“From the very night of time, the period wherein the sun moves northward again has been regarded as a festival season”, according to the writings of Alice Bailey. This period is described as a moment of decision—an opportunity which this year seems particularly auspicious because of the septennial Festival Week of the New Group of World Servers. This worldwide group works in all fields and their contributions are testimony to the creative intelligence of humanity. Of particular interest to students of the esoteric teachings is the emergence, out of this group, of a “bridge of souls and servers” whose unique task is the merging of the inner subjective Hierarchy of souls and the outer world of humanity, as Alice Bailey wrote.
Of the many ways in which this fusion can be accomplished, surely the practice of meditation is foremost, for the role of the world’s esoteric group is to mediate between Hierarchy and humanity, meditating the divine Plan into existence—bringing into recognition and anchoring in human consciousness the essential principles of that Plan. This act of subjective service is accomplished on the level of consciousness: by elevating, expanding, and merging human minds to become responsive to impression.
Meditation has been defined as the science of light, because it works in the substance of light. That helps us understand why meditation has also been defined as the science of vision. The goal of providing a center of light within humanity and holding the vision before humanity’s eyes is the particular mission of the new group of world servers. Their task is to hold the vision of the Plan before humanity’s eyes and to act as a bridging group between the Hierarchy and humanity, receiving and then channeling light into the world, stimulating the contributions of the builders of the world to come in all departments of human living.
That this subjective service is possible for human beings is validated in Alice Bailey’s statement that the outstanding characteristic of humanity is intelligent sensitivity to impression. The universality of the mental principle, she wrote, is the first exoteric expression of soul consciousness. Yet, as is all too clear to many human minds, we live in a time when fragmentation seems much more descriptive of human thinking than does the urge to unite in thought. To hold onto the inner clarity of vision and the subjective relationships that bind us all isn’t easy in such a time. Co-existing with the forces of separation that are so visible in the world today, there are countless people of goodwill and intelligence who are starved for a vision that will evoke humanity’s highest values and strengthen its innate tendencies towards right human relationships, motivated by goodwill and the love of truth.
That’s why the practice of group meditation is so essential, for it generates a nucleus of light and power on the plane of manifestation which can serve as an anchorage, a seed, for the future. A challenge from the writings of Alice Bailey expresses the goal before all who work towards a better world: “So hold the inner vision steadily and have that long patience which endures through the lesser cycle, because the key to the greater cycle has been held with firmness.”
