21
THE GURU AND THE CHELA
By the Ascended Master Kuthumi
CHELA: Beloved
Master: We are told that knowledge imparted to us brings with it an obligation
to utilize that knowledge for the blessings of life. Will you tell us how best
to assimilate the Truth within the instructions given to us by the Ascended
Masters?
GURU: Blessed Chela:
The old adage "where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise" has a good deal
of truth within it. The individual who has not had the opportunity of receiving
assistance and directions from the Ascended Masters is not as liable before the
Cosmic Law for manifest works as is the one entrusted with the time, energy,
thought and instructions of Beings whose every breath is priceless because it
can and should be used only to further the Divine Plan. It is not enough to read
the Words of the Master, nor to accrete an intellectual knowledge of spiritual
fact. The chela must build those Words into his own nature and become the
Master.
CHELA: Beloved
Master: Is there any particular recommendation you can give us so we may best
profit by your instructions?
GURU: Blessed Chela:
Yes. Proceed somewhat as follows: First:
Choose a certain time of day for your reading and endeavor to build a momentum
of rhythm in adhering to your contemplative cycle.
Second: Prepare your
consciousness by reflecting earnestly on what you are about to do, enter the
Holy Communion with your God and your Master. Still your mental, emotional and
physical vehicles and raise your consciousness until it touches the spiritual
aura of the Author of the Words you are about to consider. Ask him or her to
give you the Ascended Master's feeling, comprehension, understanding and
capacity to interpret those Words into action for the blessing of your fellow
man.
Remember you are about to partake of the qualified life of some God
Being, who has in mercy and love chosen to give you his instructions to help you
to become free also. Feel a sense of deep gratitude, reverence and humility in
accepting this Essence. If you will do this, you will receive not only the
worded expression of truth, but the living essence of truth which will be a fire
unto your spirit. A 'simple prayer to be said before reading the Words of the
Master could be something like the following:
"Beloved Presence of God, I Am! It is thy life and intelligence
which enables me to read, to comprehend, to absorb and to do what is required of
met for life, I Am so grateful! Beloved Master (here address the one whose words
you are about to read and contemplate) I ask you your feeling and your capacity
to use this instruction to God's glory and mankind's comfort."
Third: Do not read
hastily! Remember gluttony is not only of the flesh but of the mind as well.
Many civilized people who shrink at the ravenous gulping of the savage or the
beast would be amazed at the sight of their own mental body devouring knowledge.
Let your mind reverently, respectfully and gently approach the instructions of
the Master and pause upon a sentence or paragraph which the Grace of the Ever
Presence may emphasize through your own soul's light. It is not how much you
read nor how much you know but what you are that forms the measure of your
capacity for spiritual assimilation.
Fourth: Elect within
yourself to make some portion of your reading an active part of your nature each
day. Thus the process of sublimation and of transmutation becomes a rhythmic
cycle of graduating consciousness rather than a clumsy lumbering, resulting from
spasmodic endeavors.
Fifth: When you have
completed your reading, again make a brief invocation to your own I Am Presence
and the Master with whom you have been in communion, to nourish by the spiritual
Grace of Cosmic Truth the seeds planted in your consciousness. Ask that the
ideas thus entrusted to you shall become manifest flowers of perfect expression
in your world and the world of your fellowman.
"Beloved Presence of God, I Am! Pour the light of thy Grace upon my
consciousness. Nourish the seeds planted by the Master. Let me not be one
admonished from without but not inflamed within, lest the word which I have
heard (or read) and not practiced, known and not loved, believed and not
observed, rise up in judgment against me."
Quoting the words of a wise man who walked the path before you
"Truly when the Day of Judgment comes, it will not be asked of us, what we have
read, but what we have done; not what fine discourses we have made, but how
righteously we have lived."
CHELA:
Beloved Master:
Is there any prescribed course of reading which would be of particular benefit
to our soul growth?
GURU
: Blessed Chela:
For each man, a different type of instruction is required. When the Master
himself does not conduct the personal instruction for the chela daily, the chela
must draw from within himself through the intuitive faculty and the flame of
wisdom in the heart that which can best benefit him each day. When a chela is
particularly drawn toward a specific Master, the chela can build up a momentum
of spiritual rapport with such an one through observance of the above exercise
and then reading those Words written by that Master. Even in reading the words
of unascended beings, if the individual were to put himself into spiritual
communion with the consciousness of the writer, so much more could be received
in a short period of study than when the outer mind literally "plunges" into the
reading in a haphazard fashion.