In the life of a Disciple who is beginning to live the life of the Spirit many things may need adjustment. In the outer life he is responsible for his own acts, and every mistake he makes and every debt he incurs must be settled by him, it is continual action and reaction which goes on without ceasing, and he is "bound to the wheel of things"; but when a Master really accepts as his pupil a sincere Disciple from that moment the Master is responsible for him.

In the inner life there is constant adjustment, no debt can be carried over to the next day, but must be settled at once, so that each new day the Disciple may be free, for he cannot now carry any burdens of past mistakes, or they also would partake of eternal life and live for ever. No one can travel this Path except under the guidance of The Master, He is the Gate through which all must pass, and at that Gate ail burdens must be laid down. This is the new birth of which Jesus Christ speaks, but before the birth can take place there must be the equivalent to what in the outer life is called "death", and through the gate of death the soul can carry nothing.

At this stage of the journey the Disciple learns that there is no such thing as sin; everything he has thought of as such is really experience. Every experience that the Disciple brings with him which he has lived through in his outer life, is taken by The Master, The Great Alchemist, and transmuted, until only the pure essence remains; it is this essence from which the guiding light is produced by which the Disciple may proceed, if there had been no experiences there would be nothing out of which the light could be made. When this transmutation is completed the Disciple is free to pass onward, free from his burden of accumulated debts of the past; but as no debt can ever remain unpaid, the Master himself will pay ail that is owing to others through the Disciple's past mistakes until he himself has learnt the lesson of true alchemy by which everything he touches in his journey on the path may be transmuted to pure gold. In the inner life as in the outer the Disciple is born as an infant, and the Master is responsible for him until he arrives at years of discretion; this is the real meaning of vicarious atonement and the forgiveness of sins; but just as a teacher of experimental chemistry is responsible for his pupils' mistakes and therefore would not teach dangerous experiments to those whom he had not trained, neither does a spiritual teacher impart the knowledge of spiritual forces to a Disciple, until he has been trained and tested by Earth, Water, Fire and Air.

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