The Work of the English Master

 We come now to the preparatory work being done by the Master Who started what is called by you "the labour movement." The Ashram of this Master (Who has always withheld His name from public knowledge) is a lesser Ashram within the major third ray Ashram, just as my Ashram lies within the ring-pass-not of the Ashram of the Master K.H. This Master works primarily with the intelligentsia, and He is therefore a third ray Master — upon the Ray of Active Intelligence. His Ashram is occupied with the problems of industry, and the goal of all the thinking, all the planning and all the work of impressing receptive minds is directed towards spiritualising the concepts of the labour party in every country, and of industrialists, thus turning them towards the goal of right sharing, as a major step towards right human relations. This Master therefore cooperates with the Master R. — Who is the Head of the third ray Ashram, and Who is also one of the Triangle of Forces which controls the greater Ashram of the Hierarchy Itself. Master is necessarily an Englishman, for the industrial revolution started nearly one hundred years ago in England, and the potency of the work done is related to its mass effect and to the results achieved in every land by labour and its methods.

This work He began to do in the latter part of the nineteenth century, but left it to carry forward of its own momentum when Russia entered the field and laid an undue emphasis upon the proletariat during the revolution and in the later years of the first quarter of the twentieth century. At the same time this is regarded by the Hierarchy as one of the most successful attempts in all history to awaken the masses of men (in the brackets called middle class and lower class) to general betterment, and thus set up a momentum which would, occultly speaking, "swing them into light." ⁹³

Along with the development of the labour movement, mass education came into being, with the result that—from the angle of developed intelligence — the entire level of conscious awareness was universally raised. There is still much illiteracy, but the average citizen in all the western democracies and in the Soviet Union is as well educated as the intellectual man in the Middle Ages. You have, in this activity, an outstanding instance of how the Masters work, for (to the average onlooker) the labour movement arose from within the masses and the working classes; it was a spontaneous development, based upon the thinking and the teaching of a mere handful of men who were regarded primarily as agitators and trouble makers; they were in reality a group of disciples (many of them unconscious of their esoteric status) who were cooperating with the Law of Evolution and also with the hierarchical Plan. They were not particularly advanced disciples, but they were affiliated with some Ashram (according to their ray), and were therefore subject to impression. Had they been advanced disciples or initiates, their work would have been futile, for their presentation of the Plan would not have been adapted to the level of the intelligence of the then totally uneducated masses composing labour.

All the great labour organisations, national and international, are loosely knit together subjectively, because in each group this Master has His disciples who are working constantly to hold the movement in line with the divine Plan.

Capitalists and labour leaders, financial experts and thinking workers, and members of all the differing ideologies which are prevalent in the world today are to be found actively working within this Ashram. Many of them are what the orthodox religious man or the hide-bound occult student would regard as non-spiritual, yet all of them are in reality deeply spiritual in the correct sense, but they care not for labels, for schools of thought nor for academic, esoteric teaching. They exemplify within themselves a livingness which is the hallmark of discipleship.

Nevertheless, the work of this Master is outstandingly successful in preparing the intellectual principle of the masses for eventual right recognition of the Christ. A right sense of values is being developed, and in the right direction of this potent labour group in every land lies the foundation of the new civilisation.

The Ashram of this Master is therefore occupied with worldwide economic problems, and also with a direct attack upon the basic materialism to be found in the modern world. The problems of barter and exchange, the significance of money, the value of gold (a basic symbol of the third Ray of Active Intelligence), the production of right attitudes towards material living, and the entire process of right distribution are among the many problems dealt with in this Ashram; the work done is enormous and of great importance in preparing men's mind for the return of the Christ and for the New Age which He will inaugurate.

One more point I would like to discuss. Through the work of this Master and His Ashram the "sealing of the door where evil dwells" will come about, because it is essentially this group which (if I dare so express it) is coping with raw materialism and the false values which it engenders. The door has to be sealed by a vast mass of coordinated human forces, and not by one or two enlightened men. This fact must be grasped by you. The energy of love-wisdom, the energy of the second ray, can and will bring in the Kingdom of God; the energy of the divine will can and will galvanise with its dynamic potency the entire human family to the point where a group transition will take place from the fourth into the fifth kingdom. It is nevertheless this third ray energy, as wielded in the Ashram of this English Master, under the direction of the Mahachohan, the Lord of Civilisation, which will force a right attitude toward materialism, which will bring about a balance between the material values and the spiritual, and which will eventually thrust back into futility the Forces of Evil which have for so long distracted the world of men.⁹⁴

This is the energy of the seventh ray or power of divinity. At this time, its major expression will come through the relationships and adjustments required between capital and labour, and labour will be primarily involved. It is a group which learns with rapidity and has in it the seeds of vast good; it is probably the group which will place goodwill in the forefront of human thinking — upon a pinnacle of thought.⁹⁵

When the Labour Movement is swept by the energy of goodwill, basic changes in world affairs will take place. I would ask all workers for goodwill to attempt to reach labour in all countries with these ideas, correctly presented. This is the Ray of Ceremonial Order, and through the activity of its energy, when correctly directed and used, a right rhythm is being imposed upon all aspects of human living. An effort is being constantly made to arrest the ugly chaos of the present and to produce the ordered beauty of the future. The major weapon now being used by the combined Forces of Evil is chaos, disruption, lack of established security, and consequent fear. The potency of these evil forces is exceedingly great because they belong to no one group of people and to all the ideologies. The chaos produced by indifference, the chaos produced by uncertainty, the chaos produced by fear, by starvation, by insecurity, by watching others suffer innocently, and the chaos produced by the warring and conflicting ambitious elements in every nation (without exception) — these are the factors with which the Master R. is attempting to deal; the task is one of supreme difficulty. The entire rhythm of international thinking has to be altered, and that constitutes a slow and arduous task; the evil personalities which, in every country, are responsible for the chaos and uncertainty, have eventually to be replaced by those who can work in cooperation with the rhythm of the seventh ray, and thus produce ordered beauty.

The task is further complicated by the fact that in the substitution of order for chaos, national cultures must be preserved and the outline of the new civilisation presented to the people. This major Ashram is therefore confronted with two elements in every land and nation: those people who hold on to the bad old things of the past, and those who work for the extreme opposite of this point of view and for that which is new. Under the influence of this seventh ray energy balance has to be brought about and preserved, so that the "noble middle way" of right action and of right human relations can be safely trodden. The task of the Master R. is, however, lightened by the fact that the seventh ray is now coming into activity and its potency is increasing year by year. His task is also aided by the intelligent work done by the Ashram of the English Master Who works consistently with the awakening and the arising masses.⁹⁶

Seventh ray energy is the energy needed to bring order out of chaos and rhythm to replace disorder.  It is this energy which will bring in the new world order for which all men wait; it will restore the ancient landmarks, indicate the new institutions and forms of civilisation and culture which human progress demands, and nurture the new life and the new states of consciousness which advanced humanity will increasingly register.  Nothing can arrest this activity; all that is happening today as men search for the new ways, for organised unity and peaceful security, is being implemented through the incoming Ray of Order or Ceremonial Magic.  The white magic of right human relations cannot be stopped; it must inevitably demonstrate effectively, because the energy of this seventh ray is present, and the Lord of the Ray is cooperating with the Lord of the World to bring about the needed "reforming."  Soul-infused personalities, acting under this ray influence, will create the new world, express the new qualities and institute those new regimes and organised modes of creative activity which will demonstrate the new livingness and the new techniques of living.⁹⁷