Occult Obedience
The parent-child relationship is a good example of the standard type of obedience used by the world. For example, the kid doesn’t want to eat his green vegetables, but wants junk food instead. The parent then tells him that she knows what’s good for him and he’d better eat them or else.
This type of obedience is the only kind that can be extracted from those who have not yet gained the consciousness to conform to a higher type of obedience.
And what is that?
This is what DK calls “occult obedience.” This takes a higher consciousness so the one who is expected to obey understands why obedience is desirable.
For example, when the child matures he learns the principles of nutrition and realizes why the parent requested he eat green vegetables. He now obeys the desire of the parent, not through fear of punishment, but because he understands the benefit of the green vegetables just as does the parent.
The higher lives seek for cooperation from the sincere seekers of the world, but they do not seek co-workers from those who have to be told what to do and must be under threat of punishment before they can be relied upon. Instead, they will send impressions to a prospective laborer and see if he will respond with his own free will. If the seeker can then act with a similar understanding of the need, as does the Master, he then becomes a prospect to become a fellow servant.
His free will obedience is called “occult obedience.”
Here are several quotes from DK on the subject:
Obedience, for the disciple, is a quick spiritual reaction to the Plan as it emanates from the Hierarchy, rapid and correct sensitive registration of the quality of the Ashram with which he may be affiliated and a consequent and in time almost automatic undertaking (with speed) the required task. It is a task which the disciple assigns to himself and is not one ordered by the Master. The acceptance of the task is simply evidence that the disciple is an ashramic worker, pledged to the welfare of humanity. Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 2, Page 586-587
What is this occult obedience, my brothers, about which we hear so much? Not what many occult groups make it out to be. It is not the control of an external organisation, dedicated to so-called occult work. It is not the imposed conditions of any teacher of any rank. It is not the exchange of the prison of one set of ideas for those of another set with perhaps a larger range or import. A prison is a prison, whether it is a tiny cell or an isolated island of vast extent, from which escape is impossible. Glamour, A World Problem, Page 49
I will teach you. Whether or not you profit by the teaching is entirely your own affair; that is something that the disciples of the New Age need to learn. There is no such thing as occult obedience as usually taught by the current occult schools. In the olden days in the East, the Master exacted from His disciple that implicit obedience which actually made the Master responsible and placed upon His shoulders the destiny or the karma of the disciple. That condition no longer holds good. The intellectual principle in the individual is now too much developed to warrant this type of expectancy. Therefore, this condition no longer holds good. In the coming New Age, the Master is responsible for the offering of opportunity and for the right enunciation of the truth but for no more than that. In these more enlightened days, no such position is assumed by the teacher as in the past, and I do not assume it. I shall with frankness speak. I know my disciples, for no disciple is admitted into an Ashram without deep consideration on the part of the teacher. I shall convey by hint and symbol that which should be apprehended and it will be noted and understood by those among my disciples who have the opened, inner ear and true humility of heart. If it is not recognised, time will pursue its onward course and revelation will ultimately come. `I exact, therefore, no blind obedience. But, however, if advice and suggestion are accepted and you choose—of your own free will—to follow my instructions, those instructions must be followed accurately. Also, there must be none of that constant looking for results and for phenomena which has deterred the course and the progress of many would-be disciples. Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1, Page 5, 7
The magnetic pull of the positive centre at the very heart of the group; that means the magnetic pull of the Master. As you well know, theoretically at least, at the centre of the Ashram stands ever the Master, or else an initiate or a world disciple. His task is to blend and fuse the energies, tendered and proffered by the group (under the urge to serve) and to indicate the field of service. The mode of this instinctual activity is called occult obedience and this is voluntarily rendered and unitedly followed. When any group—working in this way under a Master—is moved by one spiritual impulse and functions through one firm organisation (like electrons around the positive nucleus in an atom), the potency of the group will become immediately effective and not before Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1, Page 703
The recognition that in this work, true occult obedience or the intelligent response to the urge of the group soul and to the “pull” of the Hierarchy, is the next major requirement. This will produce the right carrying out of the required assigned technique and a complete refraining from any interest in phenomenal results or an analysis (at this stage) of any reactions experienced. Individual analysis hinders group recognition and true realisation. This is a point to be considered and remembered Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 2, Pages 53-54
My next reason for disbanding the group is the failure in occult obedience of many of you. Voluntarily and willingly you joined the groups for training, discipline and expansion. This involved the following of certain suggestions, meditations and instructions. For years, quite a number of you have done absolutely nothing about your personal instructions. I refer here not only to exoteric exactitude but (above all else) to esoteric understanding. When, my brothers, I assign meditation work and make suggestion over the years, I have a definite purpose in view and a plan worked out [76] which is adapted to the particular student. When the work is not done, I—owing to the freewill of the disciple—am helpless. Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 2, Page 75
Certain other students regarded “occult obedience” as an infringement of their freewill, as did D.A.O. Quite a number of you simply suffered from inertia, and though pleased and excited over the material received from me, in the group or personal instructions, were too lazy to avail yourselves to the full of that which was given, and consistently failed to comply with my requests. Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 2, Page 92
Here I have very briefly outlined for you the new developments which are possible if the disciple is rightly focussed and oriented. There are within latent possibilities. If you will pause and consider, you will realise that the task of the Master in the past, as He sought to prepare the disciple for initiation, was largely concerned with awakening him to the need for occult obedience, for right orientation, for persistence, and for devotion to his objective. But all that lies far behind the true modern disciple. Today, the Master indicates to him the overshadowing cloud of knowable things; He assures him that he has within him undreamt of powers which will, when brought to the surface of consciousness, demonstrate to him his own essential adeptship and enable him to share in the great hierarchical task of illumining, precipitating, and lifting. Today the Master—having done the above—leaves the disciple to work through to knowledge and cooperative usefulness; He neither pushes him into premature action nor constantly supervises him; He surrounds him with the aura of His presence and the protection and stimulation of His Ashram; He gives him occasional hints, and as the disciple acts and works upon the hinted suggestions, the hint becomes a clear direction and a luminous area of enlightenment. Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 2, Pages 300-301
That occult obedience which signifies freedom, spiritual freedom, within a world of natural law, has garnered for you sound results. Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 2, Page 541 Also see Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1, Pages 686-687
April 16, 2019
Copyright by J J Dewey
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