The Great
Invocations
One, Two
and Three
From
the writings of Alice Bailey
CONTENTS
From Destiny of Nations
1
The Influence of the Rays Today.
1
From DINA II Section One – Talks to Disciples: Group Instruction
17
DINA II Section One - Talks to Disciples; Group Instruction
18
DINA II – Section One – Talks to Disciples: Group Instruction
24
DINA II Letter to LAP
32
From Externalisation of the Hierarchy
34
From Externalisation of the Hierarchy
35
From Externalisation of the Hierarchy
38
From Externalisation of the Hierarchy
55
From Externalisation of the Hierarchy
65
The Great Invocation
Collection of references from the writings of Alice
bailey other than the main ones where the three Stanzas of the Great Invocation
were given out.
First: The most obvious and powerful force in the world
today is that of the first Ray of Will and Power. It works out in two ways:
1. As the will of God in world affairs, which is ever
the will-to-good. Steadily — if you study human history intelligently —
you will see that there has been a regular and rhythmic progression toward
unity and synthesis in all departments of human affairs. This unity in
multiplicity is the Eternal Plan — a unity in consciousness, a multiplicity
in form.
2. As the destructive element in world affairs. This
refers to man's use of this force of will which is seldom as yet the will-to-good
in active expression, but something which leads to self-assertion (of the
individual or the nation) and to war with its accompaniments — separation,
selfish diplomacy, hate and armaments, disease and death.
This is the force which pours into the world from the
major world centre, Shamballa. Little is known of Shamballa. More will
be known as you study this text and note how world affairs are taking shape
before your eyes in accordance with my prevision (as presented to your limited
[Page 13] vision) and the obvious possibilities. These are necessarily
the equally obvious effects of predisposing causes.
Only twice before in the history of mankind has this Shamballa
energy made its appearance and caused its presence to be felt through the
tremendous changes which were brought about:
1. When the first great human crisis occurred at the time
of the individualisation of man in ancient Lemuria.
2. At the time of the great struggle in Atlantean days
between the "Lords of Light and the Lords of Material Expression."
This little known divine energy now streams out from the
Holy Centre. It embodies in itself the energy which lies behind the world
crisis of the moment. It is the Will of God to produce certain radical
and momentous changes in the consciousness of the race which will completely
alter man's attitude to life and his grasp of the spiritual, esoteric and
subjective essentials of living. It is this force which will bring about
(in conjunction with second ray force) that tremendous crisis — imminent
in the human consciousness — which we call the second crisis, the initiation
of the race into the Mystery of the Ages, into that which has been hid from
the beginning.
The first crisis, as you have been taught, was the crisis
of individualisation wherein man became a living soul. The second crisis
is the immediate one of racial initiation, made possible (if you will but
believe it) by the many individual initiations which have lately been undergone
by those members of the human family who had vision and a willingness to
pay the price.
This particular and somewhat unusual ray energy is expressing
[Page 14] itself in two ways. Perhaps it would be more correct to say in
two ways that are recognisable by man, because it should be remembered that
these ray forces express themselves as potently in other kingdoms in nature
as they do in the human. For instance, one phase of the destructive aspects
of first ray force has been the organised and scientific destruction of
forms in the animal kingdom. This is the destroying force, as manipulated
by man. Another phase of the same force (which can be noted in relation
to the unfoldment of consciousness in subtle and powerful ways) can be seen
in the effect which human beings have upon the domestic animals, hastening
their evolution, and stimulating them into forms of advanced instinctual
activity. I mention these two phases as illustration of the effect of first
ray energy in the animal kingdom, as expressed through human activity.
The ways in which humanity itself is affected by this
ray energy, as it expresses itself in a twofold manner, producing a twofold
result, are as follows:
1. There is, at this time, an emergence of certain powerful
and dominating first ray personalities into the theatre of world activity.
These people are in direct contact with this Shamballa force and are sensitive
to the impact of the will energy of Deity. According to their type of personality
and their point in evolution will be their reaction to this force and their
consequent usefulness to the Lord of the World as He works out His plans
of world unfoldment. The energy of the will of God works through them,
though stepped down and often misused and misapplied, by their differing
and limited personalities, and interpreted unsatisfactorily by their undeveloped
consciousness. These people are found in every [Page 15] field of human
affairs. They are the dominant persons, and the dictators in every aspect
of human living — political, social, religious and educational. Who shall
say (until at least a century has gone by) whether their influence and their
efforts have been good or bad. Where they flagrantly infringe the Law of
Love, their influence may be powerful, but it is passing and undesirable,
at least where that phase of their activities is concerned. Where they
meet human emergency and need, and work along lines of basic restoration
and the preservation of "units of synthesis," their influence
is good and constructive.
I would here point out that real group love never demonstrates
as hatred of the individual. It may work out as the arresting of the individual's
activities or enterprises where that is deemed desirable in the interests
of the whole and if what he is doing is estimated as harmful to the good
of the group. But the arresting will not be destructive. It will be educational
and developing in its results.
The true first ray personality who works in response to
this Shamballa influence will have the ultimate good of the group deeply
enshrined in his consciousness and heart; he will think in terms of the
whole and not in terms of the part. That is the thing which he will endeavour
to impress upon the racial consciousness. This may lead at times to ruthlessness
and cruelty if the personality of the individual is not yet controlled by
soul impulse. Such cases can frequently be seen. An instance of this can
be noted in the history of the Jews as found in the Old Testament. When
the first ray was in control and passing through one of its rare cycles
of activity we read that they butchered and slaughtered all their enemies
— men, women and children, [Page 16] putting them to the sword. The sword
is ever the symbol of the first ray force just as the pen is of the second
ray influence.
I wish to remind you that I use the word "energy"
in reference to the spiritual expression of any ray and the word "force"
to denote the use to which men make of spiritual energy as they seek to
employ it and usually, as yet, misapply it. I would point out that Ataturk,
the Turkish dictator, within certain personality limitations of relatively
negligible moment, made good use of first ray energy, and only the testimony
of future historical records will indicate fully how wisely, sanely and
disinterestedly he used this type of force for the attainment of first ray
objectives. It might be apposite here to point out that such first ray
exponents of force are often misunderstood and hated. They may and often
do misuse the energy available but they also use it constructively within
the desired limits of the immediate plan. I would also like to state that
the lot of a first ray disciple is hard and difficult. There are disciples
of Shamballa just as there are disciples of the Hierarchy and this is a
fact hitherto not recognised and never as yet referred to in the current
writings on occult subjects. It is wise and valuable to remember this.
They are powerful, these disciples of Shamballa, headstrong and often cruel;
they impose their will and dictate their desires; they make mistakes but
they are nevertheless true disciples of Shamballa and are working out the
Will of God as much as the disciples and Masters of the Hierarchy are working
out the Love of God.
This is a hard saying for some of you but your failure
to recognise this truth and to respond to it does not affect the issue.
It simply makes your individual lot and difficulties harder.
[Page 17]
I would also remind you that the use of first ray energy
inevitably means destruction in the early stages but fusion and blending
in the later and final results. If you study the nations of the world today
from this angle, you will see this Shamballa energy of will working out
potently through the agency of certain great outstanding personalities.
The Lord of Shamballa in this time of urgency, from love of the life aspect
and from understanding of the Plan as well as from love of humanity, is
sending forth this dynamic energy. It is form destroying and brings death
to those material forms and organised bodies which hinder the free expression
of the life of God, for they negate the new culture and render inactive
the seeds of the coming civilisation.
From this display of energy, unthinking humanity draws
back in fear and likes it not. When full of personality hate and self-will,
human beings seek often to turn this energy to their own selfish ends.
If human beings (even the best of them) were not so undeveloped and so superficial
in their judgments and their vision, they would be able to penetrate behind
what is going on in the key countries in the world and see the gradual emergence
of new and better conditions, and the passing away of the loved, but slowly
decaying forms. The energy of Shamballa is, however, so new and so strange
that it is hard for human beings to know it for what it is — the demonstration
of the Will of God in new and potent livingness.
2. The second way in which this dominant will impulse
makes itself felt is through the voice of the masses of the people throughout
the world. This will express itself through sound, as consciousness or
love does through light. The sound of the nations has been heard as a mass
sound for the first time. That voice today is unmistakably [Page 18] expressive
of the values which embody human betterment; it demands peace and understanding
between men and it refuses — and will steadily refuse — to permit certain
drastic things to happen. This "voice of the people," which is
in reality the voice of public opinion is, for the first time and with no
recognition of the fact, being determined by the Will of God.
Second: The next great energy which is making its potent
contribution to the present world situation is that of the second Ray of
Love Wisdom, Christ's ray. This energy is poured into the world through
the second great planetary centre which we call The Hierarchy. The energy
which is concentrated in this centre and which is manipulated by the initiates
and the Masters is making one of its cyclic impacts upon the Earth and —
as I explained in Volume II of A Treatise on the Seven Rays — is also making
one of its major cyclic Approaches to humanity.
The energy flowing through the Hierarchy at this time
— the energy of love — is seeking to blend with that which is flowing out
of Shamballa and is needed in order to make the desired application of it.
The problem of the Hierarchy at this time is to produce a wise and adequate
fusion of the Shamballa and the hierarchial energies and thus temper destruction
and bring to the fore the spirit of construction, setting in motion the
building and rehabilitating forces of the second ray energy. The Shamballa
energy prepares the way for the energy of the Hierarchy. Thus it has been
from the beginning of time, but the cycles of the Hierarchy, though relatively
frequent, have not coincided with those of Shamballa, which are rare and
infrequent. As time progresses, the impact of the Shamballa force will
be more frequent because men will develop the power to stand and [Page 19]
withstand it. Hitherto it has been too dangerous an energy to apply to
mankind, for the results have worked out destructively, except in the first
great Lemurian crisis. Its work has, therefore, been confined almost entirely
to the Hierarchy Whose Members are equipped to handle it and to assimilate
it correctly and also to use it for the benefit of humanity. Now the experiment
is being attempted of permitting man to receive it and its impact, free
from the mediation of the Hierarchy. It may prove a premature and abortive
effort but the issues are not yet determined and the Lord of Shamballa,
with His assistants and with the aid of the watching Members of the Hierarchy,
are not discouraged over the initial results. Humanity is responding unexpectedly
well. There has been much success along this line but the results do not
appear with clarity to intelligent human beings because they refuse to see
anything except the destructive aspect and the disappearance of the forms
to which they have hitherto anchored their emotions, their desire, and their
mental perceptions. They fail, as yet, to see the irrefutable evidence
of constructive activity and of true creative work. The temple of humanity
in the New Age is rising rapidly but its outlines cannot be seen because
men are occupied entirely with their individual or national selfish point
of view and with their personal or national instincts and impulses. I would
here like to call your attention to the fact that the instinctual life of
nations is something which remains to be studied scientifically and is a
phase which leads inevitably to the individualistic life of nations — a
matter of more immediate interest.
The new forms are, however, being built and the Shamballa
potencies, plus hierarchical guidance, are working towards ends which are
definitely planned and which are working out favourably. The potency of
love-wisdom, transmitted [Page 20] by the Hierarchy, is playing upon modern
humanity in a more intimate and close manner than ever before. The Directors
of the Hierarchy are seeking to evoke an intelligent response from men and
an indication that they are conscious of what is happening. Most of the
response to the Shamballa activity is characterised by fear and terror,
by sensitivity and distressingly developed reactions to the forces of hate
and separation. Only a few, here and there, really grasp the vision of
the future and realise what is going on, seeing truly the beauty of the
emerging plan. It is with these few that the Members of the Hierarchy can
work because they (even when lacking understanding) bear no ill-will or
hatred to others. Love is a great unifier and interpreter.
This energy of love is primarily concentrated (for purposes
of hierarchical activity) in the New Group of World Servers. This group
has been chosen by the Hierarchy as its main channel of expression. This
group, composed as it is of all world disciples and all working initiates,
finds its representatives in every group of idealists and servers and in
every body of people who express human thought, particularly in the realm
of human betterment and uplift. Through them, the potency of love-wisdom
can express itself. These people are frequently misunderstood, for the
love which they express differs widely from the sentimental, affectionate
personal interest of the average worker. They are occupied mainly with
the interests and the good of the whole group with which they may be associated;
they are not primarily concerned with the petty interests of the individual
— occupied with his little problems and concerns. This brings such a server
under the criticism of the individual and with this criticism they must
learn to live and to it they must pay no attention. True group love is
of more importance [Page 21] than personal relationships, though those are
met as need (note, I say, need) arises. Disciples learn to grasp the need
of group love and to amend their ways in conformity with group good, but
it is not easy for the self-interested individual to grasp the difference.
Through the medium of those disciples who have learned the distinction between
the petty concerns of the individual plus his interest in himself and the
necessities and urgencies of group work and love, the Hierarchy can work
and so bring about the needed world changes, which are primarily changes
in consciousness. I have dealt somewhat in detail with these matters; the
gist of them has, however, been embodied in the pamphlets sent out in the
past few years.
Third: the major energy upon which we shall touch here
is that of intelligent activity — the potency of the third ray. This finds
its expression through the third major centre on the planet; this centre,
we call Humanity. The evocation of a loving intelligent response to the
Shamballa impulse, stepped down by the Hierarchy, is that to which this
world centre should respond. This is rapidly and, as I have told you, satisfactorily,
happening. A definite world effect is being produced and the New Group
of World Servers has given much aid in this. They have interpreted, explained
and assisted the processes of evoking the latent love in human beings which,
in its initial and unformed stages, exists in the form of an inchoate goodwill.
I call this to your attention as the underlying, motivating
idea behind all the work which you are called upon to do. I suggest, therefore
that you endeavour to see the three major ideologies with which you have
perforce to deal in terms of the three efforts which are emanating from
the three major planetary centres at this time: Shamballa, The Hierarchy
and Humanity. You will thus gain a more synthetic [Page 22] viewpoint,
and a deeper understanding of the slowly emerging world picture.
Is it not possible that the ideologies which we have been
discussing are the response — distorted and yet a definite and determined,
sensitive reaction — to the energies playing upon humanity from the two
higher major centres? I would like to suggest that the ideology which is
embodied in the vision of the totalitarian states is an erroneous but clear-cut
response to the Shamballa influence of will; that the ideology behind the
democratic ideal constitutes a similar response to the universality which
the love of the Hierarchy prompts it to express, and that communism is of
human origin, embodying that ideology which humanity has formulated in its
own right. Thus the three aspects of God's nature are beginning to take
form as three major ideas and what we see upon the planet at this time are
the distorted human reactions to spiritual impulses, emanating from three
different centres, but all equally divine in their essential natures, and
in their essences. Ponder on this.
I have brought this to your attention and discussed these
basic modern schools of thought because the potency of their idealism is
affecting every person, capable of thought, upon the planet. Not one of
you is immune from their effects; not one of you but is inclined to range
yourself upon one side or another, fighting furiously and under the cloak
of so-called "adherence to principle" for what appeals to you.
Most of you are, nevertheless, far more affected by the methods employed
to materialise the ideas and by the quality of their exponents than you
are by the ideas themselves. These you could hardly define if asked to
do so. You are affected by their impact upon your emotional bodies (not
your minds) after these divine impulses have filtered through from the Shamballa
and the hierarchical centres [Page 23] into and through the human centre
and have then been seized upon and applied to specific national, racial
and political conditions. You are hardly at all affected by the pure idealism
which gave them birth and which lies behind them as the motivating (though
unrecognised) impulse. You cannot grasp or view these great mental trends
as does the Hierarchy. Hence much of your confusion and your difficulty.
If we consider these three great planetary centres and
their relationships in tabular form we can get the general idea more clearly
in mind:
I. Shamballa Will or Power Planetary
head centre,
The Holy
City Purpose . . Plan spiritual pineal gland.
Life Aspect.
Ruler:-
Sanat Kumara, the Lord of the World.
The Ancient of Days.
Melchizedek.
II. The Hierarchy Love-Wisdom Planetary heart
centre.
The new Jerusalem
Consciousness.
Group Unity.
Ruler:-
The Christ.
The World Saviour.
III. Humanity Active Intelligence
Planetary throat centre.
The city, standing foursquare Self-Consciousness.
Creativity.
Ruler:-
Lucifer.
Son of the Morning.
The Prodigal Son.
These three centres are closely interrelated and must
be thought of in their entirety as expressions of divine livingness, as
embodying three great stages in the unfoldment of God's plan and as constituting
the three major centres in the body of the "One in Whom we live and
move and have our being." Students who have studied as you have can
relate if they so choose, these three centres to the three solar systems,
referred to in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire —
1. In the first solar system, the centre which is Humanity
[Page 24] was prepared, and the principle of intelligence came into manifestation.
2. In the second solar system, the Hierarchy of love made
its appearance and must eventually come into full manifestation upon the
physical plane, thereby enabling the Love of God to be seen.
3. In the next solar system, the centre which we today
call Shamballa will manifest (intelligently and through love) the will aspect
of Deity. It is only however in this second solar system that all these
three centres, expressing the three divine aspects, meet simultaneously
at various stages of livingness. It is interesting to note that it is only
through human beings that these centres can ever come into true functioning
activity.
Little is known of Shamballa except by Members of the
Hierarchy to Whom that centre is the goal in the same way that the Hierarchy
is, at this time, the goal for humanity. Shamballa is the directing centre
for the Hierarchy. Little is really known of the will of God except by
Those Whose function it is to interpret and express that will through love,
intelligently applied. They know what the immediate purpose is and Their
major occupation is the working out of that will into manifestation.
We have, therefore, three great centres and from them
emanate three types of energy which are taking form as the three governing
ideologies in the consciousness of the race. Old ideologies still persist;
subsidiary schools of thought are everywhere to be found; distorted interpretations
and travesties of reality abound on every hand; on all sides the dead level
of the people (the ignorant masses) is played upon by these energies and
men become victims of the exponents of the ideologies — past, present and
future.
[Page 25]
Forget not that behind all of them stands He Whom we call
the Lord of the World. When all these temporary experiments have been tried
and when humanity has been led on in its consciousness from one stage of
understanding to another and of recognised interrelation, the kingdom of
God will be established upon Earth and the Ruler of the Earth will then
work through the Hierarchy to produce that synthetic living creative response
from nature (of which humanity is a part) which will enable each kingdom
fully to reveal the glory of God. Shamballa will work through the Hierarchy
and the Hierarchy, in its turn, will reach the various kingdoms in nature
through the medium of Humanity, which will then enter into its pre-ordained
and destined function. It is for this that all is taking place. The time
of fruition lies relatively far ahead but in the meantime humanity is experimenting
or is the subject of experiment; it is exploiting or being exploited; it
is learning the lessons of enforced obedience or the dangers of selfish
license; it is victimised by powerful personalities in every land and this
without exception, or it is being guided in right directions (and this again
without exception) by the emissaries and disciples of either Shamballa or
the Hierarchy. All vaunted freedom or vaunted control is but the temporary
reaction of a humanity which is swept by ideas, controlled by ideals, impulsed
by selfishness, impregnated by hates and yet all the time is struggling
to express the higher and better qualities and to free itself from the thralldom
of ancient evil, the slavery of ancient codes and the curse of ancient habits
of thought and living. It is what is happening behind the scenes to mankind
as a whole which is of moment; it is the unfoldment of the human consciousness
which counts with the Hierarchy, and that unfolds in response to the presented
conditions in any country or countries. Let me assure [Page 26] you that
under the pressure of modern life, under the strain of the imposed present
conditions and civilisation, plus the mental concern, the terror of marching
armies, the thunder of the many voices and the stress of the worldwide economic
stringency, the human consciousness is rapidly awakening from its long sleep.
That great and fundamental reality which you call the "human state
of mind" is just beginning to focus itself upon the things which matter
and to express itself in a living fashion. That is the factor of moment
and not the happenings in any particular country.
And, I would remind you, all that is occurring is an evidence
of energy and is expressive of force. That is the factor never to be forgotten.
It is essential that you recognise them as existing. There is little that
you, as individuals or as groups, can do about them beyond seeing to it
that there is nothing in you which could make you — unimportant as you may
be — a focal point for hate, separation, fear, pride and other characteristics
which feed the fires which threaten to bring disaster to the world. Each
of you can aid more than you can guess through the regulation of thought
and ideas, through the cultivation of a loving spirit and through the general
use of the Great Invocation whereby
these forces and energies — so sorely needed — can be invoked.
We have now considered the three major energies which
are pouring into our planetary life at this time through the three major
centres. It remains for us now to consider the energy of the two minor
rays, the sixth and the seventh, which are in many ways of more immediate
moment to the masses and of tremendous effectiveness. One is of moment
because of its pronounced hold and because of the crystallisation it has
produced particularly in the world of thought, and the other because its
hold and its power, its influence [Page 27] and its effects will be of an
increasing momentum. One is potent in producing the necessity for the present
chaos; the other is potential and holds in its activity the seeds of the
future.
This is a fact of great interest and of really practical
import. It takes us, moreover, into the realm of prevision. I would have
you remember, at this point, that no prevision is divorced entirely from
the past but that there must always be the seed of truth. The Law of Cause
and Effect holds good eternally and particularly so in the realm of spiritual
insight (so rapidly developing at this time) which enables the seer to see
the future as it may be and to forecast coming eventualities. There are
several ways in which such prevision can — during the next three centuries
— be developed in the race of men:
1. Through the development of soul contact among the advanced
members of the race. This contact will relate soul knowledge with brain
impression and, if the meditating factor of the mind is duly trained and
controlled, there will be a correct foreknowledge of individual destiny
and coming events.
