the two her proposed astrological chart, rectified by Elena Dramchini. The 15:32 chart was consulted for the most part and it works unusually well in most cases (even better, in many cases, than the alternative chart proposed for 15:26). It does not however indicate her final and decisive crisis (in which she proved triumphant) with quite as much definition. We will also include the 15:30 chart in which ED came to have more confidence. We will call this chart (when need for distinction arises) the primary proposed chart. If reference is made simply to the “proposed chart” it means this first chart.
15. Another astrological chart, for a slightly earlier time, is also entertained as a possibility due to certain aspects of Mars at the time of RSU’s most severe crisis in 1946-1947. We will call this chart the secondary proposed chart when need for distinction arises.
16. Those of you who own the Solar Fire Astrology Program are encouraged to enter one or both of the proposed charts in the Dynamic Quad-Wheel and follow the forthcoming discussion while looking at the progressions, directions and transits. If you do this, what is said below will have the maximum illuminative impact.
To R. S. U.
November 1931
MY BROTHER:
I have a word for you as you enter on a period of wide usefulness and increased service. You know well your weakness and your strength. There is little along these lines that I can tell you. Your failure is in application of knowledge to the situation. So oft with aspirants, the main weakness lies in one particular body and for you it is the disciplining of the physical body and an inability to apply your ideals to it at need. You treat it oft too well, and yet at times you alternate good treatment with periods when you treat your physical elemental with undue harshness. If you can bring about an evenness of treatment and a balanced method in your handling of your physical problem, much light and knowledge will pour through your brain consciousness. It lies in your hands and there is little that I can do. You are primarily along the occult line. You work with energy and, actually and mentally, you are fairly well controlled and coordinated. You need to work with the physical body and use it in the work you have to do and right there is where hindrance creeps in. You have rich opportunity ahead [Page 356] of you and have earned it. Be not sidetracked but cultivate that one-pointedness which is one of your most vital assets.
1. The first instruction begins by noting the beginning of a period of wide usefulness and increased service. Transiting Saturn giving opportunity is crossing the seventh house cusp (the point of serious relationships), TR-Jupiter is crossing the Progressed Ascendant, and the Progressed Moon is in the group sign, Aquarius. As well, life-transforming Pluto is just crossing the Cancer Ascendant by solar arc direction in the primary proposed chart and has crossed not long before in the secondary proposed chart. TR-Uranus (seen as the Master) is found to be squaring the proposed Ascendant/Descendant axis in both proposed charts.
2. It is the Tibetan’s task to stimulate His chela to the greatest degree of service possible.
3. We know from AAB’s dedication of DINA I to RSU that she has been a friend of and fellow disciple of AAB since at least 1924 and probably before that point. RSU is an experienced disciple. This becomes more evident as DK instructions to her unfold.
4. RSU is cognizant of her own strengths and weaknesses. However, she fails, so it would seem, to apply her knowledge to her personal situation.
5. DK seems to call her an “aspirant” even though she is a relatively advanced disciple. We remember, however, that Master DK’s task is to train “aspirants for initiation”, and surely RSU is one of those being prepared for a specific initiation.
6. DK immediately points out this disciple’s main weakness — the discipline of the physical body and the failure to apply her ideals to this body. We note that the Moon is in Taurus which so often, in the chart of a disciple, means that there will be a battle with the factor of inertia. We also note that the Moon is rather “by itself”, not making significant aspects with any of the other planets. It is as if the physical body is ‘isolated’ from the remainder of the energy system.
7. It may be that RSU is suffering from a syndrome which in present days we would call “bulimia” — “binge and purge”. Discussions in the middle 1980’s with the disciple RSW (who knew RSU very well on a personal basis), revealed that RSU used to enjoy “huge meals” (in the words of RSW). The factor of purging was not discussed, but the presence of a strong Capricorn and Virgo energy would incline to a perhaps harsh reaction to one’s own indulgence, just as the energies of Cancer and Taurus (supportive of the Moon) would promote indulgence.
8. This is a most interesting example of an experienced disciple, well beyond the first initiation and perhaps near or beyond the second, having problems with the physical elemental — a matter which we would think should have been dealt with around the period of the first degree. But in the lives of individual disciples, the “rule” or generally expected conditions are not always to be seen.
9. We have noted over and again the tendency of DK to try to bring balance into the lives of His chelas. Here he is asking for a more “even” treatment of the physical elemental, assuring that “much light and knowledge will pour through your brain consciousness” if this is done. We can imagine that the soul-mind-brain alignment could be disrupted by a persistently uneven physical condition.
10. The Master places the responsibility for remedying the situation in the hands of His chela. She must handle the situation. There is little He can do. We do note that, from the first, He has indicated the problem in no uncertain terms and will do so again and again.
11. We see at least one of the meanings of the word, “Restraint” found in RSU’s ‘Developmental Formula’. This concept must be applied to her treatment of her physical elemental, in relation to which she goes to extremes. Given this extremism, it is interesting that she has no sixth ray in her ray chart. She does however have, with an almost exact trine between the two sixth ray planets, Mars (in Capricorn) and Neptune (in Taurus), plenty of sixth ray astrologically distributed. Sixth ray Mars is also an angular planet in the proposed charts, emphasizing its strength, as does its very low declination parallel to the Equatorial Descendant.
12. DK tells RSU that she is primarily “along the occult line”. This is supported by the fact that all her rays, except the ray of the soul, are on the “hard-line” associated with occultism. Further, the planet of occultism (Uranus, in the sign Virgo) is prominent by conjuncting the proposed IC in both charts, and is trine to both the Sun and Saturn, as well as widely trine to Neptune (the planet of mysticism). In RSU’s nature, the mystic and the occultist could work in harmony (and, apparently, often did). We should not overlook the fact that Mercury (in universalizing Aquarius), the planet of the mind and intelligence, is in the eighth house so often associated with occultism.
13. RSU, a worker with energy, has mental control and coordination. We note the quite close parallel of declination between two planets of the mind, Mercury and Venus (both in the Jupiterian signs Sagittarius and Aquarius {esoterically}), and the close sextile as well between these two. In addition, first ray minds frequently display the quality of mental control. The mind, therefore, is not the problem. We can expect a high degree of intelligence from RSU through her third ray personality and her favorable Mercury/Venus placements and aspects.
14. So, the accomplishments of the mind are accentuated and also the liabilities of the physical body (which must become the focus of corrective attention) so that it can be properly used in her work.
15. The Tibetan again accents the rich opportunities now presented to RSU. He tells her she has “earned” these opportunities. Saturn (Lord of Karma) will, in this incarnation, always be an important planet for RSU (as she has the Sun in Capricorn ruled by Saturn), and Saturn by transit is prominent in the astrological chart during the period in which this letter is written. The position of transiting Saturn signals the fruition of the good karma of much labor. Certainly RSU is not afraid of work!
16. DK asks her to avoid side-tracking (He does not say in which way). Her third ray personality could contribute to side-tracking as could Jupiter (the soul-ray planet) in the sign of diversity, Gemini. But the first ray is strong in RSU’s make-up (perhaps recently having been a personality ray), and the one-pointedness of the first ray is considered to be one of her most vital assets. DK asks her to cultivate this. It does no good to have an asset unless it is utilized.
One thing I would like to point out: In your breathing exercises which I noted as you worked this week, the lung and the inflation aspect is unduly emphasised and there is too much effort in what you do. The power and subtlety of the pranayama process lies in the potency of the thought behind the act of breathing and not at all really in the inflation and deflation of the torso. The whole thing is summed up in the aphorism, "Energy follows thought." The main effect should be upon the etheric nadis which underlie the nerves, and not upon the bellows-like activity of the lungs. You are not getting the results which you should.... Your work lies largely with individuals and with the task of bringing solutions into life problems; you have the gift of strength to offer to others and the experience gained through many lives. This work can be increased if you deal with firmness, humour and perseverance with the vehicle which hinders you.
1. DK emphasizes a technical point; RSU’s approach to breathing exercises is too labored. He is calling for a more subtle approach. Perhaps this would be more easily achieved if her physical body were refined to the degree DK seems to think possible.
2. The point concerning breathing exercises is addressed to all of us and is often repeated in DK’s teaching. Breathing exercises are not effective because of anything done exoterically, but because of subtle internal processes which are related to thought processes rather than to external actions.
3. This advice to RSU may, in general, signal the need for more delicacy and refinement of approach. A true occultist will have to learn to achieve vitalization through esoteric means.
4. DK begins to speak of the results which RSU is to reap from her breathing exercises, but there has been an editorial deletion in the text so we cannot pursue the point further.
5. RSU’s true work is mentioned. It is (at the time of this writing) with individuals. It is the work of problem-solving (well suited to the Capricorn temperament and the intelligent third ray personality).
6. We note that DK speaks of the “gift of strength” which RSU may offer others. We note that “Strength” is the second term in her ‘Developmental Formula’.
7. Here is another hint concerning RSU’s rather extensive life experience. She can offer others “the experience gained through many lives”. Of course, all disciples have had many lives; we can, however, gather that RSU’s experience has been more extensive than that of most. We can see her, with her proposed Cancer Ascendant, in the role of counselor and advisor to others — offering practical advice through Capricorn and through the third and first rays, and understanding advice through feeling-sensitive Cancer and the expression of her love-wisdom soul.
8. A well-informed co-worker of mine suggested that RSU’s profession may have been that of a lawyer (which would fit given the strong seventh house emphasis). Elsewhere, DK refers to her as an “executive” — fitting with the Capricorn Sun and the third ray personality. (There were not so many third ray personalities in DK’s groups — in fact, only two, RSU and LFU, who was in the executive aspect of the work of the Lucis Trust.)
9. DK asks RSU to deal with the physical elemental through firmness, humor and perseverance. She is obviously to restrain her usual treatment of that elemental and to persist in a disciplined approach. She is also to avoid becoming too engrossed in her physical condition. Humor promotes detachment.
June 1933
MY BROTHER:
You have trodden the upward Way with greater speed of late. Your horizon is, therefore, wider and your outlook much more impersonal. Keep steadily on the move and let not inertia drag you down and set weights upon your feet. The work to be done is steadily increasing, brother of old, and you are needed in that work and needed more dynamically than heretofore. Grasp that idea and stand steadily with me in the work I seek to do. Be ready to give of your wisdom and power to unfold and teach when the need arises....
1. When the Moon is found natally in Taurus, the question of overcoming inertia to achieve speed is ever a consideration.
2. We note that in the primary proposed charts, the Vertex, or “Point of Fate” has progressed to a conjunction of Mars, the planet of speed.
3. The Tibetan has often told his disciples to “organize for speed”.
4. Speed seems here to be related to breadth of vision and impersonality. We will see that RSU has considerable access to the abstract mind (through her extensive experience and her strong third ray). We do not yet know the ray of the monad, the but there is reason to propose the third ray (related as it is to the abstract mind with its broad, impersonal outlook).
5. DK will find Himself always having to deal with the influence of four planets in Taurus, plus Chiron and the South Node. The weight of Taurus and its tendency to promote inertia are ever-present considerations for RSU.
6. It is curious that DK references the feet in this paragraph. The progressed Moon in just moving or has just moved into Pisces (the sign ruling the feet) — a sign prone to its own form of inertia and lassitude.
7. DK speaks of the work’s need for RSU. She is to learn to work more dynamically. Presumably, this will demand the more intense activation of her will, with which, given her ray formula, she should be well-endowed.
8. She has wisdom, the power to unfold and the ability to teach. An editorial deletion cuts the remainder of the sentence and any sentences which may follow. We do know that RSU was not yet, in those days, an office worker in the Arcane School/Lucis Trust, but it is more than possible that she was involved in the “secretarial work”, and with the management of younger students. Later she certainly was involved in preparing and administering the higher degrees in the Arcane School, such as the “Fourth Degree”, “Weavers in the Light”. In the context of the developing work of an occult school, there would plenty of opportunity to share her wisdom and teaching capacities.
In your early work in meditation you were told to sound the Sacred Word seven times consecutively. I wish you to take up now a sevenfold work upon the centres because some synthetic work will be helpful to you. I will not here outline it in detail as it is planned for individual need and is better not committed to writing for all to read. You will receive the needed instructions directly. Follow them with care and watch for the vitalisation of the physical body as a consequence, and be ready for increased service as time elapses.
1. DK references RSU’s early meditation work. The synthetic nature of the number seven is emphasized. We know the importance of the seven in the life of RSU because of her seventh ray etheric-physical nature and brain, and because two of her most prominent astrological signs, Cancer and Capricorn, both transmit the seventh ray (Capricorn being the most powerful transmitter of that ray).
2. The meditation given is one of those which did not find its way into the DINA books. If, at the time, the Tibetan was reticent to share it with even the other disciples, it certainly could not be brought before the general public. People when presented with new meditations (even if such meditations have nothing to do with their own development) will have a tendency to try them. This is called “playing with fire”, and Master DK is taking no chances.
3. It is clear that DK is interested in the coordination and vitalization of RSU’s etheric body leading to “the vitalisation of the physical body”. Inertia and lassitude are a problem, and DK is suggesting a meditative approach to correcting the difficulty. RSU is to be attentive to any results. If desirable results follow, there will be the possibility for increased service.
The gift of wise teaching is your gift to my group — a wisdom, divorced from criticism, coupled also to the reticence of the trained occultist. This gift you and F.C.D. have in great degree. Give of your wisdom, brother of old, wisely and strongly and without fear. I indicate to many of my disciples their specific gift to the group with which I have affiliated them in order that, with deliberation and knowledge, they may constantly give along the indicated lines and thus contribute to the group life. There is the gift of being these embodied qualities. There is also the gift of realising that because one does embody some divine attribute in some measure — large or small — one can act as a channel for its transmission from the greater centre. This is the basis of the doctrine of Avatars or Divine Messengers. The gift of Being and the gift of deliberate Transmission of qualified powers must be better understood.
1. Master DK points to an important gift which RSU may share with the group. Since it is already a developed quality it is not listed in the ‘Developmental Formula’. That gift is wisdom. It is offered without criticism and with “the reticence of the trained occultist”.
2. It is interesting that RSU has this form of “reticence” but, in other respects, is in need of “restraint”.
3. In RSU’s case, criticism is reserved mostly for herself and her physical condition.
4. Her strong first rays and occult tendencies contribute to her “reticence” and we also see that her Saturn (planet of caution and discipline) squares her Mercury (planet of thought and word) in the natal chart. As well, Saturn is trine to natal Mars (the impulsiveness of which is curtailed by this aspect and by its placement in Capricorn).
5. RSU and FCD were closely related and both were born of Jewish parentage. I have a photograph of the two together which I will try to reproduce for inclusion in this document.
6. Both were experienced disciples — FCD very experienced. Both had first ray minds, and both had Cancer Ascending (FCD certainly, and RSU, proposed).
7. Working with RSU, DK ever seeks for a greater pouring forth. Certain things about RSU’s character need restraint, but not the sharing of wisdom.
8. To DK, RSU is a “brother of old”. Their acquaintance has been long, just as it has been between DK and AAB.
9. The wisdom aspect of the second ray is emphasized in RSU’s soul nature, and the accentuation of the first ray in her ray chart confers strength. Wisely and with strength her wisdom is to be given. Much of this wisdom is ‘inherited’ from her numerous incarnations presumably spent pursuing wisdom. With the presence of transiting Jupiter (her soul-ray ruling planet) at the fourth house cusp (representing one’s inheritance from the past), the injunction to give of one’s wisdom is well timed.
10. Yet, there is fear is RSU’s nature, related, perhaps, to a deep-seated inferiority complex. DK wants her to overcome this. The Saturn, Chiron, Pluto conjunction and the close conjunction of sensitive, vulnerable Neptune to the South Node (the past), may serve as indicators for the potential of fear. As well, second ray souls are given to this liability, and AAB was one of them.
11. DK speaks in general of the information He is sharing with all members of the group: He informs them of the gift they may give, so that with deliberation and knowledge they may constantly give that gift.
12. The general teaching continues. Two kinds of gifts are discussed: the gift of being certain embodied qualities, and the “gift of realising that because one does embody some divine attribute in some measure — large or small — one can act as a channel for its transmission from the greater centre”. In summary, we have the gift of being and the gift of deliberate transmission.
13. RSU has many gifts, accumulated over long ages, but sometimes hesitantly shared. DK wants to see these gifts poured forth. The caution of the third ray may militate against this, and Cancer and Capricorn are also known to be cautious.
14. DK philosophically links the idea of sharing one’s gifts to the Doctrine of Avatars and of Divine Messengers. These are Beings who both are the gifts they embody, and who deliberately decide to ‘descend’ and share that which they are, for the benefit of those who reside in the lower vibratory domain to which They descend.
