On the 16th of October 1949, I adopted my New Life. Today, exactly one year after I set out with my companions, I have to say that the principles of my New Life could not be lived up to in the spirit that I desired. My companions have not been able to comply with the conditions of the New Life in the strict sense I had expected them to do, although in fairness to them I want to say that each has tried his best according to his own capabilities and understanding.
I feel therefore that this year has been not a failure, but an eye-opener. I also admit my own mistake in succumbing to anger and other temptations, and my inability to carry out with firmness of purpose the New Life conditions on the whole. My giving in to my feelings for the companions has resulted in a modification of the original oath taken by me at Meherabad, and the evolvement of Plans One, Two and Three — all contrary to the original conditions.
I now give my companions another chance to reconsider their original decisions that they would join me in my New Life, and a free choice to rejoin me in the New Life as my servants, or to go away and become my Old Life disciples, or to be entirely free and lead independent lives in the world. With the experience of twelve months of New Life behind us, I warn them that I have now made a definite resolve never in the future to compromise my New Life conditions to suit individual requirements, nor shall I tolerate any weakness or laxity on their part in carrying out my orders and the conditions of my New Life.
Keeping all this in mind, therefore, and making a sincere calculation of their own weaknesses and past experiences — some pleasant but many otherwise — I want them to decide today. I repeat that they should not decide before they have made an unflinching survey of their experiences of one year, and of their individual capacities for carrying out their resolutions.
If, in spite of all this, they decide to join me as servants in the New Life, they must know that they will have to try to obey me 100 percent, and must do wholeheartedly whatever I want them to do. The servants' obedience to my orders must be spontaneous and devoid of any feeling of slavery or compulsion.