Agni Yoga - New Era Community

Agni Yoga Society, Inc., New York

www.agniyoga.org

1951 by Agni Yoga Society.

Published 1951.

Reprinted under a new title 1978. Reprinted November 2016.

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.

We are dissipating superstition, ignorance and fear. We are forging courage, will and knowledge.

Every striving toward enlightenment is welcome. Every prejudice, caused by ignorance, is exposed.

Thou who dost toil, are not alive in thy consciousness the roots of cooperation and community?

If this flame has already illumined thy brain, adopt the signs of the Teaching of Our mountains.

Thou who dost labor, do not become wearied puzzling over certain expressions. Every line is the highest measure of simplicity.

Greeting to workers and seekers!

COMMUNITY

1. Family, clan, country, union of nationseach unit strives toward peace, toward betterment of life. Each unit of cooperation and communal life needs perfecting. No one can fix the limits of evolution. By this line of reasoning a worker becomes a creator. Let us not be frightened by the problems of creativeness. Let us find for science unencumbered paths. Thus, thought about perfectionment will be a sign of joy.

2. Depression is the enemy of each improvement. There can be no constructive building in doubt. There will be no learning under fear. Observation is a step toward justice. Selfhood is betrayal of self-renunciation. Without achievement there is no path.

3. Monasteries were often called communities. The communal life has long been a sign of cooperation and of mutual respect. So too each workshop can be a cell of a community in which everybody contributes his skill. Altruism is a requisite if one is to devote one's talent to the common work.

4. Unity is pointed out in all beliefs as the sole bulwark of success. Better attainments can be affirmed if the unity of coworkers is assured. One may cite a great number of examples when mutual trust among the coworkers helped in lofty solutions. Let people, from home and hearth up to the spacial preordinations, remember about the value of cooperation. The seed of labor withers without the moisture of reciprocity. Let us not look backward too much. We hastening fellow-travelers shall become weary if we jostle each other. We shall realize a beautiful meaning if we can introduce the great conceptfriend. Community may consist only of friends.

5. The path of life is one of mutual help. Participants in the great task cannot be humanity-haters. This term denoting a shameful hatred is a long one. But perhaps people will the better remember it and be ashamed.

6. Also let us not forget that realization is simplified through clear consciousness. But let us not lose the shortest Path. Time is precious. We should not deprive anyone because of our sluggishness. Laziness and ignorance sleep in the same cradle.

7. Malice admits leprosy and pestilence. Malice can transform a peaceful fireside into a swarm of snakes. Qualities of malice are not befitting the community. The common task is General Welfare.

8. Cooperation must be based upon sound rules. This teaches orderliness; that is, it helps the acquirement of a rhythm. Thus even in daily work are expressed the great laws of the Universe. It is especially needed to become accustomed from childhood to continuous labor. Let the better evolution be built upon labor as the measure of value.

9. And another absolute condition must be fulfilled. Labor must be voluntary. Cooperation must be voluntary. Community must be voluntary. Labor must not be enslaved by force. The condition of voluntary agreement must be laid into the foundation of advancement. No one may bring dissolution into the new house. Workers, builders, creators, can be likened to high-soaring eagles. Only in a broad flight does the dust and rubbish of decay fall away.

10. A lofty quality will enter into pure labor through love of a favorite craft. A beautiful quality will be affirmed throughout life. Nothing will remain in darkness. Ignorance will be a shameful offence. Darkness is infectious but Light is attractive. Hence, let us affirm the love of a favorite craft, which uplifts the life.

Science should indicate the best quality. Science should attract the strongest energies. Let the knowledge of the spirit shine over every workbench.

11. Many falsehoods have been piled around the concept of labor. Only recently was labor scorned and considered harmful for health. What an outrage this isthis regarding of labor as harmful! Not labor is injurious but the ignorant conditions surrounding labor. Only conscious cooperation can render healthy the sacred labor. Not only must the quality of labor be high, but there must be strengthened the mutual desire to make the conditions of labor clearly understood. One must not curse labor, one should set forward the better worker.

12. There should be instilled respect for craftsmanship, in order that it be understood as a higher distinction. Ancient working community-guilds left testimony of their vitality. One can see how people cultivated their skills toward perfection. They knew how to shield each other and how to guard the dignity of their community. So long as people do not learn to defend the merit of their fellow-workers they will not achieve the happiness of Common Good.

13. The concept of justice proves itself upon the foundation of labor. Likewise courage grows easily in the vouching for each other. Indeed, all as one, yet each one contributing his own best aptitude. Let us not destroy, but let us being forth the warmth of the heart.

14. Our feeling is one of absence of specialty, because We live for the whole complex of life. Every specialist approaching Us inevitably loses his monochromatic eye-glasses. Therefore, make every effort that the specialty should become but one of the dishes at your table. As birds over the Earth, as bees above all the flowers, we can embrace the entire universe.

Without a specialty it is easier to prepare oneself for the current task in evolutionintercourse with distant worlds and the transformation of the Astral World, the world of dark earthly survivals. The adoption of the concept of Community will open the gates for next achievements, and their dates depend upon people themselves. Therefore, let us take up broadly the quest of Community.

15. Out of a wild jungle I can raise a grove, but a stone polished by worshipping foreheads will not produce a seed.

16. Among the mechanical attainments of modern civilization, the means of transportation deserve special attention. This devouring of space is already to a certain extent a victory over the supermundane spheres. But a circle of low materialism holds these conquests within the limits of low matter and the result is more harm than good. The chief danger in this haste of locomotion lies in a heightened feeling of irresponsibility. Passing beyond the limits of the ordinary, man becomes light, but because of the crudeness of feelings he loses the consciousness of responsibility.