15. One who realizes himself/herself as possessed of certain gifts may also place himself/herself en rapport with the sources from which such gifts have originally poured forth. In this way the quality of the gifts will be enhance and empowered and the resultant pouring forth will be of even greater service.
I have only a brief mantric sentence for you; it has the significance of a dedication:
"I plunge myself into the pool of wisdom. From thence I come, bearing a knowledge of its mysteries for my fellowmen."
Seek during the next few months to understand not only the way a disciple must proceed, but seek to enter more deeply into the technique of understanding your brother's heart by a study of the duality of ray energies (personality and soul rays) which make him what he is in this incarnation.
1. The power of this mantram is evident. DK seeks the concentration of RSU’s forces and a dedicated use of those forces.
2. This is a mantram useful for a true teacher of the Ageless Wisdom.
3. The word “plunge” allows no equivocation; it is an irrevocable act. For this, it would seem, He hopes.
4. Wisdom is fundamentally mysterious — far more so than knowledge. It would seem that RSU is to be one of those involved in restoring the Mysteries (of the Ageless Wisdom) to humanity.
5. The disciplines of the Path are necessary and to them every disciple must attend. DK wishes RSU to go beyond this and to become a deeper psychologist by entering into an understanding her brother’s heart.
6. The Master specifically requests that she study the two major ray energies of her brothers — presumably those who are in the Group of Telepathic Communicators and other of her co-workers. Through this occult knowledge, bridges can be built from the bearer of the Wisdom to those who must receive it. The presence of the progressing Moon in receptive Pisces should render RSU increasingly sensitive to her brothers.
June 1934
BROTHER OF OLD:
The past six months have seen you making much effort and the work of refining the vehicles is proceeding apace. You have still several more months of strenuous work before the personality can measure up to the demands ahead but your devotion and humility, your clear vision and your wisdom are such that you can be depended upon to make the grade.
1. This has been a period in which transiting Saturn (planet of duties and obligations faced) has been moving through the eighth house of relinquishment. The progressing Vertex (point of fated encounter) has (in the first of the proposed charts) continued in relation to Mars (planet of action-taken) and the Vertex (directed by solar arc — on the measure that one day equals approximately one year of time) has been well within one degree of conjunction of the natal Sun. The Sun and Mars in Capricorn have, therefore, been met by the advancing Vertex according to two measures, making the potencies of Sun and Mars (both in executive Capricorn) available for action which was fated to be taken.
2. We also find transiting Saturn conjuncting progressed Mars during this period, placing the emphasis upon discipline. As well the progressing Vertex moves across the seventh house cusp representing the opportunity for refinement (Libra, the generic ruler of the seventh house represents that) and the need to measure up to a standard presented by others (in this case the Master).
3. To the “strenuous work” of which the Tibetan speaks, Capricorn is no stranger. The continuing conjunction of transiting Saturn with progressing Mars (both in Aquarius, the group sign) signal the continuing emphasis upon hard work and discipline within the group context..
4. Discipleship means work, and it is this which DK expects from His disciple who has entered forcefully into the process of overcoming her present major weakness.
5. The Master strengthens His disciple by reaffirming certain of her virtues which will help her in the task. She has devotion (through sixth ray Mars exactly trine sixth ray Neptune — even if the sixth ray is missing from the ray chart); she has humility which Cancer confers naturally, and which is one of the virtues of Capricorn (the ‘sign of kneeling’); and her wisdom has often been mentioned by the Master. Humility is further accentuated by the progressed lunation in Pisces (a sign of humility) during August of 1934. This would be the case no matter what Ascendant were proposed for her.
6. We see that DK is attempting to help His chela measure up — “make the grade” (a phrase often used in esotericism to indicate fulfilling the requirements for an initiation). The initiatory potentials of an astrological chart like that of RSU are clear. Her Capricorn is prominent, and Uranus (the Initiator and planet of occultism) is trine to the Sun, Saturn and Neptune. Her ‘light content’ is pronounced through an abundance of Taurus planets, and sincere aspiration towards the soul is present through the presence of Venus (planet of the soul) in aspirational Sagittarius, the sign of one-pointed discipleship.
7. The task of the Master is to offer enough incentive to His chela to exert herself sufficiently to reach the standard set for her by her own soul (and by the Master)
There are two points of incipient glamour — faintly misty traces — which must be watched with care lest they form a thickening cloud between you and the sun. I specify them not lest [Page 358] in so doing I precipitate the cloud. Glamour is not dispelled by paying close attention to it. It disappears by the power of clear and steadfast meditation and the freeing of oneself from self attention. Can you grasp the significance of that paradoxical phrase? I but indicate a vague mirage which need never cause you trouble, provided you seek not self recognition, and that you love with pure purpose all those you meet.
1. The first words of this instruction are words of encouragement. Words of caution follow. Ever and again, the balanced approach. We must notice the subtlety of the Master’s vision, so capable of seeing that of which the chela would normally remain unaware. Something of the pictorial mode of the Master’s vision is also suggested by His remarks.
2. We are also given a way of conceiving glamor as an obscuration, and the familiar image of clouds and the sun serves to illustrate its nature and effect.
3. Glamor does not spring unexpectedly and full-blown from the aura of any disciple. It has its seeds, its sources. The Master has to be cautious here. If he names the glamors He may “precipitate the cloud”. We see with what caution an elder soul must approach a younger. Every word written or spoken has the potential to good or ill, for promotion or retardation.
4. Then comes a hint for all disciples regarding the dissipation of glamor. Close attention to the glamor will not dispel it; in fact it may exacerbate the situation. Glamor disappears “by the power of clear and steadfast meditation and the freeing of oneself from self attention”.
5. It becomes clear that DK has detected a tendency, even; if slight, to seek recognition for the little self. Clear and steadfast meditation will increase identification with the soul thus assisting with the process of taking the eyes off the little self.
6. He also points to the need to love with pure purpose all those she meets. We cannot know the possibility of ‘impure’ purpose which He might be detecting. It could, perhaps, relate to the desire to be recognized by others, or loved by others (a second ray glamor).
During the next six months, your meditation work and the focus of your attention must be the stepping up of your awareness of the soul. You have an interesting and rather unusual problem; this is based on the fact that your consciousness shifts all the time from the lower to the higher mind, but often fails to touch the intermediate point, that of the soul on its own particular level. It is like this, my brother:
— — — — Higher mind.
— — - Soul /
/
— — — — Lower mind.
1. The soul is always present of course, but the disciple may be aware of it to varying degrees. DK calls for an increasing awareness of soul presence.
2. Then follows a most interesting analysis referring to a kind of bypassing of the soul (the “Son of Mind” — the loving, appreciative, unitive mind). RSU’s consciousness shifts constantly between the higher and lower mind. That state of vibration which pertains to the soul on its own level (presumably the second and third subplanes of the mental plane) is not touched. It is from this level that one learns to “think in the heart” and “feel with the mind”.
3. Practically, this may mean that not enough solar fire enters RSU’s thought process, that the thought process may be neither sufficiently loving or appreciative of others and of self.
In the building of the antahkarana (at this stage) there is a gap in the bridge where the soul is and you jump from the lower to the higher Triad. This means a bridging from the highest point of the lower triad to the lowest point of the higher, the Spiritual Triad. Therefore, for you, there must be careful exercise in an elementary stage — the alignment of the soul and brain, via the mind. Work at that for a while with understanding, prior to doing your morning meditation. Make your meditation brief and quick. You have a habit of keeping the three "sacred points" — morning, noon and sunset. I am going to suggest that at those interludes in the day's activities you change your method considerably. I suggest that you work with colour more than with forms of words, such as seed thoughts, or with ideas. You are a natural occultist and have the key to the realm of ideas and the words of many books are in your mind. I would, therefore, suggest the following process:
1. In a way, the kind of ‘jumping the gap’ which RSU demonstrates is needed by all those who would build the antahkarana, but it must not be forgotten that the stages preparatory to building and using the antahkarana require contact between the lower triad and the soul (for the will energy of the soul is to be drawn toward and to stimulate the mental unit, and it is really the soul-infused personality from which projection occurs into the spiritual triad).
2. A stage in the meditation process has, therefore, been skipped, or has not received enough attention to establish its reliability. There is need to go over ground that should have been covered long ago and ensure the alignment between soul, mind and brain.
3. We see DK seeking for His chela the simplicity of approach which brevity will promote.
4. RSU has a certain seventh ray regularity coming through a seventh ray brain and the sign Capricorn; she keeps the “three sacred points”. DK suggests for her a change in approach utilizing color more than forms of words. We can see that the shift would emphasize the soft-line rays rather than those on the hard-line. Basically, it is a switch from auditory third ray methods to visual methods more in line with the second ray. RSU has so many hard-line rays that it is difficult for her soft-line, second ray soul, to ‘get through’.
5. Again DK emphasizes RSU’s natural occultism, but He seems to be attempting to round out her approach.
1. Sound the O.M.
2. After you have worked for a few minutes at right alignment then:
a. At your morning meditation visualise a deep rose-coloured lotus. Build it with care and from its opening heart see a stream of rosy light (not red) pouring forth, engulfing you and your co-disciples.
b. At your noon meditation repeat the same symbolic work but this time with a yellow lotus.
c. At sunset again repeat the process only this time your lotus is of a deep electric blue with its heart a golden sun.
3. Use then the mantric sentence which I gave you in my last communication, pondering upon its meaning.
1. Rose is particularly the color of devotion and will surely have an effect upon the solar plexus and heart centers. We note that He does not suggest red, which could activate the lower solar plexus or the base center and would produce effects along the line of will.
2. The three colors chosen are rose, yellow and deep electric blue with its heart a golden sun. (These last two colors — blue and yellow — it has been proposed, are specifically related to Master DK.
3. If we examine the colors carefully we find that a relationship is being established between the solar plexus (rose), the mind as it may be sensitive to the buddhic plane (yellow) and the second ray soul (deep blue or indigo) as it is affected by the ‘electric’ quality of the spiritual triad. Both yellow and electric blue can be related to buddhi and the color rose may also evoke the buddhic energy.
4. We note that yellow is an appropriate color for noon, for the Sun is then at its meridian. The deep electric blue (if imagined as indigo) fits well with the color of Venus (the planet which rules sunset, for Libra, which it rules, is a sign of ‘even-ing’).
5. The emphasis of this meditation is not along the mental/will line. Its purpose is to ‘soften’ RSU’s approach and make it more naturally and spontaneously loving. She surely does have a loving second ray soul, but that soul is hemmed in, so to speak, by many hard-line rays.
6. The mantram which He gave her is, we remember: “I plunge myself into the pool of wisdom. From thence I come, bearing a knowledge of its mysteries for my fellowmen.”
7. It is a mantram of sacrificial commitment and sharing. It involves second ray attitudes and approaches.
4. Proceed with your usual linking up with those you ever remember in your meditation, giving them strength and light and knowing yourself to be an intermediary.
5. Close with the invocation which you know and love so well:
"May the Holy Ones Whose disciple I am show me the light I seek; give me the strong aid of Their compassion and Their wisdom. There is a peace which passeth understanding; it abides in the hearts of those who live in the Eternal. There is a power which maketh all things new; it lives and moves in those who know the Self as one. May that peace brood over us, that power uplift us till we stand where the One Initiator is invoked, till we see His star shine forth."
6. Sound the O.M.
1. The mantram which RSU knows and loves so well is a mantram of aspiration towards the third degree — the Transfiguration. We remember how much Capricorn she has in her chart and how deeply associated is Capricorn with the third degree. This does not mean that she is an initiate of the third degree or, even, that she would achieve that degree in the present incarnation, but for a disciple at her stage of evolution, it certainly conveys a capacity for deep understanding of the requirements of that degree.
2. The “peace which passeth understanding” arises under the infusion of the buddhic energy — for the buddhic plane is the plane of harmony and, therefore, of peace.
3. One must be an initiate of the third degree to truly “live in the Eternal”. The illusions of time and space have ceased for such a one. He/she has ascended the “mountain whereon form dies” (EP I 71), leaving normal glamors and illusions behind (at least when in the initiate state of consciousness).
4. To “live in the Eternal” is a great demand, because it requires a deep realization of the Presence and an identification with that Presence. The Presence changes not; it is not subject to the fluctuations of time. It is ever as it is and just what it is. It is clear that for the initiate who “lives in the Eternal”, the entire time-sense is altered. Time as understood in the lower three worlds still exists; its exists even for such a great being as the Planetary Logos (Who has a “space-time schedule”); but the consciousness is not subject to time nor is it disturbed by the usual pressures of time. At least time pressures (which, according to the dual life of the disciple, must be honored) do not shake the consciousness from its participation in the Eternal.
5. We note that the “peace” abides in the “hearts” of those who live in the Eternal. This is another hint concerning the buddhic origin of this peace. The heart is necessarily involved in the perception of the Eternal and identification with it.
6. The “Power which maketh all things new” is the ever-renewing spirit. It may seem to unenlightened man that, when he views that which is apparently the same, it is, indeed, the same. But the spirit confers the sense of burgeoning possibility at each moment. Spirit gives communion with a ‘living Presence’ which carries the paradoxical quality of ‘same yet ever-new’.
7. Desire expects and the Presence fulfills. All things are not made new at some point — eventually — but at every point, constantly.
8. That “Power”, “lives and moves in those who know the Self as one”. At the third degree spirit has its undeniable impact and the self is experienced as one. Spirit, we recognize, both lives and moves (words which relate to the first and third aspects of divinity). The perception established is of the ‘one ever-renewing Self which is the Presence’.
9. The familiar is constantly made new by a constant awareness of the ever-fresh exhilaration of the “Eternal Spirit”. The ‘newness of the moment’ (each moment) is seen by the one who is the ‘Eternal-Ever-New’.
10. Living as the One Self is really living. The old and customary are forever defeated by that which is new at every moment and is, simultaneously, one’s Eternal Self.
11. The mantram closes with a call for “peace” and “power”. The “peace” (like the spiritual triad from which it comes) is to “brood over us” (the disciple); that “power” is to uplift us, so that we no longer identify only as personalities, but have found our real Self — the one Self.
12. There is no question that this mantram is meant for those who aspire to the third degree as it references the “One Initiator” (Who is Sanat Kumara). He is first met at the third degree in the form of a “star”. While the “star of initiation” shines forth, in some measure, at the first two degrees, it is only at the third degree that it represents the Presence of Sanat Kumara.
13. All who aspire to the third degree, whether in this life, or one of a number of lives following the present incarnation, may with great profit ponder this potent mantram, because it deals with the very essence of the Transfiguration.
14. If one truly “lives in the Eternal” and “knows the Self as one” (not just theorizes, but knows), one stands at the level of third degree consciousness whether or not that consciousness has been confirmed by the initiation ceremony.
15. As can be understood by pondering the ideas of this mantram, they are deep beyond words, and will provide ‘ever-new’ insight into that state of awareness which establishes itself in consciousness at the third degree.
I particularly ask you to make your spiritual diary a more vital, more organised and more easily available document for the teaching of others. You have in it much of interest. It is, however, somewhat chaotic and the ideas in it are not easily understandable. Will you make it more sequential, synthetic and readable so that the arranged and presented ideas can be of service to other students? You have much to convey of occult knowledge and when you learn to write your knowledge, then your real service will begin to emerge.... Present what you have to offer; this can be much when you have learned with wisdom to externalise your knowledge.
1. DK is seeking to evoke RSU’s teaching potential. She has many spiritual possessions. DK wants her to mobilize those possessions for real usefulness. She seems to be well on her way to becoming a “rich young man” in the occult sense of the phrase.
2. We see that the spiritual diary has been prepared by her third ray energies, and that seventh ray energies need to be applied to it so that it may become a useful tool for service.
3. The story here is of ‘unused riches’ — not really horded, but not generally accessible either. There must be an ordering for the sake of ‘giving out’.
4. RSU is ever the occultist and the knowledge she has gained in this and other lives could be of a broad and general usefulness. But she must care enough to organize that knowledge for presentation.
5. Again, an editorial deletion prevents us from learning more about the specifics of RSU’s “real service”. There may be references here to the Arcane School (which if left in the original text would have served to identify RSU personally). Sometimes deletions are not for the purpose of removing dangerous or embarrassing information, but simply to eliminate the possibility of readily identifying the personality of the chela being addressed. The personnel in the groups-of-nine, we remember, were meant to remain anonymous, not only to the general public, but to the members of others groups.
