This discussion is based on the continuation of the Tibetan�s teachings that served as a springboard for the talk of May 21, 1943. The two quoted passages are from page 255 of Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. 2.
                                                                                                  - SES

  AAB: We have a very controversial thing to deal with, and I think it would be valuable to give quite a little time to it. [Quoting:]

�Four lines of teaching were emphasized in past centuries and up until the year 1875:

1. Hints as to the changing of personality character as preparatory to initiation.
2. Teaching as to the oneness of Deity and of the universal order.
3. Instruction as to the creative process.
4. Laya yoga, or the yoga of energy, working through force centers.�

We think of the Theosophical Society as starting a new movement, but the Tibetan calls it the climaxing of a period. It affects a group like the Arcane School. Are we initiating something new, or are we the climax of something? I don�t think we are at a climaxing point because the new lines of teaching are being initiated very largely by this group throughout the world. Among all the groups that feel that they are initiating something new, there must be a group that is doing it, and I know of no group that is giving out as much new teaching as the Arcane School.

1.  Hints as to the changing of personality characteristics as preparatory to initiation. What has been laid down up to now are the rules and requirements for probationers. The Theosophical Society claims that The Open Court, etc. are books that must be studied by disciples. Place them alongside our books and they are seen to be elementary because they deal entirely with character building. In the Arcane School you don�t need to be told about character building; you are already working at it.

2.  Teaching as to the oneness of deity and the universal order. I had a book that traces the growth of the Theosophical Society and traces the oneness of God down the ages. What is happening today is that this emphasis upon the oneness of God has led to a realization of the unity of all humanity.

If you study welfare movements you will find that each one took shape on a large scale only during the last two centuries. There were hospitals before, but they did not amount to much. There wasn�t a single philanthropic movement of any kind, nor any welfare movement. Welfare work was in the hands of the churches and the monasteries and was administered only to a few. Today we have welfare movements. Hospitals started with Florence Nightingale. Today we have the Red Cross, Boy Scouts, YMCAs, YWCAs and the Jewish correspondence for them.

3.  As for the creative process, we have science. There always has been science, but science as we know it is the great gift of the last 150 years to humanity.

4.  Laya Yoga � energy working through the force centers.

      Hatha Yoga � yoga of the physical body.
      Laya Yoga � of the centers, of the etheric body.
      Bhakti Yoga � of the emotional body.
      Raja Yoga � of the mind.

Then Agni Yoga, or Yoga of Fire, which is related to the Soul body. When Morya talks about the Yoga of Fire I do not know what he is talking about.

C: Roerich says Agni Yoga is the synthesis of all other yogas.

AAB: I do not know that fire is a synthesis.

DP: Is fire fusion, a bringing together?

AAB: I do not know. That is one of the things we have to work out in the School. One of the most valuable things we could do is to say we don�t know and go on from there to find out. I am not sure how accurate the Roerich books are. They are like the Mahatma Letters. It is claimed that they were dictated by the Master M.

JL: Roerich makes a differentiation between inner consciousness and the subtle worlds.

AAB: The Roerich books are very badly translated. If you read them in the French you get the real thing.

FB: In the personality the astral body is the only unitary body. The physical and mental bodies are dual. Raja Yoga deals with the lower mental, Agni Yoga with higher mental, and maybe there is a yoga that will combine and synthesize the two.

AAB: It is quite possible.

RK: I think that the Yoga of Fire is the yoga of personality and Soul fused and the two working together to become the Triad.

AAB: That sounds reasonable.

G: Would you say that Laya Yoga is what has been used in the West? In what way?

AAB: In the Olympic Games they have used Laya Yoga and Raja Yoga, but all these yogas exist in some form in the West.

RK: Don�t you think singing also enters into this? I have so many friends who are good singers, and they all lay stress on the diaphragm.

AAB: Operatic singers are emotional because the solar plexus is involved.

RK: Healing through music and through singing is the beginning of Laya Yoga in sound.

JL: What is the basis of the technique of Raja Yoga?

AAB: It is concentration. The work done by athletes is a most marvelous expression � their use of muscles and control of the body.

RK: Skill in action.

AAB: Yoga means another phase or aspect of the whole man. It is the science of coordination, but we cannot have coordination until there is mental control of bodily processes.

AP: Isn�t the great Western contribution the scientific information on the endocrine system? That is scientific work and goes hand in hand with new psychology as two great contributions of the Western world on the mental plane.

