AAB: I have here four paragraphs from some unpublished writings of the Tibetan in which he is dealing with the whole subject of initiation. It will form, when the time comes, the last volume of The Treatise on the Rays. It is intended to come out when the war is over. The third volume will be on astrology. It is ready now and will be published as soon as we get the money. I think it will have a market among astrologers as well as among esoteric students. These writings are based on the 14 Rules for Initiates, which are the higher correspondence of the 14 Rules for Aspirants given in Initiation, Human and Solar. It is as though the Tibetan had completed the cycle of his teaching. The first volume, Initiation, Human and Solar has the 14 Rules for Aspirants, and this has the 14 Rules for Initiates.

There are two sentences in one of the rules, which I picked out because of their practicality in the life of every day. What is it that you and I are really trying to do? We say we are trying to be disciples, to tread the Path, to serve the Plan, to do what we can for humanity, but behind all that there lies a bigger thing of which everything else is but an effect, but what is or should be the motivating power of every single thing we do. What does the fact that we are preparing ourselves to take initiation mean? It means that we are preparing ourselves to be of use in the three worlds of human endeavor and in the higher world of Soul. There was a curious period in the animal kingdom when animal man presented a transition species between the animal kingdom and the human kingdom. Now we form that peculiar species that is midway between the human and the spiritual with all the assets that we gloss over and all the defects that we emphasize. I wonder if you ever thought of the amount of time you give to a consideration of your faults and your failures, wondering if you will make the grade, conscious of things in yourself you didn�t know existed and you suddenly discover are there that are of no service at all. It would do us a great deal of good if we studied our assets at times.

�Let there be no recollection and yet let memory rule.

�This, my brothers, is not a contradictory statement. Perhaps I can convey to you the right idea as follows: the initiate wastes no time in looking backward towards the lessons learned; he works from the angle of developed habit, instinctively doing the right and needed thing. Instinctual response to environing forms builds, as we well know, patterns of behavior, of conduct and of reaction. This establishes what might be called unconscious memory, and this memory rules without any effort at recollection.

�The habit of goodness, of right reaction and of instinctual understanding is distinctive of the trained initiate. He has no need to remember rules, theories, plans or activities. These are as much an established part of his nature as the instinct to self-preservation is an instinctive part of the equipment of a normal human being. Think this out and endeavor to build up the right spiritual habits. In this way the Master wastes no time on Soul or personal plans. He has the habit � based on the divine instinctual memory � of right activity, right understanding and right purpose. He needs not to recollect.

�Work from the standpoint of all that is within the content of the group�s united life.

�This is not, as might appear, the effort to do the work for humanity as it is planned or desired by the group with which the initiate finds himself associated. That mode of working covers an earlier phase and one in which the accepted disciple learns much. First, he finds a group upon the physical plane whose ideals and plans for service conform to his idea of correct activity, and with this group he affiliates himself, works, learns, and in learning suffers much. Later he finds his way into a Master�s Ashram where his effort is increasingly to learn to use the will in carrying out the Plan and to accommodate himself to the group methods and plans, working under the law of occult obedience for the welfare of humanity.

�The initiate, however, works in neither of these ways, though he has acquired the habit of right contact with organizations in the three worlds and right cooperation with the Hierarchy. He works now under the inspiration of and identification with the life aspect � the united life aspect of his ray group and of all groups. This means that the significance of the involutionary life and the evolutionary life is fully understood by him. His service is invoked by the group or groups needing his help. His response is an occult evocation given in unison with the group of servers with which he is affiliated on the inner side. This is a very different thing to the mode of service generally understood by you.� (The Rays and the Initiations, pp. 66-67) 

AAB: He doesn�t need to recollect. I think that is a tremendous occult statement, because there must be on the higher turn of the spiral a correspondence to the instinctual life of a human being. That has never been worked out, I think. We have had the higher correspondences of the psychic powers given us. This is something different, a pattern of instinctual consciousness that is established by right habits of thought. We are all of us victims of behavior patterns that are based on a large number of things � on heredity, on our national relationships. All of us as we progress are more or less the victims of those around us and the patterns to which we have been subjected from childhood. All those factors condition us and make us today what we are so that our habits of thought, our immediate reactions to people and circumstances are instinctual things, and we can hardly help ourselves. So much of what we say and think is based upon recollection of what has been said by others, of what somebody thinks. 

The second sentence reads: Work from the standpoint of all that is within the content of the group�s united life. 

Repeating what the Tibetan said, �this is not, as might appear, the effort to do the work for humanity as it is planned or desired by the group with which the initiate finds himself associated. That mode of working covers an earlier phase and one in which the accepted disciple learns much. First, he finds a group upon the physical plane whose ideals and plans for service conform to his idea of correct activity, and with this group he affiliates himself, works, learns, and in learning suffers much.� 

If you can tell me a worse place to suffer in than a group, I would like to know it. 