6. The main point of the entire paragraph is to motivate RSU to externalize her knowledge. We note that Jupiter (the planet of broad understanding) is placed natally in the sign of Gemini (a sign in which much knowledge is gained), but Jupiter is placed in the twelfth house, which is a house of silence and secretiveness. Yet Jupiter in Gemini may symbolize a vast knowledge of the Ageless Wisdom. The many Taurus planets as well speak to the accumulation of light and knowledge. The Ascendant Cancer, however, may incline one towards reticence in sharing (on many levels). DK is working to help His chela become radiant and expressive.
7. We see that organizing Saturn, by transit, will soon be entering the ninth house of higher mind and occult philosophy. This may be one of the causes contributing to the need to organize accumulated knowledge. Also, at the time of the writing, Saturn is trining natal Jupiter (symbolizing the great accumulation of knowledge). Saturn is practical, and signals the need to do something practical with that knowledge.
8. As well a new impulse is ready to begin with the progressed lunation in the 19th degree of Pisces.
9. DK seeks to see this disciple, and every disciple, become increasingly useful.
January 1935
BROTHER OF MINE:
There is entering into your life a little discouragement, a faint inner disgust with yourself and a sense of failure which — if persisted in — may damage the beautiful thing you are building. Such thoughts are not constructive in their effect. In what does this discouragement arise?
1. RSU has just experienced a progressed lunation in Pisces, but the progressing Moon is still in the last degrees of Pisces — an area of the zodiac in which discouragement and weakness are often felt.
2. It has also been a period in which transiting Saturn (realistic assessment) has been conjuncting progressing Mercury in Aquarius.
3. Also, one of the effects of transiting Saturn on Mars (in this case progressing Mars) is to lower the vitality and suppress the aspiration.
4. Master DK is a Master upon the building second ray. He is helping His chelas build a better and more spiritual life. RSU (a Mason) is building an “inner temple” and DK suggests that that which she is building could be beautiful, if she does not allow her discouragement and negativity to ruin it.
It is to be found in your realisation that your inner knowledge far outstrips your outer usefulness. It grows out of your intelligent awareness that the inner worlds hold for you much of interest which you never bring through for use on the physical plane. This is so. You are a deeply versed occult student and your grasp of the inner occult realities far outstrips that of the average student. But it is all introverted; it does not emerge for the helping of the world; it is accumulating and piling up within you and, unless you make some definite use of it, you may bring about a condition which it will be difficult later to change.
1. He seeks to identify the cause of her discouragement — a cause, we shall find, that is common to many disciples.
2. Cleavage is always a cause of unhappiness and RSU has detected a cleavage in her life — a great ‘distance’ between what she inwardly knows and outwardly expresses.
3. The problem is one of integration. There is a gap between the higher and lower aspects of her nature which militates against integration.
4. DK speaks of RSU’s accomplishments. She is “a deeply versed occult student” whose grasp of inner occult realities “far outstrips that of the average student”. She has accumulated much of knowledge and of wisdom.
5. But all this knowledge is “introverted” and does not emerge for the helping of the world in service.
6. DK speaks of an “accumulating and piling up” of knowledge which must be released in service if real difficulties are to be avoided. We can see in this problem the combined influence of both the retentive and fearful Cancer Ascendant and the accumulative Taurus Moon (which exoterically rules that Ascendant).
7. The Moon is Taurus often inclines toward inertia and repetitive conditions. DK warns of impending conditions which will be “difficult later to change”.
8. Some of DK’s students are, indeed, too introverted, and it His task to ‘turn them around’ towards the right kind of extroversion involving the heart center.
What causes this condition, my brother?
Three things which I, with frankness, will put before you because you can be trusted to take with gratitude anything that may be said. The test for you comes in the use you make of the information which I give you as with other knowledges you acquire.
1. DK is going to speak with frankness about the causes of the damming up of accumulated knowledge.
2. He realizes His chela will take His advice with gratitude — such is her ‘soul-age’, regardless of the sensitivity of her astral body.
3. Thus far she has not made sufficient use of the knowledges she has acquired. DK is about to impart still more knowledge of a psychological kind and tells her that she will be tested to see whether she will make use of His advice.
1. Your inner sense of inferiority (a racial inheritance) is a definite handicap. In your executive life in a great city, this inferiority complex is negated a great deal because you see the fruits of your labour; but in the sensitive life of the inner planes, you succumb to it constantly; so great and so rapid is your reaction to the truth and to the inner realities that you promptly absorb much more than you can use. You are rendered almost dizzy by the radiant kaleidoscope of truth which you sense and contact.
1. RSU is Jewish and the “sense of inferiority” to which DK refers is, for the Jews, “a racial inheritance”. (This may be for many reasons which we will not go into here, but is principally based on the origin of the Jews in the first solar system.)
2. We learn that RSU is an executive in a great city. That city is New York City. The nature of her “executive life” is not revealed. As previously stated, possibly accurate information pointed to her as an attorney. RSW (Marion Walter) whom I knew during the last years of her life (also in New York City) stated that RSU was involved in work relating to an orphanage or orphanages. This, if true, would fit well with the tendencies of the protective Cancer Ascendant and with the presence of the maternal asteroid Ceres, in the sign Pisces (caring for unfortunates) on the MC or career point of the chart.
3. RSU leads a busy, physical plane life as one might expect from an individual with a Capricorn Sun sign and a third ray personality. The third ray (executive abilities) would also be reinforced by the sign Cancer through which the third ray also pours.
4. Her life is a life of great contrasts: outwardly busy, productive and able to see the fruits of her labors; inwardly, hyper sensitive — sensitive to far more than she can promptly absorb. DK makes it clear that RSU can focus in the abstract mind and see much that it reveals. Her consciousness must often be close to the buddhic plane for she witnesses “the radiant kaleidoscope of truth”.
5. There is much of the third ray in her nature and again (in light of these remarks by DK) it may be said that the monadic ray (stimulating the abstract mind) could be the third ray of Abstract Intelligence.
6. We gather, then, that the effects of her inner contacts almost overwhelm her, rendering her “almost dizzy”. Her outer, executive life does not give her occasion to express these inner contacts. Her Jewish identification and inferiority complex perhaps make her wonder if she dare express that which she contacts. And probably, other than consigning her impressions to her spiritual diary, she has not organized her thought through writing so that she can readily express what she contacts and knows.
7. We can see why DK considers her a “natural occultist”. However, although she is rich in inner contacts, her skill-in-action to express what she contacts (and thus create balance) is insufficient. Hence the cleavage. Hence the discouragement and sense of futility.
2. You are handicapped by your physical body. You have inherited (for the fulfilment of karmic responsibilities) a not particularly high grade body of Slavic-Semitic type with a touch of the Latin intermixed. That heritage gives you your steadfastness and your persistence upon the Way; it gives you your sensitivity to things of the mystical realm; it gives you also your love of beauty and your heart development. It has revealed to you a little of the mystery of pain and of suffering. But it has also given you a physical body which has inherited the power to resist and the capacity to shut off the outer from the inner worlds of expression. Besides this, it has endowed you with a body of somewhat heavy and inert atoms which cannot be galvanised into the exquisite activity of which you dream except by tremendous effort and a self-imposed discipline of a drastic nature. Hence your soul's choice of your personality job — one that embodies service, that appeals to the heart and which at the same time is of so necessary a nature that it perforce calls forth your best effort.
1. Not only does the nature of her outer life (and her inferiority complex) militate against right expression, but her physical body (as DK has oft repeated) is a handicap.
2. DK describes the racial origin of RSU’s body, which she inherited for the fulfilment of karmic responsibilities. We remember that DK has said that between the first and second initiations, disciples frequently work off karmic responsibilities (for the sake of greater freedom in subsequent lives).
3. RSU’s body is a mixture of Slavic and Semitic with a touch of Latin. What is interesting is that the body type confers qualities to consciousness. Attributable to her body type is her capacity for steadfastness and persistence (though the Capricorn and Cancer energies also help); her sensitivity to “things of the mystical realm” (with Mars and Neptune assisting); and her love of beauty and her heart development. We know that the love of beauty is much associated with the Jewish People who have a deep relationship to the fourth ray.
4. The body has revealed “a little of the mystery of pain and suffering”; perhaps this comes from identification with the Jewish Race as the “karmic clearing-house” of humanity, and, again, there is the association with the fourth ray which can be considered the ‘Ray of Pain’.
5. The negatives of this type of body, however, are also very significant. The power to resist and to shut off the lower from the influence of the higher are also to be found. The resistance of the Moon in Taurus cannot be discounted when describing this significant liability.
6. The atoms of the body are also heavy and inert (implicating Taurus again), and require tremendous effort of her if their vibration is to be heightened towards the exquisite activity of which she dreams (so lofty are certain aspects of her consciousness).
7. We have been discussing the reasons why the inner life does not find expression in the outer life, and the inert nature of the body certainly contributes to this cleavage.
8. In the attempt to overcome the resistance of the body, we can see why RSU has at times resorted to harsh and drastic action of which those conditioned by Capricorn are so capable. But the effort has been uneven and its result, overall, has been discouraging, for the tendencies towards indulgence have also been very strong.
9. Important hints are also given about RSU’s personality job. The idea that this job involves work in connection with an orphanage or orphanages has some ring of truth when we study what DK has to say.
10. The job embodies service, appeals to the heart and is undeniably necessary. If it is orphanage work, it would call forth selfless sacrifice and a great expenditure of energy (without thought of self).
11. There is an interesting implication here: the soul chooses the personality job for its own purposes. One may think that one has a certain kind of job due to personal inclination or simply due to change and the availability of jobs, but deeper designs may be at work. The soul knows the obstacles it faces in seeking to express through its personality, and will use every means possible to facilitate that expression. RSU’s job, clearly, is soul-chosen to help her overcome the inertia to which her physical body inclines.
3. The third cause of trouble is found in the fact that you are not making outer constructive use of the knowledge which you acquire in meditation, through wide reading and through your constant, interior thinking.
1. The third cause of difficulty (and which prevents fuller expression of accumulated knowledge) is familiar to many disciples who do not make use of what they have naturally or have accumulated.
2. RSU is constantly acquiring knowledge through meditation, wide reading and “constant interior thinking”. Jupiter in Gemini often inclines towards wide reading and the third ray contributes to what may be called ‘constant thinking’ (whether that thinking is interior or more related to the environment).
3. The attempt to apply what we know will automatically bring that knowledge into fuller expression. If one is afraid to use one’s knowledge, or simply does not know how, the accumulation simply continues and a health-giving flow does not arise.
My attention has been called to your meditation reports. My brother, you touch and tap constantly the fount of wisdom. Your intuition is awake; your power to interpret symbols is unusual; your grasp of the synthetic plan of the Great White Lodge is real. But of what use is it to anyone? You are like a reservoir which is too full and from which there is not enough withdrawn to meet the need of the surrounding thirsty country. All flows over the spillway and is wasted.
1. DK points to a major liability and He uses graphic symbolic language.
2. RSU has great facility in accessing truth. The antahkarana is apparently well built for her intuition is awake and she has an unusual ability to interpret symbols. She knows much. (This facility with the antahkarana may tell us something about her initiatory degree, for the rainbow bridge can only be successfully built as the disciple nears the second initiation.)
3. There is a second ray glamor which is aided and abetted by the third ray: it is the over-absorption of knowledge without right application. As well, those upon the second ray have the “capacity to sense the Whole and to remain apart”. As well, the abstract potentials of the third ray may separate the individual from the right application of knowledge in daily life. The basic problem, then, is one of knowing without doing.
4. DK’s language is graphic. RSU is like a “reservoir which is too full”. The surrounding countryside is athirst, and yet nothing or very little comes from the over-full reservoir. Further, there is waste, as the reservoir cannot contain all that is flowing in.
5. This is also a period in which transiting Saturn is squaring the wide conjunction between natal Saturn, Chiron and Pluto. There is a blockage. A decision is needed and something must be done to release this condition of excessive containment.
6. If the antahkarana is constructed and in use (as DK suggests) , there must be some way to make the downpouring available to the three lower worlds.
This must be rectified, my brother. One of the first things we must do is to employ the knowledge and the occult information which is stored up in your sub-conscious mind and which finds expression only in your spiritual diary and your meditation reports. I refer not here to the daily life to be lived. I refer to the intelligent appreciation of truth which is yours, to the wealth of your occult information which is being wasted and causing conditions which will lead to eventual astral trouble. You do endeavour to live the life and to serve but I seek to see that service fed by your occult knowledge and by your head and not just by your heart. It is essential that we tap the reservoir and make your life fruitful as an esotericist.... What therefore, shall we do?
1. RSU’s condition may not be exactly an emergency situation, but it does call for solution — not later but now.
2. DK, ever practical, points to the next step: constructive utilization of the spiritual diary. The occult information which RSU is constantly accessing and which is stored in her subconscious mind must not only be stored in her diary but made more widely and constructively available.
3. RSU’s capacities are again brought forth. She has an “intelligent appreciation of truth” and “wealth of occult information”. This would be so valuable to many if the content of the reservoir could just be made accessible and available.
4. DK hints that if the ever-increasing stored information cannot be released, there will be astral trouble. Presumably the heart center will not be sufficiently activated; the outpouring will not occur and great congestion will result involving the solar plexus and associated organs.
5. It is not that RSU does not serve, but her service could be so much enriched if she would simply constructively release the content of her esoteric knowledge. Her heart is involved in her daily work (probably humanitarian work). Her head, however, has been studying occultism and esoteric philosophy and has no adequate outlet.
6. Another editorial deletion (and let us remember that RSU was the main editor of DINA I!) prevents us from going farther in the matter of exploring what DK sees as a life which would be “fruitful as an esotericist”.
7. We also see that, if the primary proposed chart is correct, her progressing Vertex has reached a conjunction with her natal Sun in Capricorn. The Sun is the symbol of the self and of that which pours forth. We can understand why there would be a call upon RSU to ‘shine forth’ as an esotericist and not only as a humanitarian.
First, instead of constant meditation, you must employ the time so given to the enlarging upon and the writing out of the ideas which have come to you so that they can be used by [Page 362] others and can reach those who need help....
1. RSU is apparently given to “constant meditation”. In this way she continues to access the higher planes and promote a downflow of that which could be used in service but is not presently so.
2. DK calls for a shift of emphasis involving more “writing out of ideas”, for the sake of others. Again a deletion, referring perhaps to a possible use of that which is written in the Arcane School.
3. DK’s call is constantly for service as an esotericist. The attempt to remove the block is very much signaled by the square from transiting Saturn to natal Pluto. There is, in fact, a spiritual crisis.
Expressed symbolically, what I have to say to you can be embodied in the words of an ancient Book of Rules for disciples which was extant at the time of the first Patanjali:
"The door opens into the world of that which can be known. It opens from the side of mind. Once open, there enters into thought the dropping rain of that which can be known. The other door opens through deep desire. It opens into the world which is that which all men know. When both the doors stand open wide, the disciple serves the purpose of the Lord of Truth. The rain drops on his heart from out the farthest door. He pours the rain of that which can be known into the world of that which all men know. Thus new thoughts can be carried into the hearts of men. Thus new flowers of ideas bring beauty to the dusty plains of earth."
In peace and understanding go your way to the Feet of the Great Ones.
1. We note that there is more than one Patanjali. DK quotes from “an ancient Book of Rules” extant at the time of the first Patanjali. This may have been some ten to twelve thousand years ago.
2. There is little to say about this beautiful passage; its meaning is clear. The advanced disciple accesses the “Raincloud of Knowable Things” through the cultivation of the relationship between the lower and higher mind.
3. Two worlds are referenced: a higher world of thought and intuition, and a lower world, opened by desire, and revealing what “all men know”.
4. But both doors must stand open. The “rain” from the higher worlds is to drop not only on the mind but on the heart, so that heart may be stimulated to carry the precious rain to the hearts of men.
5. The higher truths from the Lord of Truth (the spiritual triad/monad) are to be poured forth for the benefit of all.
6. The “Lord of Truth” here, may be another name for a third ray monad — for the “Good” is of the first ray, the “Beautiful” of the second and the “True” of the third. Of course the name, “Lord of Truth” may have a more generic meaning also.
7. The results of fulfilling what is required will see “new flowers of ideas bring beauty to the dusty plains of earth”. We are reminded of Rule II for Disciples and Initiates in which the advanced disciple is to help the desert blossom as a rose through accessing the higher mind. To do so would be to fulfill the first “Great Demand”.
8. We are reminded also of the initiate Plato (who was very likely a blend of the second and third rays). He sought to bring before humanity a complete synthesis of ideas in his conception of the “Good”.