AAB: With this background of preparation for discipleship, with a sense of the unity of Deity and the growth of the great welfare movements through the world and through the work of science,

�Two things must now happen: the imparted theories which have guided the disciple�s thinking hitherto must become practical experiences, and there must be such a shift in consciousness that the present vision must become the past experience and a new and deeper and entirely different recognition must take the place of the old goals. Here comes, consequently, a complete test-out of past Hierarchical methods and modes of work. Has what the past has given proved an adequate preparation for that which will be the methods and propositions of the future? Have the foundations of truth been so securely settled that the coming superstructure will be based on such a sound reality that it can stand the impact of the new incoming solar and cosmic forces? Will the past work of the Hierarchy stand? Such are the problems with which the initiate teachers are today faced.�

I don�t know how deep a study you have made of the Rosicrucian and Theosophical teaching as regards discipleship and the training for discipleship. You will find their keynote is character building. The individual relationship of the aspirant or disciple to the Master is made exceedingly personal so that the Master is pictured as having a definite interest in the life cycle of the disciple. That has been the teaching of the past in India, and that has been the teaching of all the occult groups. Then along comes the teaching we give, which is totally different. We say the Master is not interested in the individual disciple and his private personal affairs. The Master is interested in the service of the disciple, and when that service has reached the point where it is effective in the world, the Master is interested in three things: 1) the group relationship of disciples so that they can work together. 2) He is profoundly interested in a process that is more difficult for the Master � externalizing the work. What the Masters are after in this individual cycle is being able to work with the Ashrams right here on Earth and not have Ashrams in which we work in our subtle bodies. 3) They are interested in the restoration of the mysteries on Earth so that the great process of withdrawal that took place in Atlantean times is now, if humanity is ready, to be reversed and the Masters will come out among us, if we prove ready to stand the impact. The emphasis of the old schools on devotion to the Master has shifted in the new schools to the mental grasp of the disciple so that he becomes an intelligent person and not a drag upon the Ashram. Our presentation of this teaching is anathema to the major occult groups. The world today is ready for it; it is a natural outgrowth of the teaching of the past. Is it right to make factual what the Masters want done?

G: It seems to me a matter of development. All the emphasis of the past is upon personality development, the perfection of the individual. In the history of biology we have a collection of cells that grew into organisms, first simple then complex. Isn�t it time that humanity began to grow into a more complicated organism so that the person is no longer conceived of as an individual but as a cell in a greater body?

AAB: That�s really a simplification.

G: This philanthropy that you were talking about, it is group work. It seems to be along wrong lines. There should be a reorganization of society so that the conditions that now exist shall cease to exist.

AAB: That�s what is happening and has to happen. It always has to begin on the inner side first, and disciples and aspirants have to be organized so that the right concepts can work out in the social order. Here in this group we are concerned with true understanding of what the Hierarchy wants, and we talk it into being.

DP: I think we are on the right track. Character building is a one-dimensional act emphasizing progress on this plane. Group building is a four-dimensional act, with a universal viewpoint.

RK: Going back to the simplification referred to, the Tibetan says that initiation is simplification.

AAB: Because it is synthesis. That isn�t possible until you have had the completing of the individual as an individual. That is why the pattern of the disciple, the individual who has worked on character for many lives, is absorbed into the bigger whole, preparing him to have his own ashram some day.

N: Last night I heard some eminent people speak on art and education. The Dean of Yale spoke on some of these things from the perspective of the educational field. He said the use of education is to mold character. Then the president of the Architectural League and another spoke along occult lines. At no time in thirty years have I heard architects speak with such humbleness and expectation. He said we are waiting for the incarnation of the spirit of this age. You can call it the Holy Spirit or what you want, but it must come to express the spirit of tomorrow. He pointed out that so far science has not met our needs as a whole. When this new spirit infuses humanity we will have better relationships, better human beings and release from the machine.

JL: Doesn�t it seem that the Hierarchy at the present time have carried humanity as far forward as they can in getting ready for the Shamballa force that will now flow directly to humanity? They are no longer going to be intermediaries. Won�t the next thing they do be to stand with humanity as the power pours through and we both receive Shamballa force?

AAB: I think you are right, but what are you going to do?

RK: The individual disciple is trying to fuse his personality and Soul so that humanity and its Soul, the Hierarchy, can also fuse.

AAB: You could state it this way: the individual aspirant and disciple has the objective in mind of fusing himself with the Ashram, with the Master. First the individual fuses personality and Soul and then he begins to fuse with the Ashram and Master. The Ashram is the medium through which the fusion between humanity and Hierarchy takes place.

RK: That is the world of the Triad, and that is where the Yoga of Fire applies.