2. Through the development of the science of astrology
— a science which is, as yet, in its infancy and which is based on so many
uncertain factors that it is difficult for a student to arrive at those
true indications which will truly present the future. Character indications
and small personality happenings can frequently and correctly be deduced
but the general subject remains until today much too nebulous for certitude.
I will later deal with this matter and will indicate the lines along which
future investigation should proceed.
3. Through the recurrence of "soothsaying" and
the reappearance [Page 28] of those ancient "informers of the race"
who, in Roman times, were called "sibyls." These mediums (for
such they were) will be trained by the workers upon the seventh ray to speak
under inspiration from the Hierarchy Whose foreknowledge extends far ahead
into the future, but does not extend beyond two thousand years. These mediums
will, however, only be used under direction, after careful training and
only twice a year at the May and June Full Moon rituals.
As to the prevision with which I shall deal, unorthodox
as it may appear to be to some of you, it will be based upon two factors:
First of all, the logical indications to be gathered from the past and present
events which condition the immediate future and which must inevitably lead
to definite and tangible happenings. Any deep student of human affairs
could follow the same line of reasoning and come to approximately the same
conclusions, provided he loved his fellowmen enough to see them truly as
they were and allow, consequently, for the appearance of the unexpected.
And, secondly, what I may say to you is based on a knowledge of the ray
influences which are at this time so powerfully and effectively affecting
humanity and its coming civilisation and culture.
I would ask you, therefore, to read what I have to say
with an open mind; I would beg you to relate my words to present world conditions
and to see, emerging from the realms of subjectivity, those forces and potencies
which are directly changing the current of men's thoughts, which are moulding
their ideas, and incidentally altering the face of the earth and the policies
of nations.
As you know, there are at this time, two minor rays (which
are rays of attribute) affecting powerfully the destiny [Page 29] of mankind.
These are the sixth Ray of Abstract Devotion or Idealism and the seventh
Ray of Ceremonial Magic or Organisation. The sixth ray began to pass out
of manifestation in 1625 after a long period of influence, whilst the seventh
Ray of Ceremonial Order began to come into manifestation in 1675. There
are three points to be remembered in connection with these two rays and
their effects upon the race of men. (I am not here dealing with their effects
upon the other kingdoms in nature.)
1. The sixth ray is as you know, the most powerful in
manifestation in this time and a very large number of people are responsive
to its influence. It is still the line of least resistance for the majority,
particularly in the Aryan race, for the reason that when in process of time
and through evolution the influence of a ray has become potent, it is groups
that are primarily affected and not just individuals. A rhythm and a momentum
is then set up which lasts a long time and which gains power through the
very force of organised numbers. This truth will emerge more clearly as
we proceed with our studies. Suffice it to say that the sixth ray people
are the reactionaries, the conservatives, the die-hards and the fanatics,
who hold on to all that is of the past and whose influence is potent to
hinder the progress of humanity into the new age. Their name is legion.
They provide, however, a needed balance and are responsible for a steadying
process which is much needed in the world at this time.
2. The seventh ray is steadily gaining momentum and has
for a long time been stimulating and enhancing the activity of all fifth
ray nations. If you bear in mind that one of the major objectives of seventh
ray energy is to bring [Page 30] together and to relate spirit and matter
and also substance and form (note this distinction) you can see for yourself
that the work of science is closely connected with this endeavour and that
the creation of the new forms will definitely be the result of a working
interaction between the rulers of the fifth, the second and the seventh
rays, aided by the help — on demand — of the ruler of the first ray. A
large number of seventh ray egos or souls and also of men and women with
seventh ray personalities are coming into incarnation now, and to them is
committed the task of organising the activities of the new era and of ending
the old methods of life and the old crystallised attitudes to life, to death,
to leisure and to the population.
3. The result of the increasing flow of seventh ray energy
plus the decreasing influence of the sixth ray — which shows itself as a
pronounced crystallisation of the standardised and accepted forms of belief,
religious, social and philosophic — is to throw the millions of people who
do not respond to either of the above influences through egoic or personality
relation, into a state of bewilderment. They feel entirely lost, are gripped
by the idea that life holds for them no desirable future, all that they
have learnt to cherish and to hold dear is rapidly failing.
These three groups of people, influenced by the sixth
and seventh rays or who are bewildered by the impact of forces generated
by those rays, are those who must together, with understanding and clear
vision, bring order out of the present chaos. They must materialise those
new and desirable conditions which will conform to the subjective pattern
in the minds of the illumined people of the world and to [Page 31] the spiritual
plan as it exists in the consciousness of the members of the Hierarchy.
The new age with its peculiar civilisation and culture will be brought into
manifestation through the collaboration of the well-intentioned many, responsive
increasingly to the good of the whole and not of the individual; they are
the idealistic but practical thinkers, influenced by the pattern of things
to come and the world disciples, impressed by the plans and under the instruction
of the Hierarchy which is directing and controlling all.
It is with these three groups of people and with the work
upon which they are engaged that any prevision I may evidence will consistently
deal. All changes in connection with the human family, the fourth kingdom
in nature, are always dependent upon three factors:
1. Those outer physical events which are definitely "acts
of God" and over which no human being has the slightest authority.
2. The activity of human beings themselves, working on
all the different rays but in any given time and in any particular period
conditioned by:
a. The preponderance of egos to be found on any particular
ray. There are a very large number of second ray egos in incarnation today
and their work and their lives will facilitate the coming Great Approach.
b. The nature and the quality of the predominating personality
rays of the majority. At this time there are a vast number of souls in
incarnation whose personality rays are either the sixth or the third. They
condition the coming civilisation outstandingly including all educational
and financial enterprises, just as the influence of those who have soul
contact and can express soul quality condition and determine the current
culture.
[Page 32]
c. The activity of the fifth principle, that of the mind.
This mind principle is peculiarly active today in a broad and general sense.
If I might put it symbolically the vertical activity of the mind which has
affected individuals everywhere down the ages has always produced the mental
guides, the directors and the leaders of humanity. Today, the horizontal
activity of the mind, embracing huge masses of the populace and sometimes
entire nations and races, can everywhere be seen and this must lead inevitably
to events and effects hitherto unvisioned and impossible.
3. The influence of the outgoing and the incoming rays
at any time. You have often been told that these events — for the emergence
or disappearance of a ray influence is an event in time — are a matter of
slow development, are psychic in nature, and are governed by law. The length
of time in which a ray appears, manifests and does its work and finally
disappears is one of the secrets of initiation, but — as time elapses and
the nature of time itself is better understood — the period and the time
equation of the minor rays of attribute will be established but that time
is not yet, although the intense interest taken today in the phenomena of
time indicates a growing awareness of the problem itself and of the need
for understanding the relation of time, both to space and to event. It
will be realised before long that time is entirely a brain event; a study
of the sense of speed as registered by the brain, plus the capacity or incapacity
of a human being to express this speed, will, when properly approached,
reveal much that today remains a mystery.
At this time, the whole world is embroiled in the chaos
[Page 33] and the turmoil incident upon the clashing of the forces of the
sixth and the seventh rays. As one ray passes out and another comes into
manifestation and their impact upon the earth and upon all the forms in
all the kingdoms of nature has reached the point where the two influences
are equalised, then a definite point of crisis is reached. This is what
has occurred today, and humanity, subjected to two types or forms of energy,
is thrown "off centre" and hence the intense difficulty and tension
of the present world period. The cause of this is not only the impact of
the two types of energy, beating upon the forms of life with equal force,
but also that the energy of humanity itself (which is a combination of the
fourth and fifth rays) is swept into the conflict. To this must also be
added the energy of the animal kingdom (again a combination of the energies
of the third, fifth and sixth rays) for this governs the animal or physical
form of every human being. You have, therefore, a meeting of many conflicting
forces and the world Arjuna is faced with a stupendous battle — one that
is recurrent and cyclic but which will, in this particular era, prove a
decisive and determining factor in the age old conflict between material
domination and spiritual control. The forces playing upon the planet at
this time are of supreme importance. If you will bear in mind that the
sixth ray works through and controls the solar plexus (being closely related
to the astral plane, the sixth level of awareness) and that the seventh
ray controls the sacral centre, you will see why there is so much emotion,
so much idealism and so much desire mixed up in connection with the world
conflict and why also — apart from the storms in the political arena and
the religious field — that sex and its various problems has reached a point
of interest in the human consciousness where a solution of these difficulties,
a fresh understanding of the [Page 34] underlying implications and a frank
dealing with the situation is inevitable and immediate.
Four problems will be solved in the next two centuries:
1. The problem of territorial possessions which is the
group correspondence within the family of nations to the materiality of
the individual.
2. The problem of sex which will involve a truer understanding
of the law of attraction.
3. The problem of death, which is in reality the problem
of the relation between the subjective and the objective, between the tangible
and the intangible, and between life and form. This problem will be solved
in the realm of psychology by scientific recognition of the true nature
of the individual or soul and of the persona.
4. The problem of the Jews which is symbolically the problem
of humanity as a whole. It is today for the first time definitely a humanitarian
problem and one which is closely tied up with the fourth kingdom in nature
because that kingdom is the meeting-place of the three divine aspects.
The Jew, with his emphasis upon his position as one of the "chosen
people," has stood symbolically throughout the centuries as the representative
of the wandering, incarnating soul, but the Jewish people have never recognised
the symbolic mission with which their race was entrusted, and they have
taken to themselves the glory and the honour of the Lord's elect. The Jew
made this mistake and, as an Oriental race, the Jews have failed to hold
before the Orient the divine nature of mankind as a whole, for all are equally
divine and all are the Lord's elect. Calvin and all who followed his lead
made the same mistake and instead of holding before the people of the Occident
the realisation that those [Page 35] who recognised their essential divinity
did so symbolically on behalf of all the developing, incarnating sons of
God, they regarded themselves as the Chosen People and all who did not think
as they did are regarded as lost. When the Jew and the narrow-minded religious
devotees recognise their identity with all other people and express this
identity through right relationship, we shall see a very different world.
The world problem is essentially a religious problem and behind all strife
in every department of world thought today is to be found the religious
element.
When the nature of the present struggle is better understood
and its subjective causes are considered instead of the superficial objective
reasons, then real progress will be made in the process of releasing humanity
from the thraldom and the narrowness of the present civilisation and from
the influence of the forces and energies which are responsible for the situation.
These will be understood, correctly handled and rightly directed towards
constructive and desirable ends. In the realm of this conflict, the great
and fundamental law that "energy follows thought" always holds
good, and one of the conditions which is inducing the present stress and
strain is due to the fact that so many millions of people are beginning
to think. This means that the ancient simplicity which has held good up
to five hundred years ago is no longer controlling and the situation is
much more complex. In ancient days the forces were largely controlled by
the Lords of Materiality (those whom the ignorant and the prejudiced esotericist
call "the black forces"); the forces of spirituality plus the
thought of a handful of advanced men in the different nations were not so
potent as they are today. The situation was then relatively simple. It
was part of the [Page 36] evolutionary plan that matter and substance should
temporarily control and that spirit should learn to "mount on the shoulders
of matter" as the Ancient Wisdom puts it. Now, however, owing to the
widespread education of the masses and the many means of worldwide propaganda,
these masses are themselves either thinking independently or are thinking
as directed by the powerful minds everywhere to be found and which are seeking
to control world events. Hence the increasing difficulty of the problem
and one that is equally difficult for the Lords of the Left
Hand Way as it is for the Great White Lodge. This is a point which you
should consider and discover the implications.
Humanity itself is rapidly arriving at the point where
its united will will be the determining factor in world affairs and this
will be due to the unfoldment of the mind through the success of the evolutionary
process. It is right here that many experiments will be made (and are being
made today) and many mistakes must inevitably take place. The major requirement
therefore at this time is the rapid educating of the people in the Plan
and in the nature of the forces which are controlling evolution and their
directing agencies. The fact of the Hierarchy must be announced in no uncertain
terms, thereby arousing public interest, public investigation and public
recognition. In the process of so doing much will be learnt of the balancing
group of initiates and adepts who work entirely with the material side of
life and in whom (for this major cycle) the love aspect of the soul remains
totally undeveloped, whereas the mind nature is potently expressing itself.
If you will study what I have earlier given anent certain of the higher
and lower expressions of the rays you will see how these two fields of endeavour
— that of the Hierarchy, animated by love and that of the opposite pole,
the Black Lodge, working entirely [Page 37] through mind and substance —
are engaged and their close relationship will emerge. You will realise
then that the margin of difference is very slight and is to be found solely
in intention, in the underlying purpose and the concrete objectives which
this group of material workers have set themselves. The major instrument
of the Black Lodge is the organising power of the mind and not the coherent
influence of love, as is the case with the Masters of the Wisdom. Yet in
the natural process of form evolution, these workers on the darker side
of life have their useful function. Because they are working predominantly
through the mental principle, we find the susceptibility of the untrained
masses to this mental imposition and the facility with which they can be
regimented and standardised. They have no power to think with clarity for
themselves and their minds are consequently plastic and receptive to the
powerful forces directed by the two contributing groups — the spiritual
workers of the planet and the material workers. Because the bulk of human
beings are still materially focussed, the forces which work on the side
of matter find a line of least resistance which is not available to the
Masters of the Great White Lodge. This danger is, however, lessening decade
by decade.
Let me illustrate these facts for you by means of the
two rays which are our immediate consideration. Both of them — as is ever
the law — express themselves through a higher and lower form or forms.
One of the higher expressions of the out-going sixth ray is to be found
in Christianity, the spirit and principles of which were embodied for us
in the life of the Master Jesus, Who was, in His turn, inspired and over-shadowed
and used by His great Ideal, the Christ. In the word "idealism"
you have the keynote of this ray — idealism taking form, providing a living
example and indicating to the race of men their own divine potentialities.
[Page 38] In the appearance of the Christ, the divine ideal for the race,
as a whole, was presented for the first time. Other and earlier Sons of
God presented diverse divine qualities and attributes, but in three of them
a certain perfection of presentation was achieved which (as far as this
present world period is concerned) can never be surpassed.
These three are: Hercules, the perfect disciple but not
yet the perfected Son of God; the Buddha, the perfect initiate, having reached
illumination but not yet having developed to perfection all the attributes
of divinity; the Christ, the absolutely perfect expression of divinity for
this cycle and, therefore, the Teacher alike of angels and of men. That
ahead of the race may lie a still higher perfection than that attained by
any of these Exponents of divinity is inexpressibly true, for we know not
yet what divinity really means; in these three, however, we have three instances
of a perfection which lies far ahead for the majority of the sons of men.
In all of Them, the sixth and the second rays were controlling
factors, with the first ray reaching full expression. In Them, idealism,
love-wisdom and indomitable will stood forth in all their divine power.
It might be of interest to you to know just what rays controlled these Sons
of God:
Hercules, the Sun-God, had a first ray soul, a second
ray personality and a sixth ray astral body. These potencies and energies
sufficed to carry Him through all the trials and the labours of the disciple.
The Buddha had a second ray soul, a first ray personality
and a sixth ray mind — a very rare phenomenon.
The Christ had a second ray soul, a sixth ray personality
(which accounted for His close relationship with the Master Jesus), plus
a first ray mind. [Page 39] These three all embodied the essences of the
spiritual life and all of Them were enabled to set Their seal upon history
and upon the hearts of men, largely through the potency of Their sixth ray
expression. All of Them embodied also the new spiritual impulse which Their
day and age required and all of Them for centuries — by the strength of
Their living love and power — brought the vision and the aspiration of humanity
back to those spiritual essentials whereby men must live. All of Them were
part of the directing group of Lives Who are working out the plans of God,
founded upon the love of God. The Buddha and the Christ are still closely
connected with, and working in cooperation with, the Hierarchy. Hercules
has gone over into the Shamballa centre, but still works in a basic association
with the Buddha Who is one of the Forces linking Shamballa and the Hierarchy.
Pure religion, undefiled and spiritually focussed, is
the higher expression of the sixth ray (working as is ever the case under
the influence and potency of the second ray) and for us Christianity in
its earlier days was the great and inspiring symbol.
In the same connection, among the lower aspects of the
sixth ray are to be found all forms of dogmatic, authoritative religion
as expressed by the organised and orthodox churches. All formulated theologies
are the lower expression of the higher spiritual truths because they embody
the mind reactions of the religious man, his confidence in his own personal
mind deductions and the surety that he is obviously right. They do not
embody the spiritual values as they truly exist. Consequently the dreadful
nature of the lower expressions of the sixth ray and the control by the
forces of separativeness (which are ever the outstanding characteristic
of the lower sixth ray activity) can be seen [Page 40] nowhere more potently
than in religious and Church history with its hatreds and bigotry, its pomp
and luxurious appeal to the outer ear and eye, and its separativeness from
all other forms of faith as well as its internal dissensions, its protesting
groups and its cliques and cabals. The Church has wandered far from the
simplicity which is in Christ. Theologians have lost (if they ever possessed
it) the "mind that is in Christ" and the outstanding need of the
Church today is to relinquish theology, to let go all doctrine and dogma
and to turn upon the world the light that is in Christ, and thus demonstrate
the fact of Christ's eternal livingness, and the beauty and the love which
it can reflect from its contact with Him, the founder of Christianity but
not of Churchianity.
I generalise. There are those in the Church today who
do express all that I have stated and who are reflections in the truest
sense of the living Christ. They relegate theology and authority to their
rightful place and regard the discussions of theologians as simply expressions
of perhaps needed mental gymnastics and as incentives to thought, but they
do not regard them as conditioning factors, determining man's salvation
or not. They know that man's salvation is determined by the processes of
evolution and is not a question of ultimate achievement but simply one of
time; they know that the life within a man will bring him ultimately to
his goal and that the experiences and the type of incarnation will inevitably
lead him to "his desired haven." His salvation is not determined
by his acceptance of some dogma, formulated by men who have lost their sense
of proportion (and consequently their sense of humor) and who deem themselves
capable of interpreting the mind of God for their fellowmen.
It should be here remembered that there are divine attributes
[Page 41] and ray characteristics which have hitherto never been revealed
to the minds of men or sensed by them in their highest moments of inspiration;
this is due to the lack of sensitivity of even the most advanced of the
sons of men. Their apparatus remains inadequately developed and so unable
to respond to these higher divine qualities. Even the Christ Himself and
other Members of the Great White Lodge are preparing Themselves to register
these divine attributes and consciously to merge Themselves in a still higher
process or scale of evolution; it will be obvious to you that the little
conclusions of the little minds are some of the most dangerous factors today
in world affairs.
It will also be apparent to you how the lower and the
higher expressions of a ray are closely related to each other and how easily
the higher loses its hold and the lower comes into manifestation — something
that evolution itself must eventually adjust.
It is harder to differentiate between the higher and the
lower expressions of the seventh Ray of Ceremonial Order, for this ray is
only in the process of manifestation and we know not as yet what its major
expressions will be, either higher or lower. Human reactions have their
place and — as I have earlier pointed out — even the Masters Themselves
do not and cannot foretell what the results of the impacts of force may
be nor what may eventuate as a result, though They can frequently determine
the probable happenings. If I say to you that the higher expression of
the seventh ray is white magic, do you really understand what I mean? I
question it. Have you any true idea of what is intended by these two words?
I doubt it. White magic is realistically the power of the trained worker
and executive to bring together into a constructive synthesis the "within
and the without" so that that which is below may be recognisably [Page
42] patterned upon that which is above. It is the supreme task of bringing
together in accordance with the immediate intent and plan and for the benefit
of the evolving life in any particular world cycle:
1. Spirit and matter.
2. Life and form.
3. The ego and the personality.
4. The soul and its outer expression.
5. The higher worlds of atma-buddhi-manas and the lower
reflection of mind — emotion and the physical nature.
6. The head and the heart, through the sublimation of
the sacral and the solar plexus energies.
7. The etheric-astral planes and the dense physical plane.
8. The intangible subjective levels of existence and the
outer tangible worlds.
Such is the task of the white magician and as evolution
proceeds and becomes more complicated and complex it will nevertheless be
more rapid and more accurately defined in the mind of the magician. All,
therefore, that is conducive to human sensitivity and to increased awareness
is the work of the white magician; all that tends to produce better forms
through which the living principle of deity can express itself is the work
of the white magician; all that serves to thin or tear away the veil between
the worlds wherein those who have no physical bodies live and move and work
and the worlds of outer form is the work of the white magician. Of all
this type of work there is always much, but never more so than at this time
owing to the coming into manifestation of this ray of the magician (black
and white), the seventh ray. Hence the rapid growth of the sense of omnipresence
and the recognition of the non-existence of time in relation [Page 43] to
reality. This has taken place through the discovery and use of the radio
and of the many means of communication and through the steady growth of
telepathic interplay; hence also the spread of education, enlarging man's
horizon and opening up to him new worlds for investigation and adventure;
hence also the breaking down of the old and limiting forms through the invoked
force of the first ray, which has hitherto always worked through the medium
of the seventh ray, because the kingdoms in nature cannot yet stand pure
first ray energy; hence also the keen interest in the life after death and
the appearance of all the many groups which are today investigating the
nature of survival and the probability of immortality; hence again the appearance
of the modern spiritualistic movement. This is a direct effect of the coming
into manifestation of the seventh ray. Spiritualism was the religion of
old Atlantis and the seventh ray dominated that ancient civilisation for
a very long period of time, particularly during the first half of its existence,
just as the fifth ray is of such dominant potency in our Aryan age and race.
