Vol. 52 No. 3 - Elizabeth Clare Prophet - February 1, 2009

Discipleship: Five Steps of Initiation
under the Living Word

Part 3
Friend

Since there are five levels, three becomes the center. The third level, then, is pivotal. It becomes the 9/3 axis of the cosmic clock, on which the pitfall is always pride and the sense of self.

This is the level of the friend—the friend of the living Word, the friend of the Guru. As chelas, we should be friends with the master, in other words, extend our friendship toward the master. But we should not expect that the mantle of friend will come to us from the master simply because we have decided to befriend that master. We have to prove ourselves trustworthy and bring ourselves to a certain level, the level of the friend.

Those counted as friend of the master enter by invitation into a relationship as companion and coworker on the path of world salvation. “Henceforth I call you no more servants,” Jesus said, “but friends.”¹ The friend bears the cross as well as the burden of light of the master. He demonstrates the qualities of friendship as in the life of Abraham and other chelas who have risen to a level of understanding the very heart and the experience of the master. The chela provides comfort, consolation, advice and support out of loyalty to both the purposes and the person of the master.

We are called the friend when we have come to the realization, by our intimate love of the master through our chelaship, that the master needs friends, true friends, and that our friendship with the master cannot be traded for friendship with the world. Our desire for friendship with the world—for the world and from the world—must not be allowed to interfere with our sense of loyalty.

Being a Friend of the Master

As you consider what your identity is, you may think of yourself, first and foremost in all of your being, as the friend of Saint Germain, the friend of El Morya. What does a friend do for his friends?

One day a long time ago, I realized that the friend calls daily for the binding of the false-hierarchy impostors of that master who are taking away his chelas, who are blocking his efforts in world service on the planet to the nations. A friend is someone who defends his friend and sticks up for that friend when everyone else has abandoned him. A friend prefers oneness with his friend more than with all others. It is a very close bond which says: “I am loyal to you, to the God within you. I support your soul in becoming that God.” A friend of a master is someone who says: “I am here any time you need me. Just call. I am here. I am your friend.”

So the way to get friends, as we are told by our parents, as we teach our children, is to be a friend. If we will be a friend, then we will be called a friend by the master, not because one fine day we go up and knock on his door and say, “I want to be your friend,” but because for years and centuries we have proven it. When the master is down, when he is weary, when he needs someone, we are there because we sense it, because we are sensitive to the needs of our master.

Assumed Familiarity

The friendship that is incorrect is the friendship that takes advantage of an association—an association between a chela and a master where the chela presumes upon the master that the master should do this and this and this for him. He doesn't see himself in the role of servant. He sees himself in the role of being served by the Guru and by the master. He assumes a familiarity, an intimacy, a first-name basis that he has not been accorded.

And in that familiarity, if he is not ready for that closeness, we find that the expression does come true that “familiarity breeds contempt.” It’s like getting too close to the carved faces at Mount Rushmore or to the statue of the Goddess of Liberty. Some things can be beheld with a sense of sacredness at a distance. But when we get too close, we simply find either flesh and blood or stone or something that says to us, “This cannot be a true Guru. This cannot be a true master.”

The Idolatry of Self

So until one has been delivered of the idolatry of self— placing oneself on a pedestal, denying the existence of one’s not-self—one cannot have true love for the master that would enable him to come into that inner circle of friendship.

There is a lot to overcome as a chela, including the slaying of that dweller—the idolator, the idolatrous self that wants to worship and gain a new level and a higher place in the kingdom of God through worship instead of embodying the Word and the Work. And hence we come to the idolatrous cult that surrounds even Jesus Christ: “I have worshiped you all my life. You have to take me into the kingdom.”

Late one night in Pasadena, I was led to go into an Italian restaurant. I sat down to eat and at the next table were four Protestant ministers. They were discussing the point that if they obeyed all the rules of God all their lives, then “God has to take me into the kingdom.” The discussion went on for at least an hour and a half as they were talking about this whole process. And their entire theology was based on fear and the rigidity of the false chela who says, “If I follow this set of rules, God, that you’ve laid down for me, then you have to save me.”

But God doesn’t have to save anybody that he doesn’t want to save. And that’s a frightening thought to those who are told every day of their lives, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Unfortunately when they get to the real Jesus Christ, they may find out that they’ve got to go back and reembody.

This is a deadly idea, but people have it. And people who have left this organization in such a sense of revenge as to take revenge against me are those who say: “I’ve worked all this time. I’ve done everything you’ve told me to do. Why will you not give me the kingdom? Why will you not initiate me so that I can have instantly the consciousness of God?”

Many times these people have very little threefold flame or none. All they can do is function robotically. And they are bound and determined by their hatred of self and their hatred of Guru that they will do this thing. In the process they so hate themselves that they put themselves through the worst austerities. And so they appear to everyone else as though they are the greatest chela around because they are constantly doing all these things. Now, there are great Christed ones who do the same, so beware. This is not easy to discern.

But when you see someone doing this who has absolutely no light in the aura, in the face, in the chakras or in the eyes, you understand that by hook or by crook they’re going to work their way or buy their way into the kingdom. And one fine day, the body itself won’t even work any longer, and this they blame on the Guru. All of their failures are blamed on the Guru or blamed on me, the messenger: “You didn’t make it happen and I did every single thing you told me to do.”

You did everything I told you to do except to stop hating your neighbor, to stop your subconscious anger. You never cast out the dweller. You never bound it. You wanted your dweller to march into the kingdom and be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords above all your peers. You have done all these things. You have looked down upon others. You have set yourself up as a standard-bearer when you have not had the true standard of divine love. And ultimately you have criticized and condemned not only your peers but the messenger and the masters as well if you could.

That’s the mark of the false chela who dashes forward to become the friend of the master before he has bent the knee at Luxor, as Jesus did, and said, “Give me the first steps.” This is a tragic and difficult situation.

The Heart Purely Stayed on God

The friend, then, is one who has slain the dweller sufficiently that whatever is left of that dweller is bound in chains in the electronic belt and is not about to get out of those chains and come raging again. He may not have finished balancing his karma, by any means. He may not have conquered all things in himself. He may have human foibles and faults.

But there is a true stream within him. He is the friend of God, come what may. He does his best. He may make mistakes, but his heart is pure and purely stayed on that one with such love, such right love of service instead of idolatry, that the master takes him as friend.

God Raised Up Abraham

A Guru has a right to take on the karma of a good chela if he so chooses. That is his right; it is not the chela’s privilege. If we get over the idea of being privileged or favorite sons, we will lock into a path that will be worthy of our Morya.

The Bible says that God loved Abraham² and he imputed not his sin to him. This means that the Guru who sponsored Abraham, who was Sanat Kumara, took to himself the karma of Abraham and raised him up for his calling.

Abraham was a friend to God first. God called him friend second and took his karma, imputed not his sin to him. And so Abraham was called the friend of God.³

Continued in Part 4, published in Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 52, no. 4.

“The Summit Lighthouse Sheds Its Radiance o’er All the World to Manifest as Pearls of Wisdom.”

Elizabeth Clare Prophet delivered this lecture, “Discipleship: Five Steps of Initiation under the Living Word,” on Sunday, August 14, 1988, during the Sunday service “Mother’s Response to El Morya’s Dictation: ‘Free El Morya!’” which was part of a prayer vigil for El Morya. The other four parts of this lecture are published in Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 52, nos. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6.

1. John 15:14, 15.

2. Abraham was an embodiment of El Morya.

3. James 2:23; II Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8.

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