AAB: I was wondering what we would take as our study work this winter. I remembered that you responded so wonderfully to the extracts from the Tibetan�s unpublished writings that I read last time, so I have decided that we would take those papers and deal with them slowly. They cover the Fourteen Rules that initiates have to master. 

I have the feeling that the entire School and this group at headquarters are at a point of crisis, a crisis dependent upon the situation in the world, a crisis of spiritual purpose, which seems to me somewhat lacking everywhere throughout the School. I am very anxious to see more fire in this group and in the whole School. I want to see everyone in this appalling time of crisis � and it is a mounting crescendo of difficulty � take that action that will release them from themselves and will make them far more effective workers for the Hierarchy than they have ever been before. I would like to feel fire. Don�t tell me, as one student did, �I am well over 50 and can�t have any fire.� I have lots and I am 63. You can have fire if you want it, but you only get it when your sense of values is properly adjusted and nothing matters to you but what you can do under the inspiration of your Soul to give your full quota of help, even if it kills you. It does not matter a bit if you die. What does matter is that we go all-out to meet the need. Now as we read and study together, you will find that in these papers, which will form part of A Treatise on the Seven Rays, will lift you to the limits of your spiritual perception, because we are dealing with matters that probably lie well beyond this life.

We are a group of people who take the position that we are pledged to tread the path of discipleship, and we do our best. But we never can tread the path of discipleship in its full sense until we keep absolutely nothing back of anything we have or are. We have only one page of text here, but there is a great deal in it.

[Reading:]

We now begin our study of the fourteen rules for those who are seeking initiation, in one or other of its degrees.

The Rays and the Initiations, p. 25

AAB: I do think that all of us are determined aspirants and have taken the first initiation, or else we wouldn�t be interested, we wouldn�t have the staying power, or the perceptions we have. That means that ahead of every one of us there lies an initiation. It may take place in the next life, or a dozen, or twenty lives may lie between the first and the second initiation. I notice that where aspirants invariably fail is in courage. It demands all the courage that is in you to tread the path of discipleship and to take initiation. I am not talking of bravery. I am talking of that innate something that enables you to take any step that is demanded of you provided it takes you nearer to your goal.

[Reading:]

In Initiation, Human and Solar I gave the rules for those proposing to enter the grades of discipleship.  I would like for a minute to deal with the significance of the word �Rule� and give you some idea of its occult meaning.  There is much difference between a Law, an Order or Command, and a Rule, and these distinctions should be pondered with care.  The Laws of the universe are simply the modes of expression, the life impulses and the way of existence or activity of the One in Whom we live and move and have our being.  There is no avoiding these laws in the last analysis, and there is no denying them, for we are eternally swept into activity by them and they govern and control (from the angle of the Eternal Now) all that happens in time and space.

Ibid., p. 25

AAB: You can get a little idea of what law is if you study the relationship of the cells of your body and your will. This simple illustration can give us some understanding of the meaning of law. Then the question arises: Is the School today an entity of such force and coherence that the cells in the School, the units of men and women in the School, are compelled by the sum total of the spiritual life in the School, which is the law for them? That means, you see, that the law of life in the School is just the law that you yourself contribute, and the School is no better than the general average of the students. That is where I think that the headquarters staff, this group, needs to stop and think, because the law of the School, the law of being, the life of the entity that is the Arcane School, is conditioned by you, and if you are not what you ought to be as a disciple, the School will not be. That is why for weeks and months I have been making myself very objectionable.

I have been saying I don�t give a damn about the organization. You can have an organization and no life at all, or you can have a living organism that by the very force of its being is right. Unless the Arcane School gets that into its consciousness, the law of the School will be way down here and not up where it should be. If in your work you emphasize the form side, you will kill the School, and I don�t want that. I would rather see mistakes made in the organization, if it means that the tide of life that is pouring out from this group to the students is of such a quality that you are carrying the whole School onward and upward. As long as your eyes are on the organization and turning in reports, and you are busy with the papers, the School is not going to make good in the new field. I feel very strongly about that. I want your thoughts on that, and there will be opportunity for discussion later.

[Reading:]

Orders and commands are the feeble interpretations that men give to what they understand by law.  In time and space, and at any given moment and in any given location, these commands are issued by those who are in a position of authority or who seem to dominate or are in a position to enforce their wishes.  Laws are occult and basic.  Orders are indicative of human frailty and limitation.

Ibid., p. 25

AAB: Can we have a group here that works with perfect coherence without any instruction because they have the vision? �Laws are occult and basic.  Orders are indicative of human frailty and limitation.� That is why I keep students in the School sometimes for years when there is no sign of life about them; they can suddenly come to life. If I had thrown them out I would have been giving a subjective order that was unwarranted. They will come to life if the headquarters group is occupied with the task of vivifying the life of the students. If you have students in your group who are not working, find out why. The organization doesn�t count; interest in the student is what counts. Organization is dependent upon organism, the life at the center, and when the life at the center is right, we are building right, not by making plans but by being what we are.