It is through the correct development of spiritualism
along psychological lines and the withdrawal of its emphasis upon phenomena
(which is its outstanding characteristic and emphasis today) that the true
nature of death and of the hereafter will be revealed. But it is in connection
with spiritualism that I can best illustrate the lower expression of the
incoming seventh ray influences. The work of the seventh ray is, as you
know, the relating of life and of form, but when the emphasis is laid upon
the form aspect then the wrong procedure eventuates and the work of the
black magician can begin, and his objectives come unduly into play. This
is what has happened in the spiritualistic movement; its investigators are
occupied with the form side of life and [Page 44] its adherents with the
satisfaction of their emotional desires (again related to the form side)
so that the true import of the movement is in danger of being lost.
Spiritualism, in its lowest and material aspect, is a
low grade expression of the seventh ray and is — for the masses — definitely
a line of least resistance, and, therefore, of no great spiritual importance
to their evolutionary development. The masses of the people are today Atlantean
in their consciousness and are only slowly emerging into the Aryan point
of view. This must change and the mind activity be rapidly enhanced or
else true spiritualism will be unable to express itself and — through the
present spiritualistic movement — there can be let loose upon the world
forces and entities of a most undesirable character. The negativity of
the majority of those who are interested in spiritualism and the entire
negativity of the bulk of the mediums throws the door wide open to very
definite dangers. Fortunately, there is a movement within spiritualistic
circles to right this obvious danger and to shift the present emphasis upon
phenomena into the world of true values and right understanding. The subject
is too vast a one for me to deal with here, except in illustration of the
points which I am endeavouring to make, but one hint I will give. If the
societies and organisations, connected with the spiritualistic movement
and the psychical research groups, would seek for and find the natural sensitives
(and not the trance mediums) and those who are naturally clair-audient and
clair-voyant and would study their disclosures, their words, their reactions
and their modes of working they would discover much about some of the natural
and normal powers of man — powers which have been in abeyance during the
period wherein mind development has been the objective and which humanity
shares with two great groups of lives — the Members [Page 45] of the Hierarchy
and the animal kingdom. Ponder on this. If, therefore, these societies
would concentrate on the intelligent and mental psychics and rule out all
trance conditions it would not be long before revelation would come. The
trance condition is undesirable, separates the medium from his soul and
definitely relegates him to the realm of the negative, of the uncontrolled
and of material forces. This development, however, the forces of materiality
will prevent if possible because the moment there is positive intelligent
understanding of the world on the other side of the veil, there is no fear
of death and then the major aspect of their power and their hold on humanity
will disappear.
If you have followed intelligently what I have said, two
points will emerge with clarity in your minds in relation to the initial
and immediate activity of these two rays — the sixth and the seventh. First,
that entire groups of people are increasingly susceptible to their influence
and this inevitably leads to these groups (responsive to either the sixth
or the seventh ray forces) being in opposition to and antagonistic to each
other. The problem is that, owing to the developed sensitivity of the race,
this antagonism is now upon a world-wide scale. Hence much of the present
conflict of ideas, and the opposing ideologies, and hence also the feud
between the old inherited traditions and the ancient forms of civilisation,
of government, of religion on the one hand and of the newer emerging ideas
on the other. These new concepts should usher in the New Age and will eventually
revolutionise our modern life and standards. They will relegate the old
ideas to the same position as the ideas which governed the race one thousand
years ago have today assumed in our consciousness.
Second: The situation is still further complicated by
[Page 46] the fact that both these rays influence and express themselves
(as is ever the case) in a dual manner and have always a lower and a higher
form of manifestation, which is a correspondence in this connection to the
personality, and the egoic expression of every human being. In the case
of the out-going ray, the higher form (which is ever the first to manifest
in germ) is rapidly disappearing or is being absorbed into the newer idealism,
thus contributing all that is best to the new presentation of truth so that
the emerging culture will be properly rooted in the old. The lower forms
are, however, tenacious and dominant and because of this they definitely
constitute today the major problem of the Hierarchy, so much so that they
require the calling in of the first ray (or the Shamballa force) in order
to effect their destruction. Bear this in mind as you study the world situation.
The lower forms of the seventh ray expression are still in an embryonic
stage. This you can see clearly if you consider the one to which I choose
to refer — the spiritualistic movement — which began to take shape only
during the last century and has achieved its curiously phenomenal growth
only because it started upon the American continent. The United States of America was the centre of old
Atlantis and hence inherited a psychic and ancient religious form which
was existent and potently alive in that part of the world for many centuries.
In spite of these facts, the higher and more living energy
of the seventh ray is the most active at this time and its resultant idealism
and consequent New Age concepts are playing upon the sensitive minds of
the race and preparing humanity for a great and much needed change. The
work of the Ray of Ceremonial Order is to "ground" or make physically
visible the results of bringing spirit and matter [Page 47] together. Its
function is to clothe spirit with matter, producing form.
I would like somewhat to change your work in connection
with your full moon contact. Two days before the time of the full moon,
I will ask you to begin to cultivate that inner attitude of poised re-collectedness
which will lay the right foundation for further work and which will help
to shift the focus of the attention from the objective to the subjective
work. It is an attitude more than an activity. Ponder on this phrase. It
is a state of consciousness which can be carried forward, no matter what
may be the outer activity or interests, and it involves no outer silence,
or cessation of normal behaviour. It is part of the training which has for
its goal the living (by the disciple) of a dual life—a life of active participation
in world affairs and a life of intense mental and spiritual preoccupation.
Make a most definite effort during these two days to step
up your consciousness a little higher at each of the three spiritual points
in each day: at the early morning meditation, at the noonday recollection,
and at the sunset hour of contact. This means—if you follow instructions
correctly—that you subject your subtle bodies to six equal points of spiritual
stimulation and that you do it consciously. Then at some hour in the day
of the full moon, but prior to the exact hour if that hour is not possible,
follow the procedure outlined below:
1. Centre the consciousness in the head.
2. Imagine yourself as retreating even more consciously
within towards that point of contact where personality-soul and the teacher
in the world of souls can meet and become as one.
3. Then hold yourself as poised and steady as possible,
preserving that detached poise as fully as may be during the following process
which is carried forward silently by the creative activity of the imagination.
a. Imagine or visualise yourself as standing before a
golden or ivory door.
[Page 27]
b. See that door slowly open, revealing a long low room
with three windows—one looking east, one looking west and one looking north.
Seated before the eastern window on a low carved chair (but looking towards
you, and therefore sitting with his back to the window) you may visualise
your Tibetan brother, in deep meditation, seeking to contact you and all
for whom he is, as a teacher, responsible.
c. Then picture yourself as advancing slowly up the long
room (which is his study and work room) and then standing before him. See
also your group brothers standing with you. Then each of you can constitute
himself, in imagination, as spokesman for his group and offer the group
in service and deep consecration to the service of the Plan.
d. When you have accomplished this, imagine that you see
me rising from my chair. Then as a group we face the East and say together
the Great Invocation. Endeavour consciously to follow my lead as we say
the words, and listen with care, using the imagination. This will involve
intense concentration.
Do this until the time of the full moon of May, for it
is a preparatory exercise in order to train you all in esoteric participation.
Make a careful analysis each month of your success or
failure to carry out this discipline, and note with exactitude all reactions,
results and phenomena. Success will depend upon your ability to achieve
a strong mental reorientation and focus, to keep detached from brain activity,
and yet at the same time to preserve the waking brain attentiveness. The
resultant effects, reactions, and the registering of any realisation must
be noted for the two days succeeding the time of the full moon, for the
seeping through of information and knowledge is often a slow process, owing
to the inadequate alignment of the bodies. The May full moon will inaugurate
the first real united effort to synthesise subjectively [Page 28] the present
existing groups. This synthesis and corporate effort will become an annual
endeavour as time goes on, and will take place regularly each Wesak Festival.
The first time, my brothers, that I outlined for you the
work I sought to have you do at the time of the full moon, I undertook to
work with you along these lines for a preliminary period of three years,
each year expanding the work somewhat until the full moon of May of the
third year. This period of time is now nearly completed, and today I ask
you two questions:
1. What has this work meant to you?
2. Have you grasped the importance of the work to be done?
There has been a purpose behind all this effort which
I have made, and an experiment of importance has been carried forward in
preparation for the coming New Age activity.
In some of the earlier instructions* I indicated that
the coming world religion would be based upon a new Science of Approach
and that this would, in time, supersede the present world religious formulas
and ceremonials. Hence the importance of the efforts now being made by disciples
in these new seed groups. They are in reality occupied with the [Page 50]
process of anchoring upon earth a new religious idea or concept, a seed
thought or germ of a new activity which (at some later date) will bear fruit
and inaugurate a new method of drawing nearer to God.
It might be of value to all disciples if I here analysed
the three years' work intended to be done during the full moon periods as
outlined to you by me. Each year saw an addition to or expansion of the
work and an enlargement of the concept. I seek now to make it all clearer
to you, thus laying the foundation for the work to be done during the coming
years, if you desire to continue with the work. Let us get these instructions
into tabular form for the sake of clarity.
I
1. The first thing which I emphasised to you was that
this was a group endeavour, and that its success depended upon the group
fusion, the group love and the group understanding. The success of the desired
inner contact was based upon a realised group relation. It was intended
to be an endeavour which would be the outgrowth of a love, stabilised in
and accentuated by all the group members. Hence my constant reiteration
of the need of love between the group members. Towards the establishing
of this loving relationship, I have been working for years with all of you.
You may perhaps have believed that I did so in order that your group work
in relation to your individual endeavour might be successful. That was not
the major intent. The forming of units for special service in organising
the life forces, processes and forms for the new technique of Approach to
God or to the Hierarchy (which is the intermediary between spiritual reality
and human life) was and is the major objective. Upon this statement I would
ask you to ponder with renewed interest. Your interpretations are so often
motivated by an unrealised spiritual selfishness and an undue emphasis upon
your specific group importance. The groups are simply the field for hierarchical
expression, and we are not yet convinced that the expenditure of force on
our part is warranted by the results achieved. The group members have been
primarily [Page 51] occupied with the registering of the more phenomenal
results and with what they, as individuals, sensed, and have neglected to
pay due attention to the inner group relation which is the only thing of
major importance. It is the only thing which will release the stored up
energy on the subjective side.
2. The second factor of importance is deep recognition
of the subjective reality of the spiritual world. I, in myself, as you thought
of me, am only the symbol of that world, as are other Masters, focussed—as
channels of contact and service—in the Hierarchy. You, as a group, unitedly
and together, were asked to approach me and to contact me just as, in the
coming New Age, the churches of the future will (at the full moon period)
make a definite approach to the Hierarchy in order to
a. Intensify their spiritual life by the bringing in of
spiritual force, with deliberation and consciously.
b. Achieve spiritual illumination through contact with
the powerhouse of light, the Hierarchy.
c. Store up strength for increased dynamic activity for
an ensuing period of service.
d. Bring about a fusion between the objective and subjective
life of humanity.
3. This leads to a Technique of Approach, based upon the
realisation of the above objectives, to an effort to see me (as I symbolise
for you the spiritual vision), and to the establishing of a pathway of Approach,
symbolised in the ritual I gave you as a golden band of light. This you
were to visualise as extending between yourselves, as a group, to your Tibetan
brother. This pathway of Approach is the Path which it is planned should
constitute a more familiar symbol than has hitherto been the case in the
religious life of the race.
4. This pathway of light leads to the heart of a dark
blue disk at the very centre of which you were told I could be contacted.
Those of you who are in any way adept at meditation work know well that
the light in the head—when seen and [Page 52] recognised—passes usually
through three stages of intensification:
a. It is, first of all, a diffused light, surrounding
the head, discovered later within the head and producing an inner radiance,
which is the rudimentary halo.
b. This diffused light then consolidates and becomes an
inner radiant sun.
c. Finally, at the centre of that sun, a point of dark
blue, or a small indigo disk, appears. This is, in reality, the exit in
the head through which the soul passes out of the world of phenomenal existence,
and it is the symbol of the path or the door into the kingdom of God. This
is the symbolical interpretation of the phenomena.
As the group approaches nearer and nearer to reality,
the pathway or the band of light shortens (symbolically) and in time, when
you are expert in this work and when your spiritual nature is truly intensified,
you will enter almost immediately into, or through, the disk of blue and
become aware of the higher consciousness, or divinity.
5. Three things are, at this stage, essential to success:
a. The mind must be "held steady in the light,"
and for this receptive experience all the previous work in meditation has
been essential. Its positive, attentive activity has been an essential factor
in producing the desired mind control.
b. The creative imagination, involving as it does the
power to visualise, has also to be developed and consciously used in obedience
to instruction in the early stages. This obedience has to be rendered voluntarily,
even though blindly, before the true objectives can be grasped.
c. Results must be expected and an inner sensitivity developed
which will eventually obviate surprise and lead to a conscious recognition
of achievement. This sensitivity may differ according to ray and [Page 53]
type, but the general indications will be in the field of similarity and
of group value.
All this was the objective of the work I outlined. Much
remained to be done, and each year I have expanded the concept and laid
the foundation for future work to be carried forward with steadfastness
over a long period of time. A beginning has been made.
II
In the second stage of the work outlined by me when you
had worked for a year at this full moon activity, I began to widen the teaching
and I added to the earlier technique. In the religion of the future, three
years will always be given to training the youth of the period (from the
ages of fifteen to eighteen) in a preparatory technique of Approach.
The stages in the second year's activity were as follows:
1. The recognition by the group members of the necessity
for a closer group relation within the circle of the group and with me.
This is symbolic of the recognition of the world need of love, as exemplified
by an attitude of goodwill and understanding, and a closer approach by humanity
to the Hierarchy. In the past, the religious emphasis upon the esoteric
side of instruction has been the approach of the individual man to the God
within, to his own higher self, the soul, the first Master. In the future,
the emphasis will be upon the united approach of humanity (as represented
by an increasing number of groups of aspirants and disciples) to the Hierarchy.
According to the status of the groups and their awareness and condition
of illumination, so will be the grade of hierarchical Worker with Whom they
will be in touch.
2. The recognition that in this work, true occult obedience
or the intelligent response to the urge of the group soul and to the "pull"
of the Hierarchy, is the next major requirement. This will produce the right
carrying out of the required assigned technique and a complete refraining
from [Page 54] any interest in phenomenal results or an analysis (at this
stage) of any reactions experienced. Individual analysis hinders group recognition
and true realisation. This is a point to be considered and remembered.
3. The next step which I indicated to you was that in
which I pointed out that these Full Moon Approaches required one entire
week of inner activity, divided as follows:
a. The three days prior to the full moon were to be dedicated
to preparation. This preparation involved confidence, which swept the brain
(the focus of the physical plane expression) into the right condition; aspiration,
which held the astral body in the right attitude; and dedication, which
was the intelligent process, motivated by free will and involving mental
concentration, which enabled the confident aspirant to "hold the mind
steady in the light."
b. Then, there were the twelve hours on the day of the
full moon, wherein a consciously achieved contact (dependent upon the success
of the previous three days' work by the group) became a definitely proven
possibility. By training you in these early stages in the attempt to contact
me, I was laying the ground for two eventualities: your future contact with
your Master, prior to initiation, and a contact with the Hierarchy. This
was intended to be symbolic of humanity's future contact.
c. The three days succeeding the full moon period then
were considered. In these days, it was pointed out, the personality could
become conscious of the success of the previous work done and the subsequent
contact. That realisation would be facilitated by an inner attitude of registration
(by the mind) of that which the soul has sought to impress upon it at the
moment of attempted or achieved contact; by the sense of expectancy which
the emotional nature would be trained to express and experience; and by
the acknowledged attitude of the physical brain as it held [Page 55] to
the belief of true success, when the requirements had been duly met.
It will be apparent to you, if you have followed the above
in the right spirit, that from the very start I have been working towards
objectives unrealised by you. I am trusting that the importance of this
full moon work will become increasingly clear to you and make you more eager
to work as requested by me.
III
The third stage, outlined by me during the past year's
work, brought in a far more complicated activity than heretofore. I explained
to you, if you will remember, that at the time of the full moon it was as
if a door was opened between the Sun and Moon, making certain events of
a spiritual nature possible. The band of golden light, extending between
the Sun and the Moon, completely "irradiated the lunar surface"
(to use the ancient formula) and made possible certain revelations. To students
such as you, the symbolism should be apparent and can be seen as inviting
a dual interpretation:
1. It concerns the relation of the Solar Angel to the
lunar forces, of the Sun and the Moon and their work in synthesis.
2. It concerns the relation of the Hierarchy to humanity
and consequently, of the subjective world to the objective worlds, of the
realm of causes to the realm of effects. Ponder on this.
Individual approach must be merged into group approach,
and the approach of groups will some day be superseded by the organised
approach of humanity as a whole. This third stage can (like the two previous
ones) be divided into the following activities, which require to be mentally
grasped by the group:
1. That certain realisations become possible. These are
two in number:
[Page 56]
a. Realisation one: That entrance upon the Path of Approach
is possible for individuals, for groups, and for humanity as a whole, as
a unit.
b. Realisation two: That energies, not usually or normally
contacted, can be touched, grasped and utilised at the time of these Approaches,
provided that they are contacted in group formation. Thus the individual,
the group and humanity are enriched and vitalised.
2. That the spiritual Hierarchy can, at these times, be
approached, verified and known, thus leading to active conscious cooperation
with the Plan which the Hierarchy serves. It must be remembered that, on
the side of the Hierarchy, a Technique of Approach to humanity will also
be employed, and thus we have an essential dual activity. The first stage
of this dual activity took place millions of years ago at the time of Individualisation,
and produced the emergence of the fourth kingdom in nature, the human family.
The second stage is being rapidly worked out today, and will produce the
emergence of Initiation. The intermediate stage is that of Integration.
We have therefore the germ of a new scientific religion, called (as I have
earlier pointed out) the Science of Approach. It is one in which humanity
can now consciously share, for their stage in evolution warrants it. Men
can today grasp the objective, share in the united aspiration, and carry
out the needed requirements.
3. The time to be given, at this stage of the training,
to the Full Moon Approach was shortened, but tremendously intensified, and
the objective was to produce a far more dynamic activity. A state of tension
had to be achieved, which would eventually release dynamic energy from—if
possible—levels higher than that of the soul. Hence the need for group integration
and work. This period was divided as follows:
a. There were two days of intensive preparation. This
involved the achieving of a right attitude of a dual kind: The group member
fused his outer activity and [Page 57] his inner orientation into one blended
concentrated spiritual activity. He proceeded with his usual avocations,
but at no time—whilst so occupied—was he to lose sight of the inner orientation
and specific recollection. All the time he was outwardly busy, he was simultaneously
occupied with a constant realisation of a retreat inward, a heightening
of his vibration, and a raising of his consciousness.
b. On the day of the full moon, you were asked to go through
a symbolic performance in the realm of the creative imagination, and through
the medium of its agent, visualisation. This performance involved the following
steps:
1. The recognition that in the blue disk, at the end of
the golden pathway, was an ivory door which was slowly opening into a room
with three windows.
2. The recognition that the group, as a unit, was advancing
into that room and there, united in an act of solemn dedication, stands
ready for revelation.
3. The recognition, by the group, of me, your teacher
and Tibetan brother, and the saying by all of us together of the Great Invocation.
This produces fusion and releases something from "that which lies above
to that which lies below," speaking in the words of symbolism.
It will be obvious to you that in this symbolic ritual
there is typified, first of all the Path, the goal, the kingdom of God, distinguished by spiritual mind, spiritual love and spiritual
will (the three windows, atma-buddhi-manas, or the three aspects of the
soul). Secondly, the focussing of the consciousness in that of the soul,
followed by a group dedication; and, finally, that humanity (symbolised
by the group) and the Hierarchy (symbolised by me) and the subsequent voicing
by me of certain Words of Power were all intended to produce the fusion
of the objective and subjective worlds, and the consequent emergence of
the fifth kingdom in nature. Thus the skeleton structure of the new religious
ceremonial [Page 58] can be dimly seen and inadequately sensed. This stage
is followed by:
4. Two days of intensive recollection by the group in
their brain consciousness. This involves:
a. The development of the power to recall the Words of
Power which had been spoken by me, and later, the listening for a Word of
Power. This recognition of the Words will be one of the major objectives
of the new world religion, and hence our effort (not particularly successful
hitherto) to do something symbolically analogous in our group activity.
b. A subsequent definite intensification of the life processes,
and a spiritual demonstration upon the physical plane as a result.
The above elucidation should give you a new and more intelligent
grasp of the symbolic significances of the work we are now attempting.
I am going to ask you to go over the whole process in
these first three major stages, studying with care my interpretation.
1. During the months of January and February, please study
what I have said, reading and rereading it until it is clear and fixed in
your minds.
2. During March take the first stage and work faithfully
at it.
3. During April take the second stage.
4. During May, take the third stage. Then for the remainder
of the time, until October, work at this third stage. In October, if you
have faithfully fulfilled requirement, I will outline the work next to be
done. May I ask for your real interest, service and cooperation?
Your personal instructions I have placed at the end to
indicate to you its relative importance and so impress upon you the necessity
for your individual teaching taking a secondary [Page 59] place; it is of
less importance than the group development and the service of humanity.
You will all awaken some day to the realisation that the Science of Service
is of greater importance than the Science of Meditation, because it is the
effort and the strenuous activity of the serving disciple which evokes the
soul powers, makes meditation an essential requirement, and is the mode—ahead
of all others—which invokes the Spiritual Triad, brings about the intensification
of the spiritual life, forces the building of the antahkarana, and leads
in a graded series of renunciations to the Great Renunciation, which sets
the disciple free for all eternity.
I am giving you here certain needed hints and much upon
which to ponder. I give you of my time and of my love, of my interest and
my understanding. Let us together serve.
