Robert Crosbie – USA
i
From the article: … that All may Live, following the footsteps of those Great Ones who have trodden the Path before us.
Doubt nothing, fear nothing, chafe at nothing”— we often have to say to ourselves, when conditions seem to hedge us in and prevent the carrying out of some good work. These conditions are not only our Karma but that of those we have in mind to help. Yet we must strive for them, the best we can, to lift their Karma and ours. Sometimes it may seem as if everything conspired to laugh at us and deride our best efforts; but we know all that is but the dead weight of the world’s conditions which the Masters, and those who have volunteered, are working continuously to lift; and we feel the assurance which comes from understanding that none of this struggle is in vain. Masters do all that is possible for Them to do; we strive to follow Their example in doing Their work in this world of conditioned existence, each in his place; the knowledge that it is Their work, and what should be done, sustains us. What matters it, then, what kind of conditions confront us? Nothing has yet stopped us, although at times it has seemed that we could go no further; and we are constrained to see that nothing can stop us — not life nor death nor any other thing. So we cheerfully go on to the end of ends, with our lives and all that they contain — that All may Live, following the footsteps of those Great Ones who have trodden the Path before us.
One may constitute himself a disciple by his own inward desire, but that does not involve the Masters until he reaches that degree of development where he is actually accepted as a chela. Masters cannot be drawn in unwillingly; neither will They ever refuse help when deserved. Masters in bodies do take upon themselves the Karma of that which They teach, and where an actual relation mutually assumed exists, they must feel bodily the errors of omission and commission of each pupil. Undoubtedly, Those who have been here would have remained until this time, or longer, had the professed disciples been true to their pledges.
It is said They hold back the awful Karma of the world in order to provide further opportunities. But They do not feel the Karma, while knowing it, and mitigating the evil forces generated by Man. The power to feel all, implies the power of not to feel. They must be able to do the right thing, in the right measure, at the right time, and in the right place, and thus can isolate themselves from prying curiosity, or desire toward Them from wrong motive. Otherwise Their work would be impeded. A desire to know is not a condition, and the proper condition is the necessary requisite for a demand upon Them; the demand is contained in the condition. In Their Message to the Western World, They have shown how They may be reached, even publicly, in every possible way. Those who admit that Masters exist, and deny or ignore Their message, can hardly be in the way of receiving Their direct help. Yet help is accorded to all in a general way, each raising the self by the Self until the requisite condition of notice or demand exists. None can be shut out; the welfare of all is desired.
Yet there must be indirect ways, and the direct way. If any aspirant cannot be made to perceive the direct way, then he must take the way he sees. His inability to see bespeaks his Karma, his condition; so also, the fact of not having had the Message brought forcibly to him bespeaks former opportunities deliberately turned aside or neglected — a Karma numerously incurred during the past thirty-odd years. Much as it may seem like dogma, there is but one philosophy; there are Masters; there is Their Message. It is not dogma because it is a statement of fact, which each is invited to prove for himself —and shown how to do it. True knowledge has been lost to the world; the Masters restore it. They help those directly whom They can; those so helped help others directly and indirectly. The cycle has an upward, less material, tendency; it needs right direction, which the direct and indirect influence of the Message provides. Blessed are those who are able to perceive and take the direct way.
[This article was also published in VIDYA, the winter 2023 issue. For more details and articles, follow this link: https://theosophysb.org/vidya-subscriptions/ ]