“Plato endeavoured to picture forth the completeness of the Whole and the intricacy of the ideas which have come forth as an expression of that Whole. (EP II 399)July 1935
BROTHER OF OLD:
... Last time I communicated with you I gave you much. This time I need to give you but a little as you have yet to work out that which I have suggested. Above everything else aim at simplicity. The fertility of your mind is a great and useful gift, acquired through many lives of achieved knowledge. But a fertile garden and a rank wilderness are both of them expressions of fertility, but the one is beautiful and the other needs attention — an attention which has to be initiated by a definite process of destruction.
1. The communication begins with a deletion. Such deletions may not signal the removal or only a sentence or two but of whole paragraphs. Yet, from what DK is saying, it does not appear that this letter (written only six months after the last one) was to be long letter.
2. DK has been emphasizing the importance of application and He continues to do so.
3. Even though RSU has much of the first ray in her nature, the third ray is very strong (supported by both astrology and, perhaps, by a monad on the third ray). Simplicity is a great need for third ray types.
4. We note that RSU has a very fertile mind, even though it is on the first ray. We do not usually think of the first ray as fertile in connection to the mind, but the mental elemental seems much connected to the third ray personality, the abstract mind, and perhaps to a still higher third ray. We remember that the lower mind is connected to the monad just as the astral nature is to the soul and the physical nature to the personality.
5. The Master seems to be suggesting that RSU’s mind is, perhaps, overly fertile and chaotic, needing organizing attention. Certain lines of thought are to be weeded out and ordered beauty is to supervene.
6. This observation relates to DK’s judgment that the entries in RSU’s spiritual diary were somewhat chaotic.
7. We do note that there has been a solar eclipse exactly on RSU’s natal Mercury in Aquarius and in the eighth house of occultism. The opportunity to attend to her thinking process is upon her and to use her thought in new ways.
You have been used in the past months to institute a work which can be of real service and you have done well and have made possible future revelation. That is good and for that I thank you, my brother. I know that you do not ask for recognition but that is ever accorded by us, the teachers on the inner side, when duly merited. I can, therefore, tell you that your work is recognised.
1. Here we may be dealing with a new phase of work in the Arcane School — perhaps the institution of the work of a certain “degree” in the school.
2. We see here that RSU does not ask for the Master’s commendation. Any tendency to seek recognition (which He may earlier have noticed) seems to have subsided.
3. The Master states a principle. When recognition is “duly merited” it is offered by the “teachers on the inner side”. When an act is performed, these comes a kind of ‘karmic feedback’. On the basis of this feedback, adjustment can be made; rightly taken actions can be furthered, and wrong actions can be curtailed. The recognition accorded, therefore, is not for the sake of ego-encouragement, but to attest to the value or otherwise of what has been undertaken.
4. It is strengthening for a disciple who attempts to do good work to realize that such work “is recognized”. The Master would not waste time with commendation unless He found that it could serve a good purpose.
But you have much to do within yourself before you can be used as fully as is possible. See that you, therefore, do three things:
1. Lose sight of yourself. Your constant inner habit of self-depreciation indicates too much concentration upon the little self. You are handicapping your work and negating a fuller influence by seeing yourself as a failure and yet at the same time omitting to take those steps which would make you a true success — steps which I have earlier indicated to you. For a time, my brother, lose sight of the time process as a whole and for three months work only one day at a time, making each hour of each day as beautiful and as selfless as possible.
1. The Master continues to press for RSU’s full usefulness in service.
2. The first requirement is that she “lose sight of yourself”. We might think about the effect of “self-depreciation”. Really, it indicates no real humility but a tendency to think about the little self far too often and is a subtle form of self-emphasis. Disciples indulge in it because it brings with it a strange kind of comfort — the comfort of self-pity. In self-pity, at least someone (even oneself) is recognizing the little self and offering it a comforting kind of sympathy.
3. The self-depreciating (subtly self-pitying) approach is also a subtle form of evasion, for so often it replaces effective, non-sentimental action.
4. We can see that RSU (like others who are strongly affected by the third ray, and Capricorn) is the victim of a sense of time-pressure, and this, so it seems, adds to her sense of failure, for she perceives that she is not accomplishing what she should. We do notice that Saturn “Lord of Time” is transiting opposed to her solar-arc directed Ascendant.
5. DK tries to instill a sense of quality instead of quantity. The “one day at a time” approach is fundamentally buddhic and related to the fourth ray which seeks the beauty of the moment rather than the accumulation of accomplishments.
6. Earlier we saw DK, emphasizing color and sound in meditation, trying to bring in a strong expression of the soft-line rays and, in general, the energy of buddhi.
2. The wisdom aspect in you is highly developed. Let the love aspect of the second ray now have fuller sway. You and F.C.D. have to reverse your life tendencies. He has a highly developed love nature and must learn to express wisdom more effectively. You have wisdom manifesting strongly and must learn to love more widely and not to fear love, as now you do. Your work as an executive has drawn forth your latent wisdom. Your work in my group and in the New Group of World Servers must now draw forth the deep resources of your heart. Ponder on this suggestion.
1. DK contrasts two closely related disciples who have opposite life tendencies.
2. FCD has abundant love in expression and needs to use wisdom more effectively. RSU has a highly developed wisdom aspect but is afraid of love. Natally we find the fear factor emphasized with Cancer-rising, and Neptune its esoteric ruler, conjuncted to Saturn (suppression of the emotional, sentient response) and also conjunct to the South Node (fears brought forward from the past). However, FCD also, has Cancer-rising.
3. We remember that FCD has a very powerful second ray — both a second ray soul and a developed second ray astral body. Perhaps, as well, he is a second ray monad (for his love is very deep, his relation to the third ray slight, and his connection to Master Koot-Hoomi profound).
4. We find DK now suggesting that “the deep resources of your heart” must be drawn forth. Earlier He suggested that RSU’s work as an executive in a labor that involved service and the heart was calling forth an expression of love — at least in relation to that work. Now, he reverses His assessment, stating that her work as an executive draws forth her wisdom, and that she needs (in connection with the New Group of World Servers and the Master’s group) to draw upon the wisdom of her heart.
5. Occultists who are members of the NGWS are usually fairly advanced disciples and may be working promotively with initiates of the first degree and perhaps the second.
6. The second ray is the Ray of Love-Wisdom. Some disciples emphasize more one aspect than another, and balance must be sought at some point in their development. Because RSU has so many hard-line rays (and, perhaps, a hard-line monad), and because the wisdom aspect of the second ray is related to Shamballa, it is natural to see her related to the wisdom aspect of the second ray.
3. Give more definite help in the work.... You can give that which is needed, if you lose sight of yourself and can teach yourself to work with joyousness. Is not that the clue for you, my brother, the work of joyous service? May I ask you to cultivate the spirit of joy? If you give this more definite aid and work as it may be indicated to you, it will spell for you a large measure of release. You can aid in the work with your wisdom and ripe experience.
1. Here, again, we find an editorial deletion as the Tibetan probably suggests the manner in which RSU may give more definite help in the work and this would identify her to other readers.
2. DK is always asking more of RSU — more help of the right kind and given in the right spirit.
3. For the first time the Master speaks to RSU of joy and joyfulness. RSU’s ray structure is not especially promotive of joy, nor are her prominent signs Capricorn, Cancer and Taurus (though no sign can be considered a definite inhibitor of joy if the disciple is sufficiently developed).
4. Jupiter, one of the major planets of joy, is hidden in the twelfth house and is not making many harmonious aspects (though it does trine the asteroid of union, Juno, in the sign of fellowship, Aquarius — suggesting joy arising from her association with co-workers).
5. At the time this suggestion is offered we find transiting Jupiter coming to a conjunction of the North Node in the fifth house of self-expression. The North Node is often interpreted as indicating that which must be built into the life.
6. In the year following, Jupiter will be conjuncting natal Venus in Sagittarius (its own sign). We can understand RSU as a very serious worker who is unusually hard on herself. DK seeks to lighten her approach somewhat.
7. We do not know to what extent the Master studies His chela’s astrological chart or (inner) charts for the timing of His suggestions. Perhaps this goes on in some manner, or perhaps His infallible intuition reveals all that the chart would normally show. The timing, however, is interesting, for Jupiter is opposing, at the time the suggestion is offered, quite a few of the Taurus planets as well as conjuncting the North Node.
8. I do not think that the intuition will ever replace astrology entirely, but Master DK has told us that the new astrology is the intuitive or intuitional astrology. A true intuitive who is also an astrologer has an excellent method for understanding his brother’s possibilities.
Adhere to the simple outline indicated by me in my previous communication. I cannot change it yet, for you have not yet availed yourself of the help I there sought to give to you. But be of good cheer and go forward with joy upon the Way. There is no time these fateful days for that lost effort which is connoted by too close a self-introspection and analysis, leading to distrust.
1. Over and again we have seen that the Master will not assign new work or offer new suggestions when the valuable suggestions previously offered have not yet been assimilated.
2. Surely RSU, who from the beginning has known her most of her assets and liabilities, has enough on which to work. Like all third ray types, she must simply apply what she knows.
3. DK reemphasizes “good cheer” and a joyous treading of the Way. Release for service will come when no time is wasted in unnecessary self-introspection and analysis. This leads to distrust, says the Master. One begins to doubt oneself and hesitates to act spontaneously according to the dictates of the soul and the inspiration of the intuition. It is obviously a condition into which analytical third ray types can fall.
4. DK tells of “fateful days”. Indeed they were, for they presaged the coming of the Second World War. If ever there were a time for applied self-forgetfulness it was in those days. Perhaps our own times parallel those times with a similar need for disciples to lose themselves in the service of humanity.
January 1936
The only thing which I seek to do for you at this time, my brother, is to give you a meditation which I will ask you to carry forward until further notice. I will give you also six seed thoughts for meditation. Otherwise my earlier injunctions to you hold good and your future usefulness in the coming spiritual expansion is dependent upon your careful attention to self-forgetfulness, the right use of love (enabling you to love more easily.) Please study my last communication to you on this subject) and attention to practical, loving, efficient, regular service.
1. DK continues to urge toward the application of that which has been given.
2. There is a “coming spiritual expansion”; 1936 was a pivotal year for the Forces of Light. Hierarchy made a bold attempt to offset the imminent peril with what can only be called a ‘Goodwill Offensive’.
3. RSU is self-preoccupied (with consistent self-depreciation and frustration) and thereby prevents the full release of her considerable gifts in service.
4. She does, indeed, love. This is often pointed out in previous and subsequent instructions. But she does not love easily. We have only to look to her first ray astral body to see one of the key reasons. But the ray of astral body is not simply imposed by the soul. Conditions resonant with a certain type of astral body have been built by the disciple over time.
5. What DK calls for is simple (though for RSU difficult of achievement): practical, loving, efficient, regular service. We can see that the virtues of rays two, three and seven would all be combined were RSU to be successful in expressing these virtues.
Your progress in the outer expression of your inner knowledge has been needlessly slow. Given a right and more focussed attitude, you could leap forward into clearer light and more efficient living. This oft I have told you. Your keynote for the future is discipline and again discipline. The reduction of the physical body to your will through the imposition of a pronounced ordered rhythm is your way out into liberation. It is, therefore, a question whether you care enough for the results possible to make the needed adjustments and impose the required disciplinary measures. What these are, you also know. Are they not simply the enforcing of certain rules of daily living which are so simple that they fail to evoke your will? It is the evocation of a dynamic will which I wish to bring about by the following suggested meditation.
1. DK speaks of the needless slowness of RSU’s progress in expressing her inner knowledge. We have noted that Saturn (a planet which can bring delay if not rightly utilized) has been prominent (in both charts) at a proposed solar-arc directed angle — the SA-Descendant.
2. But opportunity for change is abundantly present, for transiting Uranus has been conjuncting the resistive Taurus Moon for a number of months. She could indeed “leap forward into clear light and more efficient living” were she to take advantage of this Uranian vibration. Leaps can occur under the influence of Uranus.
3. A more focussed attitude is needed — a need which many third ray types share.
4. DK reiterates the problem — for Him, emphatically. “Discipline and again discipline”.
5. Even though the physical body is on the inherently orderly seventh ray, the power of the often-irregular third ray personality is strong and fundamentally conditions the physical body. As well, the inertia of the Taurus Moon resists “the imposition of a pronounced and ordered rhythm” on that body.
6. DK questions the degree to which RSU really cares to make the changes.
7. The will simply is not being applied to the condition and habits of the physical elemental, but the presence of transiting and willful Uranus over the Moon means that it could be, and with facility. Of course, Uranus is weakened in relation to Taurus in which sign it “falls”.
8. Third ray types may be so interested in ‘interesting things’ that they pay little attention to the simplicities of the physical plane. DK once remarked that the third ray man may not bother to keep his checkbook accurately. The Einstein syndrome! So interested in that which is ‘high’; bored by that which is apparently ‘low’.
9. A meditation is recommended for the sake of evoking the will to be applied more dynamically to the physical condition.
1. After effective alignment and the centering of the consciousness in the mind, then proceed as indicated below: O.M.
a. Sound this as the soul, in its own world, using the creative imagination as you do so.
b. Sound the O.M. again as the soul, imposing its purpose upon the mind.
c. Sound the O.M. as the soul, controlling the desire body.
d. Sound the O.M. as the soul, energising by its will force the etheric body.
e. Sound the O.M. again but this time with the cooperation of the personality, galvanising the physical body into right action. Do all this very slowly and thoroughly with a full, consecrated thought upon each of the five stages.
2. Then visualise the entire lower nature as being gathered up into the consciousness of the soul.
1. This meditation begins with the consciousness focussed in the mind. From there, an identification with the soul is achieved, and one acts “as if” the soul, utilizing the creative imagination to do so.
2. The soul sounds the OM (at least one acts as if one were the soul sounding the OM) and imposes its purpose, control and vitalizing effect upon the mind, astral body and etheric body respectively.
3. The fifth OM utilizes the cooperation of the personality and applies attention to the galvanizing of the physical body into right action.
4. RSU must proceed slowly and with full, consecrated thought upon each stage.
5. Then comes a moment of unification in which the entire personality is gathered into the consciousness of the soul. This will promote integration of personality with the soul and soul infusion.
3. Then meditate for fifteen minutes (not more) upon the following six seed thoughts. This entire meditation is intended to be dynamic and brief. It can, if so used, break through obstructions and "clear the way" for the inflow of your dynamic but hitherto ineffective will.
1. Brief, concentrated thought is required. One seed thought per months is to be used.
2. The purpose of the meditation is to “break through obstructions” and to ‘clear the way’ for the inflow her “dynamic but hitherto ineffective will”.
3. In the seed thoughts we will probably find the dynamism required.
4. RSU has considerable first ray which should be of use in rendering her will effective.
1st month — My soul has purpose, power and will. These three are needed on the Way of Liberation.
1. Each of these thoughts may be used by aspirants and disciples intent on strengthening their will.
2. In this seed thought one is reminded of what one already possesses. The theme is the first ray theme of liberation. Purpose, power and will are all needed. Purpose guides the pattern; power gives the energy and will sustains the pursuit of the objective.
2nd month — My soul must foster love among the sons of men. This is its major purpose. I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love.
1. The second seed thought emphasizes the second ray. To foster love among the sons of men is to promote the emergence of the soul in human living.
2. All souls have the major purpose of fostering love, regardless of their ray.
3. Love is the next evolutionary step forward, and the Head of the Hierarchy is the Lord of Love.
4. Will is engaged in treading the Way of Love. It is so easy, given our habit nature, to step off that Way.
3rd month — The purpose of my soul must show itself through burning. That which obstructs and hinders must disappear before the power of God. That power am I. I, therefore, tread the Way unto the Burning Ground. There hindrances disappear.
1. This seed thought focusses on the fires of purification which manifest through the burning ground.
2. All souls will promote the burning process regardless of their ray. Frequently the emergence of soul energy in the personality life is manifested through the uncomfortable process of fiery testing.
3. The first and sixth rays seem involved in this seed thought. All obstacles are to disappear through the agency of fire. The “Mantram of Fire” is very much like this seed thought.
4. It takes will and fortitude to force oneself onto the burning ground. It takes an act of will to enter the burning ground; and AN act of will to stay there; and an act of will to work steadfastly through the fiery process.
5. For many years DK has been speaking to RSU about eliminating the hindrances in her life. Now He is bringing is strong meditations to assist.
6. A lunar eclipse exactly on the Ascendant/Descendant of the primary proposed chart should strengthen the dynamic action which the self can take.
7. In assigning these seed thoughts on the will, DK seems to be taking advantage of the first ray/seventh ray will-potential in Uranus (potent to transform the resistive tendencies of the Taurean Moon).
