MY BROTHER AND MY FRIEND:

I would like to start this instruction with a word of commendation. The entering stream of love is much more potent now than it was. Years ago and even months ago this was not so. Today, the second ray strains (if I may call them so) in your equipment are far more dominant than heretofore. Had you realized how over-potent was your first ray astral body? It conditioned you unduly and it hindered you from seeing all around the picture of your relation to humanity. It forced you almost fanatically to adhere to certain ideas and concepts which were emotionally aroused and which were related principally to the people and the relatives with whom you associated. You frequently failed to see life from the angle of the ordinary man and from the effect which karma produced in the life of the average citizen. You thought in terms of one group. This you are learning to negate and the loneliness of your present life has greatly aided your withdrawal from this astral concentration upon a group thought-form.

This is a law which is ever present in the world in relation to the processes of death. The aspect of its importance in connection with physical death is deemed of slight importance in comparison to its emphasis in connection with the world of thought. The training given to a disciple when he enters the periphery of an Ashram lays an emphatic emphasis upon the need of abstracting one's consciousness from phase after phase of thought. The lesson of detachment in relation to one's possible emotional attachments is hard to learn, but a disciple must have mastered much of it, prior to entering the Ashram. When he does this, the inference is that detachment is now one of his established processes. However, the process of abstracting one's mind from all imposed thought-forms - imposed by one's background, one's tradition and one's social group - is a very difficult and subtle undertaking. It must definitely be learned, prior to mastering the science of thought-form building. The disciple has to stand free from mental impression and mental concepts before he can successfully create under direction of the Ashram.

When the Law of Abstraction is wielded consciously by you from within the Ashram, you will discover that it has (as it might have been expected) various meanings and policies which will function on the different planes of consciousness, such as:

1. Death or the effect of the Law of Abstraction upon the physical plane. This can refer to the abstraction of the life principle from the physical body in response to soul command; it can refer to the death of an old physical plane relationship; it can also refer to a cycle of physical plane conditioning or circumstance, to the termination of a relation to a physical plane group, or to the abstraction of an interest regarded hitherto as basic.

3. The severing of connection with specific lines of thought. This may refer to the preconceived need which may dawn increasingly upon the disciple as he draws closer to the Ashram to which he is assigned; it may and will lead him to sever connection with schools of thought and with social, political, religious and circumstantial thought-forms (using the word "circumstantial" to mean the mental conditioning brought about by circumstance), prior to being immersed in any ashramic thought-form.

These specific abstractions are being rapidly learned by you; you should therefore enter your next life infinitely more liberated than you now are, and should function freer for service. Your present life condition is very favorable to your progress along these lines, and this I think you know, even if it displeases you to recognize the truth.

The entire process is one of abstraction, involving pain. There is a close relation between pain and the law with which I am dealing. It is the Law of Abstraction which lifts a disciple out of the three worlds of human endeavor; it is this same law which brings about the upward drive which all units of life express and the search of all of them for identification with the ONE; it is with this law that you - along with all disciples - must learn to work.

I would give you the following words for meditative reflection:

Strive to cultivate a happy spirit. Let not life, loneliness or any circumstances unduly depress you. Dwell not too much upon world horror, but aim - in meditation - at conveying strength and wisdom to the world leaders as they seek (as they do) to bring order out of chaos. I would like to see you resume your work in the teaching group. You have the time, my brother, and a definite service which you needs must render would be good for you. Your help is needed.

You can, if you so desire, move forward into a clearer and closer relation to me and to my Ashram. You must, however, bear in mind that every step forward into the light and into a closer relation to the Hierarchy is made under the influence of the Law of Abstraction. Be strong, therefore, and know that the powerful qualities of your second ray soul relate you to D.H.B. and J.S.P. Take them into your daily meditation upon the plane of the soul, and remember that you three form an inner triangle which has certain spiritual activities for an esoteric objective for which this present incarnation is only preparatory.