LIGHT ON THE PATH - 26 : KILL OUT AMBITION - 5

🌹 LIGHT ON THE PATH - 26 🌹

🍀 For those WHO DESIRE TO ENTER WITHIN - For DISCIPLES 🍀

✍️. ANNIE BESANT and LEADBEATER
📚. Prasad Bharadwaj

CHAPTER 3 - THE FIRST RULE

🌻  KILL OUT AMBITION - 5 🌻

104. We come now to the first note of the Master Hilarion, which is attached to the first rule. I will take it bit by bit. It begins:

105. Ambition is the first curse; the great tempter of the man who is rising above his fellows. It is the simplest form of looking for reward.

106. That is rather a curious way of putting it, but it is obviously true. The first temptation that comes to a man who knows he is rising a little above the rest in some way is to think of himself as a great man, and this leads him to resolve that he will rise still further, so that he may enjoy the pleasure of his pride even more.

107. Men of intelligence and power are led away from their higher possibilities by it continually.

108. How true that is no one can know who is not clairvoyant. Those who are pupils of the Masters necessarily, I suppose, have the habit of regarding all the people they meet more or less from the point of view of their possible discipleship. One sees a man who is in some ways obviously a good man; the first thought that comes into one’s mind about him is: “How near is he to the point when he can become a pupil of the Master?”

To us it is the greatest reward, the most precious piece of advancement that can come to any man, that he should reach the stage where he is worth taking in hand by one of these Great Ones, so that his future evolution may be assured. Attainment is after that merely a matter of time and, of course, of perseverance and much hard work.

109. Though it is quite true that for every human being progress is merely a question of time, for many human beings it is clearly a matter of so very much time that they may be taken en bloc, so to speak, dealt with in the mass; but the moment that a man comes near to the stage when conceivably a Master might take him in hand, he also becomes an object of very keen interest to the pupils of the Master, and their desire is always to try to help him to the point where definite contact may become possible. It should always be remembered that it is merely a question of the man’s deserts in the matter; there is no favouritism of any kind.

The moment it is worth the Master’s while to expend as much energy as would be required to teach that man He will do so, but it is only worth His while when He will be able to do more work through the man than He Himself could do with the same energy devoted to other work.

110. We meet a large number of people who seem as though they were not far from that point. They are so good in one way or another, and some are so hopeful all round, that it seems to us that surely with a very little more of the right direction of their energies they would be fit for discipleship – and then we are disappointed to find that it all comes to nothing and they spend their lives in the ordinary way. Most especially I have noticed that with boys and girls, among whom it has always been my lot to have to look for hopeful cases.

There are many young people who are quite near the point where, if their energies were just turned in the right direction, they would make very good subjects indeed for such progress, and yet they fail to grasp the opportunity. They get drawn into the competition of ordinary school life, and are swept into a world of lower thought.

It is not bad thought, I do not mean that – though that may happen sometimes – but they are swept into a sort of whirlpool of comparatively worldly thought. The goal put before them is generally that of success in some material way – to become great engineers or great lawyers, or to succeed at the head of some mercantile house.

Continues...
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11 Nov 2020