8. The SA-Vertex is also still conjuncting the natal Sun in the secondary proposed chart.
4th month — My will is one with the great will of God. That will is mine today upon the planes of earth. It leads to service and my Master's group. I, therefore, tread the Way of Service after the festival of burning.
1. This meditation suggests the use of the fourth ray to at-one the personal will with the “great will of God”.
2. This seed thought concerns the appropriation of the Divine Will for application “upon the planes of earth”.
3. If the Divine Will is followed, it will lead definitely to service and into the Master’s group — a great incentive.
4. This seed thought will strengthen the will-to-serve.
5. The burning ground is viewed as a joyous festival (giving courage to the disciple).
6. The power to serve is the reward of courageously treading the burning ground to its end.
5th month — I dedicate myself to the purpose of the plan. I have no purpose but the will of God. I seek no other way but the Way of Divine Fulfilment. I lose myself within the group which seeks the furtherance of the plan.
1. This seed thought is a dedication to purpose — the purpose of the plan.
2. All other purposes are eliminated. There is an identification of the little personal purpose with a much greater purpose.
3. If the little will is identified with Divine Purpose and Plan, then Divine Fulfillment is inevitable — eventually.
4. Humility is the result of this fifth seed thought, for the disciple loses himself/herself in the group, and is consumed by the will to further the Plan.
6th month — The Way of Sacrifice is eternally the Way of Joy. The Way of Joy leads to the Place of Peace. The peace of God is only [Page 366] found in losing sight of self and seeing naught but that which must be done and done today.
1. Finally there comes a seed thought relating sacrifice to joy. The “Way of Sacrifice is eternally the Way of Joy”. This will not be appreciated by the strictly personal consciousness.
2. Great truths are here included. Sacrifice opens the way to the soul and the soul is the source of joy.
3. The “Way of Joy” which is of the soul, leads on to the “Place of Peace” — suggesting Shamballa and its Peace.
4. The “Peace of God” is akin to the “Peace which passeth understanding” in the mantram which RSU so loves.
5. Only annihilation of self-concern in the Will of God leads to that peace which is the peace of the spirit.
6. The call to duty is unmistakable. Everything but tending to necessity in alignment with the Divine Will is eliminated.
7. The final injunction demands immediate action. The invocation of the will results in immediate action.
8. Through the use of these seed thoughts the disciple becomes powerfully effective.
9. Perhaps these seed thoughts will provide precisely the Uranian jolt needed by RSU and suggested in her chart.
10. It would seem that RSU is being trained in the use of the will as part of a necessary ‘keying-up’ in preparation for the initiation for which she is being trained. All this training in the understanding and application of the will can be considered part of the curriculum for those in training for the third degree.
June 1936
MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:
Much that I have written to S.C.P. is also of prime importance to you. I refer not to it here as I have other things about which I wish to speak to you. I urge you from my heart (which enfolds you in its constant love) to look away from yourself and dwell not with such constancy upon your failures to achieve. Recognise failure — if it is there — but then with a face lifted to the light and a smile upon your lips, turn your back upon such failure and go with steadfastness forward.
1. The form of address used by DK indicates an attitude of acceptance and ingathering.
2. DK recommends that RSU consult the letters written to SCP (which are of prime importance to her), just as He suggested to SCP that RSU had problems similar to her own. We remember that SCP and RSU were both in the group of Telepathic Workers.
3. DK assures RSU of his constant, enfolding love as He urges her, yet again, to take her eyes off her little self and its constant sense of failure.
4. Then, He offers beautiful advice which all of us may use when we seem to fail — which, surely, we will: “Recognise failure — if it is there — but then with a face lifted to the light and a smile upon your lips, turn your back upon such failure and go with steadfastness forward”.
5. What is said evokes the inherent joy of the soul which has an innate confidence of success. The smile upon the lips arises because of a deep inner knowing and assurance. Victory lies ahead.
6. The right attitude towards failure (apparent or more real) has been enunciated and we may both use it and suggest it to others who may have forgotten how to proceed in such depressing moments.
D.A.O., a member of my group of disciples, learns not with ease the lesson of self-discipline, and the glamour of the fear of authority has descended upon her. She has asked permission to leave my group and for some one else to function in her place. I am suggesting to her that she regard herself as suspended from her group endeavour and from my so-called control and take one year for careful thought, prior to taking a final decision. To prove to you that your failure is basically superficial I am asking you to do for me a definite service. I could not so ask you if you had failed. For the space of a year I would ask you to take over the work and place of D.A.O. in my group and so help preserve the integrity of the group relationship. This is not the first time that you have done this and hence my immediate thought of you. But though instinctively my mind decided to ask this service of you, I have a twofold reason. You have a surety of touch and a freedom from glamour which is sorely needed by the immediate associates of D.A.O. in my group. You succumb somewhat yourself to the glamour of failure but are seldom glamoured where the principles of group work are concerned. I can trust you to give what is needed. Secondly, you have a clarity of vision which is true and constructive — in those cases where your personality love is not involved. Where it is involved, you are prone to over-estimate the loved ones and see too much for them. Is this not so, my brother?
1. DK turns to practical matters. One of the disciples in the “Trained Observers” (the ‘Glamor Group’) has succumbed to the “glamor of the fear of authority” and has asked to leave the group and for a replacement to be found.
2. We note that DK does not say that DAO has failed; one day she will learn, but, for the moment, she “learns not with ease the lesson of self-discipline”. This is interesting as DAO is a seventh ray soul from which, one might expect, more self-discipline.
3. DK asks RSU to take her place in the “Trained Observers” temporarily. Interestingly (and convincingly — hopefully to RSU) He says He could not invite her to do so had she really failed.
4. When a disciple drops out or drops back, another must take his or her place “to preserve the integrity of the group relationship”. We learnt that RSU has stepped in before when necessity arose. DK surely finds her a very useful disciple.
5. DK explains that his mind turned to RSU instinctively when the need arose. Yet He also has reasons for inviting her to this form of service. Firstly, she is relatively glamor free, and the sorely beset ‘Glamor Group’ needs such an influence. Secondly, her clarity of vision is true and constructive. It matters relatively little that RSU succumbs somewhat to the glamor of failure; where the principles of spiritual work are concerned she is free of glamor.
6. We notice that at this time transiting Saturn is at the MC of both proposed charts indicating the imposition of additional responsibility.
7. DK uses the occasion to point out in RSU a second ray glamor not infrequently found — the tendency to overestimate loved ones. Why do second ray people do this? Perhaps it because of their innate positivity, and their tendency to see and emphasize the subjective reality rather than the obstacles to the expression of that reality found within the form.
8. The sign Cancer is also given to this liability of overestimating the near and dear. Their close personal love biases the clarity of their sight.
9. We can see how skillfully the Master moves, accomplishing several things at once — not only finding a replacement for DAO, but teaching RSU that she cannot possibly have failed, and, as well, pointing out a few glamorous tendencies which need attention. A Master’s consciousness is synthesized and can move a number of situations forward into greater harmony simultaneously.
In this case however, your vision will be clear and true. So take the place of D.A.O. and give of your best in the situation. But vacate not your own place in my group.
D.A.O.'s concept of freedom — as is the case with all such concepts — can act as a prison. Her idea of liberty can be a chain, holding her down. This is the lesson she must learn. Her service in my group comes second to her love of her own progress and this I shall have to point out to her. Disciples, working in an Ashram, are none of them entirely free agents. Each is held by a soul link to his co-disciples. Responsibility undertaken and karmic relationships recognised cannot be lightly set aside and must ultimately be worked out. The discipline of the group life is a higher living discipline than any self-imposed ideas of life and truth. When a disciple sees and relates his individual dharma and his group responsibility — then he can take right action.
1. DK seems to become more directive. After assuring RSU of her capacity to fulfill the request, He directs her to do so, encouraging her to give of her best in the situation.
2. We can see DK placing greater responsibility upon his chela, but she is one who is equal to the assumption of such responsibility. As she proves herself in difficult situations, she will realize the illusory nature of her failure.
3. DK returns to a consideration of DAO’s particular glamor related to the “concept of freedom”. He points out the paradoxes in her situation — a demand for freedom which is really imprisoning her; a demand for her own personal progress which really retards the progress of her group.
4. It is clear that DK has not yet written the necessary explanatory letter to DAO. He will have to deal truthfully with the matter for her sake.
5. Then comes some general teaching of importance. Disciples in an Ashram are not really totally free agents. They are linked together through soul relationships and karmic relationships. One cannot easily set such relationships aside or else the karma will not be worked through.
6. By studying the case of DAO the group is learning about the relative value of group values and individual values. The group values must take prominence.
7. When individual dharma and group responsibility can be correctly related by the disciple, then right action can be taken.
8. Probably a number of us have had to balance soul urges arising from the pressure to express the causal body, against the demands of the Divine Plan. This pressure will become even more intense as we approach the necessity of relinquishing the causal body. There is something inherently selfish about choosing the promptings of the causal body over the promptings mediated through the spiritual triad. It was such a choice which faced the “rich young man” who, making the wrong choice, “went sadly away”.
Will you assist me in this problem? I know you will, my brother. And will you take this as an evidence of my faith and trust in you and also as evidence of the needless astral anxiety under which you so constantly labour?
1. The Tibetan, though seeming to direct RSU forward to the correct choice, still leaves the decision in her hands.
2. He asks her to help, but then seems to answer for her because, in fact, He knows she will help.
3. DK continue with His therapeutic mission to convince RSU that He has the kind of faith and trust in her which negates any necessity for her needless astral anxiety (under which she so constantly labors).
4. At this point we might wish to remember that RSU has a first ray astral body; does this ray energy contribute to the presence of such anxiety? The first ray in the astral body certainly does not contribute to ease of emotional expression and probably contributes to an elevated standard (hard to “live up to”) where personal responses are concerned.
5. Regarding this new presented responsibility (and, thus, presented opportunity) we cannot help but notice the position of transiting Saturn in Pisces culminating at the MC and conjuncting the progressing Sun in Pisces. The Master is Saturn; opportunity is Saturn; responsibility is Saturn. Saturn would conjunct the progressing Sun no matter what was RSU’s time of birth, but the fact that it does so at the MC (the career point) tends to lend reasonable validity to both proposed charts.
6. As well, in the secondary proposed chart, the progressed Sun is reaching the MC and within one degree of conjunction. Additional power, influence and authority (symbolized by the Sun) are coming to RSU. Also solar arc directed Chiron (SA-Chiron) is very near to the both proposed Ascendants. Chiron (the Master) is pointing out new direction.
One small personal task I ask of you also. Please go back over all the instructions you have received from me and list the specific information I have given you anent your actions upon the physical plane. Then note what you have succeeded in doing and what still remains to be done. This will help you to renew your efforts to master the physical body which is the vehicle which gives you the most trouble and which can be brought to heel far more easily than the astral or mental bodies. Yet it is this body in this incarnation which gives you the most difficulty. If you mastered it, your work would forge ahead.
1. We can tell from the position of Saturn that the “pressure is still on”. DK asks RSU to gather for review all He has said about her actions on the physical plane, for the physical body is still her problem.
2. He asks for a careful evaluation as much remains to be done.
3. Mastery of the physical body is still the objective and under the rather strong influence of Saturn prevailing during the next number of months should be easier to accomplish.
4. So often relatively advanced disciples such as RSU have difficulty with the astral or mental body. Paradoxically, in her case, it continues to be the physical body which causes her so much of a problem.
5. DK expresses the matter in no uncertain terms; if she mastered the physical body her “work would forge ahead”. Is it not amazing that the physical body can be such an obstacle to spiritual progress for even an advanced disciple?
January 1937
BROTHER:
I seek to start with a word of commendation to you. You have progressed this past year and have passed out of a relatively static condition into one of increased sensitivity and growth. Having in the past pointed out to you your failures and having frequently had the need to analyse you to yourself in terms of [Page 368] reproof, it fills me with joy to register in you growth and an increasing ability to move forward. Let me tell you now that three years ago, I viewed your condition with questioning as to whether or not you had reached your highest point of attainment for this life and would (for the remainder of your years on earth) simply hold that which has been gained. No light achievement, my brother, given the equipment with which you started upon the Path three lives ago, but not indicating your highest possibility which is to be based upon the work done in your last life on earth. Go forward now to greater heights of achievement in self-forgetfulness and in love, and become increasingly a tower of strength and a source of illumining wisdom to your co-disciples.
1. The increasing pressure applied by the Master and by the astrological conditions has brought good results. DK commends RSU on her progress. She has passed out of a relatively static condition into greater sensitivity and growth. She has, it would seem, seized the opportunity presented by Saturn and has been impulsed by power to begin anew associated with the progressing Moon passing through Aries (a sign which, with facility, moves all forward). We also note that solar arc directed Chiron is conjuncting the primary proposed Ascendant (and is still within orb in the secondary proposed chart), indicating the power to direct herself forward.
2. The Master feels joy at being able to offer commendation instead of reproof. We also note that a measure of relief must accompany the continuing transit of Jupiter into Capricorn where, in a few months, it will conjunct the natal Sun.
3. The Master now shares the somewhat pessimistic assessment of RSU He had entertained a few years before. All disciples have their “high water mark”. It is not possible for even a Master to know whether that mark has been attained, as disciples may often surprise themselves, their Master and their soul/Solar Angel.
4. DK commends RSU’s achievement and points enigmatically to the equipment with which she started on the Path “three lives ago”. Which Path was this? Was this the Path of Initiation with the commencement indicated by the first initiation? Was it the Path of Accepted Discipleship? It is unlikely that it was the Path of Probation, for experience on that Path is usually of much longer duration than three lives.
5. We are presented with the need for close analysis. It has been reasonably calculated that a usual minimum of seven lives occurs between the first and second initiation. Usually, starting upon the “Path” (if by the word “Path” is meant the “Probationary Path”) is done before the first initiation. If this were the case, however, RSU would have lived too few lives as an initiate of the first degree to stand where now she appears to stand as an accepted disciple poised to take either the second or third initiation. In this particular context, then, to start on the “Path” seems best interpreted as meaning either, to start as an initiate of the first degree or to start the “Path of Accepted Discipleship”. A number of DK’s chelas had been accepted disciples for several lives. There is no reason why in the case of RSU (advanced disciple that she is) that we should not entertain this possibility.
6. DK seems to note that RSU’s previous incarnation held much promise which has not yet been fulfilled in the present incarnation.
7. RSU is to become a source of strength (the second term in her ‘Developmental Formula’) and a source of illumining wisdom to her fellowmen — drawing, it would seem, upon two signs of illumination (Taurus and Capricorn).
8. DK ends which an inspiring exhortation. We must notice that the proposed MC has progressed to a conjunction of both natal and progressing Neptune — the planet of release and of inspiration. This is only the case, however, in the primary proposed chart.
I have for you two words. One of them is based upon the instructions which I have given you in the past and which I will summarise by saying: Submit your physical plane life to discipline, self-imposed; adhere to that discipline at all costs. You can outline that discipline adequately for yourself. There is no need for me to do so.
1. Regardless of His commendation, the Master does not relent in His critique. He continues to insist that RSU submit her physical vehicle and physical plane life to a self-imposed discipline.
2. We note that transiting Saturn is still very strong in the chart and represents the continuation of opportunity presented by discipline.
3. DK intensifies the request by adding the phrase “at all costs”. There is an urgency in His words and so, we presume, the opportunity for RSU to advance must be very great. As Chiron is at the Ascendant in both charts, the Master is directing her forward.
4. As she is a mature disciple, she may conceive of the discipline herself.
The second message I have is based upon a comment you yourself made to me that you have permitted your life to be ruled by expediency and habit but not by plan. I would ask you to ponder deeply upon that sentence, asking you to apply it and carry the concept to the higher life of service and not just to a disciplined life, ordered and ruled by your own imposed plan but to that service to which this group of disciples is pledged. This lifts the whole theme out of the realm of the personality life and will fill your thought life with the vastness of our plan.
1. The Tibetan recalls to RSU her own words. She has allowed her life “to be ruled by expediency and habit but not by plan”.
2. All these terms concern the third ray — its misuse (expediency and habit) or its correct use (plan).
3. DK sees an opportunity for illuminating teaching in RSU’s works. He asks her to apply His words to the Divine Plan and not just to the realm of personality life.
4. Clearly, He seeks to see her life ruled by the Divine Plan. He wishes her to fill her “thought life with the vastness of our plan”. If she did so, she would become like Foster Bailey whose mind and heart were filled with the Plan. These kinds of parallels contribute to the thought that RSU (like FB) was preparing for the third degree rather than the second.