January 1946
TO MY GROUP OF AFFILIATED DISCIPLES:
Since I last communicated with you the outer aspects of
the world war, the carnage and the slaughter are over, except in a few sporadic
instances. The struggle now being waged is to reach a point of stabilisation
in human thinking and understanding from which a true and reliable peace
can emerge. On the emotional plane, there is as yet no peace. On the mental
plane, a great and deep-seated cleavage is going on and the occult significance
of certain words, enunciated by the Christ when in Palestine, is being worked out. He gave them as
the keynote for the particular subjective happening which is taking place
at this time. He said: "He that is not with Me is against Me."
This refers to the after-effects of the conflict between the Forces of Light
and the Forces of Evil. Great decisions have to be made all over the world,
as to whether humanity moves forward into a New Age of cooperation and of
right human relations or whether the materialistic groups will reassert
their control and succeed in winning the day. This great cleavage is now
in process of settlement.
On the other hand, a deeply spiritual division is also
taking place. In a peculiar sense, and speaking largely symbolically, [Page
60] the first phase of the Great Judgment is asserting itself. The sheep
and the goats are forming into two distinct groups. The judgment being given
is not the generally assumed one of assigning penalties or rewards; it is
not the negation of all effort as the result of decisive moves, nor will
it result in the emergence of major dividing lines. Such interpretations
are man-made and are not true interpretations of the parable or word picture
which Christ gave to His disciples nearly two thousand years ago.
The judgment referred to has relation to a mysterious
process which is going on in the thinking (if one dare use such a word for
such a comprehensive process) of the planetary Logos. He is deciding at
this time the mode by which a momentous event or happening within the Hierarchy
shall take shape; He is timing the process of its externalisation; He is
deciding which Ashrams shall be externalised and Who, within those Ashrams,
should and must proceed with the purely inner and subjective work, and Who
should be chosen to work—consciously and openly—in the outer world of men,
thus duplicating in Their numbers what Christ experienced when He "descended
into Hell." Many things have to be considered; the objectives in view
of the Masters concerned, the rays in manifestation, and many astrological
relationships.
In this deciding judgment Sanat Kumara is being aided
by certain Members of the Great Council at Shamballa, by the Christ and
by the seven Masters Who are responsible for the seven groups of Ashrams.
He is also reaching certain conclusions as to the groups of disciples who
have hitherto been under training during the final stages of the Path of
Discipleship. This decision has to take under advisement the rapidity with
which the entrance of men and women into the Ashrams can take place; it
is also dependent upon the members of the Ashram moving forward according
to their degree, and upon the power of the Ashrams to absorb and assimilate
the much larger numbers, without upsetting ashramic stability. He has also
to consider the ability of the neophyte under training to take and hold
the far greater tension necessarily incident to true ashramic life in the
New Age.
[Page 61]
These points are all being most carefully considered,
because a major expansion of the Hierarchy as a whole, and the consequent
reaction upon humanity, again as a whole, is not a thing lightly to be undertaken.
Expansion—if it is to be safely undertaken—must proceed hand in hand with
consolidation. The expansion now contemplated in the highest quarters will
greatly alter the potency of the relation of the Hierarchy to Humanity,
and therefore of the second divine aspect to the third. Can Humanity take
this increased potency correctly and safely? Will the aspirants of the world—if
given opportunity to pass off the Probationary Path on to the Path of Discipleship—be
stable enough to stand steady under the impact of hitherto undiscerned spiritual
energy? Can the Masters, under the pressure of Their enormous task of world
reconstruction, find the needed time to increase Their training of Their
disciples? For They are still governed by the time equation where Their
disciples are concerned. Can the senior members in any Ashram relieve to
some extent the pressures upon the Masters as well as upon the incoming
and junior, and therefore inexperienced, disciples? If, however, the relation
between the Hierarchy and Humanity is thus strengthened and there is freer
access in both directions, there will clearly emerge the invocational pull
or the magnetic potency of these blending centres: the pull will be upon
Shamballa, which is the highest centre of all.
Is the etheric web of the planet sufficiently stable and
balanced so that it can adequately respond to the new and potent forces
which could and will pour through it into objective expression? I would
remind you that the release of atomic energy has had a far more potent effect
in the etheric web than in the dense physical vehicle of the planet. Three
times the atomic bomb was used, and that fact is itself significant. It
was used twice in Japan,
thereby disrupting the etheric web in what you erroneously call the Far
East; it was used once in what is also universally called the Far
West, and each time a great area of disruption was formed which will have
future potent, and at present unsuspected, results.
The formation of the Triangles of Light and of Goodwill[Page
62]—essentially the manipulation of energy into a desired thought pattern—has
a definite relation to this area of disruption. It will in due time be found
that the Japanese people, with their peculiar knowledge of thought power
(used along wrong lines in the war period), will respond more intelligently
to this type of work than many of the Western peoples. An effort should
therefore be made to reach the Japanese along the lines of the Triangle
work.
I would like to point out that the distinction between
the "sheep and the goats" is mainly hierarchical. The term "goats"
is esoterically applied to initiated disciples and to those who have climbed
the mountain of initiation. The term "sheep" is applied to those
who are following blindly the inner urge of their souls and who are groping
their way (in relatively large numbers) toward the Hierarchy. For them still
has to come the great revelation that the "kingdom
of God is within you." Such is the word for them at this stage in
humanity's history. Once they have realised that, they are already being
absorbed into the Hierarchy. Life will now for them simplify. For the "goats"
must come the impelling call from the highest aspect of the Spiritual Triad,
"Seek the way of Ascension"—ascension out of even triadal life
into that of pure Being and of monadic existence.
In this Great Judgment all decision lies in the conclusive
thinking of Sanat Kumara. It is His judgment; neither the sheep nor the
goats, nor the great mass of men from among whom they have emerged, can
affect that decision in the slightest degree. Any moment or climax of decision
on the part of the Lord of the World institutes new law and brings into
play new energies. Laws are only the unalterable conditions brought about
by the activity, the orientation and the emanated decisive thoughts of the
One in Whom we live and move and have our being, just as the activities,
the orientation and the thinking of a human being carry the cells and the
atoms of his body along the line of his wishes. Energies are but the rhythm
of His breathing and the results of the systolic and the diastolic action
of His heart. From these energies we cannot escape, but—in a mysterious
and peculiar [Page 63] manner—the planetary Logos directs them or withholds
them to suit the recognised planetary needs of the period.
At this time the "eye of His direction" is turned
towards a needy and waiting world, and particularly towards the large number
of waiting people who hold within themselves the potencies of discipleship.
They are the hope of the world. This outpouring of directed energy means
a great stimulation of all sensitive and responsive aspirants; the result
is not an easy one for them. Everything in them is raised to the surface
of consciousness, and whilst they are faced with a vital and beneficent
opportunity, they are also faced with the problem of absorbing more "punishment"
(is not that the word I want, my brother?) than they would normally take.
Will they break under the impact of self-discovery and the opportunity to
eliminate personality? Or will they rise triumphant from the ashes of their
dead selves into living power and beauty?
Though Sanat Kumara is naturally unaware of the individual
disciple or aspirant, He is not unaware of their massed effect, quality
or status. Contact and relationship are based upon vibratory reaction, and
the potency of the united vibration of the disciples and aspirants of the
world is today—for the first time in human history—strong enough to reach
Shamballa. This is a new and very interesting fact.
The Hierarchy therefore is:
1. In a position of extreme tension.
2. In a condition of quiescent waiting. It awaits:
a. The decision which is on the verge of emanating from
the judgment seat of Sanat Kumara.
b. Notification as to the period and mode of the coming
externalisation.
c. The proposed influx into its ranks of disciples and
aspirants.
d. The reaction, later to be sensed by Them, of the massed
use of the Great Invocation.
e. The clear sounding of the invocative, though inchoate,
[Page 64] cry of the masses of those who are not yet even upon the Probationary
Path.
3. Passing through a process of reorganisation. This involves
the following:
a. Senior disciples in the major Ashrams are now beginning
to form subsidiary Ashrams, as I began to do in the year 1925.
b. Owing to the war and the intensive efforts of the world
disciples, more people along many and varied lines are being reached.
c. The mode, methods and techniques of training (as I
have earlier told you) are being remodelled and rearranged in order to suit
the modern mind and needs.
d. Senior disciples are undergoing a forcing process to
enable them more rapidly to take the initiation immediately ahead of them.
This necessarily brings added strains and risks, sometimes even to the point
of death, but also greater spiritual light and life.
4. At the entrance to the Way of the Higher Evolution,
which is now more easily to be found, owing to the rapid construction of
the antahkarana by enlightened souls functioning upon the physical plane
and working desperately to aid humanity. Their spiritual desperation is
what is needed to provide the required "point of tension" from
whence the antahkarana can be built. There is a basic distinction between
desperation and pessimism. Desperation is related to the time element and
to a correct and discriminative perception of the need. Pessimism is related
more to an unjust appraisement of the quality of humanity.
All these things are at this time characteristic of the
Hierarchy. I would remind you that when you think of the Hierarchy you think
in terms of the Masters (as most people do) or of the higher initiates.
This is not correct. Every accepted disciple is within the periphery of
the Hierarchy and of its influence, and—as I have frequently pointed out—all
have in some past life taken the first initiation. Every disciple has [Page
65] been to Bethlehem and has seen the Star in the East—that star which
shines forth in fuller splendour each time another initiation is taken.
The difference between such disciples as you and the more
advanced initiates is that your basic orientation is different to that of
the Masters. They are oriented to Shamballa; They are relatively unaffected
by affairs and happenings in the three worlds, even though that is the sphere
wherein Their work lies; there is nothing within Them to react to these
phases of planetary livingness. Disciples and all initiates below the third
initiation are oriented to the Hierarchy. Not the Council Chamber at Shamballa
or the Way to the Higher Evolution engrosses their attention, but the life
of the Ashram with which they are affiliated and the Way of Initiation.
This is a useful point to bear in mind. There is much in them which can
and will react to qualities and events within the three worlds, and—from
the angle of the human consciousness—life for them is very difficult because
the dualism of existence is apt to produce violent strain.
The extreme psychical tension affecting the Hierarchy
puts an undue strain upon the emotions and the mental mechanism of the disciple
because he is, as yet, unable to achieve that "quiescent waiting"
which distinguishes the higher initiates. The Will of God is not yet adequately
factual in his consciousness; he is preoccupied with the attempt to make
his personal will synchronise with the spiritual will of the soul—a very
different matter. The reorganisation being planned at this time by the Hierarchy
and by the ashramic groups affects the personal lives of disciples and their
efforts at accepting training; with the proposed changes and with the results
of the outer ashramic work they must fall in line and they must accept the
changing curriculum. Forget not that disciples in this particular period
have to make adjustments which are not easy. They have been taught in terms
of the old tradition, perpetuated and summarised by the Theosophical, Rosicrucian
and other occult groups; they have had, since 1900, to accept and work with
the newer modes of training and the changing forms of teaching applied by
the Masters Who take pupils. This has created temporary [Page 66] difficulties
which will not be present when the newer modes and methods are more generally
established. The problem, therefore, of the modern disciple is peculiarly
hard, and the Masters bear this ever in mind. Also the strain of the world
cataclysm has increased these difficulties, and that strain is far more
wide-reaching than is generally believed. Do you realise wherein the strain
consists, apart from the physical disasters and chaos, with its agony, despair,
anxiety, and its demand for a poised and efficient exterior to be presented
to the world? Do you appreciate the keen ability of the trained disciple
to react to the harrowing conditions of human suffering and to penetrate
the controlled response which has to be given?
There are also other factors of a more subjective nature
to which the disciple is sensitive, and among them are the following:
1. The astral or emotional vortex which humanity has inevitably
set up as a result of registered pain and through which the observing disciple
must move.
2. The glamour induced upon the astral plane as the result
of three intermingling and inflowing streams of energy:
a. The energies set in motion by the uprising cry of humanity
itself, which inevitably shapes and moulds astral substance.
b. The new inflowing spiritual energies which the planetary
Logos is steadily bringing to bear upon human life and upon all forms of
physical existence. These must traverse or cut across the astral realm in
reaching the physical plane.
c. The retreating forces of evil which are endeavouring
to make a last desperate stand upon the astral plane.
These three types of force (when brought into relation
with each other) are producing an unparalleled vortex of energy of which
all disciples are necessarily aware, particularly those (and they are a
large number) who are preparing for the second initiation. All disciples,
working among their fellowmen, [Page 67] are brought into contact with this
astral whirlpool. (I would call the attention of D.E.I. to this fact because
it accounts for his reaction during the past two years and has led him to
relinquish his position in my outer work and to retire into a phase of living
which will provide him with no true scope for his pledged experience and
his years of training; this present phase is in the nature of a cul-de-sac.
Eventually he will have to retrace his steps and admit the reality of the
time lost—lost in the moment of humanity's greatest need. Yet he will retrace
his steps. I mention this as it is a typical instance of the effects of
this glamour.)
3. The stimulation to which the lower vehicles of a disciple
are unavoidably subjected. This evokes a full expression of all his inherent
qualities, both good and bad. Everything in his nature is intensified, and
the more mental he may be, the more he is consciously aware of these revelations.
If his orientation is towards his life expression in the three worlds, a
phase of depression, of self-accusation and frequently of doubt may have
to be endured, thus handicapping his general usefulness.
4. The evocation of a strong sense of the soul within
the personality. An emphasis upon the attitude of the soul to the personality
life may also be induced and may prove very misleading. It would appear
from the (apparently) voiced expression of soul comment, criticism, encouragement
and planning that the main interest of the soul is with the dedicated personality.
Such is not the case. The soul is very little aware of the personality nature,
its disposition and ideas. The soul can be conscious of the limitations
within the personality and of the barriers opposed to the inflow of soul
energy, but the details are of no interest to the soul. The soul is occupied
with recognising hierarchical planning, with registering world need, and
with responding (faintly, very faintly at first) to the developing monadic
inflow. These attitudes and reactions of the soul (upon its own plane of
being) affect profoundly and fundamentally the personality life and produce
those basic changes which evoke the vocation of the disciple. The disciple
is occupied with vocation and not so much with evocation. (I would call
this to the attention of [Page 68] D.H.B. This type of evoked response is
in the nature of illusion. He will know to what I am referring.)
5. The danger of "Imperil," as the Master Morya
has called it. This is somewhat erroneously interpreted as irritation by
the neophyte, but it is not in fact irritation in the ordinary connotation
of the word. The surface ripples of ordinary irritation and the evanescent
angers to which all disciples are prone are relatively of small importance.
They pass and, in the sum total of the soul's attitudes to the personality,
evoke no response or registration whatsoever. What is referred to is the
reaction of the disciple to world evil. This produces uncertainty as to
the future, annoyance at what is being done throughout the planet by non-disciples,
criticism of national and international planning and a general atmosphere
of unhappiness, plus a sense of superior knowledge. All this is expressed
in a negative, unconstructive manner. To this many disciples are today prone;
they need to realise that world affairs are not and cannot be moulded or
determined by any hierarchical knowledge in the possession of the disciple.
World affairs and conditions have necessarily to be based upon the demand
and the point in evolution of the mass of humanity, working through their
representatives, chosen or imposed, in every country. This demand can be
and is affected, modified and spiritualised by the attitude and the teaching
of disciples everywhere who are vocal and of humanitarian instinct. If,
however, the will and knowledge of disciples in all nations were to condition
world affairs and control entirely the political, economic and social life
of the people, it would produce a far more serious cleavage than now exists,
for instance between the rich and the poor, or between the classes and the
castes. It would produce a pronounced line of demarcation between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. This
would run counter to hierarchical intention, which is rapidly healing the
existent breach, and thus offset the work which Christ set out to do on
Earth. This point is often overlooked by well-intentioned disciples. It
is humanity which determines its own destiny. Disciples point the way, indicate
the vision, set a needed example and emphasise the ancient landmarks.
[Page 69]
A realisation of these few points which I have chosen
to enumerate out of many, will indicate to you the difficulties with which
disciples are today confronted—each of you among the many who are also struggling
to meet human need in a modern world.
As a group of ashramic affiliates, you (together with
disciples everywhere) are all reacting to this inflow of energies, and with
consequent conflict; with some of you it has produced a definite crisis
and one that you have not yet resolved; with one or two of you in this group,
it has led to a seething inner turmoil accompanied by an overemphasised
introspection. This will be apt (if too protracted) to hinder your exoteric
service. It is needless to remark that all of you need to become so sensitive
to the quality of my Ashram, and so preoccupied with the opportunity to
serve which confronts every disciple these days, that your own personal
development, your unique problem (so regarded by you) and your reactions
should be forgotten. You need to remember that you are not as interesting
to your soul as you may think.
From the angle of the Master, it is the ability of the
soul to control its instrument, the personality, and to work through it,
that is of interest; it is for these types of ability that He looks, and
not at the reaction of the personality. This is hard, if not humiliating,
for the disciple to remember. The more engrossed he is with his personal
responsiveness and capacities, the more impenetrable the barriers he is
setting up between himself (upon the physical plane) and his soul; as a
result of this, barriers are then being set up between the disciple and
the life of the Ashram of which he is intended to form a part. Have this
in mind and be, therefore, so occupied with the life of the soul that you
have no time for personality introspection. The pure life of the soul will
galvanise the centres above the diaphragm into activity, and your lives
will become simple and uncomplicated expressions of the second aspect of
divinity—of which all Ashrams are focal points.
As you know, it is not my intention to give you any more
personal instructions; you no longer need them during the rest of this life,
because if you carry out those already given [Page 70] there will be nothing
to hinder your taking the initiation which is for you the next step forward.
Do you realise the import of what I am saying? This initiation which confronts
you can be taken either during the remaining years which are left to you;
this, in the majority of cases is not probable, though a small minority—a
very small minority—may achieve the goal. Or initiation may be taken in
the interim period between incarnations, or else immediately upon return
to physical plane life. This latter is the most probable for those who are
not taking initiations higher than the third; and, at present, for that
initiation I am not preparing disciples. It is usually regarded as essential
that disciples who are taking the second or third initiations should register
them in their brain consciousness. As I have often told you, the initiate
consciousness is not the factor which requires to be thus recorded; it is
seldom so. Recognition of it comes when the candidate is participating in
the "esoteric installation" of a candidate into the ranks of the
Great White Lodge. What the disciple undergoing initiation (and I choose
the word "undergoing" with deliberation) must and eventually does
record are the crises which brought about his fitness to take initiation,
as it is erroneously called in theosophical circles. These, correctly handled
and surmounted, will result in his being an initiate—a very different interpretation
to the current theosophical one. As I often told you, a man is an initiate,
prior to any initiation ceremony. The ceremony concerns hierarchical recognition
of the disciple and does not concern the candidate's fitness. I find it
needful to reiterate this fact.
The planetary crises through which the planetary Logos
is at this time passing should result in the emergence of many initiates;
no true disciple is exempt from the effects of this planetary situation.
Inevitably, changes are wrought by the soul in the personal life. When these
changes are focussed through the lower centres and the lower bodies, the
general result is purification and character building. The aspirant is then
still upon the Probationary Path. When the disciple is in the position where
he can pass through the first three initiations, then the inflowing energies
work through the heart, [Page 71] the throat and the ajna centres; when
the highest head centre and the lowest spinal centre are simultaneously
involved, the disciple is then able to take the higher major initiations.
Much of this has been given you in the earlier teaching you have received,
but I repeat these statements, so that with clarity you may proceed.
One of you asked a question concerning divine intervention
as a result of prayer, and I would point out that there is a distinction
between Divine Intervention and Answered Prayer. One admits of reciprocal
energies, the other predicates action from above only. The measure of success
in either case is dependent upon humanity as a whole. Classically the body
is not equipped to receive the fire, until consciousness is importuned to
racial need. This is secondary to Divine Intervention which isolates the
few and uses their organism to fuse and free the energies of dispersion.
This is sudden death to the physical vehicle if unprepared. Think upon this
and know the consequences of emotional fanaticism.
There are three ways whereby the inception may come:
1. Disciples aware of their charge, relinquish all personal
ambition and are willing to meet the test and be used. For, be not surprised
my brother, a disciple can meet the test if he will. Accepted discipleship
is in itself a guarantee of a certain amount of preparedness administered
through right devotion, pure purpose and rigid discipline.
2. The focussed intent of the hard pressed peoples of
the world clamouring for peace, forms a nucleus of unregenerate energy which
can and will be used. It is less potent in effect, but in these days of
crisis everything must be used.
3. Every kingdom on earth is encumbered with shock—animal,
vegetable, mineral, as well as human. This disturbance is a phase of promotion.
There are crashed areas of released energy, causing forces to be freed which
again can and will be used in the reconstruction.
[Page 72]
The responsibility of this group is purpose. It is will
fused and blended and dispersed. I charge you to waste no time in idle speculation,
but to carry your responsibility as it should be carried, remembering that
your only value is group determined. Placement determines effort (I suggest
that you analyse this statement). Consequences are hierarchical. There is
lowered vitality in the world today due to a fear psychosis.
Command your forces, stand in the Light, and the suspended
mental link will recharge the magnetic field for which you, as a group,
are responsible. The fusion exists in a small degree now, but Purpose is
the magnetised line along which the fire may travel.
You have preserved your interest and effort for many years
now. Can you continue with this enterprise? It is for you a task of perseverance
and of faith. You may not in your various lifetimes see the world results.
That I frankly tell you. You can undoubtedly realise and reap the benefit
of the group results, for your fusion into one close bond of brotherhood
and devotion, into one united band treading the Path together is adequate
reward. It will offset the usual loneliness of the disciple's way and enable
him to realise that he travels not alone.
