1. Occasionally in the disciple's hours of meditation, at a moment of great tension or in a crisis (related to his service activities), there may occur a momentary fusion of the minds of the disciple and the Master. This can only [546] occur when the mental focus is so steady and so firmly directed in intention that emotional reactions or the intrusion of personality affairs are eliminated.
2. Later on in his training, the Master may attempt to impress his mind unexpectedly, and thus train him to recognize what we might regard as a direct call from the Center of the Ashram.
3. As the disciple proves his value and demonstrates that he is desiring nothing for the separated self, the interrelation between the two minds - of the Master of the Ashram and the disciple - finds no impediment; there is consequently no risk of over-stimulation, of self-satisfaction or of the emergence of qualities which would disturb the rhythm of the Ashram. There can take place (as the Master wills it) a flow of thought between the two. At first, the impression is carried forward entirely on the side of the Master, and the disciple is simply an agent who can be impressed by ideas and instructed along some particular line which may be of service to humanity; he can, however, produce no current of thought flowing back to the Master. Later on, as a disciple moves forward into light and is simultaneously a server, he can be permitted to reach the Master with his own reaction to the impression.
4. Then comes the final stage wherein the disciple can be trusted to be the initiatory agent of impression and of contact and is allowed to evoke the Master's attention and to penetrate to the Center of the Ashram. Students would do well to relate these four stages to the Six Stages of Discipleship, dealt with, in the latter part of Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I; these four stages correspond to the final four considered in that book.

These contacts are naturally in the field of telepathy, which is an aspect of the Science of Impression, and are entirely in the realm of mental interplay. I have dealt with the basic science itself in the book Telepathy and the Etheric Vehicle. The relation considered above is between the instrument of contact used by the Master - that of the higher or abstract mind, for the Masters do not work [547] through the lower mind at all - and the lower or concretizing mind of the disciple. The Masters are therefore dependent upon the use of the antahkarana which the disciple is in process of building; this is rapidly becoming a part of the group Antahkarana, built by disciples (working in the three worlds but on mental levels) who have been admitted into the Ashram. You can see why, therefore, the teaching anent the Antahkarana was deemed by us to be timely and wise. Relationship to the Ashram and contact with the Master are dependent upon the existence of the Antahkarana. In the early stages of its creative construction, the Antahkarana is adequate to permit some contact with the Ashram and with certain of the disciples, though not with those of very high degree. Later, as the Antahkarana perfects itself, higher and more durable contacts become possible.

It is needless, surely, for me to point out that the theme of all impressions coming from the Master to the disciple, and from the disciple to the Master, is the service of the Plan, the problems connected with group work in the Aquarian Age, or with the life and relationships within the Ashram. Forget not that the Ashram has its own objectives, intentions and inner techniques which are unconnected with the disciple's life and his service in the three worlds. The work of the disciple in preparation for initiation is not basically concerned with his daily world service, though there would be no initiation for him if that life of service were lacking. His life of service is, in reality, an expression of the particular initiation for which he is being prepared. This is a theme too vast for us to consider here, but it is an idea upon which you could well ponder. [548]

This entire subject of the telepathic interplay between the disciple and the Ashram, and between the Master and the disciple, is one of unique interest. It is part of the dual life which all disciples must lead. It is that which intensifies the life of introspection which is only rightly understood and carried forward when the man is in truth a soul-infused personality. It is the source or origin of the extraverted life which the disciple must also lead, producing an intense activity in the three worlds - an activity [549] which in no way disturbs the calm procedures of the life of ashramic contacts. Rightly followed, it produces the possibility with which our third point deals.