5. DK seeks to elevate the quality of RSU’s life. She has the thought power to grasp the breadth and beauty of the Plan; the Master seeks to see her do so more dynamically. All this is occurring while Saturn, the planet most associated with the Divine Plan is in a very elevated position in the chart.
All of you know so much. Your theory is so good and sound. But your practice should begin to be commensurate with your theory if this group is to go forward as desired into real world work. Let rapid adjustment take place and a fresh dedication and re-alignment among all of you so that, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder and with eyes fixed upon the same vision, you can face life and its vicissitudes together and thus lighten each others' way. This is not always the case.
1. Now the group as a whole is addressed. The point is to substitute practice for theory.
2. Group progress demands application of that which is known.
3. DK offers an exhortation. His disciples are to adjust rapidly to the demands of the Plan, to work with fresh dedication and alignment and to stand hand in hand, and shoulder to shoulder with eyes fixed upon the same vision. In this way the ups and downs of the Path of Discipleship can be better endured and all can lighten each other’s way (and load).
4. Master DK seems to take it as His task to send streams of inspiration into His groups from time to time. They need it.
Therefore, my brother, let the plan itself mould your life and its activities and let discipline produce the instrument which is needed for the work to be done. Groups of disciples today are being trained in telepathic work and are rendering telepathic service to the world — a tiny replica of the work which the Hierarchy is ever doing with the minds of men. Thus, when you start to do this, you can work to change conditions and to affect certain lives. This work will not be truly possible where criticism, self-pity or wrong speech exist, for one person could block the outflow of the group thought. Therefore, I am asking my group of disciples this year to prepare for expanding service and to brood deeply upon the work of thought transmission in world service.
1. The Master is raising the level of consideration. The Divine Plan is to become the major directing factor of the life, moulding the life and its activities. Discipline is to produce the instrument needed by the Plan.
2. We find master DK summoning RSU to a still more impersonal life.
3. The Divine Plan can be considered especially related to the sign Capricorn — RSU’s Sun-sign.
4. Again addressing the “Telepathic Communicators” He points out that their work is a tiny replica of the hierarchical work. He offers fresh incentive for them to develop the capacity to work in this way. Thus they will “change conditions and…affect certain lives”.
5. If the group of Telepathic Communicators is to be able to begin their service they must eliminate criticism, self-pity and wrong speech. Even one person subject to these liabilities “could block the outflow of the group thought”. Any one of such faults would short-circuit the group energy producing cleavage and disruption.
6. The group of disciples is being asked to “brood deeply upon the work of thought transmission in world service”. Well may we brood upon this form of service — today, especially. Service through thought transmission has not yet been fully accomplished among the world disciples. In fact, it has barely begun to fulfill its real potential.
The occult phrases which I have for your consideration are as follows:
"The blueprint lay before the Master Workman and the plan, in all its detail, lay disclosed upon the Trestle Board. Within the Middle Chamber waited those who had to build the Temple according to the plan laid down.
1. DK continues to offer RSU selections from the Old Commentary which she can approach with her considerable powers of interpretation (a third ray gift).
2. We should remember that by this time AAB had started the Masonic Lodge which she directed, and that RSU was a dedicated member of this Lodge.
3. The terminology used here is strictly Masonic.
4. We remember that in this instruction Master DK has been talking about the power of the Divine Plan to guide the life.
5. The “Trestle Board” is that place where the plans to be immediately accomplished are laid out. The “Middle Chamber” represents the domain of the soul (and will have a specialized meaning for RSU to be explained later when the relationships between DK’s and KH’s Ashrams are discussed). The “Temple” is not only the causal body but the “Temple of Humanity” which all disciples are in process of building.
6. Those who waited are very likely disciples who are to cooperate in the building of the Temple.
"But the plan was not complete. Some knowledge of the ground plan upon which the Temple must be reared was lacking and he who sought it and he who had it were not there. The Master Workman waited.
1. Something in the process of building, however, is not as it should be. The Plan is not complete and the building process cannot proceed.
2. A part of the Plan is missing. The one who has that part is not (yet) in the Middle Chamber ready for work.
3. The Master Workman is the Master, Himself.
"The one who sought the needed knowledge, who guided those who laid the ground for later building, he slept and ate and played upon the outer plane. And yet at every hour, his thought was focussed in the Middle Chamber of the waiting artisans and recollection came. His soul at moments hovered o'er the blueprints in the Inner Room and looked the Master Workman in the face. And still the Master waited. Then recollection came and active work."
1. The disciple (RSU) who sought the needed knowledge for the building and whose responsibility it was to guide those who were to lay the ground for the later building, was behaving in an unseemly manner. He was indulging his personality, eating, sleeping and playing upon the outer plane.
2. But he (again, RSU) is divided in his attention, for his thought turns often to the Middle Chamber of the soul where the Master is waiting.
3. As his consciousness turns towards the Middle Chamber, he remembers his duty. There are those in the Middle Chamber whom he must put to work. The “waiting artisans” are creative workers who are to creatively implement the Divine Plan.
4. As a soul he begins to take his task more seriously, pondering the blueprints which are known to him as a soul. He looks at the Master to determine the Master’s purpose. At the same time he is facing his soul, for the soul and the Master are one.
5. Yet, the readiness to do as he should was still not completely present.
6. The Master waited just as DK is waiting for RSU to seize full responsibility.
7. Recollection came again and, at last, the beginning of active work in line with the Plan, according to the blueprints, utilizing and cooperating with the waiting artisans and under the guidance of the Master.
8. RSU, as a Mason, could hardly miss the point being suggested by DK. There was much for her to do in relation to the Divine Plan. She was not yet doing it, yet wished to do it. Only her physical plane life was holding her back. This she realized and finally got control of it so that she could work as actively as her duty demanded.
July 1937
MY BROTHER:
You have, as you have oft been told by me, only one major problem and that is connected with your physical body. Let me indicate to you your ray forces and then, I believe, increased light will be thrown upon your problem.
1. Transiting Jupiter has come to a conjunction of the natal Sun and the progressing Moon has moved into the sign Taurus, the sign of RSU’s natal Moon. Will this be lead to progress or retardation?
2. DK reiterates that the major problem is the physical body. At a time when the progressed Moon is found in Taurus, physical issues can again emerge in strength.
3. This is the particular letter of instruction in which the ray forces are to be revealed. DK hopes that doing so will assist RSU in the solution of her problem.
Your mental body is a first ray one and this is what makes [Page 370] you a real occult student. Your soul's contact is so definite and real that your mental body builds no barriers between the soul and your personality or between you and your co-disciples. Mentally, you always understand and are inclusive. I do not mean theoretically but in fact. But your astral body is also upon the first ray which is an unique occurrence and rarely to be found. It is here that the sense of separateness enters in, for that first ray tendency does to you two things:
a. It feeds your sense of separativeness and thus tends to isolate you.
b. It fosters your fear of attachment.
1. DK speaks of the value of RSU’s first ray mental body. Interestingly, her mental and astral body are both on the first ray, just like another advanced disciple DHB (26-117).
2. Her first ray mental body makes her “a real occult student”. The first ray is, above all, the ‘ray of occultism’.
3. The mental body is functioning very well under soul impression. It is rarely the case that the mental body builds no barriers between itself and the soul and between itself and co-disciples, but for RSU such barriers are not being built — at least by the mind. Inclusiveness (even mental synthesis) is always a possibility in a highly developed first ray vehicle and so it is for RSU.
4. The problem comes with the first ray astral body (in itself a fairly unusual occurrence). The first ray astral body occurred nine times in the total group of chelas under DK’s supervision. The complete ray formula for some chelas was not listed and so, perhaps, the first ray astral body occurred even more frequently.
5. Although the first ray astral vehicle can be, in some cases, an asset, for RSU it introduces the “sense of separateness”, isolation and “fear of attachment”.
6. Can we see any astrological indications that would tend to support the presence of a first ray mental body or a first ray astral body for RSU?
7. The orthodox dispositor of Mercury (planet of the mind) in Aquarius is Uranus placed in Vulcan-ruled Virgo and natally trine first ray Pluto and first ray Saturn. In fact the midpoint of the first-ray Saturn-Pluto wide conjunction is very closely trine first ray Uranus. This is some evidence.
8. As for the first ray astral body, there are no such very convincing indications. The exoteric dispositor of the Moon (a ‘planet’ associated with emotion) is Venus in Sagittarius. Venus is in no close aspect with a first ray planet. In fact, Venus is not powerfully aspected.
9. We might look to repressive, sometimes-first-ray Saturn conjunct Neptune, a planet of the emotions and the esoteric ruler of the proposed Cancer-rising charts. Saturn is also conjunct the South Node, a sometime-indicator of the emotions.
10. Sixth-ray Mars, a planet of the emotions, is in first ray Capricorn, but it is trine to sixth ray Neptune.
11. Vulcan is the esoteric dispositor of the Moon in Taurus (and may be much associated with the material resistance of that Taurean Moon. We cannot know with certainty the placement of Vulcan, though it could be trine to first ray Pluto (which, if true, would contribute first ray to the astral body).
Thus you are oft emotionally and astrally detached and isolated from those who love you and from your fellowmen. Hence there is a continuing conflict between your loving soul and your isolated, lonely, astral vehicle. The solution will be immediately clear to you.
1. A very interesting analysis of the liabilities of the first ray astral body is here offered. It causes RSU to be often “emotionally and astrally detached and isolated from those who love you and from your fellowmen”. The second ray soul is in conflict with the first ray astral body.
2. DK tells RSU that the solution to the difficulty is clear. We may suppose that the ray of the soul must more powerfully influence the astral vehicle. The soul wishes to be outgoing — to express love to others, to bridge and to include. The first ray astral body, however, causes a kind of cleavage in the emotional world.
3. Under such a conditioning, one would be very reticent to share feelings with others or the content of one’s emotional life. There will be a constant drawing back from emotional contact and it will be hard to establish what might be called a ‘community of feeling’.
4. It is important to realize that a ray conditioning a certain vehicle may work in one way for one disciple and in another for a different disciple.
Your physical body is on the seventh ray.
1. That the physical vehicle is on the seventh ray makes the habit nature strong, especially when the physical nature is reinforced by the energy of the Taurus Moon. We remember that in esoteric astrology the Moon is associated with the physical body.
2. The seventh ray is usually considered a ‘ray of refinement’ and when it conditions the physical vehicle, that vehicle is usually more refined than when it is conditioned by the third ray. Perhaps in RSU’s case, it is the presence of the seventh ray conditioning, as it does, the physical body that calls for the refinement of that vehicle.
3. While it may sometimes be possible to judge by physical appearance which ray conditions the physical vehicle, it will not always be so. The thought that seventh ray physical vehicles are thinner and more lithe and third ray physicals less refined and more robust, may not always be the case.
4. The ‘nature and quality of physical action’ will be good guide for discriminating the physical ray. Yet we must remember that in the case of BSD, who had no seventh ray in his present ray make-up (36-563), his life was, nevertheless, well-organized. We are not in a position to see an individual’s prior ray conditioning (i.e., the rays prominent in immediately former incarnations which may be influential in the present incarnation).
Ponder, therefore, the interior relations and the exterior effect of your ray forces as tabulated below:
1. The soul ray — the second Ray of Love-Wisdom.
2. The personality ray — the third Ray of Active Intelligence.
3. The ray of the mind — the first Ray of Power.
4. The ray of the astral body — the first Ray of Power.
5. The ray of the physical body — the seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order.
1. This is a very unusual ray formula. There are so many hard-line rays in the personality and its vehicles.
2. Usually there will be at least one soft-line ray amidst a majority of hard-line rays or vice versa.
3. It does not take much imagination to see that the energy of the second ray soul will not easily express through the hard-line personality and its three hard-line vehicles — four hard-line energies in all.
You will note how much your soul has to do with the lines of energy which are all definitely related to the first ray: 1-3-7. You will consequently be encouraged also to note how much your life of love does control your work and service. I am aware of it. Am I commending you or stimulating you, my brother? Perhaps both. Dwell much in thought upon these facts in the months which lie ahead.
1. The phrasing of this first sentence is interesting. It suggests that the soul is engaged with a number of energies related to the first ray. The deeper reason for the soul’s choice of personality rays through which to work is not given, but one can certainly infer that it is purposeful. Such a combination would promote detachment from worldly matters and, if used correctly, much directed, executive activity. We have already seen that RSU possessed these virtues but does not always apply them.
2. Despite this unusual ray configuration, it seems that the love of the second ray soul still very much controls RSU’s work and service. This means that RSU’s soul expression is, in fact, powerful, because it is not much negated or inhibited by the many hard-line energies, as might normally be the case with no soft-line energy in the personality or its vehicles to act as a channel for soul energy. But, then, there is nothing very normal about this ray configuration.
3. For RSU’s encouragement DK points out the potency of her soul and, almost humorously, He previsions what may be the effect of saying so. He suggests that His remarks may have a “stimulating” effect within her personality vehicles. The Master usually seeks to stimulate the soul rather than the personality vehicles themselves (unless for specific and deliberate purpose, as in the stimulation of RSU’s etheric-physical nature). Stimulation affecting the personality vehicles can make soul expression more difficult.
January 1938
MY BROTHER OF OLD:
What am I to say to you? If I remind you not that the need is for you to submit your lower nature to discipline, you would have for me no respect for I would not be a true friend and teacher. If I remind you of this need I then but increase your responsibility which is not the act of a true friend and teacher.
1. It appears that there has been some retrogression, and that RSU is once again in a static condition. The progressed Moon is now solidly in Taurus accentuating, perhaps, RSU’s usual difficulties with her physical vehicle.
2. DK approaches her in a very interesting manner. He is her “friend and teacher” and discusses what it means to act as such. He cannot continue to insist that she discipline her lower nature, nor can He refrain from doing so, because that lower nature is still in need of considerable discipline.
3. He informs her that if He continues to speak of that necessary discipline, He but increases her responsibility (which a true friend and teacher would not do).
4. Beneath all this, the Master is trying to find a new way to help RSU take very needed action with respect to her physical body.
Disciples come definitely into the aura of the Hierarchy. You are a disciple. Disciples evoke from us who are the teachers upon the inner side of life many and diverse reactions. We look at some of you and feel that much time must elapse before we can fully trust you with our confidence; integration, wisdom and soul contact must first be induced. Others emerge into the hierarchical Light and we know — as we study them — that though there is contact and knowledge there is also ambition, violence and selfishness and that these qualities must be offset and subdued before there can be freedom of action, both on our part and on theirs. Others again are lovely in themselves with a high and sweet vibration but they are weak and full of fear, sorrowful or weighed down with care; they have to be taught the way of strength and of divine carelessness before their service can measure up to demand. Others again come into our sphere of influence who are integrated, wise, trustworthy and with far more than the average capacity to serve and to prove useful. Their power to live, to influence and to serve is very great. Yet in some one part of their nature there is weakness and their expression is limited. That weakness could be so easily offset, given sufficient illumined desire and spiritual will (qualities present but unused). Such a disciple are you, my brother and my comrade of long standing. Your major hindrance is in your physical body which refuses discipline and hitherto has bested all your efforts. This you know and to this you refer with a sense of blinding failure. How can I help you, therefore, when you know the causes of hindrance, the obstacles to wider influence and the nature of the problem which you have to solve?
1. The Master begins to speak in general about Hierarchy’s perspective upon its disciples. He discusses the various kinds of disciples and Hierarchy’s methods of approaching them — if They can!
2. As we enter 1938, we have noted that a number of the disciples seemed to lose ground and revert to previous habit patterns. This regression seems to have been a group phenomenon and may have been tied to the general world situation and the psychic atmosphere then prevalent in humanity.
3. As DK shares the Hierarchy’s perspective on its disciples, He speaks of four types.
a. Some simply have insufficient integration and soul contact. These disciples simply need more experience.
b. Some are too ambitious, violent and selfish. They stand in need of harmlessness.
c. Some are sweet, weak and ineffectual, weighed down by fear, care and sorrow. Divine carelessness holds for them the solution.
d. And others are integrated, wise and trustworthy yet have one predominating weakness which limits their service.
e. If DK were to study any one of us, what would He say? Can you find yourself in one or other of these categories? Knowing how the Masters evaluate us, and the kind of evaluation we might receive, can begin to free us for more effective discipleship.
4. DK points out that RSU is in this last category — a very useful disciple with a major flaw. Her capacity for service is considerable, but she seems not to be able to conquer her one outstanding weakness — the discipline of the physical body (with all of the limiting effects described and discussed in DK’s instructions and in this commentary).