[Reading:]

Rules are, however, different.  They are the result of tried experience and of age-long undertakings and � assuming neither the form of laws nor the limitations of a command � they are recognized by those for whom they exist and hence evoke from them a prompt intuitive response.  They need no enforcement but are voluntarily accepted, and are put to trial in the belief that the witness of the past and the testimony of the ages warrant the effort required for the expressed requirements.

This is true of the fourteen Rules that we are now going to study.  I would remind you that only the initiate consciousness will truly comprehend their significance, but also that your effort so to do will develop in you the beginning of that initiate consciousness, provided you seek to make practical and voluntary application of these rules in your daily lives.  They are susceptible of three forms of application � physical, emotional and mental � and of a fourth application that is best designated by the words �the response of the integrated personality to Soul interpretation and understanding.�

Another point that I would call to your attention, prior to interpreting this rule, is that your group endeavor must be to seek group application, group meaning and group light. 

Ibid., pp. 25-26

AAB: We are here to respond as a group, a nucleus within a greater group, so that that greater group may be lifted and carried on.

[Reading:]

I would emphatically emphasize the words �group light.�  We are dealing, therefore, with something basically new in the field of occult teaching, and the difficulty of intelligent comprehension is consequently great.  The true significances are not the simple ones that appear upon the surface.  The words of these rules would seem to be almost tritely familiar.  If they meant exactly what they appear to mean, there would be no need for me to be giving hints as to their underlying significances and ideas.  But they are not so simple.

To sum up, therefore: these Rules are to be read with the aid of a developing esoteric sense; they are related to group initiation in spite of their having individual application; they are not what they appear to be on the surface � trite truisms and spiritual platitudes; but they are rules for initiation which, if followed, will take the disciple and the group through a major spiritual experience; they embody the techniques of the New Age, which necessitate group activity, group procedure and united action.  Earlier I said that these rules are the result of tried experience, and my use of the word �new� in this connotation is related to human knowledge but not to the initiatory procedure.  That has always existed and always, at the great crises of initiation, disciples have moved forward in groups, even though they have not been aware of so doing.  Now disciples can become so aware, and the various ray ashrams will not only present their groups (large or small) to the Initiator, but the personnel of these groups will now be aware of the fact of group presentation.  They will also have to grasp the fact of the extent of their knowledge being dependent upon their decentralization. 

Ibid., pp. 26-27

AAB: This means that you are focused on presenting to the Arcane School, as it grows, a pathway, a medium whereby its members can get in touch with the Hierarchy. I think you will find it very useful to consider what the law of the School is as it affects the organism, if there is an organism. If we have an organization, then we need orders and commands. If we have an organization, I will close the School, because we are not doing what the Hierarchy wants.

M: The Tibetan says an inner group should develop a creativity of vibration and watch the effect and create an effect in the world of man. If this group can become creative it will lift the whole life of the School.

AAB: How do you think that creative vibration will show itself? I think you will get the clue to that if you study the word organism. An organism has an outgoing something, its own specific quality, and that has an effect on other people and that is the thing that matters. What is the quality of the vibration that goes out from the School if we are an organism, and what is the quality if we are an organization? Unless we think that out clearly, the School is going to be a failure.

B: One frees; the other enslaves.

AP: One confines and the other expands, because an organism is life. Anything that has life in it is an organism; it has its organization through which it acts. It seems to me it is a matter of vibration and knowing cause from effect. The minute you do objective work you have to have an organization, but you know it merely as a tool for certain purposes.

AAB: The organism builds the organization, and it isn�t planned by the people if the School is a living entity.

C: This body is an organization, but the organism is the living thing within it.

AAB: What we are really doing this evening is getting back into the etheric body to see if that which underlies the outer form is functioning as it should. So many of us have our eyes upon the outer form and not upon the inner forces. We have at headquarters various types circulating various forces and energies. These flow out into the School members, and according to their ray and type they respond.

M: Isn�t that what the Tibetan means by creativity of vibration?

AAB: I think so.

JL: Isn�t it true that, as we become more definitely an organism, it will not have an effect upon the size of the membership but on the influence of the School in the world?

AAB: I think it ought to have both. I think that if we are functioning as we should, the School should be as magnetically attractive as it was in the early days. The School went through a very bad slump, and we have to get back our magnetic attraction.

AR: It must grow if it is to meet the need. There is so much need.

AAB: In the early days of the School we were not interested in growth; we were interested in meeting the spiritual need.

RK: I am wondering if there has been such a slump. The School has matured as an entity and does not require that kind of feeding. But now it is going to attract people who are going to be co-workers with the Hierarchy.

