DISCIPLESHIP REQUIREMENTS

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THE PLAN OF GOD
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RAY-DATABASE

REQUIREMENTS

DISCIPLESHIP

"For what is a disciple? He is one who seeks to learn a new rhythm, to enter a new field of experience, and to follow the steps of that advanced humanity who have trodden ahead of him the path, leading from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real.”

ALICE BAILEY
A TREATISE ON WHITE MAGIC

PSYCHIC
POWERS

DIVINE
INDIFFERENCE

SERENITY

ESOTERIC
SENSE

PERSEVERANCE

HUMILITY

COURAGE

STEADFASTNESS

CAPACITY TO
GIVE

SENSITIVITY

DETACHMENT

SINCERITY

MENTAL
POLARIZATION

IMPERSONALITY

JOY

HONESTY

RESPONSIBILITY

DESCRIPTION
OF QUALITIES

The disciple must be consciously aligned with the soul (the higher self) and increasingly governed by soul impression rather than personality desire.

“The disciple is one who knows himself to be the soul and who acts as such.”

1. Soul Alignment

True discipleship requires a stable, trained, and illumined mind.

Emotional control is assumed
The mind becomes the interpreter of soul purpose

Thinking is clear, logical, and inclusive

"Emotional aspiration alone is not sufficient."

2. Mental Polarization

A disciple is not preoccupied with:

Personal progress
Spiritual status
Recognition or reward

Focus is placed on group service and planetary need.

“The disciple forgets himself in service.”

3. Self-Forgetfulness

Harmlessness is described as the primary practical expression of love.

This includes:

Control of speech

Emotional non-reactivity

Absence of criticism

Right use of thought energy

"Harmlessness is not passivity, but controlled spiritual power."

4. Harmlessness

Service is the defining mark of discipleship.

It arises naturally from soul contact
It is intelligent and effective
It serves the Plan, not personal ideals

“Service is the spontaneous outflow of a loving heart and an illumined mind.”

5. Service

The disciple works as part of a group, not as an isolated seeker.

No sense of separateness

Cooperation without attachment

Loyalty to group purpose, not personalities

"Group initiation, replacing individual liberation."

6. Group Consciousness

The disciple must demonstrate:

Freedom from glamour and illusion
Emotional poise under pressure

Detachment from praise, blame, success, or failure

"Detachment does not mean coldness, but inner freedom."

7. Emotional Stability and Detachment

A disciple learns to distinguish between:

Soul impression vs. astral desire

Intuition vs. psychic sensitivity

Truth vs. inherited belief

"Guarding oneself against glamour, fanaticism, and spiritual ambition."

8. Discrimination and Discernment

Motivation must be:

Impersonal
Oriented toward the good of the whole
Free from desire for power, authority, or recognition

"The Hierarchy responds to quality of motive, not outer activity."

9. Right Motive

A disciple is expected to be:

Dependable
Punctual (energetically and practically)
Capable of carrying spiritual energy without distortion

"Reliability is a spiritual qualification."

10. Responsibility and Reliability

This refers to:

Holding steady in soul consciousness
Maintaining inner alignment during outer activity
Working without emotional reinforcement

"This capacity increases usefulness in hierarchical work."

11. Ability to Stand in Spiritual Tension

Discipleship involves:

Tests in relationships
Crises revealing remaining personality control
Opportunities to transmute weakness into strength

"The disciple does not complain, but learns."

12. Acceptance of Discipline and Testing

Bailey stresses the importance of:

Silence about spiritual experiences
Restraint in speech
Protection of inner contact

"Speech dissipates energy; silence preserves it."

13. Silence

A true disciple demonstrates:

Inclusive love
Compassion without sentimentality

Commitment to human evolution

"Not love of an ideal humanity, but of people as they are."

14. Love of Humanity

Discipleship is the life of the soul expressing itself through a trained personality in intelligent service to humanity, within a group framework, under the law of love and the discipline of harmlessness.

Summary

Constant study (of papers), and the apprehension by the ear and eye of statements anent the Ageless Wisdom, serve only to increase responsibility, or produce brain fatigue and staleness, with subsequent revolt from instruction. Only that which is brought into use in the life is of practical value and retains its livingness. Sincerity is the first thing for which those of us who teach inevitable look.