H: The Tibetan says that Raja Yoga is for the concrete mind. The sixth root race will develop the abstract mind, and the seventh root race is supposed to develop the intuition.

AAB: I find it difficult to discriminate between when I am thinking abstractly and when I am using the intuition.

JL: I understand that some teacher told his students that abstract thinking was a concrete thing when you knew how to use it.

FB: There is a necessity of arriving at the new vision. We will not do that with the concrete mind but with meditation. �Let vision come and insight.� It is something we claim and invoke. We will not arrive at it by the use of the concrete mind.

AAB: That is what constitutes the problem if you are trying to train people. So many people have taken students and laid the emphasis on the abstract mind, and they have divorced students from concrete living.

AP: You cannot receive the vision until you have been through the Hall of Knowledge and have a trained instrument. The good people of the world have always been so impractical, and the evil ones have been so devilishly efficient. We have it in Hitler: active intelligence and the will to power, but love-wisdom is lacking, and he is bound to lose in the end.

HR: He can�t understand anything we are trying to do. He can�t function above the level of the concrete mind.

AAB: He is an initiate of high degree. Yes, I find among ordinary people such misty thinking. I got a letter from a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution this morning begging me to use my influence to see that the whole world was treated the same and that the German people are treated with mercy and justice and with the honor that is due them. I wrote back, �We will treat the German people with mercy and justice, but there is no honor due them.� With such misty thinking no wonder the Masters are so slow about coming out into the world. One of the Masters said that the mass of humanity was very little removed from the animal kingdom.

HR: Is there any way in which we could further develop reflective thinking? Can we consider ways of guiding the masses and students in ways of reflective thinking?

AAB: I do not think that anyone except disciples is ready for reflective thinking. It would throw them back into the mystic way. In this group we will deal directly with the question of the purpose of the Hierarchy, how we can further their plans and what our personal relationship is to the group and to the Hierarchy. If we can do that we will contribute to a great process that is coming from the Hierarchy; it is not coming from us. In all these writings the emphasis is not laid upon the relationship of the disciple to the Master but upon the relationship of the Master to the disciple, and how the Master deals with the disciple. I think it will benefit us if we get our thoughts away from what our personal training should be and get the picture of what the Masters are doing and how we can recognize the oncoming force. Personally, I find one of the most difficult things in the world is to decentralize my relationship from this or that. But I think we have to do it.

MW: Is what the Hierarchy tries to inject into a disciple like the light that is projected into a mirror and then reflected back?

AAB: The moon takes the light from the sun and then lights the world. Is that what you meant the Hierarchy does to the disciple? I think the concentrated light of the group is the light of all the members of the group and that is Soul light. The light of all the atoms in the body is stimulated into greater radiance by the light flowing in, and then the light of the Soul is brought into fusion with the light of the substance of the three bodies. When the group has enough disciples with lower light and Soul light blended, then it becomes an Ashram because an Ashram is a group of Souls functioning as a unit.

N: As I took the door in our group meditation on Sunday, I noticed that some people were so much more powerful than others. In one or two instances it was like a glowing fire. I definitely registered the energy.

RK: You were speaking of the way of a Master with a disciple. I thought of Samuel. When he heard the call he surrendered himself and said, �Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth.� I think that differentiates an Ashram from an ordinary group: the two-way relationship � taking and giving.

AAB: An Ashram is a group. A person cannot be in an Ashram unless he is part of a group, which means certain very definite and tangible relationships and responsibilities, certain fusions, certain complexities in the early stages.

RK: It seems to me that we have a perfect example on the physical plane in the President and the Cabinet. Everyone is there for a reason.

JL: These new relationships have a close relationship to Soul consciousness, and gradually, as humanity becomes junior members of the Hierarchy, they will get a point of view that the Hierarchy now has and will grasp Soul purpose, which we are trying to get on a small scale. We will keep getting a glimmer of the Soul and what it wants us to do. We will gradually get a vision of these new goals, which will be the goal of the Hierarchy at the present time.

AAB: You said an individual can get only a faint glimmer of the goal or an occasional response from the Soul. I feel that a group such as this, all functioning together, can stimulate each other sufficiently so that we can have Soul consciousness at those times. We call it one mind sparking another mind. I feel that, as a group, we can get a vision of what the Hierarchy wants done, whereas we cannot get it as individuals. The individual gets occasional glimpses, but the individual can be carried by the group. I am convinced that together we can get more than just glimpses. We can get knowledge, and there is the key to the Ashram.

JL: There is the key for humanity. Until people get together they will not get a vision of the goal.