AAB: The School slumped because the organization aspect was emphasized and the organism was neglected. It was sensed by the better students, and five hundred of them left. We have to go on from here and build an organism here at headquarters that will be so vibrant that people will come pouring in.

N: I believe that the fire, which you said is not predominant in each of us as individuals, is the fire of love. Love is not predominant, above all the other qualities, in the School or in us as individuals. I think intellectualism and goodwill and such qualities are predominant, but I think love is the quality that would attract.

AAB: Only those people can really express love who can make a contact with their Soul through meditation, and of course the percentage of students who can do that is relatively small.

N: I have been reading the life of Milarepa. When I read it I was amazed at the trials that he went through to arouse love for all sentient beings, and his sufferings eventually did awaken this greater fire. I believe we do not stress this enough.

RK: There is another lack: the joy of working.

AAB: That is partly the world condition, and it is difficult to be joyful if you know what is going on.

AR: The Tibetan often emphasizes the need of developing the heart center. Could some special emphasis be put on that in the work of the School?

AAB: The difficulty with that is that the students are all in different degrees. I am stopping all work in the Fourth Degree and the Disciples Degree for three months and getting out a special meditation for them, because I had the very definite feeling that we ought to get away from the work and down into a quiet place where we would do some definite thinking for three solid months before we enter into the new cycle in 1944. I am tremendously interested to pull the senior students up and say to them, �Where are you going from here? What are you going to be and do? What do you believe is the work that the Arcane School should carry forward? What quality of people should we have in the Arcane School as workers?� I have asked three questions, one to be answered in October, one in November and the third in January, to see what we get, to see what we arrive at, and we will analyze those questions and answers.

What is the quality or note that the student membership gets from those of us here? The thing that sticks in my mind is that the School is no better than we make it. We can only get the School to be what it ought to be by our deep thinking, by the outflow from a compassionate heart, by understanding the need of humanity, and by the courage that will enable us to face up to what that need is. This three-month period of work is specially organized for all of you in this room, because the note that you strike, the quality that you emit, will condition the entire School. I want to get away from the teacher-pupil aspect. There is too much organization.

M: I wish someone would define the word love for me.

AAB: You can�t define it.

M: You said outflow of a compassionate heart.

AAB: You have to forget yourself. The moment you become decentralized and get uninterested in yourself and in the technical side of the work and are wide open to the inspiration that comes from the Hierarchy, this headquarters here will be a channel for the Hierarchy.

M: It will come through and out without any personality direction.

AAB: But right now it is I, I, I, mine, mine, mine. We have ingrowing dispositions. Just be happy, compassionate, free, kind � straight kindness, self-forgetfulness. You won�t have to bother about anything; you will be so busy helping people. They will always be coming to you.

N: I like the idea of decentralization very much. I think you should put students to the test of this decentralization work and make them be an organism so that the student at a certain time will have a crisis to see if some fire could be awakened in him.

JL: We are not following the analogy that once I was a life spark and later on I was �.

AAB: First you are a life spark, then an organism, and then the organism produces the organization. What is wrong with people is that they begin with the organization and end by building a great form, a whitened sepulcher.

RK: An initiate is not the product of the evolutionary process; he causes the evolutionary process as he perfects his skills.

AAB: I suppose what I am really after is for us to rebuild from the organism angle and forget about the organization. If our emphasis is on organization, then the work is dead as a doornail; if it is on the spiritual energy that should be flowing through the School and the students, then we will have all the students that we need.

RK: We need the fire that liberates. That is what war is doing. It is fire.

FB: If we had a group of people who dared to use that fire mantra, we would get results.

AP: Love comes first, and we know nothing about love. You have to start loving and get away from personality. One way to learn about love is to study the qualities of the Second Ray and go through all the qualities. What it does on the cosmic plane, what it is and how it works, and the wonderful mantras. Then you begin to know something about the nature of love that we must pour fourth. You know something about what it ought to be, not what it is. It is a marvel to me how the teaching of the School expands and gives new meaning to the words of the New Testament. There it stresses love and joy. You can have joy and ecstasy and still be in pain. People confuse joy and happiness. The fruits of the spirit are first love and then joy. I do not think that two centuries of Christianity have done much.

M: Christ said to follow His teachings and your joy will be full.

AAB: But we don�t do it.

AP: Even when we do make a sacrificial effort, we don�t get any joy out of it.

AAB: What I am really doing and want to do during the next few weeks is to clear the decks for the work of the Master K.H. and what he wants to do in the School. The Master K.H. is on the love side, and the Tibetan is on the wisdom side. The Tibetan has given us wisdom, piles of it, and that wisdom has got to be used in love. You can look for a far more potent vibration in the School if you study the nature of the Second Ray, because you are studying the quality of the force that comes from the Master K.H.

