The World Disciple

‘The Affirmation of the Disciple’

The disciple has to take himself as he is, at any time, with any given equipment, and under any given circumstances; he then proceeds to subordinate himself, his affairs and his time to the need of the hour—particularly during the phase of group, national or world crisis…
When he does this within his own consciousness and is, therefore, thinking along lines of the true values, he will discover that his own private affairs are taken care of, his capacities are increased and his limitations are forgotten. He takes his place with those who perceive the needs of the coming cycle—a cycle wherein the new ideas and ideals must be stressed and for which a fight must be made, wherein the wider plans for the good of the whole must be understood,endorsed and preached, the new and clearer vision for human living must be grasped and finally brought into being, and a cycle wherein the effort of all members of the New Group of World Servers must be given to the lifting of humanity’s load…
The Mantram “The Affirmation of the Disciple” embodies this attitude—the attitude of the disciple who is striving, in cooperative endeavour with others, to link hierarchical intent with human aspiration and thus bring humanity nearer to its goal. The intent of the Hierarchy is to increase men’s capacity for freedom in order to function effectively with that “life more abundantly” which the Christ will bring and which demands that the spirit of man be free—free to approach divinity and free also to choose the Way of that approach… (A. A. Bailey — Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle, pp. 196-197).

And from the same Teaching are also drawn these indications on the fundamental characteristics of the disciple:

A disciple is one who above all else, is pledged to do three things:—

1. To serve humanity.
2. To co-operate with the plan of the Great Ones as he sees it and as best he may.
3. To develop the powers of the Ego, to expand his consciousness until he can function on the three planes in the three worlds, and in the causal body, and to follow the guidance of the higher self and not the dictates of his three-fold lower manifestation.

A disciple is one who is beginning to comprehend group work, and to change his centre of activity from himself (as the pivot around which everything revolves) to the group centre.

A disciple is one who realises simultaneously the relative insignificance of each unit of consciousness, and also its vast importance. His sense of proportion is adjusted, and he sees things as they are; he sees people as they are; he sees himself as he inherently is and seeks then to become that which he is.

A disciple realises the life or force side of nature, and to him the form makes no appeal. He works with force and through forces; he recognises himself as a force centre within a greater force centre, and his is the responsibility of directing the energy which may pour through him into channels through which the group can be benefited.

The disciple knows himself to be—to a greater or less degree—an outpost of the Master’s consciousness, viewing the Master in a two-fold sense:—

1. As his own egoic consciousness.
2. As the centre of his group; the force animating the units of the group and binding them into a homogeneous whole.

A disciple is one who is transferring his consciousness out of the personal into the impersonal, and during the transition stage much of difficulty and of suffering is necessarily endured. These difficulties arise from various causes:—

1. The disciple’s lower self, which rebels at being transmuted.
2. A man’s immediate group, friends, or family, who rebel at his growing impersonality…  

The disciple is one who realises his responsibility to all units who come under his influence,—a responsibility of co-operating with the plan of evolution as it exists for them, and thus to expand their consciousness and teach them the difference between the real and the unreal, between life and form. This he does most easily by a demonstration in his own life as to his goal, his object, and his centre of consciousness. … (A. A. Bailey — Initiation Human and Solar, cap. VIII Discipleship, pp. 71-72).

A disciple who has responded to the call of the Teaching
and is aflame with all fires of devotion
is truly a co-worker of the Cosmic forces.
Having increased by his own actions the forces of Cosmos,
having adorned spatial thought with his thoughts,
is he not then a creator?
And is not the wisdom of the ages his best adornment?
The vastness of the spatial Fire of Cosmos offers
the best destiny to searching humanity.
(Agni Yoga Series, Agni Yoga § 649)

It is now worth recalling that the theme placed at the centre of these thoughts resonates with the celestial impulse introduced in the Solar System today by Mars and Pluto.
With the gaze of the heart turned to the heliocentric Heaven of Causes, we can notice today the conjunction of Mars to Pluto, the non-sacred Luminaries that convey the 6^th Ray and 1^st Ray respectively, at the beginning of Aquarius, the Sign of the New Age, which conveys the energies of the 5^th Ray, the Ray that operates according to the Golden Rule and in the light of Brotherhood. (1)
Furthermore, tomorrow it will be Venus, sacred Luminary, guardian of the 5^th Ray, “alter ego” of the Earth, who will reach Pluto.
Their encounters unleash in the fiery space Aspiration, Will of renewal and Right relationships capable of building the lines of the future according to Golden Proportion.
The Teaching states that Pluto is related to the concepts of Initiation, Transformation, Death … Regeneration.

