the
higher, the more burdened; the higher, the harder the life; the higher,
the greater the duty. For that is the type of the Master, and the idea
ran through the whole of the civilisation. He, the Priest-King, mighty
in knowledge and in power, must bear upon his broad shoulders the burden
that would crush a weaker man. And so downwards through all the degrees
of ruler, in proportion to the power and its expansion, so in proportion
the weight and the responsibility.

They passed away from earth as humanity grew out of its infant stage.
My phrase is too strong--I should not have said: "They passed away
from earth." They passed away into silence, not from earth; thereon
many of Them still remain. But They drew back from the outer position,
from outer power, and became the great company of Elder Brothers of
humanity, only some of whom remained in close touch with the race.

And that is the next point in the idea of the Master. Those who
founded a religion were bound to remain wearing the body of man, fixed
to the earth, bound to the outward semblance of humanity, so long as
the religion lived upon earth which They had given to it. That was the
rule: no liberation for the Man who founded a religion until all who
belonged to that religion had themselves passed out of it, into
liberation, or into another faith, and the religion was dead. The
death of a religion is the liberation from all bondage of the Master
who gave it to the world. He in a very real sense is incarnate in the
religion that He bestows. While that religion lives and teaches, while
men still find in it the expression of their thought, so long that
divine Man must remain, and guide and protect and help the religion
which He gave to earth. Such is the law. No Master may leave our
humanity while that which He started as a human school is still
existing upon earth. Some have passed away, and would no longer be
spoken of as Masters--the name given to Them in the occult world is
different--but Those who have passed away have passed away because
Their religions are dead: the Masters of ancient Egypt, of ancient
Chaldea, have gone from this earth into the mighty company of Those
who no longer bear the burden of the flesh. But the Masters of every
living religion live on earth, and are the links, for the people of
that religion, between God and man; the Master is the divine Man, one
with his brothers, who look to him for help, one with the God around
and above, and t