C: You are really working with love-wisdom.

AAB: You will be working to bring forth love; the wisdom is there.

RK: Some of us need to verify our knowledge.

M: Won�t we do that through love?

B: The Arcane School is like a young person of 21. At this time we are sitting in on a different, a more challenging moment, than has ever existed before, and because that is so I begin questioning whether I too have grown up. I feel that I am like a baby in this field, as far as spiritual knowledge is concerned. The School is grown up, and its approach must be that of a young person and not of a baby. It may complicate our problem just a little.

AAB: Don�t you think that this young person, who considers himself an adult, has to learn to be the babe in Christ? The initiate is called a little child. Once the organization of the School is established, you will either have an individual who is preoccupied with the mental angle of the whole thing or one who has reached the place where he realizes that he is a grownup from the human angle and a babe in Christ from the Soul angle.

B: Shouldn�t we all be very humble in going out and expressing love?

AAB: I think we are entering an entirely new cycle in the world, and we don�t know what lies ahead. The Arcane School is like the mother cherishing the new life, the living child in Christ that will join with other children in Christ in salvaging the world. I believe that we all have adequate knowledge, a great deal more knowledge than we use. If this babe in Christ is going forth into the new world cycle and begin really to function, we shall need an entirely new realization. That is the thing that I am interested in.

I don�t know whether the present technique in the School is suitable for what we shall find in the School ten years hence. We don�t know but what we shall have to change our entire technique. We did it in the Fourth [Antahkarana] Degree, and it is a most amazing piece of work, the most stupendous thing the School has ever done.

N: This night marks a revelation in the light of the Soul. You say the next cycle is beginning for the School. It is a profound thing for all of us to think about. I do believe that if we will give profound attention in our inner self, a new way will emerge to use love together with wisdom.

AAB: I think you are quite right. Unless we have a very fluid approach to the new cycle that is coming, our organization will come between us and those we can help. I do not want ever to get the pupil-teacher angle into the School. We are dealing with adult men and women, some of them perhaps much further on than we are. Our responsibility is to give them all we have and then leave them alone.

RK: You left out comradeship.

AAB: We need comradeship very badly in the School.

RK: The living spark should begin to express itself in the world, but we don�t cultivate it adequately.

AAB: The Arcane School has flowered in its 25 years. Now there is a new seed in the ground. What is the seed going to produce? I don�t know.

B: That is made clear by St. Paul: �When I was a child I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.� We have come to that stage where we are grown up, and we are going to change.

AAB: I think in the Fourth Degree and the Disciples Degree there are grownups, but they are not all grown up.

RK: My arm is not as developed as my eye.

AAB: Is it our dharma and our destiny to meet the need of people as they come, or to go after those people who can be stations of spiritual light in the world? You can�t have everything.

FB: The School itself is a disciple, and the School has to perform actions that will meet the need of the Hierarchy, not what we like or what our minds tell us to do, but the sort of thing the individual does in relation to his master. He attempts to do what his master wants done. K.H. will use this group if this group wants K.H. to use it. We have to have the will to do what the Hierarchy wants done. If we have that, the wisdom that we have and the love that we can invoke will produce the organism so that the School can be adequately used. We have to come alive to the point where it is our intention that the School shall so act. It isn�t something that we talk about, but it is our fixed intention that the Arcane School shall act as a disciple under the Hierarchy for the next ten years. Then the vision will come, and the way into the future will be revealed. We have to take ourselves in hand and see whether we have that intention.

B: It won�t be as much a study group as it was under the Tibetan, but it will be an action group.

AAB: An action group? K.H. isn�t on the activity line. Just forget yourself and what happens to you. If you are occupied with what you can do to help people, people will come along all day, but you won�t be conscious of it. �The extent of their knowledge is dependent upon their decentralization.� Just forget about yourself and be.

N: Some months ago I went into a drugstore and ordered a milk shake. The man behind the counter said something rather interesting to me, and I answered him with inner sincerity. Several weeks later I went to the same drugstore and ordered another milk shake, and the man behind the counter repeated my words and said they had affected him tremendously, and he asked me if I believed deeply in the Christ. He wanted to talk to me and asked me to stay. An attitude of this kind on a large scale would produce marvelous results in people. I do not think we should feel ashamed in relating personal things to a group. The group should know and grow thereby.

RK: That is what you call sparking on a large scale.

AAB: I don�t want you to think that I am belittling all that we are doing now, because I think that our work for the past 25 years has been extraordinarily successful, but I do not want you to rest in what we are doing now. We have to go on to something more passionate, more full of zeal. What is the intention of the School?

RK: It connects humanity with the Hierarchy so that they can function together. That�s a heart function. We really are in the position of the heart