Above and beyond your personal compensation (which some
of you know already to be your group relation and its persistence) will
be the building of an aspect of the mechanism of contact and of approach
which can be known and seen by Us from the other side of life, but which
has to be largely taken on faith by you. It might be regarded as the mechanism
of inspiration, for—in the last analysis—it is individual and world inspiration
which is the goal of all our work. This mechanism is a subjective fact,
and is slowly built as disciples aspire and serve and obey. It is an individual
mechanism, and a group mechanism, and will eventually form part of the mechanism
of humanity, viewing it as a whole and as the fourth kingdom in nature.
This kingdom is destined to act as a transmitter of force, of energy and
life and of inspiration to the three subhuman kingdoms. It is this mechanism
which [Page 73] will constitute the bridge between the fourth and fifth
kingdoms. It is the individual and the group antahkarana.
I am going to change your full moon work a little. Proceed
as heretofore, but as you stand with me before the "open window"'
and prior to the attempt to hear me speak the words which I may have for
you, imagine yourselves as bathed in a vivid butter-coloured living light
which is pouring through the open window and enveloping the group. Note,
as this happens, which centre responds or registers the vibration and stimulation
or any phenomena of any kind, and then record this upon your monthly reports.
I am also going to change the words spoken and am choosing phrases which
will convey a pictorial connotation to your minds; in this way the power
of visualisation will be evoked and aid you in registering what I say. Here
are the phrases among which I shall choose one for each full moon contact.
1. The golden lotus of the heart.
7. The triangle of fire.
2. The burning ground of fiery red.
8. The golden way to God.
3. The mountain top, bathed in the morning sunrise.
9. The ocean and the rocky shore.
4. The uplifted hand.
10. The silver torch.
5. The equal four-armed cross.
11. The iridescent cube.
6. The open door.
12. The burning bush.
I shall picture these to you and name them in your hearing.
Note whether you can both see and hear.
My blessing rests upon you and together we go forward
into the future.
August 1946
MY DEAR BROTHER:
This is a new way for me to address you, but you have
endeared yourself to me by your patient persistence and your undeviating
adherence to the service of the Hierarchy. For many years you have done
our work in a most difficult sphere. I say this to you because I would not
have you spend time (or should I say, waste time, my brother?) in wishing
you had done the work better or differently, or in the unrewarding task
of self-depreciation. I would tell you quite simply that we are not ungrateful
and we are not dissatisfied. The Latin field—by that I mean the sphere in
which the Latin race predominates, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese—is one
of the most difficult in which to work. The narrowness of thought induced
by Roman Catholic Church control, the crystallisation which comes from a
very ancient development, and (in South America) the wide mixture of races,
make the task of bringing spiritual liberation one of peculiar difficulty.
Do you realise, my brother, that you have been drawing
the plough over the ground in preparation for the New Age teaching for the
first time, and that that ground is very hard, very stony, and at present
relatively unproductive?
So be of good cheer. Your work is more fruitful than you
realise and in some life you will see the results of the apparently unrewarding
toil of the years of your spiritual enterprise.
[Page 508]
I have few instructions to give you. Proceed as heretofore,
but deepen persistently your own inner life; give more time to quiet reflection
and study than to the technicalities of the task; let others deal with the
mechanics of the work whilst you seek to act as a spiritual reservoir from
which they can draw strength and wisdom and understanding. The recognition
of this phase of your work is perhaps the most important lesson you can
learn at this time. You will experience a new power, the upwelling of new
spiritual fervour, the joy of seeing others competently handling the mechanics
of the work whilst you teach and aid them in their spiritual undertakings.
Above all else, endeavour to reach and interest the young people. They are
the hope of the future and are coming into incarnation subjectively aware
of their predestined task of world reconstruction; you will find them acutely
responsive to spiritual contacts, particularly if presented in non-religious
terms. Count, therefore, on this and try to reach them.
I am going to give you a somewhat brief meditation exercise
to be done by you twice a day—on arising in the morning and the last thing
at night, prior to going to sleep. It should not take you long to do, but—if
done correctly and with as much of your first ray soul integrated into it
as you can invoke—it will greatly aid you.
1. Sound the OM inaudibly three times.
2. Then, having achieved inner quiet and relaxed mental
focussing, seek, with an alert consciousness, to contact:
a. Your soul.
b. My Ashram.
c. Me, your Master.
You thus, through the imagination, create a triangle of
energy:
Ashram. * * D.K.
* Yourself.
[Page 509]
As familiarity with this meditation is developed, you
should eventually arrive at a contact, at a registered sense of spiritual
power (expressed through your second ray personality) and at such an increase
of love and light that your sphere of service will recognise it, even if—at
first—you do not.
3. Then, after quiet acceptance and a period of silent
reflection, you will deliberately pour out the inflowing spiritual power
into:
a. Your immediate environment,
b. The Arcane School, of which your work in South
America is an integral part,
c. The Goodwill Movement you have aided in starting in
South America.
This type of meditation constitutes a definite act of
service and should—when done in the morning—prove pronouncedly strenuous.
It involves some practice in visualisation and (where I and the Ashram are
concerned) the use of your confident, creative imagination.
4. Then say the Great Invocation, slowly and with much
mental intention, pausing after each of the four stanzas for quiet thought
and reflection.
5. Then again link up in thought with me, your Master.
Sound the OM inaudibly again three times, and then
proceed about your daily work.
My blessing continues to rest upon you.
THE GENERAL WORLD PICTURE
THE CAUSES OF THE WORLD DIFFICULTY
September 1938
In giving these Instructions I am anxious for you clearly
to comprehend the end I have in view. Sincere students and disciples must
hold ever before them the idea of Service; in connection with our present
theme this is political service—along the line of world planning and world
government. This teaching will carry to the general public some idea of
the trend of human destiny where nations and larger groups are concerned,
and should give a conviction of hierarchical potency and a sense of illumination.
It will, however, do this far more easily if the ideas I attempt to convey
are backed by the understanding thought, and the intelligent mental cooperation
of a group of people who have pondered deeply on the theme.
What is our theme? A study and an analysis, from the esoteric
angle, of the social organisation of humanity. I seek to have you grasp
some of the universal implications which the signs of the times portray
and not be entirely engrossed with the immediate situation or dilemma; too
close a perception and too near a point of view does not tend to true understanding.
It fails, for one thing, to indicate the particular place in the general
world picture which the immediate happenings outline.
It is a platitude and a truism to state that humanity
is today passing through a crisis of immense proportions. The causes of
this crisis must be sought in many factors. They lie in the past; in the
growth, through evolution, of certain [Page 70] basic tendencies in man;
in past mistakes, present opportunities, and the powerful activity of the
Hierarchy of Love. The future is of great promise, provided man can learn
the lessons of the present which have been closely presented to him; he
must accept them and understand clearly the nature of his problem and of
the crisis with its many ramifications and various implications.
The seething turmoil in which the masses of the people
are now living and the emergence of one or two key people in every nation
have a close relationship. These key people make their voices heard and
evoke attention; their ideas are followed, rightly or wrongly, with attention,
appreciation or distrust. The slow and careful formation of the New Group
of World Servers is indicative of the crisis. They are overseeing or ushering
in the New Age, and are present at the birthpangs of the new civilisation,
and the coming into manifestation of a new race, a new culture and a new
world outlook. The work is necessarily slow and those of you who are immersed
in the problems and the pains, find it hard to view the future with assurance
or to interpret the present with clarity.
I have listed some of the reasons for the present world
unrest in another book (Education in the New Age, pp. 116-125) reminding
you that some of the causes lie in so remote a past that history knows nothing
of them. You would find it useful to re-read those few pages at this point,
for in them I sought to give some insight into the essential situation which
confronts mankind due to certain evolutionary developments:
1. The point reached by humanity itself
2. The emergence of the new racial type
3. The ending of the Piscean Age
4. The coming in of the Aquarian Age.
We barely touched upon the fourth point and I am not enlarging
at length upon it here either, fascinating as speculation might be, because
I am anxious to have its major characteristics—those of unity and synthesis—stand
[Page 71] out with clarity in your minds. It gives the clue to all that
is happening today in the world of politics and international governments,
and accounts for the trend toward synthesis, amalgamation and affiliation.
The remaining four causes which we will consider later
might be enumerated as follows:
5. The time of the end. The judgment of people. This period
of judgment is a group interlude to the full emergence of the New Age influences.
6. The levelling of all classes and distinctions so that
the spiritual values may appear and the spiritual Hierarchy manifest on
earth.
7. The fact of the Approach of the Hierarchy towards external
contact with humanity. I would suggest that you read my earlier writings
on the Great Approaches.*
8. The power and significance, politically considered,
of the Great Invocation.
THE HIDDEN SOURCE OF THE OUTER TURMOIL
January 1939
Another angle from which the world situation can be viewed
with profit is to look for the hidden source of the outer turmoil. This
is seldom what men think it is, for the source lies in the realm of energies
and forces. As I explained elsewhere (The Destiny of the Nations, pages
3-47), there are three great streams of energy working powerfully in the
world at this time and two others are also struggling for expression, making
the five that—together—will determine the trend of world affairs. To repeat
briefly:
1. The first and the most powerful force is that pouring
into the world from Shamballa, the planetary centre where the Will of God
is known. Only twice in our planetary [Page 72] history has this Shamballa
energy made its presence felt directly: the first time, when the great human
crisis occurred at the individualisation of man in ancient Lemuria; the
second time, in Atlantean days in the great struggle between the Lords of
Light and the Lords of Material Form, also called the Dark Forces. Today,
this force streams out from the Holy Centre; it embodies the Will aspect
of the present world crisis and its two subsidiary effects or qualities
are:
a. The destruction of that which is undesirable and hindering
in the present world forms (in government, religion and society).
b. The synthesising force which binds together that which
has hitherto been separated.
The Shamballa force is so new and so unrecognised that
it is hard for humanity to know it for what it is—the demonstration of the
beneficent Will of God in new and potent livingness.
2. The second major force which is potently making itself
felt today is that of the spiritual Hierarchy, the planetary centre where
the Love of God holds sway, as it swings into one of its major cyclic approaches
to the earth. The problem before the Hierarchy at this time is so to direct
and control all five of the powerful energies that the Divine Plan can materialise,
and the close of this century see the Purpose of God for humanity assuming
right direction and proportion.
3. Humanity itself is the third major planetary centre
through which one of the three divine aspects, Intelligence, is expressing
itself, producing its world effects.
These three centres are closely interrelated and must
be thought of as expressions of divine livingness, as embodying three stages
in the unfoldment of God's Plan, and as constituting the three major centres—Head,
Heart, Throat—in the body of the One in Whom we live and move and [Page
73] have our being. Students can relate these three centres to the three
solar systems, referred to in A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. In the first solar
system, the centre which is Humanity was prepared and the principle of intelligence
came into manifestation. In the second solar system, the Hierarchy of Love
made its appearance and must come into full manifestation, thereby enabling
the love of God to be seen. In the next solar system, the centre which we
today call Shamballa, will manifest the Will aspect of Deity intelligently
through love. It is interesting to note that it is only through human beings,
that these three centres ever come into true functioning activity; and likewise
that the three major ideologies (the totalitarian, the democratic, the communistic)
may be the response—distorted and yet responsive—to the forces playing from
the two higher centres on to the human. This we discussed earlier (The Destiny
of the Nations, page 22).
Those of you who are seeking to serve humanity and to
join in the Hierarchical effort to bring healing to a world in pain, must
learn to penetrate behind appearances, behind the methods and schemes, the
results and effects on the physical plane and endeavour to contact the forces
of Shamballa or of the Hierarchy, plus the human need which has produced
these modes of expression and thus see them for what they are—not worn out
systems and childish efforts at improvement but embryonic plans whereby,
eventually, may come release and the culture and civilisation of the New
Age. If you are seeking to bring illumination into the dark places of the
earth (which means into the minds of men), then you must yourselves see
clearly and relate the abstract and the concrete in such a manner that,
in your own lives, a working idealism may be seen; only so can a working
idealism of a national, racial and human nature also be seen. The head as
well as the heart must be used, and this many earnest people are apt to
forget. Can you possibly work at high tension in this endeavour—a tension
produced by the interrelation of the head and the heart, working out creatively
through the [Page 74] throat centre, esoterically understood? In this last
sentence I have expressed for disciples the nature of the effort they need
to make.
It is in the recognition of what is happening to mankind
as a whole and behind the scenes, that the thinkers of the world and the
New Group of World Servers can best serve; it is the unfoldment of the human
consciousness in response to the presented conditions in any country or
countries that is of moment; the "human state of mind" is just
beginning to focus itself on the things that matter and to express itself
in a living fashion. The thinkers and servers must learn to concentrate
upon the awakening consciousness and not upon the superficial movements.
This awakening goes on apace and, my brothers, satisfactorily. The form
or forms may suffer but the intrinsic awareness of man is becoming, during
this century, expressively divine.
The two other forces which tend to increase the already
prevalent tension in the world are:
4. The forces of materialism, streaming out into the three
worlds from the so-called "Dark Forces" or Black Lodge, and from
those groups of lives and workers which are the antithesis of the Great
White Lodge.
5. The force emanating from that section of humanity which
is found in every part of the world and which we call the Jewish people.
What I say here has no specific reference to any individual; I am considering
the world problem, centering around the Jews as a whole.
These two forces greatly complicate the problem by which
humanity and the Hierarchy are faced, but it should be remembered that they
also produce that balancing which is ever needed for the production of right
conditions.
There is little that I can tell you about the Dark Forces.
They are not the problems of humanity but that of the Hierarchy. The task
of these Forces is the preservation of the form life and the working out
of methods and aims which are inherent in the processes of manifestation.
The Black Lodge, so-called, is occupied with the form aspect of [Page 75]
manifestation; the White Lodge, with the consciousness aspect. It might,
therefore, be stated that:
1. Shamballa is occupied with the life aspect in its graded
impulses.
2. The Hierarchy is occupied with the consciousness aspect
in its graded series of expansions.
3. The Black Lodge is occupied with the matter aspect
in its multiplicity of forms.
Again, light may come to you, if you relate this triple
statement to the three solar systems and to the three aspects of divinity.
Evil or wrong, therefore, exists only when the emphasis is retained in the
wrong aspect from the point of view of the unfoldment attained or when that
which has been used and developed to the necessary point, holds the life
or consciousness too long. Hence, my brothers, the beneficent nature of
death.
The Forces of Darkness are powerful energies, working
to preserve that which is ancient and material; hence they are pre-eminently
the forces of crystallisation, of form preservation, of the attractiveness
of matter, and of the lure of that which is existent in the form life of
the three worlds. They consequently block deliberately the inflow of that
which is new and life-giving; they work to prevent the understanding of
that which is of the New Age; they endeavour to preserve that which is familiar
and old, to counteract the effects of the oncoming culture and civilisation,
to bring blindness to the peoples and to feed steadily the existing fires
of hate, of separateness, of criticism and of cruelty. These forces, as
far as the intelligent peoples of the world are concerned, work insidiously
and cloak their effort in fair words, leading even disciples to express
hatred of persons and ideologies, fostering the hidden seeds of hatred found
in many human beings. They fan to fury the fear and hate of the world in
an effort to preserve that which is old and make the unknown appear undesirable,
and they hold back the forces of evolution and of progress for their own
ends. These [Page 76] ends are as inscrutable to you as are the plans of
the Ruler of Shamballa.
These are forces which it is well for you to recognise
as existing, but there is little that you, as individuals or as groups,
can do about them beyond seeing to it that there is nothing in you which
could make you—unimportant as you are—a focal point for their efforts or
an agent for the distribution of their peculiar type of energy—the energy
of focussed and directed hate, of separation, of fear and pride. With them
we who are connected directly with the Hierarchy have to deal, but you can
aid more than you know through the regulation of thoughts and ideas, through
the cultivation of a loving spirit and through the general use of the Great
Invocation.
Great Invocation and to give you some idea of the nature
of the Forces invoked and of the esoteric meaning which these words (used
so frequently by you) are in tended to convey.
[Page 112]
The Cause of the Present Crisis
It is well known to you that the great Law of Rebirth
is the controlling and major law in all the processes of manifestation.
It governs the exoteric expression of a solar Logos or of a human being,
and the object of this constantly recurring process is to bring an increasingly
perfect form to the expanding service of the soul. For the first time since
its inception, the human family is in a position to note for itself the
processes of the rebirth of a civilisation as an expression of spiritual
culture at a particular point in evolution. Hence the magnitude of this
crisis as it assumes its place in the human consciousness. Many lesser crises,
initiating specific tribal, national and racial experiments in the renewal
of form have gone on and have been registered by some group within a nation
or by a nation itself (if advanced enough). Such a national registration
took place for the first time in connection with the French Revolution.
Such registrations of evolutionary intent have taken place with increasing
clarity and understanding during the past two hundred years. Such crises
have taken place in practically every nation in modern times and have been
recognised to some degree, and upon them historians have enlarged and philosophers
speculated. But the crisis today is far vaster, embracing as it does the
majority of nations in both hemispheres. No nation remains at this time
unaffected and the results are and must be registered in some aspect of
the national life.
Owing to the factual interrelation between nations everywhere
and to the rapidity of intercommunication, the present crisis is the first
major international crisis in human affairs and covers a period of twenty-eight
years (from 1914 till 1942). These are interesting numbers, for 28 is 4
x 7, which are the years of a complete personality cycle. I do not wish
you to infer from the above that the period of active combat and conflict
must necessarily be prolonged until 1942. Such is not the case. The early
termination of the conflict or its indefinite extension lies in the keeping
of [Page 113] humanity itself; men must increasingly determine their own
fate as they emerge from the stage of adolescence into that of maturity,
responsibility and achievement. This period of twenty-eight years is, however,
of paramount importance and upon the next three years much depends.
Again I tell you that even the Hierarchy itself, with
all its knowledge, vision and understanding and with all its resources,
cannot coerce and cannot forecast what mankind will do. It can and does
stimulate to right action; it can and does indicate possibility and responsibility;
it can and does send out its teachers and disciples to educate and lead
the race; but at no point and in no situation does it command or assume
control. It can and does bring good out of evil, illuminating situations
and indicating the solution of a problem, but further than this the Hierarchy
cannot go. If it assumed authoritative control, a race of automatons would
be developed and not a race of responsible, self- directed, aspiring men.
This must surely be apparent to you and may serve to answer the question
which is uppermost in the minds of the unthinking, occult students today:
Why could not the Hierarchy have prevented this catastrophe? Unquestionably
the Masters of the Wisdom with Their knowledge and Their command of forces
could have interfered, but in so doing They would have broken an occult
law and hindered the true development of mankind. This They will never do.
At all costs, man must learn to stand and act alone. Instead, having done
all that was permissible, They now stand beside suffering and bewildered
humanity and—with the deepest compassion and love—will help men to right
the wrongs they have initiated, to learn the needed lessons and to come
through this crisis (which they have themselves precipitated) enriched thereby,
and purified in the fires of adversity. These are not platitudes but eternal
truths.
This world crisis, with all its horror and suffering,
is—in the last analysis—the result of successful evolutionary processes.
We are ready to recognise that when a man's life cycle has been run and
he has learnt the lessons which the [Page 114] experience of any particular
life has been intended to teach, his physical body and the inner form aspects
(making the sum total of his personality expression) will begin to deteriorate;
destructive agencies within the form itself will become active and eventually
death will take place, resulting in the liberation of the indwelling life
in order that a new and better form may be built. This, we perforce accept
either blindly or intelligently, regarding it as a natural and unavoidable
process, but normal and inevitable. We are apt, however, to forget that
what is true of the individual is true of humanity. Cycles of civilisation
such as that we call our modern civilisation are analogous to a particular,
individual, human incarnation with its inception, its progress and growth,
its useful maturity and its ensuing deterioration and subsequent death or
the passing away of the form.
Forms are ever open to attack. A strong subjective life
and spiritual detachment are the two safeguards. Where the form is more
potent than the life, danger is imminent; where attachment to the material
aspect or organisation is present, spiritual values are lost.
Today we are watching the death of a civilisation or cycle
of incarnation of humanity. In all fields of human expression, crystallisation
and deterioration had set in. Worn-out religious dogmas and the grip of
theology and the orthodox churches have no longer sufficed to hold the allegiance
of the potent, inner, spiritual life; humanity is deeply spiritual and innately
religious but needs today a new form with which to clothe the ancient verities.
Old political schools have been deemed inadequate and new ideologies bear
witness to the strength of the life which is seeking more adequate expression;
the educational systems, having served their purpose, are fast being recognised
as inadequate to meet the need of the demanding life of the race; there
is everywhere a cry for change and for those new forms in the religious,
political, educational and economic life of the race which will allow of
freer and better spiritual expression. Such a change is rapidly coming and
is regarded by some as death—terrible and to be avoided if possible. It
is [Page 115] indeed death but it is beneficent and needed. It is this realisation
of the passing of a civilisation which gives rise to the recurrent and foreboding
cry, "This is the death of civilisation; it must not be"; "This
is the end of the order, and the old order must be saved"; "This
is the destruction of the old and loved values, and it must not be permitted."
That humanity is bringing about this needed change in
unnecessary, cruel and painful ways is indeed true, just as it is true today
that human beings by their wrong thinking, foolish habits of physical living
and undesirable emotional attitudes do precipitate a final, physical breakdown
and eventually death. Nevertheless, for the progress of the soul of the
individual and the soul of humanity, death is inevitable, good and necessary;
it is also a practice with which we are all most familiar in our own experience
and in watching it in others. But we need to remember that the worst death
of all (as far as humanity is concerned) would be if a form of civilisation
or a body form became static and eternal; if the old order never altered
and the old values were never transmuted into higher and better ones, that
would indeed be a disaster.