At the first initiation, the disciple has to contend with the crystallising and destroying forces of Vulcan [sacred Luminary of 1^st Ray] and Pluto. The influence of Vulcan reaches to the very depths of his nature, whilst Pluto drags to the surface and destroys all that hinders in these lower regions. (A. A. Bailey, Esoteric Astrology, p. 71).
The first ray influence, expressing through Pluto and Vulcan, is only felt in a positive manner upon the Path of Discipleship. This first ray potency has only lately been experienced by humanity as a whole as it neared the stage of being the world disciple, and vast numbers relatively stood upon the Path of Discipleship and Probation… (Ibidem, p. 166)
The destructive power of the first ray, focussed in Pluto, brings change… To this intensity and potency of Pluto must be added the forceful and dynamic energy of the planet Mars. This brings the entire human family, as well as the individual, under the law of strife, based this time upon sixth ray devotion to an ideal… (Ibidem, p. 187).
There is a relation between Mars and Pluto analogous to that between Venus and the Earth. Esoterically speaking, Mars is the alter ego of Pluto; the activity of Pluto at this time and in this lesser world cycle is very important on account of its esoteric approach to the Earth, impelled thereto by the vivification of its life by a display of Martian energy. The Earth, Mars and Plutoform an interesting triangle with Venus [5^th Ray] behind the scene acting as the impelling soul acts towards a rapidly integrating personality. (A. A. Bailey, Ibidem, p. 507)
And by the way, Pluto governs Scorpio, the sign of the disciple, the man ready for the fusion elaborated by the sacred planets; it elicits responses only from groups or disciples evolved enough, staging the testings of the World Disciple with great force and expression.
But who is the World Disciple? In this regard, the Teaching recalled so far states precisely that: Humanity is now the world disciple. Why is this? Primarily for two reasons:

1. Men are rapidly awakening mentally. The whole world is thinking… This shift in human consciousness involves a rapid focussing of human intention on mental levels. This mental polarisation is essential to discipleship… 
2. Men are rapidly developing an understanding goodwill. The world is full of movements for relief and for the amelioration of human distress, and this from the point of small and large communities and also nationally and internationally… This indicates not only a mental polarisation but responsiveness to the love nature of God… (A. A. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age II, p. 295)

The Teaching also states that currently the tests for the first initiation, as far as humanity (the world disciple) is concerned, are well-nigh over and the hour of the birth of the Christ as an expression of the fourth kingdom in nature and the consummation of the work of the Fourth Creative Hierarchy is at hand. This there is no gainsaying; the birth hour may be long and the form may be “in labour” for much time, but the Christ will be born and the nature of the Christ and His consciousness will permeate and colour all human affairs. It is this condition—so imminent and so desirable and long foretold and anticipated—which will make possible the return of the Hierarchy and the restoration of the Mysteries…
Today, humanity as a whole is learning its relationship to that which lies above and beyond mankind and with that which is below and left behind. This involves a sense of proportion which can be attained only by the mind principle in man… This sense of proportion will reveal to men their place upon the ladder of evolution and lead them to the recognition of the peculiar destiny and unique goals of other kingdoms in nature, including the fifth kingdom, the Kingdom of God, the spiritual Hierarchy of our planet. (A. A. Bailey, Rays and the Initiations, p. 333)

In the age of Aquarius into which we are now entering, the world will be rebuilt and saved by groups…
There is now a group of Saviours all knowing God to some degree, integrated in a single effort, and able to form an organism through which, under the direction of the visibly present Christ, the spiritual energy and life of the spirit can be perceived by men… it is the New Group of World Servers, the knowledge of its existence is spreading all over the world… with its members in every land. … In them is vested a spirit of construction; they are the builders of the new age; to them is given the work of preserving the spirit of truth, and the reorganising of the thoughts of men so that the racial mind is controlled and brought into that meditative and reflective condition which will permit it to recognise the next unfoldment of divinity, which Christ will inaugurate…
It is today a group of men and women of every nation and race and of all religious organisations and humanitarian movements who are fundamentally oriented towards the Kingdom of God… They are disciples of the Christ, working… for His reappearance; they are spiritual aspirants, seeking to serve and make real the Kingdom of God on Earth; they are men of goodwill and intelligence who are trying to increase understanding and right human relations among men… (A. A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, p. 183)

As a result of the work of the New Group of World Servers, human beings are progressively awakening to the recognition of a single humanity that heralds the realisation of brotherhood, but before it can take form in constructive measures, it is essential that… the New Group of World Servers should itself repeat in the outer world that type of activity which the Hierarchy expressed when it developed and materialised the New Group of World Servers. Through the impression and expression of certain great ideas, men everywhere must be brought to the understanding of the fundamental ideals which will govern the new age. This is the major task of the New Group of World Servers. (A. A. Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, p. 185)

