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LETTER XXXVIII
ADVICE TO A
SCRIBE
You can be
of more use to us if you do not allow yourself to be crushed by the sadness of
the world at this crisis through which the world is passing.
Each day rise to the plane of the spirit, above the physical world,
beyond the desires of the astral world, beyond the lower stratum of mind, up and
up to the Source of all life and all wisdom.
Set apart some time every day for this exercise. Use the Hebrew
formula which you have used before, and use it with power, in connection with
the yoga practice in which you are versed. The combining of two systems makes
for strength, because it avoids the limitation of too closely identifying the
Self with one race or one period. Occult development, occult power, is of all
times and all races. The knowledge of the new race about to be ushered in will
include all the systems of the past, taking from each the special thing in which
it surpasses the others.
Do not sink again into that slough of
depression from which I called you this day. It is not necessary for you to die
a thousand times in order to know death. It seems to me that you have gone deep
enough into the woe of the world. Now rise to a corresponding height.
Your sympathy will be no less tender if you do not die of sympathy
every day.
Your real work comes after the war, when the world can and will
listen to the teaching of brotherhood. Do not perish beforehand is my advice,
and the advice of my Teacher through me.
The Teachers are very grave in this crisis, but they are not crushed
to earth. They know that after the storm comes the calm and their faith has
survived.
In the awful depression in which you have been sunk for the last few
days, how could you help anyone? It is not for you to ask help from others, but
only from us. You know where we are. It is for you to revive the drooping
spirits and the drooping faith of those who have not received the assurances
which you have received.
This letter is not a reproof, but a lesson. I
would not have you retire to a selfish peace above the tumult and stay there,
forgetting the world. I do not forget the world. I work by day and by night. But
what help could I be to these war-shocked souls that come out here should I weep
when I encounter them? No help at all should I be. Instead, I seek to strengthen
them with my strength, to encourage them with my hope.
I do not mean, when I say that your work begins after the war, that
you can do nothing now. Far from it. You can do much, in both worlds. But if you
die of the wounds you behold out here, if you are caught yourself in the
whirlpool of despair, how can you draw others out of it?
I cannot repeat too often that this war is the world’s initiation.
It will be a new and enlightened world which will rise from the ashes of the old
one—a phœnix of a world, and I want you to rise with it.
The agony cannot endure forever. It is too intense just now, which
means that the climax is approaching.
When I told you that the issue was settled
here, I did not mean that the war would end in a day or two. Study cause and
effect. Study the rise and fall of everything according to cyclic law. The tidal
wave must spend itself on the shore before it subsides again into the sea.
Be calm. Keep faith with those whose task it is to uphold the faith
of mankind.
When you say that you want to suffer as long as the world suffers,
you are speaking as our pupil, and we would not have it otherwise. But remember
that one may be strong in suffering. We would not have you shirk the experience;
but master and use the experience, instead of letting it master and use you.
In regard to America, did I not tell you some time ago that there
was “an American on guard to-night,” old Abraham Lincoln, who renounced heaven
that he might watch over and guard the land he died for? Rest in confidence on
that assurance.
The other countries that you love are watched
over also. And another country which you do not love is watched over, lest it
wander so far that it cannot find its way back into the fold of human
brotherhood. There are souls in that country who are keenly aware that she has
gone as far as she safely may without becoming an outlaw among the nations.
There are even Germans in America who know it. If I named a few of them, you
might be surprised.
It is well that Germans in America should feel the American
repudiation of this latest piracy on the high seas. Let them feel it to the
quick. They can learn in no other way.
Do you fancy that in writing through your hand this book to be
published after the war, I am impressing my thought only upon you? I am
impressing others besides you.
A few days after I wrote you that Abraham
Lincoln was on guard, a newspaper cartoonist published a drawing of the ghost of
the great Lincoln standing behind President Wilson. Did you think it was a mere
coincidence? It was not a mere coincidence. I impress my thought, and the
thought of the Masters behind me, on other minds than yours. I am a worker
in the astral world. To impress the minds of men is one of the duties
assigned me. I go here and there where I am needed; but I have not written
anywhere else as I have written through you. I have tried to, but with very
indifferent success. An accurate amanuensis between the worlds is rare. They
have to be trained to distinguish between the thoughts of the dictator and the
thoughts of their own minds, objective and subjective, also between these and
the thoughts of irresponsible entities who like to have a finger in the earthly
pie.
You wonder why I do not tell you more stories? I will tell you a
story on my next visit.
May 11.
Letter XXXIX
LETTER
XXXVI |
