The Divine imperative moves cosmic unfoldment on. It is a sobering realisation that with every feeling, thought, attitude, decision and action we consciously or unconsciously either help to further that imperative, or we hinder it. If we make a conscious choice to assist the working out of the Divine plan on earth the next question becomes, ‘How can I be of use, and what training do I need to undertake to increase my usefulness?”

Not a uniquely Christian phenomenon, much as some Christians would want to claim it as such, the notion of discipleship, and the training of disciples, has been common to most of the great religions and schools of philosophy.

The word ‘disciple’ comes from the Latin discipulus (from discere – to learn), the origin also of our word ‘discipline’. In usage from around 500 BCE (the second threshold of the Age of Aries and seeding point for the Age of Pisces), it has traditionally been used to describe ‘one who sits at the feet of, or follows, a specific master and way of life, to learn and be disciplined’. Different in quality from ‘student’, discipleship has always emphasised the relationship between the two individuals and the depth of what is being learned, which goes way beyond mere assimilation of information.

Traditionally there have been three keys: loyalty to and total focus on one specific master or school, dedication to learning at depth, and willingness to be disciplined by (or undertake often rigorous disciplines set by) that master as part of the process. More often that not, the person has, like all of Jesus’ disciples, come to the training ‘raw’, and while that training has been essential it has often created, on the part of the disciple in training, both dependency and a fixation on the person of the master. Great masters like Jesus or Buddha tried to prevent this from happening by focussing the attention outward, setting their disciples-in-training independent service work from the outset, usually in small groups.