Thus a great and new movement is proceeding… This will go on until A.D. 2025 [written in the 1950s]…  At the great General Assembly of the Hierarchy—held as usual every century—in 2025 the date in all probability will be set for the first stage of the externalisation of the Hierarchy. The present cycle (from now until that date) is called technically “The Stage of the Forerunner”. It is preparatory in nature, testing in its methods… You can see therefore that Chohans, Masters, initiates, world disciples, disciples and aspirants affiliated with the Hierarchy are all at this time passing through a cycle of great activity. (A. A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 530)

It should now be recalled that the Hierarchy is a great salvaging corps of dedicated, liberated Units of Life, working in group formation with all forms and lives in all kingdoms and with all souls particularly. As the Hierarchy so works, Its emphasis is solely on the consciousness aspect of all forms; Its present agency of salvage and of service is the mind, as it expresses Itself through the minds of all humanitarians, all aspirants, all disciples (of all rays and degrees) and of all initiates; the Hierarchy also can express Itself through the medium of thought currents and ideas and through them impose Its hierarchical concepts upon the embryonic minds of the general and average public; and It also directs the educational work of all nations, so that the undeveloped masses can become—in due turn—the intelligent general public. (A. A. Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, p. 526)

The externalisation of the Hierarchy is an integral part of the Plan for humanity formulated by the Masters. For it is foreseen that a certain number of them will be incarnated in view of that energetic and discriminating event heralded as the “Return of the Christ” and it is necessary that, on the human side, a commensurate response be worked out.

We stand now on the verge of a similar but still more momentous event — the appearance of the fifth kingdom, as a result of the planned activity of the New Group of World Servers, working in collaboration with the Hierarchy of perfected souls, and under the guidance of the Christ Himself. This will usher in the New Age wherein five kingdoms in nature will be recognised as existing side by side upon earth. (A. A. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age I, p. 32)

In the document Asserting the Planetary Plan, (p. 12) published on this site, we read:

It is evident that the whole human race is purging through the fire of individual and collective events: humanity must reorient itself to the service of the planetary Good, which is part of the solar and cosmic… more and more in a systematic and organized manner. Only in group consciousness, by merging “into an integrated and responsive complex”, it is in fact possible to support those energies or “cosmic rays” that drive the human Centre to the necessary Evolutionary Goals.

The Human Group, as the world’s Disciple, must strive for the “true Goal, the higher consciousness, spiritual communion. They are realized little by little, day by day, year by year, with rhythm and comeasurament (…) A Threshold, a liberation, a greater power, a more effective Service awaits it. However, before getting there, the [human] Group has to do something for which it has been so patiently preparing itself: it must place the vision of the Goal on that Plane of Love and of Light that it is about to build, in full awareness (…) Only then will vision and reality be one and the same thing”. The ever better integrated and responsive complex of the new Group of World Servers, representing and prototype of the One Humanity, “with united breath and unified rhythm” with Heaven, must therefore lay down the Purpose on the Ecliptic, that igneous plane where human and solar powers can work together: universal Brotherhood, liberation, higher consciousness, spiritual communion, love expressed through wisdom, right human relationships, new solar Culture, collaboration with the “far worlds”, new planetary Order… Countless are the names of the Good common to all mankind, yet each Heart instantly recognizes their sound or unitary value. Only what is right, beautiful and true is the only ‘common good’, the only treasure or possession possible. The Heart knows it. 

Certain that ardent Aspiration combined with the Will of renewal and Right relationships expressed with wisdom will lead us to orderly and joyful Communion among men, among worlds and with the causal World of Ideas (the 4^th Buddhic Plane of the planetary Hierarchy) and that, finally, in septennial, triune and unitary formation, we will be able to unfold and re-establish the Plan of Will, Love and Light on Earth, ‘with united breath and unified rhythm’, let us assert:

From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

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1. Planetary influences are unusually potent in Aquarius during this world cycle because it is, in a peculiar way, a culminating sign for the majority of people who proceed from Aries to Pisces upon the Fixed Cross… The bulk, however, of the world initiates climax their experience in Aquarius and become liberated world servers. They turn their backs upon all further progress for themselves in this cycle and on all satisfaction of their own spiritual aspiration and become carriers of the water of life to humanity, joining thus the ranks of the Hierarchy… the Hierarchy of Service. (A. A. Bailey, Esoteric Astrology, p. 141-142).