We need to bear in mind also that the forces of destruction
or death are two-fold: first, the rapidly emerging and developing life with
its demand for more room for expression and fuller experience, and its spiritual
aspiration for change and progress; and secondly, the reactionary forces
and the conservative attitudes which adhere to the well known and the familiar,
and which hate the new, the untried and the unknown. Both of these produce
the great and divine transition from the past into the future, and from
the old into the new, from experience into fruition and then into experience
again. The realities are eternal and undying; the forms are ephemeral and
temporary; the soul is persistent and deathless; the form is changing and
doomed to die. The processes of evolution have in the past and will in the
future prove successful in bringing forms to birth, to maturity and to death.
But (and this is the interesting and significant point)
[Page 116] humanity is for the first time aware of process. It has for the
first time chosen intelligently to observe what is going on and to relate
it to experience and to environment. This in itself indicates a stage of
true and much to be desired development. Reasoning, analysis and the presentation
of differing viewpoints are going on in every country on a large scale with
varying results, based on differences of temperament, of tradition, of development
and of training.
This stage of death and of birth (for the two are proceeding
simultaneously) can be easily grasped by the esotericist as he studies the
world war in its two distinctive periods: 1914 to 1918, and 1939 until 1942.
The first stage (if you could see the situation as it truly is) was most
definitely the death stage; the second stage, in which we now find ourselves,
is literally the stage of birth—the birth pangs of the new order and of
the new civilisation through which humanity's sense of life can express
itself. The mother dies in order that the child may live; the form is sacrificed
to the life. But today, the form aspect, the Mother or matter aspect, is
dying consciously, and just as consciously the child, the infant civilisation,
is coming into being. This is the new thing and it is in this that we are
all participating. It is the death of the personality of humanity and the
coming in of the soul.
Such a dying is ever a painful process. Pain has always
been the purifying agent, employed by the Lords of Destiny, to bring about
liberation. The accumulated pain of the present war and the inherited pain
of the earlier stage (begun in 1914) is bringing about a salutary and changing
world consciousness. The Lord of Pain has descended from His throne and
is treading the ways of earth today, bringing distress, agony and terror
to those who cannot interpret His ends, but bringing also a re-stimulation
of the instinct to self-preservation which—in its higher aspect—is the instinct
to immortality; it tends to focus humanity's attention upon the life aspect
and not upon the form. The names of the Lords of Karma signify, symbolically
and from the angle of their inner meaning, Relationship, Enlightenment,
Pain [Page 117] and Return. Ponder on this. They are all peculiarly active
at this time, and in their activity lies the hope of humanity.
Ancient Karmic Events
It is not my intention to explain or elaborate the subject
of Karma. This occult yet fundamentally exoteric theme, the Law of Cause
and Effect, evokes a general recognition when called by this name. When
called the Law of Karma, it is immediately regarded as mysterious, Oriental
and new. Called (as it sometimes is) the Law of Retribution, an entirely
erroneous connotation has become attached to it. Today, the karma of humanity
is descending upon it. I would remind you, however, that the continuous
emphasis laid upon the malevolent aspects of karma conveys a wrong impression
and negates the full grasp of the truth. There is as much good karma as
there is bad; even in the present world situation, the good karma emanating
from the soul of humanity balances the evil which comes from the material
aspect and is continuously over-emphasised. It is the rhythm of matter in
contradistinction to the rhythm of the soul, and these constitute the initiating
causes of the present conflict, both in individual lives and in the general
world situation. When this is properly grasped, the true picture may emerge
in your hearts and minds with greater clarity.
In my effort to make clear the picture, I shall have to
overlook many essential details; I shall also be forced to take the always
debatable position of making statements which cannot be checked and which
find their sole arguments (as far as the average thinker is concerned) in
deduction from the effects produced by causes that do not appear to the
occultly unenlightened. In time to come, man will develop that mental attitude
which will consider causes of greater importance than effects; he will then
learn to consider with care the first steps taken in initiating any line
of action, pondering upon and deducing the probable effects before committing
himself to any specific deed. Only through pain, [Page 118] error and consequent
price-paying will this salutary stage be reached.
Today, all that is taking place is due, first of all,
to the essential duality of man; in the second place, it is due to certain
major lines of cleavage which were brought about by this essential dualism
in an early stage of human history, and thirdly, to the growing tendency
towards synthesis which the inflow of the Shamballa force is producing at
this time. This is the simplest statement I find it possible to make anent
this complex problem. With broad generalities I cover the past, indicate
the effects which are now being experienced in the present, and forecast
the future.
It was the coming into incarnation of the spiritually
self-conscious human being which is the inciting cause of the present conflict.
Had the sons of God not "come in unto the daughters of men" (which
is the Biblical and symbolic way of expressing the great relationship between
spirit and matter which was established in the human kingdom), had the spiritual
entities which are humanity itself not taken unto themselves material forms,
and had the positive spiritual element not attached itself to the negative
material aspect, the present world conflict would not be taking place. But
the divine plan of evolution was based upon the production of this relationship
between spiritually conscious man and the form aspect, and thus the great
Law of Duality came into action, bringing about the "fall of the angels,"
as they descended from their sinless and free state of existence in order
to develop full divine awareness upon earth, through the medium of material
incarnation and the use of the principle of mind. This was the divine plan,
emanating from the Mind of God and swept into activity and progressive unfoldment
by an act of His Will. At its inception, there took place the original "war
in the heavens," when the sons of God who responded to the divine urge
to experience, to serve and to sacrifice, separated themselves from the
sons of God who responded to no such inspiration but who chose to stay in
their original and high state of being. To this truth, Christ Himself bore
witness in the story of [Page 119] the Prodigal Son and his relationship
to his elder brother, who had not left the Father's home. It is obvious,
is it not, from this parable, where the approbation of the Father lay; a
careful study of this story and an intuitive understanding of its implications
may evoke some day a response to the "sin of experience," as it
has been called, and a comprehension of the two major laws governing the
process: the Law of Evolution and the Law of Rebirth. Here lies the prime
initiating cause of what is taking place today.
The second cause arose slowly out of the first. Matter
and spirit, focussed in the human family and expressing their basic qualities
and essential nature, were eternally in conflict. In the early stages and
during the long Lemurian cycle, infant humanity steadily evolved and yet
in spite of this the lines of cleavage, though present, were not recognised.
The latent spark of mind served only to bring a relative enlightenment to
the five senses and their purely physical application. The physical life
was strong; the deductive or self-registering life was practically nil.
The life of humanity was then focussed within the physical body, thus fortifying
and stimulating the animal nature and developing the physical organism and
the various internal organs through the unfoldment of the five senses; man
became primarily a selfish and a fighting animal with, however, at times,
vague tendencies towards something dimly sensed as better and with moments
of high grade desire which was not aspiration and the urge to progress,
as we know it, but their embryonic forms.
It is not possible for modern man to vision or understand
such a state of consciousness, for he has left it too far behind. The focus
of the life force was also in the region of the adrenal glands, producing
animal courage and resistance to shock. But the dualism of man's essential
nature was, as always, present and the lines of cleavage gradually appeared;
slowly yet steadily, the pioneering souls (a very small minority) shifted
their consciousness gradually higher into the solar plexus and a recognition
of the factor of desire for that which was material and a capacity for emotional
reaction [Page 120] began to develop. Hitherto, in Lemurian times, desire
and instinct were identical. Ponder on this, for it is interesting because
it concerns a state of consciousness of which modern man knows practically
nothing. But, in Atlantean times, the lines of demarcation between what
constituted purely physical life and that which—though still material—could
be the goal of effort and thus acquired, began to control the purely animal
nature; man began to be acquisitive and to surround himself with that which
he wanted. The lines of cleavage between the instinctual animal and acquisitive
man began to be more clearly defined.
Gradually the mental element unfolded among these pioneers
just as the intuitive element is today unfolding among the mental types;
men began to acquire some form of mental perception and to bring what little
mind they had to the processes of increasing their material possessions.
The stage of civilisation (which is basically a recognition of group relation)
began. A period of urban existence superseded that of a pure nomadic and
agricultural existence. Men began to congregate together for their greater
material comfort and protection, and the rhythmic processes of concentration
and their world-wide extension began. These cycles are similar to the inbreathing
and the outbreathing of the physical organism of man. Some day a study will
be made of these basic and controlling factors of human existence, dispersion
or decentralisation, and community life or the expression of the herd instinct
on a higher or lower turn of the spiral of existence. The past few hundred
years have seen a major problem arise in the present tendency of humanity
to collect together in great cities and to congregate in vast herds, leaving
the countryside denuded of its population and creating serious problems
of sustenance, of health and also of crime. Right before our eyes this rhythm
is today changing and a serious problem is being solved; cities are being
evacuated and—as men and women are driven forth for one reason or another
into the country—the lords of evolution are forcing the breaking up of the
rhythm of concentration and substituting for it the rhythm [Page 121] of
dispersion. This will do much for the race and will facilitate the unfoldment
of a subjective synthesis which will greatly enrich humanity and give new
values to living.
The lines of cleavage between the animal, instinctual
nature and some form of desire (embryonic aspiration) steadily grew during
Atlantean times and this early civilisation began to demonstrate its own
note and to set new standards of material comfort and of selfish control
on an increasingly large scale as the urban existence developed. It is perhaps
difficult for us to visualise a world as densely populated then as is the
modern world but so it was. The animal nature, being dominant, the tendency
was towards sexual relationship and the production of large families, just
as it is among the lower orders in our civilised areas today, for the peasantry
and the slum dwellers produce more children than do the intelligentsia.
In those far-off times, the only people who had any true measure of intelligence
were the disciples and initiates; they guided and guarded infant humanity,
much as modern parents guide and guard their children, and as the state
assumes responsibility for the welfare of the nation. The Hierarchy was,
in those days, present upon the earth as the priest-kings and they acted
as focal points of attractive energy, drawing to themselves those in whom
the more intangible values were slowly assuming a vague control, thus making
the lines of cleavage between materialism and spirituality still more clear
and definite.
We must remember that the spirituality of that time was
of a very different quality from that which now goes under that name. It
was in the nature of an aspiration towards a sensed hereafter, for a satisfying
beauty and for emotional completion. There was no thought—as we know thought—in
this attitude but only a reaching out after a sensed unattainable and for
that which was desirable. This was fostered in the people by the Hierarchy
through the gift of various inventions and by the use of the instinctual
masses of men in building great and beautiful cities and stupendous structures,
the remnants of which persist until [Page 122] today. This was done under
the expert guidance of the initiates and adepts who employed their knowledge
of the nature of matter and energy to produce much that today man is gropingly
endeavouring to discover and make possible. All that the modern processes
of civilisation have made possible, and much more than that which today
comes under the name of scientific discovery were known in old Atlantis,
but they were not developed by men themselves but given to them as a free
gift, much as people today give to a child beautiful and wonderful things
which the child uses and enjoys but which he does not understand in any
way. Great and beautiful cities, full of temples and great buildings (of
which the Chaldean and Babylonian remains are the degenerate remnants, and
the modern skyscraper the child) were everywhere to be found. Most of our
modern scientific knowledge was possessed by these priest-kings and constituted
in the eyes of the masses a form of wonderful magic. Sanitation, hygiene,
means of transportation and air machines were developed and of a very high
order; these were not the result however of man's achievement but gifts
from the Hierarchy, developed or constructed under a wise guidance. There
was command of air and water because the guides of the race knew how to
control and master the forces of nature and of the elements, but none of
it was the result of human understanding, knowledge or effort. The minds
of men were undeveloped and not adequate to such a task, any more than is
the mind of a little child.
The cleavage between the two groups (the one expressing
the forces of materialism and the other the energy of light) grew gradually
wider until towards the close of the Atlantean Age it was so wide, and the
lines of demarcation between the two schools of life and thought were so
clear, that a crisis was precipitated in the then civilised world of which
the present conflict is a definite effect. Let us also hope that it constitutes
a climax which will never again occur. Then took place the great war between
the Lords of Form and the Lords of Being, or between the Forces of Matter
and the Great White Lodge. A careful study of [Page 123] volume two of The
Secret Doctrine will prove enlightening to students, if they will study
with particular care pages 275-466. To our understanding, this account may
seem vague and obscure, but the issues at the time were clear. The Forces
of Light triumphed because the Hierarchy was forced to intervene potently,
and, with the aid of certain great Lives extraneous to our planetary life,
They brought the Atlantean civilisation to an abrupt end after a long period
of chaos and disaster. This took place through the medium of a culminating
catastrophe which wiped hundreds of thousands of human beings off the face
of the earth. This historical event has been preserved for us in the universal
legend of the great flood.
Those who survived are symbolically spoken of in the Bible
as those who were saved in Noah's ark, and in the ancient writings it is
expressed in the following terms:
"Like as a dragon snake uncoils slowly its body,
so the sons of men, led on by the Sons of Wisdom, opened their folds and
spreading out like a running stream of sweet waters.... Many of the faint-
hearted among them perished on their way. But most were saved."
A close study of the tale as given in The Secret Doctrine
will reveal the state of immature development (from the angle of our modern
standards) and of the basically emotional and physical focus of the humanity
of the period; it will show also man's magical ability to subdue and control
the subhuman kingdoms and the elemental forces of the planet. These are
two angles which have been but little studied.
Emphasis has, however, been rightly placed upon divine
interference and intervention; this succeeded in salvaging an ethically
sound minority (the word "spiritual" would not yet apply, except
relatively) and in destroying those who were wrongly focussed or oriented
and, therefore, dedicated to the life of material aspiration and perception.
[Page 124]
This nucleus which was saved, formed the basis of our
present root race, the Aryan. The whole theme of the Old Testament is built
around the development and growth of this nucleus. Symbolically speaking,
the inhabitants of the ark and their descendants and the Jewish race stand
for the salvaged remnant of humanity—salvaged in spite of themselves and
in face of stupendous difficulties by the Great White Lodge.
Two points warrant attention here. The first and least
important from the standpoint of the soul is the disappearance off the earth
of practically all signs of the wonderful Atlantean civilisation except
for those few archaeological treasures which intrigue and interest modern
research workers, plus those dim memories of ancient scientific achievement
which lead the modern student to investigation and invention, and which
incite him to discovery and the production of what we call the triumphs
of modern science.
The second point is that for the good of humanity, the
Hierarchy withdrew into the background, leaving man to find his own way
out of the mirage and illusion of materialism in right ways and eventually
to bring to an end the ancient cleavages. War must be brought to its final
consummation and expression with a view to its final discarding as a means
of arriving at desired ends.
The Modern Era
I would like to pause here and remind you of one or two
points which should be recognised as we approach this modern era in which
all these culminating effects are taking place. Let me state them concisely
and clearly.
The lines of cleavage between materialism and spirituality
(as we now understand the terms) have become increasingly clear. Two things
have tended to bring this about. First, the pronouncement of the Ten Commandments.
These, though negative in their form and dogmatic in their attitude, have
made the issues and the required attitudes adequately clear. Owing to the
relatively low stage of the [Page 125] universal human intelligence at the
time that they were given (for the Biblical dates are not correct and the
date of their pronouncement is far older than is thought) they were expressed
by the formula, "Thou shalt not," thus turning human attention
to the material expression of material tendencies. In days to come, the
Ten Commandments will be expressed in a reversed form of which the Sermon
on the Mount and the Beatitudes are the embryonic form.
Second, the Hierarchy withdrew in order that humanity,
on reaching maturity and years of discretion, should not be handicapped
and hindered by coercion and undue safeguarding but should express its major
divine characteristics. Of these, free will and the discriminating use of
the mind are the outstanding qualities. There was no free will in Atlantean
days. There is a tendency to free will (note that term) today and we call
it liberty and independence, freedom of thought and the right of the individual
to determine the issues which control or should control the group of which
he is a part. These are all attributes and qualities of free will but not
the divine principle of free will per se. Of that we know as yet but little.
Only the disciples of the world and the initiates know the true significance
and implications of freedom of choice, and the right use of the will, and
this because they are motivated by group good and the need of the majority.
The test to which humanity was to be subjected and which
is today the controlling factor was whether—given mental development and
knowledge—it would consecrate that knowledge and its scientific and mental
attainment to group good or to selfish ends, to material issues or to spiritual
incentives and impulses. This ancient conflict has now been carried through
into another field of human expression, that of the mind and—as the race
has progressed and the personalities of human beings have reached a high
stage of integration and achievement—the conflict has become acute, the
issues clearer and the ranging of the opponents into two clearly defined
groups is now so complete that the final struggle has become possible.
[Page 126]
Intelligent appreciation of the situation and a general
capacity to present to the mind the underlying conditions has now been achieved
by the bulk of the intelligent people upon the planet and, though the point
of view is necessarily coloured by national traditions, inherited ideas
and policies as well as by environmental control and bias, the race has
gone a long way towards its final emancipation. There is, therefore, a certain
measure of free will displayed, and this constitutes an entirely new factor
and a most satisfactory development. But I would remind you of a most important
point and that is that the masses of the people—the middle classes, the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat (I use these words in their general sense
and simply because of their significance and meaning)—are still victims
of authority, of control, and remain relatively unthinking and childlike.
This means that the true conflict is between a small minority to whom the
issues are illuminatingly clear and who have definitely ranged themselves
on one side or other of the embattled forces. A mere handful of men, the
direct descendants or rather the reincarnations of the leaders in the ancient
Atlantean conflict, are now on earth, directing the forces of light or of
darkness and bringing into being a direct line-up of millions of men whose
will is that of their leaders.
The lines of cleavage have grown steadily until now they
can be expressed in terms of a humanity which is oriented towards the higher
spiritual and altruistic values and whose keynotes are sacrifice, group
good and world understanding, and those whose focus is predominantly material
and whose aims are selfish, animated by ambition and the spirit of acquisition.
It was the acuteness of this situation, and the wide extent
of the cleavage, which induced the watching Hierarchy to permit a direct
inflow of the Shamballa force (in spite of its attendant risks) to pour
into the world. The objective was to stimulate the free will of the masses;
the result upon them has been relatively good as it has led to the formulation
and expression of the great world ideologies—Fascism, [Page 127] Democracy
and Communism as well as that peculiarly distorted blend of Fascism and
Communism which goes by the name of Hitlerism or Nazism. All these ideologies
are fostered by the desire of the masses for the betterment of the condition
in which the populace in any country lives and it has become focussed, expressive
and creative by the force of the Shamballa influence. But another result
of this inflow of the will-to-power has been to stimulate a certain group
of outstanding personalities in many lands so that they have assumed control
of the masses and can thus determine the policies and methods—religious,
political and social—of the different nations. In every nation a relatively
small group of people decide all important issues and determine all major
national activities. This they do either by force, terror and deception
or by persuasion, fair words and the application of ideological motives.
Of this situation in the world the Lords of Destiny are availing themselves
in order to bring the ancient conflict to an end and so enable humanity
to pass into the new Aquarian Age relatively free and with a clearer understanding
of right human aims, right relationships and man's predestined future.
It will serve no purpose for me to trace the relation
of the present world conflict and the present world leaders to the conflict
and the leaders in Atlantean times. Suffice it to say that many of the same
personalities (on a higher turn of the spiral) are again playing their various
parts in the great drama. It is no service to you and to your mental grip
upon the situation for me to emphasise the details of that great war and
its modern correspondences; it is of no value for me to compare the old
methods and the modern usages whereby one side or the other carries forward
the struggle for supremacy. You are in no position to verify what I say
or to check the accuracy of my statements. The point which is, however,
of major importance is for you to arrive at a clear understanding of what
is at stake and a just appreciation of the values involved and also a correct
grasp of the ideals animating the two groups of opponents.
In Atlantean days, it was stated that the battle was between
[Page 128] the Forces of Darkness (the so-called "Black Lodge of Adepts")
and the Forces of Light (the so-called Great White Lodge, the Hierarchy
of Masters). That was then approximately true, for the conflict was between
two small groups and the masses of the people were simply the blind and
miserable victims of the fight and of the situation.
Today, it is not possible to make such a clear distinction
between the forces engaged, nor is it properly admissible. No nation or
group of nations can be classed in a broad generalisation as either black
or white. Bear this in mind. Only those with no vision and an intolerant
and prejudiced spirit will speak thus. All nations have within them those
who belong in their thousands to the category of those who are swayed by
the Forces of Light and who, therefore, respond normally and easily to the
concept of goodwill, to the desire for right relationship between all men
and to the ideal of true international and world understanding. In all nations
there are those to whom this position makes no appeal at all and they are
still in darkness and blinded to the true issues. This is a statement of
fact. Those who seek to see the establishment of goodwill and understanding
are in the majority but are—as I pointed out in earlier writings—relatively
futile to control the situation as yet or to force their leaders to follow
the mass will-to-good. They are either inspired or protected by the Hierarchy
of Light and it is with them that the task of stimulating the free expression
of this goodwill must be carried forward when the conflict ends.
As for the other group, they are those who through inclination
or ancient karma are the descendants of the Lords of darkness; their actions
and ideals make possible the activity of the forces of materialism. I would
have you note that phrasing. Even the most dangerous of them are nevertheless
conscious of some form or another of idealism, but they are misguided and
full of response to the will-to-power (power upon the physical plane and
through the medium of form activity). This is stimulated by the inflow of
the Shamballa energy. Because of these reactions and tendencies, they constitute
focal points for those Lives and [Page 129] Energies which are inherent
in matter itself and whose influence and work are dedicated to the preservation
of form, and of that which is. They endeavour constantly to negate the new
and to hold back the evolution and development of the human consciousness.
