Sydney Goodwill Goodwill is love in action
Discipleship in the New Age, Volume I, by Alice A. Bailey
This first of two volumes records a series of personal and group instructions by a Master of the Wisdom to a small group of aspirants over a period of fifteen years . They contain detailed teachings on Meditation, Initiation and the Six Stages of Discipleship. They emphasise the new age, pioneering necessity for group work, the development of group consciousness, and the change in training for initiation from individuals to discipleship groups.
Who should read this book
- People who feel an inner need to deepen their understanding of the purpose of their living and how to proceed towards its fulfilment.
- Those aspiring to understand and serve the greater Life expressing through our world.
Why it is suitable for those aspiring to serve the greater Life
The book contains training and teaching hints and personal instructions as given to each of 41 disciples and applicants for discipleship. In these direct and outspoken comments any sincere aspirant to discipleship can find himself and his own need understood and met (sometimes in drastic terms) from the deep spiritual insight, the knowledge and the love of a Master of the Wisdom. The “Six Stages of Discipleship” in the final part of the book show the sequence of growth in consciousness towards the centre of an Ashram so clearly, that one cannot fail to identify one’s own place and one’s resulting opportunity.
How readable is it?
Reading this book one experiences and learns through the direct “voice” of a Master. It can be deeply enlightening to see how He clarifies and points the way through many of the challenges we can face in striving to tread the Way into spiritual reality.
Why is it worth reading?
Please join our discussion below, and leave a comment about the benefits you have experienced from reading or browsing this book.
Where can you buy it?
You can purchase this from your preferred online bookseller, such as:-
- The Lucis Press (www.lucistrust.org/en/books)
- The Book Depository which offers free postage to anywhere in the world (www.bookdepository.com/Discipleship-New-Age-v-1-Alice-Bailey)
See also Discipleship In The New Age Volume II
- Contents
- Extract From The Book
- The Author
Contents
Talks to Disciples by the Tibetan
Personal Instructions to Disciples
The Six Stages of Discipleship
Summary of the Tibetans Work (1919-1943)
Index
[From a letter from The Tibetan to one of His disciples-in-training]
Pages 324-326
January 1935
MY BROTHER OF OLDEN TIME:
To you, I would say at this time that one of the wisest and one of the most educational things you have ever done is to start this group which you now instruct and teach. Remember that your function as a teacher in no way resembles that of those who are on the second ray of love wisdom. It is not the teaching aspect which is primarily yours but the awakening aspect. The group meets ostensibly for teaching and you give them what they need but your prime function is to charge the group members with dynamic energy. Through the power of your soul you must awaken their souls into selfless activity. You can touch them dynamically and then never again will their orientation be purely personal. The task of re-orienting people can be yours. Some people work with groups and, through the inclusiveness of their auras and the potency of their souls, they sweep large numbers of people into a higher aspirational attitude and into a deeper spiritual tide. Others have the duty of finding the advanced men and women of the world, the individuals who stand at the portal of discipleship—but blindly, knowing not where they are or why. They then, through their dynamic soul potency, call into living activity the soul imprisoned in these waiting personalities. Such is your task—to teach and vivify.
And what, my brother, shall be for you the keynote of the coming months? What shall be the word I give to you which shall govern your personality until the coming Wesak Festival in May? I am impelled to give you just two words of practical import. They are gracious loving-kindness.These qualities of graciousness and of loving-kindness mark the superficial (occultly understood) outer expression of the soul and for a first ray person they are ever difficult; their need is oft not recognised nor are they deemed necessary. The first ray person frequently does not know he lacks them. The inner, dynamic and realised goodness of a first ray disciple can be marred by a haste and an outer quickness of speech and attitude. So sure is a first ray person of his essential kindness and love (and he is rightly sure) that he judges other people as himself. The inner rectitude of attitude and the inner love matter more to him than the outer expression. But lesser people and those upon the other rays are apt to misunderstand. The potency of your work is so real and the opportunities opening before you are so great that if you add to that potency a gracious outer attitude of loving-kindness, you can be much used. Ponder on this, my brother of old.
I change not your meditation and will ask you to adhere to it until next May. This is for you a preparatory period in which the qualities of your soul must be welded into those of the personality. In 1936 and particularly in 1937, if the plans work out as desired and you go forward on the Way, the door of opportunity will stand wider open. These words are for you to interpret. Symbolically I say to you:
“The door before you has two leaves. One is now open wide. The other is ajar. Love alone can open the one that is ajar. The other opened to the force of will—this to the pull of love. Behind this door there stands a Presence, hiding another door which opens to a field of newer service.”
I cannot impress upon you too strongly two matters, my brother: First that your closest work in the future lies with three people…. This you know already. Secondly, guard more your health and take not on your shoulders more than your strength can suffice to carry. Rest more. The ardent flames of inner love and aspiration oft burn too fiercely the physical vehicle. Pass on to greater work and live with joy the life of loving service.
The 24 books of Alice A. Bailey were written between 1919-1949. Most of the books, including this one, were written in cooperation with a Tibetan teacher. They constitute a continuation of the Ageless Wisdom – a body of esoteric teaching handed down from ancient times in a form which is always suitable to each period.
The Alice A. Bailey writings were intended to precede and condition the coming era [of the Aquarian Age].
EXTRACT FROM A STATEMENT BY THE TIBETAN
“Suffice it to say, that I am a Tibetan disciple of a certain degree, and this tells you but little, for all are disciples from the humblest aspirant up to, and beyond, the Christ Himself. I live in a physical body like other men, on the borders of Tibet, …” Read more