First he finds a group. Later he finds his way into a Master�s Ashram. The Arcane School is not a Master�s group. It is a training ground for group work, but it is not a Master�s group. But there is a Master�s group into which a disciple eventually finds his way, and there the effort is to learn to use the Will in carrying out the Plan and then to accommodate himself to the group methods and plans. Though he has acquired the habit of right contact with organizations in the three worlds, he works now under the inspiration of and identification with the Life aspect. This means that the significance of the involutionary and evolutionary life is fully understood by him. 

I don�t think we know enough about the way in which initiates work or about identification to discuss this, but we can think a little about the first sentence: �Let there be no recollection and yet let memory rule.� We can consider what it means when the two methods of work are placed before us. In which group will we work? Or will we work in both groups, a physical plane group and a Master�s group? 

C: Patanjali says that memory is one of the hindrances. 

AAB: Yes, that is another kind of memory. We are not talking about meditation. An initiate never meditates. The advanced disciple never meditates; he does not need to. He has an instinctual contact, and the instinctual memory works. If you are using recollection, you are drawing the mind back into the personality life, and the initiate is not interested in the personality life in any way. He does not need to be. 

JN: Would you say that an initiate is in continuous meditation? 

AAB: No, meditation is entirely confined to mental processes, and he only uses the mind to convey thoughtforms. The initiate contemplates, which means that he assumes a point of direction; he is directing all the time the energies that bring about what happens in the three worlds. In order to meditate you have to work with the mental apparatus in the three worlds. 

HR: We meditate for a certain purpose, and the initiate has accomplished that purpose. 

AAB: The understanding of Divine Purpose only comes to the initiate of the third degree. A man works with an objective, certain objectives, but they are personal objectives. The initiate works with the Purpose of Divinity, not his personal objectives. 

As we go forward into the new cycle of School activity, which may be entirely different, the Hierarchy may know that there is here a group conscious of what they are pledging themselves to be and to do and who are so preoccupied with the Hierarchical intent that they can hold the state of tension that is necessary for a group that seeks to be the recipient of Hierarchical energy. I don�t know whether we can do it, but we can at least try, and if we can�t do it, I don�t know who can. I would like to feel that out of this group there will come such an appeal to humanity that we will play our part in the new era and such a dependence on the Hierarchy that they will be able to depend upon us. 

RK: I was thinking of tension. 

AAB: I think tension is a thing we have got to discuss and study a great deal. I don�t want to define it, but we have the Tibetan�s definitions. It is a very easy thing to explain tension from the ordinary standpoint, but the tension referred to is hard to explain in ordinary language because it lies outside the mind altogether. The tension that we have got to get is a point of focused energy rightly oriented and then rightly directed. 

RK: The point of transmutation from one type of livingness to another. 

AAB: I think it marks a transition from obedience to the Plan to an understanding of the Purpose. 

JN: Do you believe there is any chance of the esoteric schools becoming again the custodian of education in the arts and sciences as they were long ago? 

AAB: I would think that when an esoteric school is really functioning correctly it will attract the creative people of the world to it, the esoteric people of the world. I would like to think that we are just beginning to do it in the School. I am quite sure we will. 

JN: There is a tremendous opportunity to reorient humanity to the true meaning of the esoteric teaching. 

AAB: I am sure of it, but we will never do it until we measure up to the picture that is in our minds. I get discouraged when I look at myself, at the people in this group and in other groups. Relatively speaking we do so little in comparison with our knowledge, and unless we get more explicit in the expression of our knowledge, the source of knowledge will dry up. You know something but you don�t live up to it. You are completely occupied with the academic side. 

HR: We are trying to do something so new. Spiritual groups in the past were not called upon to be trained as groups as we are being called upon. 

AAB: Mrs. Besant tried her hardest to do that; she tried to revivify the life of the T.S. and make the members creative. I think that we in the Arcane School, in experimenting with the group, will do that. 

HR: You speak about bringing the Hierarchy nearer. That would be for us a group objective. We would seek to do this not only as individuals but would make it a group objective. 

AAB: The thing that would bring Them nearer to the world would be for us to visualize ourselves as members of the Hierarchy. All accepted disciples are on the periphery of the Master�s consciousness, and from there they can be moving in. I do not think we will get anywhere if we just discuss the fact of the Masters, but we can get the habit of right attitude and do it as a group in cooperation with each other. I think this group has something in it so potent that we could bring the whole School to life. If the School is alive, we will have on the periphery of the School those who are working out these things. If I had lived up always to what I knew, and if I had done more, and if all of you here had lived up to all that you knew, the School would be a far more vibrant and living thing than it is. 

RK: We needn�t really be concerned very much with the Hierarchy if we are concerned with the chain of Hierarchy and regard ourselves as links. 

AAB: Yes, but I am not an amoeba. I am an accepted disciple. Until you know where you stand in the chain of Hierarchy you cannot do much service. I could go out and as a disciple work among Tom, Dick and Harry and do popular work. That isn�t my business. Here I stand at a certain point in the chain of Hierarchy on the ladder of evolution. Shall I stand here then and work from here? Shall I try and do some work that could be done just as well by other people, or shall I adhere to my dharma? My business is to find disciples in the world and train them, to take people who are on the path of discipleship or the probationary path and give them that which will help them on their way. We have to determine first of all where we stand in the chain of Hierarchy. 

