What is this sphere of obligation to which the initiate of high standing must pay attention? The whole of life experience, from the sphere of nativity up to the highest limits of spiritual possibility, are covered by four words, applicable at various stages of evolution. They are: Instinct, Duty, Dharma, Obligation; an understanding of the differences serves to bring illumination, and consequently, right action.

1. The sphere of instinct. This refers to the fulfilment, under the influence of simple animal instinct, of the obligations which any assumed responsibility brings, even when assumed with no true understanding. An illustration of this is the instinctual care of a mother for her offspring or the relation of male and female. With this we need not deal in any detail, as it is well recognized and understood, at least by those who have passed out of the sphere of elementary instinctual obligations. To them no particular calls come, but this instinctual world of give and take is superseded by a higher sphere of responsibility eventually.
2. The sphere of duty. The call that comes from this sphere comes from a realm of consciousness which is more strictly human and not so predominantly animal as is the instinctual realm. It sweeps into its field of activity all classes of human beings and demands from them - life after life - the strict fulfilment of duty. The "doing of one's duty," for which one gets small praise and little appreciation, is the first step towards the unfoldment of that divine principle which we call the sense of responsibility, and which - when unfolded - indicates a steadily growing soul control. The [686] fulfilment of duty, the sense of responsibility, and the desire to serve are three aspects of one and the same thing: discipleship in its embryonic stage. This is a hard saying for those who are caught in the seemingly hopeless toils of duty fulfilment; it is hard for them to realize that this duty which seems to keep them chained to the humdrum, apparently meaningless and thankless duties of daily life, is a scientific process leading them to higher phases of experience, and eventually into the Master's Ashram.
3. The sphere of dharma. This is the outcome of the two previous stages; it is that in which the disciple recognizes, for the first time with clarity, his part in the whole process of world events and his inescapable share in world development. Dharma is that aspect of karma which dignifies any particular world cycle and the lives of those implicated in its working out. The disciple begins to see that if he shoulders his phase or part in this cyclic dharma and works understandingly at its right fulfilment, he is beginning to comprehend group work (as the Masters comprehend it) and to do his just share in lifting the world karma, working out in cyclic dharma. Instinctual service, the fulfilment of all duty, and a sharing in group dharma are all blended in his consciousness and become one great act of living faithful service; he is then at the point of moving forward upon the Path of Discipleship, in which the Path of Probation is completely lost to sight.
   These three aspects of living activity are the embryonic expression in the life of the disciple of the three divine aspects:
   1. Instinctual living - intelligent application.
   2. Duty - responsible love. [687]
   3. Dharma - will, expressed through the Plan.
4. The sphere of obligation. The initiate, having learnt the nature of the three other spheres of right action, and - through the activity of those spheres - having unfolded the divine aspects, passes now into the sphere of obligation. This sphere, which can be entered only after a large measure of liberation has been achieved, directs the reactions of the initiate in two phases of his life:
   1. In the Ashram, where he is governed by the Plan; this Plan is recognized by him as expressing his major obligation to life. I use the word "life" in its deepest esoteric sense.
   2. In Shamballa, where the emerging Purpose of Sanat Kumara (of which the Plan is an interpretation in time and space) begins to have meaning and significance according to his point in evolution and his approach to the Way of the Higher Evolution.