Forget not that the real issue is in the field of consciousness and that
the struggle is between form and the life within the form, and between progress,
leading to the liberation of the human spirit, and reactionary activity,
leading to the imprisonment of the human consciousness and the restriction
of its free expression.
I would pause here and solemnly beg you not to make the
lines of cleavage wider by placing yourself, and all who follow your form
of ideology, upon the side of the Forces of Light and all other people and
their ideologies, with which you may not agree, upon the side of the Forces
of Darkness. The issue is, in the last analysis, the right to express the
will-to-good, the right to express human relationships, untrammelled by
territorial barriers and national habits of thought; it involves the right
and the felt necessity to shew love to all beings and thus stamp out all
hate and separateness. It concerns the right of all nations to live at peace
with their neighbours and harmoniously with each other and to express the
true and subjective synthesis of humanity, and not place national possessions,
frontiers, culture, power and ambition before the general good and the happiness
of the world of men. This is the real and underlying issue. All the national
challenges and patriotic calls are simply the attempts of the leaders everywhere
to hold the people to a particular line of thought and of action. To make
the world safe for democracy, to gain room to live, to defend the rights
of little nations, to preserve the balance of power, to meet force with
force, to restore ancient and historical boundaries, to impose some culture
deemed desirable, to prevent economic destruction, to conserve national
stakes and interests are all the talking points of the leaders today. But
the real issue is the intangible one of Direction. Which way will humanity
go? [Page 130] Will it go the way of selflessness, expressed in a willingness
to act always in the interests of all, thus promoting world understanding
and world unity, or the way of selfishness and aggression, expressed in
an intense nationalism, thus sacrificing the true and larger values of liberty,
independence and freedom to think. This selfishness may show itself through
active aggression or an active neutrality. Those nations who participate
in no way in this struggle will lose much and—enhancing their own selfish
struggle and clouding the real issue in beautiful words—will help to prolong
the struggle and hold back their own people from useful opportunity.
I would point out here also that as in all families, business
and organisations there are those who are the focal points of authority
and the designers of the planned activities, so within that group or organised
body which goes by the name of humanity there are similar focal points or
those who plan, direct and produce the outer happenings and events. They
are in the period of personality achievement—that time in which human beings,
having achieved integration and a blended expression of feeling and perception
and mind, are actively and effectively working upon the physical plane.
These focal points are used to bring about two major changes in the world;
the first is the fusion and blending of peoples and minorities so that coordinated
empires and cultural nations are appearing everywhere and, secondly, the
changing of frontiers and the altering of boundaries so that a complete
re-adjustment of the map of the world in Asia, Europe and Africa can take
place.
It will be apparent to you that three major methods or
modes of producing these fusions can be noted. Great Britain, the United States of America and the Union of Socialist
Soviet Republics (the U.S.S.R.) are working out the principle of federation,
of relation and of the fusion of bodies into concentrated wholes, responding
to the same inspiration but employing their own specialised methods to bring
about the desired ends. Be not surprised by my [Page 131] including Russia
in this triplicity. Their ideology is fundamentally as sound as that in
the other groups, but the difference lies in the factors of personality
and the mode of applying the ideology. The control of powerful and dangerous
personalities, and the use of the methods of force and cruelty have been
avoided in the first two groups of nations, and the reason is based upon
the different source of the inspiration producing the effects. Another reason
is to be found in the placing of power in the hands of those who are historically
unprepared to rule and of those whose past unfoldment has as yet brought
them only to the nursery stage of evolution.
Nevertheless in these three groups there is much of interest
to be noted. One of them, Great Britain, represents a fusion, the foundations
of which have been laid in a long historical past of preparation for government;
another, that of the U.S.A. represents a fusion which is unfolding and developing
in the present which is new in its experiments, though employing factors
from every nation in Europe; the U.S.S.R. in its turn represents a coming
fusion or future synthesis. In these three, you have an interesting and
immediate expression of the three divine aspects, each of which inspires
and colours the embryonic civilisation. Great Britain expresses the
will-to-power but on account of age and experience, dearly bought, this
is today mellowed by justice and a growing understanding of human need.
This, in its turn, is the result of the control for many centuries in the
past by the aristocracy, with its paternalism, conservatism and its method
of slow adjustment. The U.S.A.
expresses the will-to-love, which shows itself in an ability to absorb vastly
divergent elements and yet to present equal opportunity to all. This is
brought about very largely because the control is, in this federation of
states, in the hands of the bourgeoisie, with its financial goals, its power
to determine living conditions, and its quick and sympathetic touch upon
life. Its method is not that of slow adjustment but of quick assimilation.
It is in that country also that people are most sensitive [Page 132] to
the influence of the Hierarchy. The U.S.S.R. expresses the will-to-create
and to produce new conditions and a new order—planned and determined and
foreseen. This has been brought about through cruelty very often, by a willingness
to compromise and to change or lower the original ideal. This, in its turn,
is brought about by the activity of the proletariat with its inability to
govern, its desire to retaliate, and its ignorance of tradition and of inherited
procedures.
A most interesting experiment is, therefore, working out
in these three groups of interrelated elements and differing national ideals.
The U.S.S.R. will eventually place its emphasis and direct its major interest
upon Asia, bringing about great changes on that continent, as far as the
Pacific The other, Great Britain,
through its successful demonstration of the principle of federation, can
affect major changes in Europe if there is an awakened
insight, a true and sympathetic justice and wise patience. The U.S.A.
has a similar task to perform for the Americas,
calling for statesmanship of a high order and a spirit of understanding.
It will also be apparent to you if you have rightly understood
the above suggestions that the Shamballa force is working through that community
of federated nations called the British Empire and is expressing the will-towards-synthesis
and the will to just and legal procedure. It is the force of the Hierarchy
which can express itself increasingly through the United
States of America, for an intuitive recognition of
subjective realities and a real sense of the higher values can and frequently
do control the impulses governing this group of federated states. The will-to-be
of Humanity with its almost extravagant emphasis upon human values and the
will-to-rule creatively is the contribution of the U.S.S.R., that great
federation of republics. Thus the influence of the three great world centres
about which I have earlier written can be seen expressing itself through
these three groups of nations. At the same time, the Shamballa force is
active in all of them, for it produces federation and synthesis. Its first
great expression or demonstration [Page 133] of the spirit of fusion took
place in the 18th and 19th centuries, and led to the formation of such countries
as Italy and Germany
which were created out of many smaller states, duchies and kingdoms. A history
of the trend towards fusion in the modern world would prove a most illuminating
study. It would be found that the first faint indications were felt around
1575 A.D. This was due to the fact that permission for the inflow of this
force was given when demanded at the Centennial Conference of the Hierarchy,
held in 1425. I referred to this conference in my earlier writings.*
In the second group of changing ideologies and of reaction
to mass need, you will find France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal,
all of whom have altered their ancient policies, changed their forms of
government and reacted gradually and slowly to the Shamballa force. They
have, however, reacted to that force through the medium of certain great
and outstanding personalities who were peculiarly sensitive to the will-to-power
and the will-to-change and who (during the past 150 years) have altered
the character of their national life, and emphasised increasingly the wider
human values. The men who inspired the initiating French revolution; the
great conqueror, Napoleon; Bismarck, the creator of a nation; Mussolini,
the regenerator of his people; Hitler who lifted a distressed people upon
his shoulders; Lenin, the idealist, Stalin and Franco are all expressions
of the Shamballa force and of certain little understood energies. These
have wrought significant changes in their day and generation and altered
the face of Europe, incidentally affecting Asia and conditioning attitudes
and policies in America.
The results even when dangerous and terrible, have developed
two vital characteristics in humanity. One has been the widespread development
of the discriminating faculty, and secondly, a tendency to dispersion with
its [Page 134] consequences of diffusing civilised and cultural values and
the diverse gifts of the many people to the world soul. The drift of people
to the colonies from Great Britain, the drift of the people from every nation
in Europe to America, North and South, the dispersal of people within national
boundaries as the result of war and expediency such as the evacuation of
cities has brought about today, the removal of people out of Italy and of
groups of people within Russia, and the constant moving onwards of the wandering
Jews indicate a breaking down, upon a world-wide scale, of all outer boundaries
and the institution of a process of blending and amalgamation such as the
world has never seen before. It constitutes an educational system of untold
value, leading as it does to the constant necessity to readjust viewpoints,
to change modes of living, to intermarriage and so-called illicit relations.
The outer change is producing an inner synthesis and outer dispersion, and
cleavages are working out interiorly in closer relations and a more tolerant
spirit of understanding. The power to consider, to choose, to think and
to discriminate is rapidly developing among all classes everywhere as a
result of the many cataclysmic happenings, the presentation of many changing
circumstances and the many points of view and theories of government and
of religion; these grow naturally out of new contacts and the rapid presentation
of events through the medium of the press and the radio.
It is this that is of importance from the standpoint of
evolution and the growth of the world consciousness. The physical plane
happenings are incidental and of no permanent lasting power.
The physical plane events and precipitations are carried
forward and made possible through focal points of energy who are the world
dictators, the world statesmen, and the outstanding human beings in all
lands as well as by groups which are actively working in every country for
their own ends or—as is more often the case—under the influence of some
group ideal or wisdom plus personal ambition, personal will-to-power and
personal aggrandisement. [Page 135] We call these people dictators, demagogues,
inspired leaders, or just and wise men, according to our peculiar ideology,
tradition, attitudes to our fellowmen and our particular political, economic
and religious training. But all these leaders are simply human beings and
like other men—idealistic, mistaken, lovers of their country, egoists, impressionable,
foolish, cunning, powerful, focussed on some goal or ambition, with clear
vision and at the same time myopic reactions, cruel or wise as the case
may be—but, in the last analysis, highly developed personalities. They are
being used to engineer great and needed changes and to alter the face of
civilisation. The wrong methods employed and the evil things done are the
fault of humanity as a whole, and of the habits of thought which have made
mankind selfish and cruel and cause this great and universal spirit of the
will-to-change to manifest so powerfully and cruelly.
Blame not the personalities involved or the men who produce
these events before which we stand today bewildered and appalled. They are
only the product of the past and the victims of the present. At the same
time, they are the agents of destiny, the creators of the new order and
the initiators of the new civilisation; they are the destroyers of what
must be destroyed before humanity can go forward along the Lighted Way. They are the embodiment of the personality of humanity.
Blame yourselves, therefore, for what is today transpiring and seek not
to evade responsibility by placing it upon the shoulders of spectacular
men or any statesmen, dictator or upon any group. Look not to one person
or to one group of persons and accuse them of causing the present world
condition. Look not also to any one person or group to bring liberation
or to find a solution of the world problem. That is for humanity itself
to do. Humanity must take action and will do so, when the right time comes.
To recognise joint responsibility, joint mistakes, ancient errors of judgment,
wrong attitudes and habits of thought, world-wide selfish purpose and intent,
a universal spirit of aggression which, down the ages, has [Page 136] influenced
first one nation and then another, the tendency last century to crystallise
and become static, the reactionary forces on every hand—these are universal
qualities and no nation and no race is free of guilt or has entirely clean
hands. Also, no one national group is purely wrong and evil or purely good
and unselfish. There are mixed motives everywhere. Nationalism, aggression,
selfishness and cruelty in all countries face a desire for world understanding,
peaceful relations, and an unselfish and beneficent spirit also in all countries.
The Forces of Light find their adherents and their workers in every country
though some are subjected to greater handicaps in expression than others.
So also do the Forces of Materialism. And in between these two great groups
stand the masses—waiting for the emergence of fresh opportunity and new
revelations.
It is the universality of these conditions and the clear-cut
issues that have made this period one of planetary opportunity and planetary
initiation. Initiation is essentially a moving out from under ancient controls
into the control of more spiritual and increasingly higher values. Initiation
is an expansion of consciousness which leads to a growing recognition of
the inner realities. It is equally the recognition of a renewed sense of
the need for change and the wise engineering of these needed changes so
that real progress can be made; the consciousness is expanded and becomes
more generously and divinely inclusive and there is a fresh and more potent
control by the soul as it assumes increasingly the direction of the life
of the individual, of a nation and of the world.
In the last analysis, and from the standpoint of the Hierarchy,
the present conflict between the personality of humanity (expressing the
material values as the dominating factor in life experience) and the soul
of humanity (expressing the spiritual values as the dominating factor in
human affairs) is identical with the conflict which takes place within a
human being's consciousness when he has reached the stage of discipleship
and is faced with the problem of the pairs of opposites. This conflict is
expressed in many [Page 137] ways according to the point of view and the
background of thought. It can be called the conflict between Christ and
anti-Christ but not as those who usually employ those phrases understand
them. No one nation is expressive of the spirit of anti-Christ, just as
no one nation expresses the spirit of Christ. Christ and anti-Christ are
the dualities of spirituality and materialism, both in the individual and
in humanity as a whole. Or you can speak of God and the Devil with the same
basic implications. For what is man himself but an expression of divinity
(God) in a material form (the Devil), and what is matter but the medium
through which divinity must eventually manifest in all its glory? But when
that takes place, matter will no longer be a controlling factor but simply
a medium of expression.
The battle is therefore on between the form side of life
and the soul. The Dweller on the Threshold (the threshold of divinity, my
brothers) is humanity itself with its ancient habits of thought, its selfishness
and greed. Humanity today stands face to face with the Angel of the Presence—the
Soul Whose nature is love and light and inclusive understanding. The great
problem today is which of these two will emerge the victor out of the conflict,
and which of these two great agencies of life will determine humanity's
future and indicate the way which humanity will decide to go.
The issues at stake are clear to all right-thinking people.
Intolerance and an intense national pride and self-satisfaction can blind
men to the facts of the case today, but there are enough people thinking
clearly to make the future of right decision more probable than at any previous
time in the history of the race.
Preparation for World Goodwill
The causes of the present war are ancient. This historical
sequence of the predisposing factors can be clearly traced in the exoteric
records of all nations as well as in the esoteric records of the Hierarchy.
The inherent human [Page 138] qualities which have led to the development
of the present war are well known. All who are conscious of and observers
of the war within their own natures, between personality selfishness and
the selflessness of the soul, are aware of the implications and the correspondences.
Where then lies the solution? What must be done to arrest the fires of hate
and of aggression, of revenge and of fear? What also must be done to prepare
for that time when the rebuilding of the world of men and the inauguration
of the new and better civilisation arrives? With this we might now briefly
deal.
As regards active participation in the work to be done
in preparing the world for the expression of goodwill, there is little to
be done of an active exoteric nature at this time; it is necessary to wait
with patience and to see what is going to happen and along what lines the
activity of the nations will run. But there is very much to be done of an
esoteric and a preparatory nature and it is this which I seek to impress
upon your minds.
Up to date and in spite of appearances, the Forces of
Light are victorious and are definitely holding things steady. It is for
this reason that nothing has yet quenched the spirit of goodwill and of
sympathetic understanding which exists among the peoples of all nations,
not excluding Germany;
this has been the outstanding significant characteristic of the present
conflict. There is little hate or vindictiveness to be found, and this fact
constitutes the difference between this war and the last, in 1914. It indicates
a triumph for the Forces of Light and in it lies the hope of the future.
It is here, however, that the time factor must be considered, for a prolonged
war may cause a change in this desirable attitude, and much drastic experience
may produce deep psychological and unavoidable changes in human thought
and action. This must be consciously offset. It has not yet occurred but
it could happen and if it does much pain, terror, fearful anticipation,
suffering and the agony entailed by the sight of suffering might eventually
turn this goodwill into a [Page 139] dynamic spirit of hate and revenge
unless it is definitely and consciously offset. Groups who are adhering
to the principles of the Forces of Light, who are bending every effort to
end the spirit of aggression and to rid the world of the focal points for
material influence and power, must yet carry forward the task of binding
men and women of every nation together in a spirit of loving understanding;
they must interpret nation to nation in terms of brotherhood and of the
new order.
This is no easy thing to do at this time. The astral or
emotional bodies of human beings (which constitute the astral body of humanity
as a whole) are today in a state of chaos, and are swept by ancient desires,
ancient and deep-seated selfish attitudes and by ancient hatreds. The task
is also complicated by the activity of the mental processes of man which
is characterised by pronounced and developed illusions, by separative attitudes
and by specious arguments. But there are, at the same time, enough people
in the world who are responsive to the spirit of goodwill, of tolerant understanding,
and animated by a desire for permanent right human relations.
I have earlier suggested to you* that it should be possible
to have—at a later date—a world-wide recognition of a Day of Forgetfulness,
of Forgiveness and of Fulfilment of the Biblical injunction to "forget
the things which lie behind and to press forward" into the New Age,
the new relationships and the new civilisation. For that time we can all
begin to plan, and to work for that psychological moment wherein this idea
can be presented. It will come immediately after the cessation of hostilities.
But today and in every land, where possible, the peoples must be educated
in this expression of human synthesis and human interrelation.
It involves, however, an emphasising of the values to
which I have referred earlier in this article. This is humanity's [Page
140] joint responsibility because of humanity's general mistakes, and the
ancient wrong attitudes and controls. It involves, consequently, a stepping
down from the position of critics and assigners of responsibility to that
of a joint shouldering of the stupendous task of changing present conditions
and of instituting those reversals of policy which will make a united world
order possible and beautiful. This is no easy task. It is one which calls
all men and women of goodwill in the world today and challenges them to
prepare whilst the conflict is on for what can be done when it is over.
I have given much in the past which can provide a platform
of objectives and of methods. Nothing that I have outlined is now abrogated;
only fulfilment is postponed. For seven critical years, it lay in the hands
of the spiritually minded men of the world, in the hands of the Churches
in all lands and of the men of goodwill and of the world aspirants so to
work that the present conflict could have been avoided. But the spirit of
Christ was lost in clerical organisation; emphasis has been laid upon technical
theology; the spirit of goodwill was not expressed dynamically and practically,
but theoretically and negatively; the aspirants of the world had no true
sense of values but were content to give a little time to the spiritual
life and to other people, but much time was lost in individual, personal
aims. A spirit of inertia settled down upon the better inclined and upon
the more understanding people; nothing that we could do served to arouse
them to powerful action or to sacrifice personal temporary values to the
lasting and universal values. The individual remained more important to
himself than did the good of the whole.
Be not over-distressed, my brothers. You are not alone
in this but part of a vast number, if that is to you any real satisfaction.
But a renewed opportunity lies in front of you and it
is of a practical nature, falling into definite spheres of work and of planned
activity. You are asked, first of all, to [Page 141] prepare for the great
opportunity which will come at the close of this conflict, and
1. To explain clearly to all people the cause which produces
the opportunity and which is dedicated to the ending of the present state
of affairs.
2. To engineer some dramatic and universal event which
will serve as the inspiration and the inauguration of the new era of goodwill
and of right human relations.
Secondly, to keep up a steady process of right thought,
right interpretation of current events and a right preparation whilst the
war lasts, so that any weakening of the gained spirit of goodwill can be
immediately offset, and so that understanding can grow in potency and not
suffer obscuration. In order to bring this about, the following activities
are suggested beginning with those which concern the individual worker.
1. A close personal watch over every word said or written,
so that nothing said or written by any of you will have in it hate or bias
of the wrong kind and your minds and hearts will be kept clear of all undesirable
reactions. This is the personal and practical thing to do and the difficult
task set before each of you who read my words.
2. Study and apprehend clearly the issues which lie behind
this conflict, so that there is no inner wavering as to the rightness of
the side on which your interests lie—the side of the Forces of Light. Parallel
this with an understanding appreciation of the problem of those who are
bewildered by the emphasis and the dynamic activities of those through whom
the Forces of materialism are working. At the same time, also, kill out
all hateful criticism in your minds.
3. Endeavour to use the following formula or mantram every
day. It is a modernised and mystically worded version [Page 142] of the
one which was used widely in Atlantean days during the period of the ancient
conflict of which the present is an effect. For many of you this mantram
will be in the nature of a recovery of an old and well-known form of words:
"The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
I seek to love not hate: I seek to serve and not exact due service. I seek
to heal, not hurt.
"Let pain bring due reward of light and love. Let
the soul control the outer form and life and all events, and bring to light
the love which underlies the happenings of the time. Let vision come and
insight; let the future stand revealed. Let inner union demonstrate and
outer cleavages be gone. Let love prevail. Let all men love."
These words may seem inadequate, but said with power and
an understanding of their significance and with the potency of the mind
and heart behind them, they can prove unbelievably potent in the life of
the one who says them. They will produce also an effect in his environment,
and the accumulated effects in the world, as you spread the knowledge of
the formula, will be great and effective. It will change attitudes, enlighten
the vision and lead the aspirant to fuller service and to a wider cooperation
based upon sacrifice. My brothers, you cannot evade the sacrifice in the
long run, even if you have evaded it until now.
4. Then apply yourselves to the spreading of the use of
the Great Invocation and help to carry forward the plan for distribution.
The Great Invocation, as you will see in the next article which I am writing
for your information, is a potent solar instrument designed to bring about
changes and needed readjustments. It is so powerful that when it was suggested
for general use in the world of men some opposition was evoked among the
members of the Hierarchy because They feared its potent effects upon the
unready, and undeveloped people. Its use has, however, been justified [Page
143] and it is desired that its usefulness should be very greatly increased
and its use far more widely spread.
5. I would have you in your own way prepare for a major
spiritual effort which is to take place when this conflict has worn itself
out and some measure of peace and calm has come about. Each of you has your
own sphere of influence and of contacts and each of you is in touch with
similarly minded or enquiring people, with groups and churches, clubs, organisations
and societies which are pledged to some form of effort towards human betterment,
of goodwill effort, and of endeavour of some kind towards human welfare.