RK: A group like this should be a living cell in the Hierarchical body, but you can�t be a living cell if the heart or the mind energy of the greater body does not course through you. 

MW: If you do that, you have to try to push yourself forward and get the pattern as the Hierarchy would do it, what the Hierarchy is trying to do. 

AAB: I think that is the initial step. The Tibetan tells us to find the way to a Master�s Ashram and use the Will in carrying out the Plan and not just try to find out the Plan. I have been amazed at the attitude of students. They will say, �Tell us what to do and we will do it.� That is the attitude of the person who is attempting to find out what the Plan is. We are not in that position. There isn�t one of us here who doesn�t know what the Plan is for the immediate future. He has even outlined it for us and told us what we could do in connection with the Plan. �He finds his way into a Master�s Ashram where his effort is increasingly to accommodate himself to the group methods and plans.� That is, find out the Plan and then use the Will to do it. Not the self-will; that is eliminated when we are told that we have to accommodate ourselves to group methods and plans. We all know the Plan; the question is how much do we use the Will in making that Plan effective. It is not an easy thing to use the Will. 

M: Will you define for us �right expression of Hierarchical life�? 

AAB: I don�t want to deal with quality in this group. I am assuming we all have faults, but we are not going to bother about them. Our reaction to our mistakes and errors is so instinctual that we will disregard them. I can�t tell you what �the right expression of Hierarchical life� is, because if I could I would have the power to identify myself as Christ did, but I can tell you what is the right expression of life of the Ashram. How can I put it into words? If I say it means complete identification with each other, does that mean anything? 

M: It might if we thought about it. We don�t think enough. 

RK: We think laterally and not vertically. 

AAB: Capacity to stand in the Master�s presence without the eyes cast down. It means, �Let there be no recollection.� You have left everything behind. When you come into the Shrine Room  [where daily staff meditations were held] you leave outside everything pertaining to the everyday world. 

LM: If you are really trying to serve the Master you can look him right in the eye. 

RK: I think it helps to think not of trying to serve the Masters but of serving with the Masters. We have been brought up in the submissive attitude. 

AAB: A submissive attitude is mixed up with the idea of being humble but not necessarily obedient. That is the thing that has been the trouble with so many people in the School. When the Master says go and do this, they do not do it. That is where the Will comes in. 

C: We are told to turn our backs on the Masters and face the needs of the world. 

AAB: That is one of the paradoxes of occultism. I have been largely responsible for that attitude in the School. It was my reaction from the T.S. Now I think we may have fallen backward. Let�s get back to a point of balance. Let this group do both. Let the Masters and the Hierarchy be a tremendous factor in this group and the service of those whom the Masters serve be an equally important factor. Then we will have a balanced spiritual life. 

RK: So many of us have the mystical attitude instead of the occult attitude. Somehow the mystical attitude toward the Masters is still there. 

AAB: That is what I mean. People say of me, �she is so intellectual.� My attitude is very factual. There is no vision because you don�t have a vision of something that is a fact. You have to live it. I think that is the difficulty with so many people. The Hierarchy is not a fact in their lives. I think the thing the people in this group need is to become factual and not visionary. 

RK: There is a footnote from The Voice of the Silence that is attributed to Krishna: �Without moving � is the traveling in this road. In this path, to whatever place one would go, that place one�s own self becomes.� In these meetings it ought to be not knowledge but a process of becoming. 

RK: In one of the School papers you presented a few statements. One of them is, �May this Soul of mine that dwells ever in the Light Eternal be united by devout meditation with the Spirit supremely blessed and supremely intelligent.� That was an occult statement recognizing the fact that this personality has aligned itself and is one with the Soul and makes the Soul inclusive of yourself. 

AAB: It says nothing about the personality. One reason I removed it was that it was too advanced. It has to do with the Third Initiation. We could use it in this group because it expresses our realization in this life or some life soon. But it is too powerful for the lower degrees. What we are really doing in this group, if we succeed, is laying the foundation of the next step of what is to be given out of the esoteric teaching. 

HR: I sometimes think that I do not have enough of the worshipful attitude toward the Masters. The teaching is so clear and the plans are so clearly satisfying that I have the feeling of taking the Masters for granted. I think I ought to have more of that worshipful attitude. 

AAB: I don�t think so. I am more and more amazed how in the early days of the School we seemed to do the right thing and we didn�t know we were doing it. Our first symbol was the pyramid, which is made up largely of triangles, and then we started the Triangles work. 

M: The initiate lives automatically, and that I suppose is right Hierarchical living. 

AAB: An instinctual goodness. He couldn�t do anything else but that. It does not mean that there are never any mistakes, but the motivating energy is always correct. The trouble with disciples is that their motivating energy is only partly correct. 

M: I am surprised that he used the word �instinctual.� I should think it would be �intuitive.� 

RK: From the point of view of the Master the Buddhic consciousness corresponds to the instinctive level of our consciousness.