AAB: I think there is always a hiatus between the vision of a group like this and the masses. The task of a group like this is to perceive the goal and step it down.

LM: I am so interested in the Food Conference. It is the first time that so many nations have gotten together with the idea of sharing food, and they seem to be working harmoniously.

AAB: They are working harmoniously because they are working alone. If the press had been let in, there would have been trouble. It is like this group here. Humanity would think we were talking utter nonsense.

H: The individual nations, even the smallest ones, are responding and each is contributing its own ideas and plans to the group as a whole, everyone bringing out what its particular production was and what it could contribute.

AAB: Forty-nine nations. In �The Present World Crisis� the Tibetan uses the phrase �America, the arsenal of democracy,� and says that sharing has to be the keynote of the economic conference, showing how ready the world is for what the Hierarchy wants instituted.

We could spend evening after evening discussing world problems, but I am interested in the initiatory process, in centering as much of the consciousness of the Hierarchy as possible in this group so that we can become distributors. Later we could discuss world problems.

HR: The Tibetan asks, �will the work of the Hierarchy stand?�

AAB: The work of the Hierarchy will stand if the aspirants and disciples comprehend and can make adaptations of what this means.

HR: Are we ready for the new world order?

AAB: We won�t get it, so don�t worry. Will the past work of the Hierarchy stand? The Hierarchy passes the buck to the accepted disciples and leaves them to do the demonstrating and take their stand.

RK: You will attain in time the capacity of the Hierarchy and be able to delegate. �New knowledge must supersede the old and it will not concern that which has hitherto been regarded as the ultimate goal.� [DINA 2, p. 256] What is the ultimate goal?

FB: Getting to heaven.

AAB: The ultimate goal of a disciple has never been getting to heaven.

C: Taking initiation.

AAB: I think back of those goals lies something else � perhaps liberation.

RK: The goal was liberation, liberation from form, then go on toward the purpose for which the form was given. What is the new goal? We have to work toward the purpose, to be familiar with God�s will.

AAB: I think that is very sound. All the old truths that we have preached and tried to live by will drop below the level of consciousness. They will become instinctual.

JL: �A new and deeper recognition must take the place of the old goals.� They will still be there only the emphasis will not be on them.

RK: We don�t remove the landmarks; we just pass them.

AAB: I think it is valuable for people to know where they stand. Are you the pledged disciple that becomes the accepted disciple? I should think we are pledged disciples and will become accepted disciples. The Tibetan says, �The initiate disciple develops an attitude to living processes and world events which is based on character.� [DINA2, p. 255] We have to be initiating disciples, for our goal of character is automatically goodness in the world of self-consciousness. We are working in the world of meaning all the time. When we are initiating disciples we will bring to bear the new light, the new motivation, the new formulas of life. They are life formulas and not Soul formulas. The probationer works with the enlightened formulas of the world, with the formulas of the Soul. The initiate disciple works with the formulas of life. The formulas of life are formulas of purpose or intention.

The task that we have is exceedingly difficult because we have not yet mastered the formulas of the Soul and we are asked to speculate upon and get some vision of the formulas of life. That is why a group like this is of profound importance. The more we know each other the more difficult become the relationships. That is the test.

HR: The fusion has to be on every plane.

RK: The difficulty must never negate the unity. You must still be.

AP: In Esoteric Psychology, Vol. 1, [page 81] the members of the Hierarchy all ask the Lord of the Sixth Ray why He is so difficult. This is a marvelous technique for assimilating each other into a group. They address their brother on the Sixth Ray in a spirit of heavenly joy and love, and question Him with intent to throw some light upon the somewhat obscure qualities of their loved brother. If the Hierarchy finds it difficult to assimilate the Lord of the Sixth Ray, we are not to be blamed if we have difficulty.

FB: When Master M had to take over Master KH�s disciples he just couldn�t get anywhere with them and he suffered with them.

AAB: So did the disciples. That whole problem is very interesting because here you have the Master M � brusque, forthright, saying whatever comes into his mind, and the disciples resent it. Yet he was a Master. The Master M said exactly what he wanted to the disciples of the Master KH, and they couldn�t take and react correctly to the force that poured through him. They registered the energy that disrupted them but didn�t register the love that motivated the Master M.

RK: The First Ray can function only in synthesis. Until there is synthesis the First Ray is destructive, but destructive only of that which prevents unity. That is what is taking place now. Synthesis is natural.

AAB: It is a practical thing. It works out in groups like this. People are subjected to stimulation and they go to pieces. I have noticed all kinds of precipitations, even with people who weren�t in the School.