The majority of the Masters and initiates, in Their turn, also relinquish much in order to work exoterically among men. They subject Themselves voluntarily to an active stimulation from the senior "contacting minority" but relinquish the "joy of Shamballic contact". Temporarily, the training which the majority have been receiving in "cosmic orientation," in the use of the will-to-be (a meaningless phrase to you), and in the "bliss of receptivity to the will-to-good of Sanat Kumara" is given up. The entire attitude of the group of Masters, initiates and disciples who are to be responsible for the externalization of the Hierarchy and for the preparation for the reappearance of the Christ is focused upon the expert use of the Science of Contact. This time, the science is used upon a wide and telepathic scale, with the souls of men, and upon the technique of expressing spiritually the nature of "isolated unity" in the cities, jungles and [687] the massed inhabited areas of the earth. This involves, as you can well imagine, the use of an expert ability to remain untouched by the evil rampant upon the physical plane, and yet to remain in complete sympathetic and understanding contact with all humanity and with all events that affect humanity. It was prophecy which impelled the Christ to say, when last in public appearance among men, that His disciples were "in the world and yet not of the world"; Christ depicted in simple yet profoundly revealing terms the life of the Members of His Ashrams (the entire Hierarchy) when again He would walk with Them in the plain sight of humanity. He pictured Them as one with the Father (the Council of Life in Shamballa), and yet as one with Him (as the hierarchical Head), and as one also with all that breathes and that inhabits form. I advise all disciples who seek to cooperate with the impending activity of the Hierarchy to study with care the seventeenth chapter of the Gospel of St. John; this was written by that disciple of love, under the influence of the energy emanating from the buddhic vehicle of the Christ, which is also - as you have been told - identical with the buddhic vehicle of the Buddha. The identity of the two vehicles is symbolic of the entire teaching anent "isolated unity" and divine participation, which the Masters in Their Ashrams are teaching Their disciples of all grades, these days, as the first step toward the externalization of Their activities.

An intensive training process, therefore, is being carried out in every ashram and along identical lines, resulting in the "isolation," occultly understood, of certain Masters and initiates. They have been thus isolated in order that They may work more readily and easily with Shamballa; They can thus form a dynamic and galvanic storehouse of energy (the energy of the divine Will) and thus make it available for the use of the other Members of the Hierarchy, as They stand in "isolated unity" upon the highways of Earth, and thus are "in the world and yet not of the world". The learning of this lesson calls into activity the sacrificial will of both the hierarchical groups; this remains the binding cord between Them and that aspect of the antahkarana along which energy can [688] flow in a new and electric fashion from Shamballa, via the hierarchical minority referred to above, and into the large group of Masters and initiates and disciples to whom is committed the task of consolidation. All this constitutes - for the Members of the Hierarchy - a definite process of testing out and of trial, prior to and preparatory to some of the higher initiations.