MY BROTHER:

You have for some time been working on the meditation assigned. You have made progress - more progress than you yourself can perhaps sense. I say this to you for your encouragement. In the regimentation and the regularity of your life and in the steady rhythm of your service, high moments of realization and of exaltation become relatively rare. Points of crisis, of spiritual crisis, may lack. I point this out so that you can see to it that in the inner life there is potency and dynamic impulse, e'en when the outer life seems molded to a pattern. It is a needed pattern, because it makes your service possible. The moment a man sets his hand to the plow and starts upon his plugging, from that moment until he has completed his [229] task, he remains internally free but outwardly bound. So it must ever be with the servers in our work.

But climaxing moments are of importance and the pursuit of an even tenor is not usually good for a disciple, if overlong perpetuated, especially at the point of evolution at which you find yourself. It is good for the aspirant who is working upon the control of the emotional body and the attaining of astral equilibrium. It is not so good for the pledged disciple whose career should have in it - as did the career of the Christ - the valley and the mountain top experience, and the cave experience also with its loneliness and its period of introspective culture. Therefore, my brother, I call you to a more dynamic living than heretofore. The attainment of the outer attitude in your chosen work has been good. The inner orientation to the soul as love, is also good. Let there be no doubt in your mind upon this point. But paralleling this steady progress must come an increasing crescendo of experience, and a more vivid interim living. I think you will apprehend that whereof I speak because I speak in terms of your own desire.

For the coming year, keep your spiritual diary in terms of crisis. Create not these crises for yourself. They are not of a physical nature, nor need they be emotional. But they should be mental and of the soul. If these crises occur within the astral body they produce a contraction - which is incident to selfish concentration, to that pain or pleasure which comes when there is the satisfaction or the negation of that which is demanded, emotionally or sentiently. Is this not so, my brother? But the crises of the soul are expansions, registered by the inflow of love and light. They are mentally recognized crises of inclusiveness. These lead one on and prepare one for the later more vast expansions which we call initiations. It is these expansive crises in the various aspects of your nature which I ask that you watch and register and record during the coming year. Note in which body or vehicle of experience they occur. Note, too, your reaction to them and their after-effect in your personal life and in your service. You will find this of major interest.

You are in a position where you can be of much service to others. Your usefulness depends upon your ability to achieve a constant inner growth and progressive realization and your [230] consequent capacity to meet all who seek your aid in a spirit of love, free from personal criticism and with the intelligent reticence which is so pre-eminently one of your characteristics. The intensification of the potency of your aura (your personality emanation) is most desirable for it is through the right use of the aura that we stimulate others to renewed effort, or slow them down to less potent expression. This intensification is dependent upon the quality, potency and tempo of your subjective life. Hence the earlier suggestions I have made to you.

As regards your meditation work, I would change it somewhat. For the next ten months, the following procedure will be desirable. See to it that by the time the sun moves northward, you will have so assimilated the procedure and accustomed yourself to the form that that aspect of the meditation will be automatic and your inner attention can, therefore, be given to the significances of the work assigned. The objective is to enable you to pursue two lines of activity accurately and simultaneously.

Meditation Work:

1. Give five minutes to alignment consciously achieved and to the withdrawing of your consciousness to as high a point as possible.
2. Then take five minutes for complete silence, of both the inner and the outer man. The breathing, if correctly followed, should greatly aid in this.
3. Then inaudibly and in the achieved silence, sound the Sacred Word, the 0. M., listening as you sound it, and imagining it as being sounded by the soul. The soul breathes out the sound and passes it through all three bodies and thus out into the world of men, carrying love and power.
4. On receipt of these instructions and having in mind their general tenor, choose six short passages which should constitute your seed thoughts for the next six months. Choose them from any source you prefer but choose them all at once within a few days of receiving this. If you prefer, you can use the following six symbolic sentences which I have chosen for you. I have chosen them for you [231] because - rightly used and understood - they can act as focal points for spiritual energy, breaking up that which hinders and pouring a cleansing tide through your personality. You seek to be a channel and you long adequately to serve. This I know. Be willing, therefore, to let the "forces of light" enact their will within your life, e'en though you awaken with surprise to unknown and unrealized aspects of yourself - both good and not so good.

• First month - A barrier of stone. A flood of cleansing water, and then the Vision. The pilgrim then can chant: I stand in love.

• Second month - A boat at rest upon a sea of blue. And then a tidal wave. But after that the calm. The boatman chants: The storm has brought me here.

• Third month - A mountain top. Snow with a fold of sunshine. A group of pilgrims on the upward way. One pilgrim chants: In love we walk the Way.

• Fourth month - Three birds upon a tree. A searing wind and pouring rain, and then the nightingale - the bird who sings close to the heart of God.

• Fifth month - A gate of brass, a golden portal and then an ivory door. Three gates, but only two are shut. Pass on, oh pilgrim on the Way, and find the open door.

• Sixth month - The rising dawn; a cool breeze and a shaft of light. A weary pilgrim and then again the vision. He chants: I stand in love for ever.