5. What is needed to offset the weakness? Illumined desire and spiritual will (present but unused). She surely has the astrological equipment to support these necessary means of release. Her Taurus stellium is a conduit for illumined desire and spiritual will should pour in abundance through the Sun and Mars in Capricorn and through her first ray mind. That will, however, has simply not been sufficiently strong to ensure achievement. The frustrating process has dragged on now for many years. Such are the potential liabilities of the Taurus Moon when the Vulcanian factor of ‘material resistance’ is accentuated.
6. Master DK, Himself, seems somewhat frustrated, for His disciple knows the difficulty thoroughly. It is not that she does not understand what must be done. She understands all too well, yet fails to achieve, and then falls into “blinding failure”. She is beset by a kind of astral misery which is intensified by her first ray (astral) reticence to share the pain of her condition.
There is nothing that I can do beyond telling you that once you have brought your physical nature into line with the demand of your soul, that you have far more to give than the average disciple. You have wisdom and much experience, individual and racial. You have a deep love, of which you are afraid and, therefore, fail to express as you might and which your executive work has cramped and hindered. You have [Page 372] seasoned occult understanding which can do much for others. You have a magnetic radiance. But there is ever a point beyond which you seem unable to go — a point at which the physical body intervenes and refuses to become a clear channel for the expression of the inner beauty and radiance.
1. There can be no question that RSU is, in most respects, an advanced disciple. Given her antahkaranic development, she may be already an initiate of the second degree or very close to that achievement. Only one thing lacks.
2. DK offers incentive by pointing the way to a more positive future of effective service. It will supervene when once RSU has brought her physical nature into line with the demand of her soul.
3. RSU is a wise and experienced disciple. Her experience is not only individual (the result of many incarnations) but also “racial”, with the possible implication that she has either spent much time in the Jewish Race (with all its excellences, sensitivities and liabilities), or has absorbed much of value from that racial consciousness as a result of her present incarnation. Considering these two possibilities, there would normally be reason to suspect that the first would be more likely, but later Master DK tells RSU that she is not really affiliated with the Jewish People. The present incarnation seems to be an exception.
4. The major liability of the first ray astral body is again described, for though her love nature is deep, she is afraid to express it. Further, her executive work (facilitated by her many hard-line rays) cramps and hinders the expression of that love.
5. The list of accomplishments goes one. She has “seasoned occult understanding” which could do much for others. One does not acquire such understanding in just a few years; RSU has been involved in occultism or its equivalent for some time. Such understanding points to attainment beyond the second degree, with its “illumined mind and spiritual intelligence” (DINA II 267)
6. She also has “magnetic radiance” — the result of her second ray soul.
7. But at a certain point, the inertia and density of the physical body intervene and prevent the full expression of her inner beauty and radiance.
8. This is a frustrating situation. The blockage (Saturn/Neptune) does not give way and the healing (Pluto/Chiron) does not come.
Having pointed this out, having begged you to bring this aspect of yourself into line with spiritual demand and having indicated the wider field of service which could open up before you, I have to leave you to succeed in the task or to refuse to undertake it as seems to you best. Perhaps later, I shall see a pronounced change — full alignment and heightened radiance.
1. The present instruction seems to be DK’s last attempt along these lines. He certainly does not give up easily.
2. Again, as in other instructions to other chelas, He uses the word, “beg” or “begged”. Indeed, the Master implores His disciples to do what is best for them. We can begin to understand something of the “exquisite agony” a Master suffers when His chelas will not rise to their full potential despite all the Master has done to help them do so.
3. DK is now ready, it seems, to leave RSU to respond or not. If she does not respond to the “spiritual demand” (coming not only from the Master but from her own soul) it will be a refusal. It will mean that an aspect of her will is determined not to respond. Under the Law of Economy, the Master can spend no more energy begging His chela to respond (and thus increasing her responsibility).
4. What He hopes to see is “pronounced changes — full alignment and heightened radiance”.
5. When one sees the planet Uranus so close to the IC (representing bodily inheritance) and in the sign Virgo (representing matter and its purification) one can see that the requirement to refine, transmute and transform the lunar vehicles is a soul-planned objective in the life of RSU. She is to cut herself from what might be called her ‘lunar inheritance’ (which includes her racial inheritance) and free herself (Uranus) from its influence. It is, however, proving to be a most difficult task.
6. The “last change” feeling of the present instruction is strengthened by the presence of transiting Saturn in the last degrees of Pisces and transiting Pluto in the last degrees of Cancer.
I would ask you to take much time each Sunday (for an hour at least) in the attempt to contact my aura and, through that, the aura of the Hierarchy. The results of this effort should be vital to you and of importance in handling your problem. I leave you with the last words of the occult phrases I gave you a year ago:
1. DK offers yet another method of strengthening. RSU is to attempt (for at least an hour each week) to contact the aura of the Master and through that aura, the aura of Hierarchy.
2. If this contact succeeds, the spiritual will, will inevitably be strengthened and the task which has seemed to resist all effort more easily accomplished.
3. We note a possible occult hint interspersed in one of the sentences. Hierarchy is found, for the most part, within the etheric body (the vital body) of the Planetary Logos and the Ashrams are focussed largely, buddhically. If, therefore, RSU succeeds in contacting her Master’s aura and, through it, the aura of Hierarchy, her own etheric body (her vital body) will receive a vital stimulation.
4. The energy of the Ashram and of the Hierarchy will strengthen her in gaining release.
5. Astrologically, we do notice that, at the time this suggestion is being offered, transiting Jupiter is in the group sign, Aquarius (the sign of the Hierarchy) and is transiting the progressing Venus (planet of the soul) and the exoteric dispositor of the Taurus Moon (which is so much contributing to her difficulty). The opportunity for deeper ashramic and hierarchical contact is suggested by this aspect and the application of this aspect to her ‘resistance-problem’ is also suggested.
"Then recollection came and active work."
I trust that soon that will be the statement which I shall be enabled to make anent you and not the usual earlier one, "and still the Master Workman waited."
1. Master DK refers RSU to a consideration of the “occult phrases” He gave her in her last instruction.
2. The Master Workman is, in this instance, Master DK.
3. Two contrasting phrases are compared. DK is the waiting Master Workman. He is waiting for His disciple to take the needed steps and assume her full work for the Divine Plan.
4. The last phrase ends on a note of accomplishment: “then recollection came and active work”.
5. The Master seeks to see a transition from the static condition of the incompletely responsive disciple, to a condition of recollection, realization and subsequent “active work” on behalf of the Divine Plan.
6. There is, indeed, hope that this may be the case. Transiting Uranus continues its movement across the Taurus stellium, more or less transiting the progressing Moon in Taurus as this instruction is written. Solar arc directed Uranus is also conjuncting the North Node where necessary action is to be taken. Uranus, we remember, is the liberator.
January 1939
MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:
What can I say that I have not already said? I can remind you of the interesting fact that every one of the forces of your personality is on the first great line of power, of isolation and of separativeness. The only second ray influence through which love can come is your soul and the implications of this you are apt to misunderstand. Therefore, your life of love is dependent upon the extent of your soul contact and that contact must be kept living and vital or else your personality idea, your desire to hold people away from you, your sense of isolation and of pride will dominate. The difficulty is enhanced for you owing to the fact that the ray which governs your race is the third ray and that also governs your personality far more [Page 373] strongly than you realise. Therefore the age-old separativeness of your racial background will increase your sense of withdrawing from all personality contacts. It will place the glamour before your eyes that the only contacts possible for you are those reached via the soul. If that were truly so, my brother, why be in a physical body at all, why be in a group of disciples, why be so much loved by those around you? Your co-disciples love you and give you, as much as they can, the love of their souls. Those who are near you on the physical plane give you also personality love and devotion. The first you accept with pride and understanding; the second you reject with pride and no understanding.
1. DK continues, with utter loyalty, to work with His disciple, although, apparently, there has not been the movement desired.
2. The Master returns to a consideration of RSU’s unusual ray formula, reiterating the meaning of the first ray line of force — power, isolation separativeness.
3. He tells her (perhaps in a hint) that “the only second ray influence through which love can come is your soul”. Is He telling her that her monad is not on the second ray? The third, I think, would be a far greater probability.
4. If love is to prevail in the life, soul contact must be kept “living and vital”. It is the only channel for second ray energy.
5. DK points to the personality condition which would develop (and may, at times, already have developed) if soul contact and expression are not kept strong: the desire to hold people away, isolation and pride.
6. The Tibetan enters into a deeper analysis of the difficulty. All of us are born in certain races and nations and the rays of those races and nations combine with our own individual rays — reinforcing them, offsetting them or contradicting them.
7. In RSU’s case, the first ray soul and third ray personality of the Jewish Race, into which she was born in this incarnation, reinforce the first and third ray forces in her ray formula adding to her own problems with separativeness the age-old separative tendencies of the Jewish race.
8. The Master always knows more concerning our tendencies than we do. Here He informs RSU that the third ray governs her personality far more strongly than she suspects.
9. The liabilities of the combination of the first and third rays are pride, criticism and separativeness.
10. RSU is suffering from a glamor exacerbated by the third and first rays. It is also a glamor based upon the misunderstanding of the value of different kinds of contact. She accepts the value of soul contact and thinks it is the only kind of contact permissible. She utterly negates the value of personality contact.
11. DK tries to help her adjust her point of view, reminding her, sanely and wisely, that if soul contact were the only kind of desirable contact, there would be no purpose in having a physical body or in relating to others in group formation on the physical plane.
12. RSU is loved; DK reminds her of this. But she does not know how to relate to this love, offered to her by both her disciplic co-workers and the members of her family or her “near ones” (as Master M. has described those with whom we have contact which is more personal than of the soul).
13. At the time He is pointing to this mismanagement of the dimension of human relationship, the progressing Moon (so important in the chart of an individual with Cancer-rising) is conjuncting both the natal and progressing Chiron (the “Wounded Healer”). The Master (Who is also, in a sense, Chiron, the Guide) is seeking to help RSU heal her various relationships, rendered rather difficult and, to an extent, unnatural by her many hard-line rays and especially by her first ray astral body.
14. She will accept the love of her co-disciples, but (and this is the first time the Master points out this particular flaw) she does so with pride and understanding. She knows why her co-workers offer her the love, but it reinforces or stimulates an aspect of her personality which seeks some degree of personal reinforcement or personal recognition.
15. As for the love and devotion of a more personal nature offered to her by her “near ones”, she rejects it (also with pride — for she considers herself above the need for such personal attention — and with “no understanding”). DK could not be clearer in offering RSU this illuminating contrast.
16. This instruction is aimed to help overcome the liabilities of the first ray astral body, especially. RSU is to understand why the ‘pride reaction’ arises in her, and also to offer greater understanding to her near ones when they attempt to approach her with personal love and personal devotion. She must understand that this is a perfectly natural and desirable line of approach given their stage of evolution. Later this personal love and devotion will be transformed into the love and devotion of the soul. It does them no good (nor does it help oneself) to reject what they have to offer.
17. The pride reactions which DK points out are somewhat strengthened by the significant presence of both Taurus and Capricorn. The energy of Cancer (pointing her in the direction her soul would have her go) is not so given to the reaction of pride.
Before you can claim the full prerogatives of an accepted disciple (which you are) you must penetrate behind the screen or the shutter of your personality and become aware of the violence of your true feeling on the question of racial differences, of social standing, of class distinctions and of personality affections. There is in you what amounts almost to an inhibited hatred. It is partly racial, partly European, and partly a totally unnecessary sense of social and personal inferiority. You assure yourself that it is not there. You refuse to recognise it with great deliberation. You say to yourself: I am all love and understanding because I am a soul. And you very frequently are a soul and your influence is soul influence. But behind all this lies a blind spot. It is a "sticking your head into the sand" type of glamour, and a refusal to register your personality limitations along this line. You, with your wisdom and soul contact, could most easily handle this, if you so desired.
1. Master DK is becoming acute in His analysis. Perhaps the timing for this acuity is correct as transiting Saturn (the Master) is moving towards a square of the proposed relationship axis (Ascendant/Descendant — in both charts), inviting RSU to examine all manner of thoughts and feelings she holds on the question of personal, social and racial relationships.
2. This is the first time that DK has named RSU as an “accepted disciple”, though from all He has said, and from the amount of trust He has placed in her on various occasions, it would be clear that she would necessarily have attained this rank.
3. However, she does not yet have the “full prerogatives of an accepted disciple”.
4. DK is touching a point of some virulence in her personality. She is not yet aware of the “violence of your true feeling on the question of racial differences, of social standing, of class distinctions and of personality affections”. Her feelings concerning all these areas are exacerbated by her inferiority complex (complicated by her racial inferiority complex).
5. When considering these relational difficulties we cannot overlook the presence of Mars, exalted in Capricorn, very close to the seventh house cusp which symbolizes all manner of personal and social relationship. Mars, we know, is a planet involved in violence, rejection and even hatred and it is rendered potent and even more willful in Capricorn.
6. We see that if the Master has not succeeded in moving His disciple through milder, reasonable means, He resorts to very frank analysis in the hope of producing change.
7. The solar arc directed Saturn (the Master and His authority) has come into opposition with the Mars position and so these matters of internal violence are being called to RSU’s attention.
8. The Master is very frank in calling her attitude almost an “inhibited hatred”. This will certainly cause RSU to reflect. Initially, she will not recognize the truth of what the Master says. She will assure herself that the Master is incorrect and will refuse “with great deliberation” to accept the validity of what He says. But a Master’s words have their inevitable effect and a day of reckoning with the truth will come.
9. We can understand how a first ray astral body could strengthen hatred and at the same time inhibit it.
10. We begin to see why it would be so difficult to be a part of a Master’s group. Nothing buried or hidden in the deep recesses of the nature would escape His Eye.
11. We obviously do not see our blind spots or else they would not be “blind”. DK is calling attention to a major blind spot which is responsible for much mischief in RSU’s character. He is, in fact, accusing her of “playing ostrich” (by sticking her head into the sand).
12. He closes this paragraph with the thought that, given her very real soul contact, she could indeed handle this particular glamor if she really desired to.
I am speaking to you thus frankly, my brother, because I have confidence in you and I know that you have confidence in me. I have confidence also in the love of your group brothers for you.
1. The words are indeed frank — more frank than appear in most instructions.
2. It is because RSU has so much potential as a disciple that DK may address her in this manner.
3. They both have confidence in each other and mutual trust. It is a relationship of deep love. The love of the group will also be necessary. Love is required when attempting so solve such deep-seated problems. The first ray astral body sees that these problems will be drawn to the surface for examination. The Master’s very frank analysis coincides with the transit of Pluto into the sign of the ego, Leo. The Master is bringing forward certain deep revelations (Pluto) which the personality (Leo) has not suspected.
4. DK as reminded RSU that her condition is “partly racial, partly European, and partly a totally unnecessary sense of social and personal inferiority”. His evaluation of her makes it possible for Him to say that her self-perceived sense of inferiority is “totally unnecessary”. He is moving strongly to see it eliminated.
Your problem must be approached differently to that of your co-disciples. It is much more difficult, owing to the unusual fact that your astral body is on the first ray. Your personality ray, the third, is focussed in your astral body, adding to its power, its glamour, and its hold on you. Your problem is to call in the energy of the soul in such potency that it [Page 374] will drive out the first ray force and leave you, at the close of this incarnation, with a second ray astral body.
1. RSU is definitely an unusual case — advanced in many areas of spiritual development, and retarded in one.
2. The first ray astral body is again referenced as a complication.
3. Each of the disciples is told in which body their soul and personality is principally focussed.
4. RSU has a powerful third ray personality (made stronger by the third ray personality of the Jewish Race). Her third ray personality is focussed in her first ray astral body, as DK says, “adding to its power, its glamour and its hold on you”.
5. Then, a very important statement is made. RSU’s task is to change the ray of her astral body to the second ray, by the end of this incarnation. This she can do by calling in her potent second ray soul which can “drive out” the first ray force. This is a very interesting prospect and one which any of us may consider when seeking to improve the condition of one of our personality vehicles.
6. Note should be made of those disciples whose astral rays are to be changed during the course of the present incarnation. BSD was one who also was to have a second ray astral body in his next incarnation. LTS-K was also to change the ray of his astral body. Generally, if the first ray conditions the astral nature, a change of ray is required and encouraged by DK. The first ray astral nature has a purpose in a particular incarnation. It would contribute to emotional detachment. Once that purpose is accomplished, the ray should change.
7. DK does not tell us through which personality vehicle the soul expresses, but given all the difficulty RSU has had with the physical body it is almost certainly the mind.
8. Thus we have the third ray personality expressing principally through the first ray astral body and the strong possibility that the second ray wisdom-soul expresses through the first ray mind.
9. Note again that it is not necessary that a soul or personality express through a vehicle which is on the same ‘ray-line’ as itself.
