A Worldwide Antahkarana
Community challenges us to master the interaction of spiritual-material energies. The concept of a community that stretches worldwide is antahkarana, or the web of life. Wherever the chelas are, the community exists, but unless the chelas and the guru are together in one place, there is not a duplicate of the Great Central Sun Magnet to hold the balance for the earth.
An outer focus of the Great White Brotherhood with a living messenger and living chelas is something that has not succeeded in a long time. Today I was contemplating the mystery of community, and I knew in my heart that along with Mother Mary’s teaching on the birth of the Manchild, the next most important step was to form the cradle in which to place the Manchild.
Without question, I would lay down my life a thousand times for the community to endure, and the only way it will endure is through living people who have become the essence of the master. Each of us must have such deep love for El Morya or for any of the brothers of light that we recognize that our reason for being is to transfer this torch of community.
If we do not leave the continuity of the Great White Brotherhood's name, its organization and its teaching upon the planet for those who follow us, we will not have retained an open door for the traveler—the traveler who needs a hostel when he is weary. And we read about the traveler on the first page of the book, New Era Community.
The Blueprint of Community
Let us open the book to the page following the title page. Here, on an unnumbered page, El Morya sets forth the blueprint of the community:
Wayfarer, friend, let us travel together. Night is near, wild beasts are about, and our campfire may go out. But if we agree to share the night watch, we can conserve our forces.
Tomorrow our path will be long and we may become exhausted. Let us walk together. We shall have joy and festivity. I shall sing for you the song your mother, wife and sister sang. You will relate for me your father's story about a hero and his achievements. Let our path be one.
Be careful not to step upon a scorpion, and warn me about any vipers. Remember, we must arrive at a certain mountain village.
Traveler, be my friend.*
Let us look at what El Morya is saying here. I would like you to see that this writing is a glyph. It is just like taking a grid of the master's mind. He has decided that he is going to convey certain energies that are keys on the points of a grid, where vertical meets horizontal, Alpha meets Omega, at the point at which the lines cross. El Morya has selected certain key points on the grid, and he wants to superimpose them upon our consciousness.
These first four paragraphs of the book contain the entire matrix of community. First, the community is based upon divine friendship. Second, it is based upon a common journey. So the Zen master El Morya says, “Wayfarer, friend, let us travel together.”
The purpose of friendship is for the journey, for movement on the Path. El Morya mentions movement in this book at the very start. By the fifth word in the book, you know that you are moving with the Mercurian master. Then he gives you the reasons for moving together: “Night is near, wild beasts are about, and our campfire may go out.”
He is establishing the whole purpose of friendship and community. “If we agree to share the night watch, we can conserve our forces.” Conservation of cosmic forces is the purpose of community. We can do better together than we can alone because we have a common foe and limited resources. If we pool our resources, we can arrive at the mountain village.
The image of that mountain village keys right into our soul—the archetypal pattern, the Himalayan fastnesses, a place somewhere in the vast beyond, where you finally arrive at a village. In the heart of the village is a rustic sort of a little house, and in that house is the master.
You sense the crudity of the surroundings, which denotes that the value of this master is on inner planes. That is not to say that the master could not be found in a palace, but these are archetypal patterns, like finding Babaji and his disciples in the midst of nowhere or finding Kuthumi and El Morya hiking up a mountain trail.
The archetypal pattern is of the soul on a quest. It is part of every spiritual story that has ever been told. It is this archetypal pattern of the soul that makes our young Americans go to India and, of course, we know that we could all go to India, yet we would not necessarily be there in consciousness.
The first paragraph keys into the etheric body and sets forth the blueprint of the community.
*From New Era Community copyright © 1951 Agni Yoga Society
This article is excerpted from Community: A Journey to the Heart of Spiritual Community by Elizabeth Clare Prophet
