ON FEBRUARY 21, 1960, El Morya/Mark and I joined in a spiritual pact to begin the Mark-Age Unit. On that day of our covenant with God, when we pledged to give every ounce of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, we consciously knew and understood only perhaps ten percent of what was expected of us, what was involved in the hierarchal program, and from where our material resources would come. Truly it was ten percent knowledge and experience, and the 
other ninety percent faith.
In the intervening years together we have seen hundreds of thousands of people informed of the new, incoming Age of Aquarius, and accepting the ending of the old age and the fact that we are living in the long-prophesied Latter Days. Thousands have turned from ridicule and skepticism to firm belief that the planet is engaged in the final Battle of Armageddon.
In these past years we have worked with, and have counseled, personally hundreds of potential light workers and leaders. That is what this broadcast is about. What does it take, what is involved; and what is expected of one who believes he or she is, and sincerely professes to be, a chosen light worker, leader and teacher?
A light worker is one who is willing and able to put all of his or her efforts into perfecting the mortal vehicle so it can externalize the light of the I Am Self in this time and place now; one who will use the light, will be the light and will express the light which is God.
This kind of dedication requires diligence, perseverance, constant cleansings and changes, discipline, and the desire for and the acceptance of spiritual guidance from those who have passed through the same type of challenges and have demonstrated that they have conquered those challenges.
This breed of soul on Earth today is what Mark-Age is all about. To paraphrase Sananda in his last life as Jesus: these are the ones who are of my flock, the flock knows its shepherd, and the shepherd is responsible only to his own flock.
Many beginners or those who read a little about the New Age, about the Mark-Age program specifically, about the Second Coming of the Master of this planet, and about each one’s own second coming of Christ consciousness assume the way is easy and the road to this heaven is as quick and direct as a freeway. Yes, indeed, they also think the way is free; free from responsibility, free from effort, free from cost. It is not any of these things.
Time is perhaps one of the most costly tolls on this road; and expediency has been the downfall of the majority of not program workers but light workers, according to the definition given here. So, I am going to try to share with you here, from the agony of our own work and observations over the years, the time elements involved in being a dedicated and determined light worker for the I Am Nation being made manifest now on Earth through Mark-Age.
This is not being given to discourage anyone from starting on this road. Mark and I both hope the road map we outline will encourage and will excite many hundreds more to start. The time is shortened now for the elect’s sake. But that does not mean the time is short for the trip to cosmic consciousness and light-worker expression. It means the time left on this planet for the road to be opened for travelers has been shortened. For those of us who are on the road or are nearing the end of our journeys are road sick and travel weary.
Starting a New Life
To begin, let us be honest and fair. This is an alien route. There are not many other people on it. You may travel many miles and endless days, weeks, months or years before you meet a fellow traveler. So, it is lonely.
There are few way stations where you can get proper fuel. I know there are many glittering signs along the road promising all kinds of phenomena and gimmicks. You may even have to stop off at a few to convince yourself that shortcuts and easy systems are con games or are enticements back to the old, familiar road.
It takes a full year, minimum, to get the hang of this new-road system. When you first learn to drive a car or a plane, your instructor tells you that until you get the feel of the vehicle, it will continue to be a strain and an alien machine. That is what I am referring to here. It takes no less than a year to get the right feeling and smooth, automatic reflexes on this new road.
Your body, mind, emotions and soul patterns are not accustomed to this roadway. It is made of a different substance. Its requirements and road signs are not the same as on the old, mortal road you have been traveling not only in this incarnation but perhaps in many past ones as well.
The road rules and regulations are not the same. The road signs are written in another language. The police personnel enforcing those laws are not the same, nor do they act the same, as those to whom you have been accustomed. This 
police force might have been your parents, your family, a special teacher or an honored prophet or leader. But on this roadway a different type of law-enforcement agency is working. If you think your mortal guardians have been strict and expect discipline, you have seen nothing yet.
Persons who think they enter into spiritual works and organizations in order to escape from discipline, rules, laws and supervisors are greatly mistaken. On the contrary, my dear friends and fellow light workers, the spiritual pathway has stringent guidelines. It is very narrow and straight. There is less room here to make a mistake than on the other road. Do not enter by thinking you have found Easy Street.
Anyone who enters into full-time functioning — in all departments of life: physical, mental, soul and spiritual aspects — as a light worker finds the discipline and the requirements, the adjustment period of that first year, to be among the most difficult in all years of living on Earth. Partly this is because of the extreme difference in the climate, the rhythm, the substance of the spiritual life, as opposed to the mortal ways of doing and thinking about things.