ALICE BAILEY

SINCERITY

The basic qualities for which we look are sensitivity, impersonality, psychic capacity, and mental polarisation. . . .
I have stated that the first requirement is sensitivity. What exactly is this? It does not mean primarily that you are a "sensitive soul" - this connotation of which usually means that you are thin-skinned, self-centred and always on the defensive! Rather I do refer to the capacity whereby you are enabled to expand your consciousness so that you become aware of ever-widening ranges of contact. I refer to the ability to be alive, alert, keen to recognise relationships, quick to react to need, mentally, emotionally and physically attentive to life, and rapidly developing the power to observe upon all three planes in the three world simultaenously. I am not interested in you personal relations where they concern your wrong personality sensitivity to depression, so self-pity, your defences, your so-called sensitiy to slights, to misunderstandings, your dislike of your environing conditions, your hurt pride, and qualities of this kind. These all cause you bewilderment and let loose in you the floodgates of compasssion for yourself. But you do not need me to deal with them; of them you are well aware and can handle them if you choose. These faults are interesting only in so far as they affect the life of your group; they must be handled by you with the open eye that senses danger from afar and seeks to avoid it.
The sensitivity which I want to see developed is alertness to soul contact, impressionability to the "voice of the Teacher", an aliveness to the impact of new ideas and to the delicacy of intuitional responsiveness. These are ever the hallmark of the true disciple. It is spiritual sensitivity which must cultivated; this in only truly possible when you learn to work through the centres above the diaphragm, and to transmute solar plexus activity (which is so dominant in the average person), turning it into heart activity and the service of your fellow men.

ALICE BAILEY

SENSITIVITY

The question of psychic powers is not so easy to explain. I do not refer to the lower psychic powers, which may or may not develop as time goes on and the need for them arises. I refer to the following capacities, inherent in the soul, which must be developec in all of you if you are to do your share in meeting world need, and work for the Hierarchy in the field of world service. Let us briefly enumerate them:

Intuitional response to ideas.
Sensitiveness to the impression which some member of the Hierarchy may seek to make upon the mind of the disciple. It is not for this reason that I am training you to utilise the Full Moon contact.
Quick response to real need. You had not regarded this as one of the psychic powers, my brother, had you? I refer not herer to a solar plexus reaction, but to heart knowledge. Ponder on this distinction.
Right observation of reality upon the soul plane. This leads to right mental perception, to freedom from illusion and glamour, and to the illumination of the brain.
Correct manipulation of force, involving therefore, an understanding of the types and qualities of force, and their creative weaving into service upon the outer plane.
A true comprehension of the time element, with its cyclic ebb and flow, and the right seasons for action - a most difficult psychic power to master, bmy brothers, but one which can be mastered through the use of patient waiting and the elimination of hurry.

All the powers, the disciple must eventually develop, but the process is necessarily slow.

ALICE BAILEY

PSYCHIC POWERS

The quality of mental polarisation. What exactly is this power or quaility? For you (at this time) it must express itself in two ways:

Through the life of meditation
Throught the control of the astral body.

Increasingly must your inner life be lived upon the mental plane. Steadily and without descent must the attitude of meditation be held - not for a few minutes each morning, or at specific moments throughout the day, but constantly, all day long. It infers a constant orientation to life and the handling of life from the angle of the soul. This does not refer to what is so often referred to as "turning one's back upon the world". The disciple faces the world, but he faces it from the level of the soul, looking clear-eyed upon the world of human affairs. "In the world, yet not of the world" is the right attitude - expressed for us by the Christ. Increasingly must the normal and powerful life of the emotional, astral, desire and glamorous nature be controlled and rendered quiescent by the life of the soul, functioning through the mind. The emotions which are normally self-centred and personal, must be transmuted into the realisations of universality and impersonality; the astral body must become the organ through which the love of the soul can pour; desire must give place to aspiration and that, in its turn, must be merged in the group life and the group good; glamour must give place to reality, and the pure light of the mind must pour into all dark places of the lower nature. These are the results of mental polarisation, and are brought about by definite meditation and the cultivation of the meditative attitude.