The meditation I would give you is based on the words "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." I would have you, therefore, think out with care the differences that would appear in your personality expression if you had a second ray astral body. I will also set you the task of writing out for me, my brother, a paper in which you will emphasise the characteristics of a second ray astral body. You will then endeavour each day to build in these second ray qualities. They are built in through the second ray methods of love, contact, attraction, understanding, sympathy and compassion. The latter two qualities are almost totally lacking in your equipment and your career as an executive director has necessarily enhanced this defect. I would remind you that I did not say that you lacked love. You used, in the past, to supplement this defect by an intuitive appreciation of people but lately you have hardened in one direction — that of sympathy — and crystallised into a racial pattern which is not yours; it is based on the development of the heart centre which has, as yet, only opened in the direction of your own people and towards Masonry.
1. DK assigns a meditative approach based on the old adage, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he”.
2. He is assigning RSU the task of cooperating actively with the change of her astral ray from the first to the second.
3. She is to think of the differences which would appear in her personality if she had this kind of vehicle. She is also to write a paper emphasizing the characteristics of a second ray astral body.
4. DK sets her to a building task. Jupiter, a prominent second ray planet and the planet thus transmitting the ray of her soul, has entered the second ray sign, Pisces, and will before long be conjuncting the progressing Sun, also in second-ray Pisces. The time for this type of building, therefore, is propitious.
5. DK is most specific. The qualities to be built in are “love, contact, attraction, understanding, sympathy and compassion”. There is no escape for RSU. The Master is becoming very specific and directive.
6. Of these listed second ray qualities, DK says that sympathy and compassion are almost entirely lacking. This would not be the case if the higher aspects of the Neptune-ruled Cancerian Rising-sign were in expression, but the Capricornian nature can become hard, and, indeed, DK notes that RSU has hardened of late in relation to the quality of sympathy. Crystallization is ever a liability when Capricorn is strongly involved.
7. There is something about the Jewish racial consciousness which has influenced RSU more than it should, for as DK states, it “is not yours”. The tendencies of our race and nation may be more powerful than we suspect and we should be alert to this type of influence when we consider our individual ray tendencies.
8. RSU has love. There is no lack in this respect. But the intuitive appreciation of people (with which she used of offset her lack of sympathy and compassion) is no longer practiced. This represents something of a retrogression (which many of the disciples were experiencing at that time).
9. The heart center needs expansion and a more general opening. Right now it opens only towards the Jewish people and towards Masonry. The heart radiation is strong but too selective.
10. The SA-Saturn opposed to Mars is a reason contributing to the facts with which the Master is frankly confronting His chela.
Will you give ten minutes each morning to the exercise which I here outline.... Then seek brain-mind alignment with the soul and see the love of your soul pouring into your personality, transmuting its force and working through on to the physical plane. It will express itself as personality love, actuated and directed by soul love. Can you see the picture, my brother, as I see it? Perfect love casteth out fear. Your personality is not on the line of love but of power. It fears love and the expression of love. In this statement I have given you a slant on your soul problem.
1. A corrective meditation is offered but editorial deletion prevents our examination of it.
2. RSU is to flood her personality with love. Again, Jupiter transiting through Pisces should assist her.
3. Soul love there is. Personality love directed by soul love there must be.
4. RSU has deep-seated fears and resultant hatreds. Saturn and Neptune together with the South Node indicate the fears. Pluto (a planet of hate and rejection) is, however, in harmonious aspect with the Capricorn Sun, and a transformation of subconscious hatred should be possible (assisted by Uranus which completes the grand trine).
5. DK is arranging a confrontation between the second and first rays. He is engineering a ‘flushing’ of the energy system with the second ray in such a way that negative first ray tendencies are cast out.
6. The essence of the psychological problem is here offered. RSU has love — soul love — but her personality fears love for it is on the line of power rather than the line of love.
7. The meditation offered seeks to see fear cast out: “Perfect love casteth out fear”.
8. We are reminded of the Eleventh Labor of Hercules and of Hercules’ method of cleansing the Augean Stables. It was a cleansing achieved by expulsion and ‘flushing’ — by a casting out.
9. RSU’s Ascending-sign is proposed as Cancer, a water sign ruled esoterically by Neptune (“God of the Waters”). Cancer, for highly developed people, can be a sign of great compassion, sympathy and inclusiveness. RSU is to develop along these lines, applying her gains to her ashramic life and to her relations with co-workers (eleventh house) and “near ones” (fourth house).
10. We have noted that the progressing Moon is very near to her natal and progressing Chiron. We also note that it is soon approaching the conjunction with natal and progressing Pluto (allowing for a drastic purification through ejection).
Your co-disciples love and will love you increasingly. At present, you do not let them love you and you misunderstand and misinterpret them. Where there is little real love, there is little true comprehension. When you function as a soul, you love much and quite impersonally. You are not yet a Master, however, and so able to give impersonal love without hurting. Therefore, there is need for you to love personally also. I will aid you where I can and I give you my personal love — my impersonal love has always been yours.
1. DK emphasizes the note of love. For all her apparent inward isolation, RSU is much loved by her co-disciples. DK promises that this love will only increase.
2. When I spoke to a very elderly disciple who knew RSU well, she remarked on how loving she was! The woman I spoke to knew RSU only well after the experiment with the Tibetan had been discontinued. Perhaps RSU had taken His words to heart and was able to come to terms with the value of personal as well as impersonal love.
3. DK points to RSU’s tendency to prevent her co-disciples from loving her. Modern psychology has revealed that when we do not love ourselves we cannot easily accept love from others.
4. In an atmosphere of love, comprehension is possible; where there is no love, there is miscomprehension and misinterpretation.
5. DK points out something very important about personal and impersonal love. RSU is trying to love only impersonally. She cannot do this however, because she is not yet a Master. Only a Master knows how to be lovingly impersonal. If a normal person or disciple attempts to give only impersonal love, he will hurt the one he is trying to love. This thought invites deep pondering.
6. It is somewhat ironic that this series of instructions is closed with the injunction to RSU that there is a need for her “to love personally also”. It is probably the last thing she would have expected as final advice! As we have noted, the Master seeks ever a balanced condition for His disciples, and RSU’s fear of personal love (for all the reasons detailed) is causing an imbalance which curtails the expression of her full potential in service.
7. DK, like any Master, has learned to do what He says should be done. Masters are great Exemplars and They set examples for us, so that we may follow.
8. DK offers RSU His “personal love”. Clearly, if a Master can love someone personally, a disciple can do so as well. It is a hard argument to refute!
9. He closes by saying that His impersonal love has always been hers.
10. So we close this series of instructions pondering the nature of love — personal and impersonal. We attempt to be wise, sane, balanced beings who give due expression to all aspects of our nature so that we may better serve all aspects of our brother’s nature.
11. RSU — a second ray ‘wisdom disciple’ is in process of learning more about love and its expression. Fear has distorted and inhibited the love nature. Now love is casting out fear, as it should for all of us.
NOTE: Nothing has stopped this disciple from active cooperation with the Tibetan and with the group of His disciples.
1. It is clear that RSU was one of AAB’s most trusted co-workers, and a close personal friend.
2. Those of us who are reading the AAB books owe much to the labors of RSU who saw so many of them through into print.
3. As an advanced and accepted disciple it is not to be thought that she would stop or resign simply because her personality came under acute scrutiny.
4. No doubt she will be one of those deeply involved with the continuation of the Tibetan’s work during this twenty-first century, having won through many of her liabilities.
Additional Comments Re R.S.U.
Some of you are too humble in the personal sense and not in the sense of true humility. By that I mean that you are so afraid of pride and bombast and an over-estimation of your capacities that you are untrue to the realities and belittle the power of your souls. R.S.U. is a case in point and needs to walk humbly in the spiritual life which involves a correct recognition of place and opportunity and not this constant emphasis upon her inability to measure up. She owes it to my group of disciples and to me to see herself as she truly is — a disciple in preparation for a certain initiation and with much wisdom at her disposal. (DINA I 95)
1. This selection speaks to RSU’s tendency toward wrong self-estimation and self-belittlement.
2. Let us remember also that wherever there is the sense of inferiority, pride is not far away. DK called RSU’s attention to her tendency to respond with pride when her co-workers offered her love.
3. The lesson is brought home to us: it is a service to our group brothers to see ourselves as we truly are. If we exaggerate or belittle our importance we are creating an unduly personal emphasis which unbalances the flow of energies and forces within the group.
With true first ray brevity, you have replied to certain questions which I have put to you and yet these replies are — from my point of view — most disclosing. With you, as with F.C.D. and R.S.U., the main difficulty is lethargy, based on a genuine physical disability. It is not my intention, therefore, to urge you to a greater activity but to a greater organisation upon the inner planes and greater intuitive reflection. (DINA I 166)
1. All of these disciples are experienced and trusted: JWK-P, FCD and RSU.
2. DK is commenting on the physical condition of all three; their lethargy is not illegitimate for it based on genuine physical disability. We have seen how DK has attempted to bring more energy and vitality into RSU’s life. He did this as well for FCD and JWK-P.
You yourself have a ray combination very similar to that of R.S.U., but owing to your sixth ray astral body, the personality situation is saved. There is, as you know, a preponderance of the will-mind-activity in you but a powerful and well developed astral body has enabled you to express the love nature which you brought to a fairly high point of development in a previous life. This life has been for you a balancing one and [Page 320] when you return again it should be with a second ray personality because the shift of this life expression, in combination with the last life, should bring about the evocation of a second ray personality, intelligently equilibrised. (DINA I 319-320)
1. DK is speaking to the disciple DLR (15-567) — a great deal of energy along the hard-line is evident in this formula.
2. The personality energies are mostly on the hard line, but the sixth ray astral body is not and, in the Tibetan’s estimation, saves the personality situation.
3. For DLR, previous development along the second ray line is expressed through the sixth ray astral body. RSU has no such outlet conducive to the expression of soft-line energy. Her case was, among all the disciples, unique, for none of them except herself, had only soft-line or hard-line energies in their personality and its three vehicles.
It would not have been possible for me earlier to have enlarged upon this matter as you would not have understood the truth of my words nor would you have been able to profit by them. Even now I can only just touch upon the problems. It is peculiarly yours and that of R.S.U. You have, however, made so much progress in overcoming hindrances that my help is warranted. (DINA I 330)
1. Before a Master can be frank with His chela a certain amount of development and perspective must have been achieved.
2. SCP and RSU have the same problem — a certain tendency to keep the eyes too much upon the little self. This requires decentralizing.
The problem with which you and R.S.U. have to deal and which you must eventually solve is, above everything else, the problem of decentralisation. There is in both of you an over-emphasis of the "I" at the centre of the stage. I am telling you nothing new when I say this, for you have been faithfully working at this decentralisation for some time and making real progress. This, I, your friend and brother, tell you gladly. The emphasis upon the little self is, in your case, based upon three things: (DINA I 331)
1. In His instructions to SCP, DK elaborates upon the need for decentralization which both SCP and RSU share.
2. RSU was more aware of her problem at an early stage of the training. Both disciples, however, found it difficult to get off the center of their stage.
As I said above, R.S.U. has the same problem of being too much in the centre of her own life stage, but her whole attitude and life presentation is the exact reverse of yours. You, realising a measure of divinity, impose upon your personality in speech and desire what you believe to be the effects of divinity. You over-estimate the capacity of the personality to respond to this. She, realising the same measure of divinity, is so conscious of the failure of the personality to express this, that she retires within herself and (if I may use a phrase of real ugliness) she there "wallows" in the sense of failure. This ability to see such failure and to sense at the same time the beauty of divinity is due to [Page 332] her mental polarisation which enables her to cast the light of the mind in two directions. She is largely an expression of the higher or abstract mind, invading the lower mind, via the soul. Yours is buddhic or intuitional reason, stimulating the astral-emotional nature, via the soul. In these two statements, you and R.S.U. have your problem clearly defined. The building of the antahkarana — more surely and more definitely — is the solution for both of you, plus a trained and cultivated self-forgetfulness. In some ways, the problem of R.S.U. is harder than yours because (through her sense of inferiority brought about by the second of the two capacities of the mind which casts its clear light upon the personality) she tunes in on the illusion of human failure — a gigantic thoughtform — and also upon her racial sense of inferiority. Her distress is deep-seated in her love nature. Yours is not so deep-seated as it is not fed so dominantly from the mental plane. (DINA I 331-332)
1. This is an important paragraph for RSU even though it occurs in SCP’s instructions.
2. We are reminded of RSU’ s profound sense of failure (accentuated by the tendency to inferiority which the energy of Cancer produces). The sense of failure is made more acute by RSU’s ability to realize (to some significant extent) the nature of divinity. The contrast between what she realizes and her perceived inability to express this divinity is the cause of acute suffering.
3. When DK uses a term like “wallows”, it is certainly not to wound His chela. Faced, however, with the truth of such a term, the chela may be repelled sufficiently to find the motivation to change the condition.
4. A key to RSU’s subjective expression is given: “she is largely an expression of the higher or abstract mind, invading the lower mind, via the soul”. The strength of the third ray in her triadal nature is accentuated, and this may be evidence of the presence of a third ray monad.
5. Both RSU and SCP are advised to build and antahkarana. We have already seen that RSU has no small facility in its use. Her access to the abstract mind reflects this.
6. RSU, with her considerable mental abilities, can easily cast the mind in two directions
7. We also note that RSU is “mentally polarized”. Does this mean that she finds herself midway between the second and third initiations?
“Illusion is, in the last analysis, the control of the mental processes by great and massive thoughtforms; this conflict persists from the moment that the disciple has achieved mental polarisation (at a midway point between the second and the third initiations) until he stands before the Initiator at the sixth Initiation of Decision, when the last illusion disappears. (R&I 600)
Or does the term “mental polarisation” mean something less specific in this case?8. This dual capacity of the mind gives her an acute understanding of her liabilities. Second ray types have in a pronounced manner this ability to see their liabilities, and, perhaps, even exaggerate them (whereas first ray types minimize them).
9. Much of RSU’s problem arises from her ability to tune in on the illusion of human failure, which DK calls a “gigantic thoughtform”, as well as upon her sense of racial inferiority.
10. We can see how a disciple’s problems are compounded by the glamors and (in this case, especially) the illusions of humanity. It is important for disciples to be aware of this possibility and stand apart from these great sources of destructive influence when possible.
11. Then comes another deeply psychological observation: “Her distress is deep-seated in her love nature”. Underneath all her difficulties, RSU is frustrated in love. She feels herself to be unworthy of love and hence, unloved. This, of course, prevents her from expressing love more naturally. Further, she is afraid of receiving the very love which would change this unwholesome attitude. She may, as well, unconsciously long for love of a more personal nature, and yet her trained occultly oriented mind inclines her to consider such love as a weakness in which disciples should not indulge. Many are the complications, but it becomes apparent that RSU has not experienced Divine Love/soul love throughout her personality. Such an experience could be forceful enough and sufficiently expulsive of her glamors and illusions related to love, to relieve the deep-seated distress in her love nature.
The way out for R.S.U. is the cultivation of joy, as it brings release to others. Yours is by the right control of speech and the elimination of all reference to personality activities. This must be achieved, not by the processes of inhibition, but by a true lack of self-interest. If my reference to the buddhic-astral nature of your life direction is not clear to you, take the matter up with R.V.B. Your technical knowledge of these terms may not be adequate to true comprehension. You need to study in order to awaken your mental grasp, without losing at the same time your intuitional wisdom. R.S.U. needs to study less and to be more. (DINA I 332)
1. At one or two points in her DINA I instructions, DK called for more joy in RSU’s life.
2. This joy can be conceived as a form of service, for when radiating, it brings release to others.
3. We learn her that RSU is a great student, guilty perhaps, of “over-absorption in study”. Study is related to the second ray in combination with the third. The ability to be is a gift of the first ray.
4. Simplicity and the power to be are closely related.
For you (as for R.S.U.) I have at this time a word of commendation and a word of reproof. It is a reproof of so gentle a nature that you will not mind. (DINA I 518)
1. The Master preserves a balanced attitude.
2. The best way to promote the growth of others is to remind them of their strengths when speaking of their weaknesses.
The two astrological charts for RSU are indeed very close. There seems little question that she has a Cancer Ascendant in the Scorpio decanate of Cancer (perhaps the most psychologically intense Cancerian decanate). The primary proposed chart offers a number of convincing close ‘hits’ and the secondary proposed chart a few, the most significant of which will be discussed in the commentary on the personal letters to RSU found in DINA II. The primary proposed chart really works very well. The secondary proposed chart is offered to provoke thought in relation to a few important periods and events in the life.