So, before you even set foot on this road and start that first step toward full-time living as a spiritual being on the Earth planet, accept this warning. Everything in your life is subject to complete change: the way you think, the people you relate to and want to continue to associate with, the desires and the needs to satisfy your bodily functions, the emotional reactions for which you may have developed a certain formula or a crystallized set of rules, and now, the most difficult of all, the revelations in your soul record.
Although there is no prescribed or formalized pattern or time schedule, what I am trying to express is an approximation of time and the sequence of events as they generally unfold for the majority of light workers with whom Mark and I have had personal association.
Revelations of Your Soul Record
The second to the fourth years of full-time devotion and dedication to spiritual life usually are the most horrendous and challenging. For all the impacted, crystallized patterns set into the soul record, either because of repeated experiences or because of some traumatic shock which set the mold, come forth into the conscious awareness for review.
Just because a pattern in the soul record is repeated does not make it necessarily bad. It may be something for your individualized service and purpose as a being of God. But whether it is a good and desirable pattern or one that needs to be dissolved and removed from the record, the light worker must examine its worthiness and value and make a conscious decision about it.
Once you have a year’s experience working in and for and with the light of truth, you are obligated to look at all things in your own subconscious, soul memory on a conscious, analytical and objective level. If you still can maintain personal integrity, determination and balance of mind, body and soul during this process of intensive reexamination and reanalysis, then you have passed the halfway mark on the road to I Am service.
Notice I did not say you have it made or that you are now home free. It is at this station break on the spiritual highway — and I purposely intend that as a double entendre, as the way of the high Self — where you may begin to receive your personal mission and individualized service to the whole race of man, the Christ body, and to the hierarchal plan externalized for this planet and the solar system.
Glimpses of this halfway station you are entitled to get before this, and most assuredly you will get many of those in order to keep you moving along on this straight and narrow road. But specific road maps and dependable guidelines and information simply cannot be obtained before you reach this area. You have to prove your ability to maneuver your vehicle on this highway before you are given such a map.
Undoubtedly, everyone can understand the wisdom of this. Giving such a detailed and specific map to those who have not prepared sufficiently, have not road tested their endurance and vehicles, or who may have some mechanical problem in remaining on this special highway, can be hazardous beyond calculation.
But most traveling this first lap of the journey — at least to Mark’s and my experiences — seem to be blind to this inbuilt precaution. Most seem to want to leap ahead without fulfilling the basic requirements and training period necessary. This is the main purpose in giving this broadcast: to help assure the sincere and the dedicated that it does take time, and there are many intermediate steps, before the final map and instructions are released.
Learning Your Spiritual Mission
The next three or four years after the first four can involve the tests and the trials of learning the new information and the specific, individual service each one is able to perform. There are some of I Am development who are meant to bring forth healing, channeling of communications, or counseling and teaching of others. Some are meant to be writers or group leaders. Still others may know they are required to be behind the scenes and to act as batteries of energy to the representatives in the spotlight on the stage of action.
Seven to eight years are required before any fullness and ripeness of spiritual consciousness and functioning can be expected. If there are problems, unexpected boulders or blind spots on the road, there is no way to skip over them. In overcoming those, you only can expect the time element to be lengthened. In fact, it is only after the first seven or eight years of full-time service that you actually begin to be light and love in action.
Wherever you are on this highway, no matter how many times you have stopped or have stalled and have had to start again, now is the time, this is your golden opportunity, your moment for achievement.
The seventh or the eighth year can be the start of a new lap in the journey. Certainly it is the beginning of a new octave of spiritual unfoldment. Then it may require an additional ten, twelve or thirteen years of applied energy and talents before achieving the goal of this lifetime’s mission of the ending of the old self and the externalizing of the I Am Self in full.
Start now to devote your meditations to rededicating yourself to your higher Self. Let your high Self know your desire to be a true, full-time light worker in all ways. Let your high Self know you are receptive to learning and experiencing whatever is necessary to make you one with the I Am Self now.
Revised from Mark-Age Meditations audio broadcast #98A, released in February 1976. This broadcast and others are available on Nada-Yolanda’s one-hour CD “Act in the Light” ($10 + shipping).
LISTEN TO PODCAST: Click on the “Play” button below to listen to the original recording of “Time Needed to Develop as a Light Worker” by Nada-Yolanda.
Photos: (1) Nada-Yolanda and El Morya/Mark, 1962, Mark-Age Archives. (2) Sananda/Jesus, Mark-Age Archives. (3) Nada-Yolanda and El Morya/Mark, 1961, Mark-Age Archives. (4) Nada-Yolanda, “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory,” drawing by Hilda Zaenglein-Schaffer, 1964, Mark-Age Archives.