ALICE BAILEY

MENTAL POLARIZATION

You ought to acquire that inner, divine detachment which sees life in its true perspective. A man is thus left free and untouched by aught that may occur. The ideal attitude for you is that of the Onlooker who is in no way identified with aught that may happen on the physical and emotional planes, and whose mind is a limpid reflector of truth. This truth is intuitively perceived, because there are no violent mental reactions or emtional states of response; the vehicles of perception are quiet, and therefore there is nothing to offset correct attitude. When this state of consciousness is achieved, you will be able to teach with power, and at the same time possess that also which must be taught.

Be attached to souls, but detached from personalities. Souls heal and aid each other's personalities. Personality relationshipss drain and devitalise.

ALICE BAILEY

DETACHMENT

These truths of self-analysis are seldom definitely faced or formulated by any of you and, therefore (because I seek to help you), I (D.K.) formulate them for you and face you with them. It is hard for intelligent men and women to see others closeley associated with them dealing with life and problems from a totally different angle to their own - handling them in a weak or stupid way (from the angle of the disciple) and apparently serious errors in judgment or technique. Yet, brother of old, why are you so sure that you are right, and that your point of view is necessarily correct? It may be thatyour slant on life and your interpretations of a situation needs readjustment, and that your motives and attitudes could beImpersonality, particularly for high grade integrated people, is peculiarly difficult to achieve. There is a close relation between impersonality and detachment. Study this. Many cherised ideas, many hard won qualities, many carefully nurtured righteousness, and many powerfully formulated beliefs , militate against impersonality. It is hard for the disciple - during the process of his early training - to hold earnestly to his own ideals, and to pursue forcefully his own spiritual integration, and yet remain impersonally orientated towards other people. He seeks recognition of his struggle and achievement; he longs to have the light which he has kindled draw forth a reaction from others; he wants to be known as a disciple; he aches to show his power and his highly developed love nature, so that he may evoke admiration or, at least, challenge. But nothing happens. He is looked upon as no better than all the rest of his brothers. Life, therefore, proves dissatisfying.
more elevated or purer. And even if they are - for you - the highest and the best that you can achieve at any given time, then pursue your way and leave your brother to pursue his. "Better a man's own dharma, than the dharma of another." Thus does the Bhagavad-Gita express this truth, telling the disciple to mind his own business.
This attitude of non-interference and the refusual to criticise, in no way prevents service to each other, or constructive group relations. It does not negate the expression of love or happy group co-operation. There is ever much opportunity for the practice of impersonality in all group relations. In every group there is usually one group member (and perhaps several) who constitute a problem to themselves and to their group brothers. Perhaps you yourself are such a one and know it not. Perhaps you know who, among your co-servers, provides a testing for his fellows. Perhaps you can see clearly what is the group weakness, and who it is that is keeping the group back from finer activity. That is well and good, provided that you continue to love and serve and to refrain from criticism. It is a wrong attitude to seek assidiously to straighten out your brother, to chide him or seek so impose your will on him, or your point of view, though it is always legitimate to express ideas and make suggestion. Groups of disciples are groups of free and independent souls who submerge their personal interests in service, and who seek that inner linking which will fuse the group into an instrument for the service of humanity and of the Hierarchy. Continue with your own soul discipline, and leave your brothers to continiue theirs.

ALICE BAILEY

SINCERITY

You must learn to view what is said or suggested by any group brother, with a complete and carefully developed "divine indifference". Note the use of the word "divine indifference". Note the use of the word "divine", for it holds the clue to the needed attitude. It is a different thing to the indifference of not caring, or the indifference of a psychologically developed "way of escape" from that which is not pleasant; nor is the indifference of superiority. It is the indifference which accepts all that is offered, uses what is servicable, learns what can be learnt, but is not held back bij personality reactions. It is the normal attitude of the soul or self to the not-self. It is the negation of prejudice, of all narrow preconceived ideas, of all personality tradition, influence or background. It is the process of detachment from "the world the flesh and the devil" of which The New Testament speaks.

ALICE BAILEY

DIVINE INDIFFERENCE