There is a danger threatening workers in theosophical fields today, a plant growing vigorously whose roots run deep, and which bears a hundred blossoms, each one deadly. Like the giant weed of Self it must be early killed or else the whole ground wrecked and torn to eradicate it later. And I who see this destructive agency at work to day call on you, workers in the Masters' vineyards, to search it out and kill it ere so much labor, so much sweat and blood be spent in vain.
This danger I take to be a steadily increasing and feverish absorption in the details of work.
Why do some of you lose sight of the ends in the means; why is the routine of affairs becoming of such all-absorbing interest that the grand attainment is forgotten — the fruit sacrificed to the foliage. Yet of many is this true, and these engulfing themselves in their work run the yet greater risk of engulfing the work itself.
Suppose the whole Theosophical Society should be swept away today, — tomorrow! Where would these workers be then? Swept along also. It is however the Theosophical Movement that we serve, not any society, save as that society represents the Movement, and as nothing can destroy the Movement, belonging as it does to higher planes, those who in unity of heart and purpose stand by it, have builded for the ages, and can unmoved see all forms, all outward manifestations pass away. The true work is of inner planes, and the outer should be performed as an expression of this, never for its own sake. The work of today, do it with all your might, then leave it, unconcerned, it is finished, the Great Work absorbs you!
In other words the attitude of the mind is the key and lock of the whole process. I see nothing else to concern me, and what I do is of no consequence save as it truly represents my right thought.
We all have heard of "religious dissipation." I see as much of it in the Theosophical Society as in any religious body I know. The work is loved as the theatre is loved, because it helps to deaden self-consciousness, and for no other reason, though the lower mind finds many.
The teaching of the Gita on this point is very plain, that if work is not done impersonally and without attachment it must do harm in the end. And we who have laid down our lives in this cause, cementing it with our very heart's blood, let us never have to awaken to the terrible realization that meanwhile we have been swords in the hands of the powers of destruction; that we have not built, we have torn down.