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 analyze you to yourself in terms of [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.

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 summarize 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.

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.

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 realignment 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.

Therefore, my brother, let the plan itself mould your life and its activities and let discipline produce the instrument [369] 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.

The occult phrases which I have for your consideration are as follows: