One of the things which I seek to take up with you in this instruction is the subject of glamor. Glamor is the powerful enemy of all who tread the Path of Discipleship. The whole world is subject to glamor, as well you know, but when a man becomes a disciple, he contacts so much force (especially in the [511] early stages when he does not know how to handle it) that he attracts, consolidates and precipitates upon himself far more of the world illusion than would otherwise be the case. To this experience of the disciple, you are no exception, being a disciple in definite training. Disciples who live on mental levels are freer from glamor than are those whose polarization is more purely emotional. Therefore, one of the first things we seek to teach all of you is to work, live and think in freedom from the astral plane. Perhaps the best way to help you, my brother, and any of your co-disciples who may be interested in the teaching which I give you personally, is to cite to you the conditions in daily life which lead to a state of glamor. Then you can make your own application and see where those conditions are to be found in daily life. When found, then glamor is an inevitable result. When recognized, however, they can be handled and the glamor will then disappear.

1. Self-pity. To this all disciples are prone. Their lives are necessarily difficult and they are more sensitive than the average. They are also being constantly tried and tested in this particular direction. Self-pity is a powerful and deluding force; it exaggerates every condition and isolates a person in the center of his own life and the dramatic situations evoked in his own thoughts. It permits two kinds of glamor to enter: First of all, the glamor of special training wherein the disciple over-estimates his importance in ratio to the testing applied and his reaction to it. This is not one of your failings. Your sane humility is a great asset, provided you do not give way to self-deprecation. The second is the glamor produced by such a deep self-interest that the disciple is isolated in a cloud of his own thoughts so that the light of his soul is shut out; he sees things in wrong proportion and the glamor of his isolation [512] in his trouble, and sometimes a fixed idea of persecution descends upon him. Here again you are not guilty. Others in my group of disciples are more prone to this failing than you are.

2. A spirit of criticism. This induces more states of glamor than any other one factor; and here, who shall say he is immune? When harmlessness and kindness in thought and word are practiced and automatically become a part of a disciple's daily life expression, then glamor will end. My brother, this one factor lets in more glamor into a disciple's life and into your life than you can realize. Consequently, you frequently fail to see people as they really are, for you see them through the illusion induced by criticism of them. That which is voiced in words becomes a thought-form, attached to its invoking agent and then the person is never seen except through the veil of this glamor. Consequently again, the weaknesses which are looked for are found and the real self is hidden from your eyes. You can check the accuracy of the above statement in a couple of days by a careful noting of the theme of all your conversations in the circle of your daily life. Are you discussing reality or a temporary failure in a divine expression? Is your reaction to people in general kindly or critical? Are you prone to see the good and ignore the weaknesses and errors? Is there an immediate interest evoked in you by the relation of some wrong action or mistake, or do you lock up your knowledge of peoples' faults in the secret of your heart, loving your brother more because of his frailty and refusing to pass comment or to criticize him even to yourself? I commend these questions to you and to all in my group of disciples. Right here for you - as for so many - lies the usual point of entry for glamor and until this opening is sealed, you will not be free from personal glamor.

3. Suspicion. The most poisonous of all weaknesses is this glamor; it is usually the most false and - even when well founded - is still capable of poisoning the very roots of being of distorting all attitudes to life and of bringing into activity the creative imagination as its potent servant. Suspicion ever lies, but lies with such apparent truth that it seems only correct [513] and reasonable. This tendency you have fought for long, and a good measure of success is attending your efforts. Give not way to suspicion; but be careful not to cast it away from you into the hidden depths of yourself, whence again it must inevitably raise its head. End its power in your life by doing three things:

1. By assuming more definitely the attitude of the Onlooker, who sees all people and happenings through the light of love and from the angle of the eternal values.
2. By leaving everybody free to live their own lives and to shoulder their own responsibilities, knowing that they are souls and are being led towards the light. Simply give them love and understanding.
3. By the fullness of your own life of service which leaves you no time for the moments and hours of suspicion which blight so many lives.

As to your garden, my brother, I would ask you to enter into it early each Sunday morning. See your garden sleeping, in the darkness of the dawn - no real light, no sound or movement and no life apparent. It remains just dreaming and colorless. Enter your tower and climb to the summit and then release the light which is in you; this will be to the garden of your soul what the sun is to the gardens of the world. Watch the rays of light pouring out over the garden, awakening it to color and beauty, arousing it to movement and life, and calling forth the song of the birds and the hum of the bees and evoking it to a responsive loveliness. There I may meet you when the clouds of glamor roll away. Ponder on the symbolism [514] hidden in this garden and work steadily for the next few months from this center of love and light.