As promised in the last presentation, we start by looking at the disciples’ requirement for self-determination. Why is this so important? Let’s start first by looking at certain scenarios. There are some who read the “word of God” in supposedly sacred writings and believe blindly what is written there. You then have spiritual schools that claim to preach the “will of God”. There are some, like Socrates, that “listen to the voice” and obey it. Finally, we have so-called esoteric schools who speak of the desires and advice of the “masters”. Laurency tells us that the Hierarchy asserts that all such pronouncements conflict with the Law of Self-Realisation. We have mentioned this before. It is the disciple, or anyone else for that matter, to acquire self-determination. They must trust their common sense and make themselves independent of influences of any kind, no matter how brightly the source of knowledge glows in the dark. It is a rule that no member of the Hierarchy issues commands, even to disciples. Why? Because it is against the Law of Freedom. If you come across the assertion that the “master desires”, run. This is evidence, either of crossed wires or straight-up deception. So says the secretary to the Hierarch, Master D.K. When a teacher makes up a plan for the disciple, it is their plan of action. The disciple is then free to see where they can make their contribution. This is at the disciple’s initiative and is their own responsibility.
Why the need for such clarity? According to Laurency, the leader of the Adyar Theosophical society at the time, stated, “I would rather be wrong with my leader than right by myself alone”. Go away and count the number of Laws of life that statement has broken. If such an attitude was held by a monad, they would have given up their divine right to self-reliance, as well as to self-determination. Bottom line; you can not throw your responsibilities on others. No member of the Planetary Hierarchy gives advice as to what an individual should think or do. They just present facts. It is up to the judgment of the individual what they do with those facts. As an aside, an acquaintance once told me that they were in contact with some inter-galactic high command or other and their group was told that if they did exactly as they were told, they would achieve, god knows what. On hearing this piece of information, I left at a very brisk pace.
It is fruitful to remember that knowledge comes from many sources, not just the 4th Kingdom of Nature. The three lower kingdoms have a lot to teach us. Learn from others’ experiences that you have not had yourself. If you follow Buddha’s dictum, never to accept anything, which you do not realise to be true yourself, then you are using your common sense. Rapid advancement is not the goal. In this race, it is the tortoise that wins, not the hare. Rushing lessons impatiently, only mean you have to relearn the lesson after the inevitable mistakes have been made.
Laurency tells us that first a disciple assiduously studies their Hylozoics and availed themselves of all that science has to offer. Then under the guidance of their teacher, they work on their chakras and understand the types of energies that work through them. From here, the disciple is at liberty to find their own path to the causal world. They acquire there, the causal ideas that are pertinent to their work, furthering the cause of human evolution. Bottom line: esoteric knowledge must be self-acquired. Nothing must be accepted unless it chimes with the disciple’s own experiences through life. Once you are functioning from the causal world, hypotheses and theories no longer have a place in your life. If you do not know something, then you just have to wait till you do, do not speculate about it. Just imagine having access to the entire history of the planet, in all four Kingdoms of Nature. The disciple is no longer working with mental comprehension but intuitional vision. You no longer know things, you experience them. This is one of the reasons it is so difficult for a causal self to communicate what they know to a mental self.
Let us now look at the concept of the disciple as a worker. The Planetary Hierarchy, mighty as they are, work with several limitations. According to the law, if the Hierarchy wishes to achieve anything in the Human Kingdom, they must use humans to achieve it. I always use to wonder why God has to rely on prophets. Why not just show up and distribute copies of the book? Now you know why?
To be clear, to become an effective tool for use by the Planetary Hierarchy, the disciple must have acquired casual consciousness. To do this the disciple activates the 12 essential qualities already discussed. Never in the disciple’s calculations should there be the desire to enter the 5th Kingdom of Nature. The Hierarch is not going to support that effort. They are not interested in what you know or are able to do, but in how you can contribute towards universal brotherhood. For those individuals and that is most of us, we continue along our path of consciousness development under the guidance of our guardian angel. If you are prepared to develop yourself, evolutionary energies are put at your disposal. Development is an automatic process, taking billions of years under the auspices of the Law of Self-realisation.
Before a disciple can become a useful worker, their etheric envelope must be completely reorganised. This is to allow vibrations from the Causal World to enter the envelopes on the 1st Triad. To achieve this, the three lower envelopes must be integrated, through their chakras. The monad must have mental dominance and the knowledge of how to reorganise its etheric envelope. The disciple is now ready to allow energies to pour in from higher worlds. They learn where these energies come from and how to use them in a purposeful application. This, in case you are interested, is called White Magic.
The 1st Triad is the world of effects. The 2nd Triad are the world of causes. Humanity lives in the world of effects and the Hierarchy operates from the world of causes. The Disciple straddles these two triads, operating in one and being liberated from the prevailing illusions and fictions, by being conscious in the other. The creed of the disciple is service, which is an activity that is rooted in the laws of Unity, Development and Freedom. Service aims at the development of consciousness in all beings. Service does not involve forcing one’s opinions on others, but reveals the correct facts and relationships between all things. This widens the perspective of all who seek to work. In service, you find the way to develop most quickly. If through egoism you keep knowledge to yourself, you stagnate and become a victim of fiction. We have discussed the myriad fields of service from politics to science. The seekers can strive in any field as long as they, in then their efforts, seek to benefit all, for this is the Right-Hand path.
Disciples do not seek opportunities to serve, they exist all around them and are obvious if one’s eyes and heart are open. The plan reveals itself to the disciple, in harmony with their abilities and ray configurations. The disciple must find how they can contribute to assist the enfoldment of the Plan. They come as ambassadors from the Hierarchy, without directions or advice. The tools at hand to complete the mission are dependent on the energies they have managed to control and direct.
So, we now know who or what a disciple is, what attributes they must develop, how they should focus their energies and what their goals are. The last presentation in this series will look at what hindrances there are to discipleship.