Now is the time for much work to be done with the leaders and senior workers
in such groups and with people who can be prepared by each of you for active
effort when the right time comes. To this task I call each of you. Later
you can swing these people into active goodwill work and to effort which
will tend to world understanding and fusion. You can with them bring about
the healing of the wounds of humanity which will be greatly needed and for
which you can now prepare. You can get in touch with such people, keep records
of names and addresses and capacity to serve and help, establish group contacts
and so systematise your work that when the call goes out (as it did in 1936)
there will be found available to the organisers a wealth of ready contacts
and of interested and prepared people who will then work intelligently to
establish the new order.
6. The instructions in my earlier pamphlets remain as
before and should be carefully followed in preparation for a campaign at
the close of hostilities. Mailing lists can be gradually brought alive by
judicious correspondence and new lists can be compiled; the Great Invocation
can be increasingly used if the method outlined by me is studied and rightly
organised by each of you, and so the goodwill already present in the world
can be brought to a point of dynamic livingness, ready for later use. But,
my brothers, nothing can be done unless you do it.
[Page 144]
THE GREAT INVOCATION - Stanza One
Let the Forces of Light bring illumination to all mankind.
Let the Spirit of Peace be spread abroad.
May men of goodwill everywhere meet in a spirit of cooperation.
May forgiveness on the part of all men be the keynote
at this time.
Let power attend the efforts of the Great Ones.
So let it be and help us to do our part.
THE WORLD CRISIS FROM HIERARCHICAL VIEWPOINT
April-May 1940
Another Wesak Festival will be close at hand when you
receive this communication. Its urgency, imminence and finality prompt me
again to attempt to awaken those of you who receive it to the present opportunity
and to the spiritual urgency of this high moment in human affairs. The three
Full Moon periods of April, May and June are most significant and determining,
and upon what happens during the next few weeks, whilst the sun is still
moving northwards, much will depend.
In this communication I would like to do two things: First
of all, give you a better idea as to how the spiritual Hierarchy of our
planet regards the present world crisis, and secondly, indicate to you certain
major eventualities which are dependent upon three things:
1. A possible divine intervention which may be brought
about through the aspiration of all right-minded people, plus the intelligent
and constant use of the [Page 212] Great Invocation, now being used in its
tens of thousands by the world aspirants in every country.
2. The emergence of certain clear lines of demarcation
between the activities of the Forces of Light and the forces of materialistic
aggression.
3. The place which clear thinking, wise speech and skill
in action should play in the attitude of the world disciples and the men
and women of goodwill everywhere.
I shall endeavour to speak with a reasonable brevity and
clarity, and I do so with complete freedom from what you call bias. I speak
in terms of humanity—without distinction of race, colour or nation; I have
no particular political views, because I know that all potential theories,
ideologies and governments are temporary states and conditions, controlling
different groups of human beings on their way from the human state to the
divine. This is a point of view oft overlooked by many of you who—temporarily
and oft fanatically—belong to one or other of these ephemeral states of
mind and passing human attitudes. I have no particular religious preferences,
knowing as I do that all roads lead to God and that the sense of divinity
is so dominant and inherent in the human heart that naught at any time can
crush it out; life, experience, trial, pain and instinctive human orientation
lead all men finally back into the light of God. I can and do, therefore,
love all men, irrespective of nationality and present ideas, as do all with
whom I am associated. Looking upon the moving screen of time with a vision
which reaches into the future and is inclusive of the past (for this is
the prerogative of all trained world disciples) I know that present events
will play their timely part, will give place to others in due time, and
that—when the immediate processes of readjustment in human values, spiritual
objectives and political schemes, religious orientations and territorial
syntheses are completed—the world will settle down again to the processes
of daily living. The immediate opportunity and situation in which we find
ourselves [Page 213] will have proved dynamically useful or (such is the
sad possibility) negatively futile. A fresh cycle of civilisation, culture
and growth will have been inaugurated which will be coloured by the ancient
hues of selfish desire and aggressive acquisitiveness, or by the newer and
more beautiful colouring of happy and satisfactory international relationships,
of religious understanding and of the much needed and demanded economic
cooperation.
Such a dual possibility confronts us now. One—new, right
and spiritually oriented; the other, ancient, evil and undesirable. Whether
man will go forward into the better way of life or permit the perpetuation
of the old ways and the domination of selfish personal, national and racial
interests remains yet to be determined.
Two things are, however, obvious to us as we look at the
present world situation; first, that the lines of demarcation between the
two ways of living and the two objective attitudes are far more clearly
defined than at any previous time in the history of humanity; secondly,
that it is the muddled thinking of vast masses of well-meaning people (many
of them not immediately implicated in the world conflict) which is largely
responsible for the slowness of the final crisis and the postponement of
the advancing decision.
For decades, we, the teachers of the race of men, have
watched certain great world (or planetary) tendencies take shape, assume
defined and pronounced outlines and become conditioning potencies. This
shaping and definition was essential if the issue was to be presented with
clarity to humanity, thus enabling a basic choice to be presented to the
sons of men and the placing in their hands of certain determinations which
could, if rightly directed, carve out for them a new and better future.
Such a presentation has never before been possible, because never before
has mankind been at the stage where it could grasp the situation intelligently,
or been so closely and rapidly interrelated by the radio, telephone, the
press and the telegraph. The needed choices can now be made in cooperation,
in consultation and with open eyes. The choice is clearly before the thinking
people [Page 214] in every country, and upon their decision rests the fate
of the less intelligent masses. Hence the present responsibility of the
national leaders, of the representatives of the people in the governments,
of the churches, and of the intelligentsia in all lands, without exception.
There should be no shirking or evasion of responsibility. There is, however,
much.
In past communications I have oft spoken of the Forces
of Light and the Forces of Materialism, meaning by these terms the controlling
trends towards brotherhood, right human relations and selfless purpose,
and those which reverse these higher tendencies and bring into human affairs
selfish acquisitiveness, emphasis upon material interests, brutal aggression
and cruelty. The two positions are clear to the unprejudiced onlooker.
To these two groups I would add a third. This third group
is taking shape in the world today with extreme definiteness and is composed
of those who throw the weight of their influence and of their action on
neither side; theoretically, they may advocate the higher way, but practically
they do nothing to further its interests. This third group is formed internally
of two groups: first, those people who are potentially weak and are therefore
ridden by fear and terror, feeling that they dare not move in any way against
the forces of aggression, and secondly, an intrinsically powerful group
who, through selfish material interests, plus a sense of separative superiority,
or distance from the seat of trouble and the domination of false values,
hold aloof from the situation and shirk their evident responsibility as
members of the human family. This latter group includes, among others, a
number of powerful democracies and republics. Fear, terror and a sense of
helpless futility govern the reactions of the one, and who can criticise?
Selfishness and separativeness control the other group.
You have, therefore, in the world at this time three groups
of people who embody the three major views of the whole of humanity, plus
the unthinking masses, swayed by propaganda, controlled by their governments,
and the prey [Page 215] of the loudest voices. It is of value to you to
get this picture clearly in your minds, and I would like again to define
them.
1. The ancient entrenched forces of aggression, of material
acquisition and pure selfishness, working through a pronounced cruelty which
reaches out and grasps what it wants, irrespective of any other rights,
historical and legal possessions or the will of anyone.
2. The forces of spiritual purpose, embodied in the will
to protect the rights of others, along with individual rights; to end aggression
and its consequent fear, and to throw the weight of their combined influence
on to the side of the most spiritual values, of human freedom, of the right
to think, and of kindness. I use the word "kindness" advisedly
because it embodies the idea of kin-ship, of brotherhood and of right human
relations. It is world goodwill in expression, just as the will-to-good
is the basis of any possible peace—a goodwill which would negate any premature
peace at this time, because the latter would give time for the Forces of
Materialism to consolidate their gains and prepare the way for further aggression.
Kindness, the will-to-good and peace—such should be the practical expression
and the formulated intention of those who are conditioned by the Forces
of Light.
3. The force of mass negativity, as expressed today by
the dominated people in the strongholds of aggression and by the neutrally
minded people everywhere. They are all coloured by racial fear, by the instinct
to self-preservation, and by short-sighted selfish interest.
The problem is one of exceeding difficulty because, even
though the lines of demarcation are becoming steadily more distinct, yet
the exponents of these three groups are to be found in every land and among
all people—in every church and in every home. No nation or group is exempt
from this triplicity. It is rooted in human attitudes, and that is why this
conflict is a strictly human conflict and not a European war. Every nation
has its selfish, aggressive people, who believe that might is right and
that men must be [Page 216] governed by the law of the jungle, taking what
they want, no matter at what cost to others. Every nation has those within
its borders who see the vision of right human relations, who seek to live
by the law of brotherhood, who respond to the influence of the Forces of
Light and of the spiritual Hierarchy, and who desire peace, kindness and
goodwill to rule world affairs and control the policies of the governments.
Every nation has also within it those neutrally-minded people who fail to
think clearly, who seek to place the blame upon the shoulders of all except
themselves, who theorise and speculate, advise, and assign responsibility,
but who refrain from any active participation in the processes of adjustment,
from reasons of pride or unwillingness to pay the price. Many of them are
group conscientious objectors who will eventually profit by the victory
of the Forces of Light but who refuse to share in the struggle, reserving
themselves for the future peace settlements, longing for the conflict to
end, but doing nothing to bring that about. Many are entirely sincere, but
their thinking needs adjusting.
If you will rightly grasp the reality of the statements
made above, you will do your share in the mental clarification which is
going on in the world. These three groups are functioning today and are
in conflict. The neutrally-minded group is definitely hindering the work
of the Forces of Light. These three world attitudes are to be found in every
nation, as well as in the consciousness of every single individual. The
realisation of this may enable you to grasp and shoulder your individual
responsibility better. You will realise the need to ascertain for yourself
where you stand and will refuse to be conditioned by other people's points
of view and the world-wide propaganda; you will appreciate where your nation
stands and on which side, and where you, as a soul, stand. You will then
be able—if you are sincere and clear-thinking—to work for that group within
the whole which seems to you to embody the highest possible activity and
aims, and you will relinquish that attitude of futile negativity, smug neutrality
or bewildered confusion which may [Page 217] distinguish you. You will then
emerge from the glamour of propaganda and of world illusion into the clear
light of your own soul, whose essential nature is love and selflessness
and whose major aspiration is to bring peace and goodwill among men and
to see the consummation of the mission of Christ.
This will lead eventually to the disappearance of so-called
neutrality upon earth—a neutrality in act, for there is never neutrality
in thought.
One of the things which the spiritual leaders of humanity
have sought to do is to bring clearly to the attention of men the basic
duality which is found in the world today—the duality of selfish, material
living and that of unselfish spiritual objectives. This is now clearly defined.
The second stage of their task now lies ahead, and that is so to stimulate
the vision of men everywhere that—beginning with the intelligentsia—they
can consciously take their stand under one or other of the two banners,
and so know what they are doing and why. The neutrally-minded waver between
the two and, to date, do nothing.
I would like in this connection to deal with one problem
which has somewhat disturbed the least clear-thinking among those whom I
have for some time taught. I have for years sought to develop in the world
a group of men and women who would stand for the spiritual values, who would
love all men, who would foster the spirit of goodwill, and who would stand
to humanity (as far as they could) as the Hierarchy of Light, as Christ
and His disciples seek to do. This has been interpreted by some of you as
meaning that you must refrain from rebelling against the evil thing in your
midst, and from all criticism and partisanship. You seem unable to love
with steadfastness the offender and yet to rid the world of the offence.
The situation might clarify if you answered to yourself one or two questions:
Do you believe that the Hierarchy of Light, under the
leadership of Christ, is on the side of cruelty, aggression and the slaughter
of the defenceless?
[Page 218]
Do you believe that the world can be saved by a refusal
to think and by the shirking of individual responsibility, thus ignoring
a situation which does exist?
Do you feel that there are no issues and principles which
are worth fighting for and dying for, if need be?
Do you stand with the Forces of Light or with the Forces
of Materialism?
What are you doing to aid the side which claims your allegiance,
loyalty and idealism?
Are you governed by a sense of individual futility—that
weapon which the Forces of Materialism are using now so potently to stun
possible opponents into helplessness?
A clear and searching analysis of the spiritual objectives
of humanity will enable you to answer these questions. If you do not need
to answer them because your position is clear in your mind, the study of
the questions may enable you to serve your day and generation more ably
and to present the situation more clearly to the bewildered.
A horror of war and a longing for peace are no excuse
for slack thinking, nor do they provide an alibi or the opportunity to shirk
individual or national responsibility. The conflict is on. It is of ancient
lineage. The issues are clearly marked between right and wrong, between
cruelty and kindness, between aggression and freedom. To evade responsibility
because of past national mistakes and historical sins and failures is an
unwarranted alibi; the shirking of due participation in the struggle because
every nation has certain materialistic objectives is wrong; a nation is
but the sum total of its people. To refuse to think because of the general
condition of fatigue in which you share is no excuse, and is unworthy of
the world disciples and aspirants.
The Hierarchy of Light is seeking to arouse men everywhere
to the basic dualism underlying this conflict and to the essential significance
of the issues with which humanity is faced. Hence the emphasis which I am
laying upon the need to face the problem, to think clearly and intelligently
about what is going on around you, and to take right and cooperative action.
The whole world problem will be clarified [Page 219] and the end of the
conflict more rapidly reached when there are only two parties and not three.
The recognition of this underlying dualism is necessary prior to the shifting
of humanity's consciousness away from its major preoccupation—acquisitive
material desire, aggressively obtained—into soul consciousness, with its
correlations, group interests, the meeting of group need, and the functioning
of a steady group cooperation on a world scale. This is true of individuals,
of nations and of races; as you, an individual, work out your own problem
in your daily life, you are helping to solve the world problem.
This is the situation as the Hierarchy sees it today and
with which it challenges all men and women of goodwill. They ask you to
share in the conflict in some way, and remind you of the occult significance
of those oft misunderstood words of Christ, "He that is not with me,
is against me."
In closing these remarks upon clear thinking I would add
two more. There is some confusion arising out of the basic idealism which
underlies the activities of many people in many countries. It is the importance
of the somewhat new ideal of the good of the state as a whole versus the
good of the individual and the good of humanity. The state becomes almost
a divine entity in the consciousness of the idealist. This is necessarily
part of the evolutionary plan, but in so far as it constitutes a problem,
is too big for the individual to solve alone and unaided. Of one fundamental
truth I can, however, assure you. When men everywhere—within the boundaries
of their particular state and whilst upholding its authority and its civilisation—begin
to think in terms of mankind, then public opinion will become so potent
and so right in its inclusiveness that state policies must inevitably conform
to the larger ideal, and the sacrifice of the individual and of humanity
in large numbers to the individual state will no longer be possible. The
part will be seen in its proper relation to the larger whole. It is this
arousing of public opinion to world rights, to inclusive human interests
and to international cooperation that is the true goal of all present spiritual
endeavour. Eventually it will be [Page 220] realised that the responsibility
for what governments do rests squarely upon the shoulders of the individual
citizens who put governments in their position of power. This is a responsibility
from which no citizens of any nation are or should be exempt, and to this
all national thinking of the right kind is fortunately awakening.
The second point I would briefly add is that, with the
precipitation of the present world situation, the citizens of all nations
are involved in a condition from which there is no escape except through
right action and wide vision on their part; to this world situation they
must conform their lives temporarily, patterning their activities upon the
needs of their own particular nation. For those who are swept into the world
conflict under one or other of the clearly defined banners, their immediate
action is clear—participation in the national emergency. This is, however,
wholly compatible with a subjective process of right and clear thinking,
which must run parallel to the demanded outer activity and which will lay
a foundation for the increasingly right action as time elapses. This will
involve right action on the part of those who are fighting under the Forces
of Light, and will lead to an eventual right and just peace; it will involve
also right action upon the part of those who have been swept into a bewildered
activity under the Forces of Materialism, leading finally to a revolt against
that which is wrong and evil—for the hearts of all men and the springs of
the divine life are not to be permanently directed into wrong channels of
activity. The responsibility for the immediate world moves and the present
gigantic national enterprises is now out of the hands and the control of
the individual; the responsibility for the future, nevertheless, still lies
in his hands. This shouldering of right responsibility must be preceded,
however, by an interlude of clear thinking plus right action as a citizen.
The problem of those living in neutral countries is different,
and along what lines it should be solved I have earlier indicated.
[Page 221]
As for the world disciples and aspirants (among whom you
range yourselves), the entire problem can be seen along still wider and
more comprehensive lines. You are forced by circumstance and karma, and
by the free decision of your souls, to work under one or other of the two
banners or in some one of the neutral and negative countries. Your problem
in all three cases is to see clearly the spiritual focus of this world crisis,
to swing the weight of any influence you may have—objective or subjective,
spiritual, emotional or mental—on to the side of the Forces of Light. As
you do so, you must preserve an understanding attitude of steadfast love
(not sentiment or emotional reaction) to men and women everywhere, without
any exception or reservations in your consciousness. That action has to
be taken, at times, which hurts or damages the form side of life or the
physical forms, is entirely compatible with the constant preservation of
soul love—a thing which it is hard for the disciple to learn and master,
but which is nevertheless a governing principle in evolution. This world
crisis and the present world war will, it is hoped, awaken men to the realisation
that the form side of manifestation, with its aggressive selfishness, its
cruel emphases and its separative tendencies, carries inevitably with it
the seeds of its own eventual elimination and the unavoidable results of
pain, suffering, war, disease and death. This situation is therefore of
man's own making and the result of his material nature and lack of soul
control. But—the soul is eternal; its nature is inclusive love; and the
whole aim of the present crisis is to shift the focus of human awareness
out of the form and the material aspect of living, into the consciousness
of the soul, and to do this at any cost to the hindering forms. It is against
this transference of emphasis that the Forces of Materialism are today fighting.
For this reason, humanity is swept into a vortex of conflict,
and the issue depends upon the clear thinking, wise speech and selfless
intent of the world disciples, working in collaboration with all the forces
for good in the world today, doing their duty as citizens of their own country
but cultivating ceaselessly and unrelentingly a world-consciousness.
[Page 222]
Let me now enlarge somewhat upon the possibility of divine
intervention.
Hovering today within the aura of our planet are certain
great spiritual Forces and Entities, awaiting the opportunity to participate
actively in the work of world redemption, readjustment and reconstruction.
Their Presence is sensed at times by the spiritually-minded people of the
world, and Their reality is recognised by the mystics and occultists working
in every land. Men and women express this recognition according to the trend
of their religious and psychological training and their particular mental
or emotional bias. The advent of Christ, or His "second coming,"
is anxiously anticipated by many orthodox Christians, who regard this world
war as indicating the end of the world and as preparatory to the appearance
of the Christ, to bring peace on earth. Others, more orientally minded,
await the appearance of an Avatar Who will transmit from God the needed
world message or new type of energy. Prophecy and astrology indicate a Coming
One and their many differing opinions seem to converge on Him; occultists
invoke everywhere the Forces of Light and call for the appearance of that
extra-planetary Potency to Whom they give the title, "Spirit of Peace."
Those with no religious or metaphysical bias recognise, however, that all
times of emergency seem ever to evoke some Liberator or some man or group
of men who are capable of changing world affairs and inaugurating—under
the stress and strain of the times—the new and needed fresh cycle of civilisation
and culture. Many refrain from specification of the requirements of such
a Coming One today, because of the magnitude and planetary nature of His
task, but they secretly hope and pray for His appearing. Still others regard
such an idea and hope as simply a psychological fulfilment and the embodiment
of the wish-life of the people—this time of humanity as a whole, for the
first time in racial history. Such people are apt to feel that this embodiment
has no true substance or place in the life of mankind, but wish that it
had. They forget that when a thoughtform has been constructed of sufficient
potency and [Page 223] has been built over a long period of time by the
people of the world, a further and final stage becomes ever possible. The
form can be rendered so magnetic that it can attract an Energy which will
inform it and give it active potency; it can then become a vital link between
the subjective world of energy and the objective world of forces and a thing
of power, of impelling and guiding activity, and therefore the expression
of a Life. This thoughtform, duly informed, becomes a mediating factor,
constructed by humanity but animated by the will-to-good of some great and
spiritual Entity. That thoughtforms, embodying evil lives can be and are
constructed is equally true, but with these we are not at this time dealing.
We come now to the significant point of what I have to
say today in this connection.
A great and vital thoughtform is in process of construction
upon our planet and within our planetary aura. It is being built by the
power of sound, by the magnetic pull of invocation leading to eventual evocation,
and by the force of desire-substance, animated by the power of thought.
It is being constructed by the united efforts of the Hierarchy, of the world
disciples and aspirants, of the men and women of goodwill in all nations,
and also through the inchoate longings of men everywhere, of all religious
beliefs, political views and group loyalties. It is safely anchored upon
the physical plane, is of vast proportions upon the astral or emotional
plane, but lacks vitality and power upon the mental plane. It is here, within
the realm of thought substance, that the weakness of the structure of this
thoughtform becomes apparent. It is already potent spiritually, owing to
the scientific work of the occult Hierarchy and Their trained helpers. This
spiritual life relates the thoughtform to the waiting extra-planetary Forces
and can make Their work possible and effective. It is potent physically
and emotionally through the work of the lovers of humanity, the well-meaning
efforts of the emotionally oriented people and the agonised longings of
the masses, who [Page 224] hate war, desire quiet, and demand peace and
good living conditions.
There is, however, a gap or hiatus upon the mental plane,
for the minds of men are not functioning correctly. The disciples and world
aspirants are not thinking with clarity, nor are they working in unity.
They are evading issues or are thinking separatively or nationally or fanatically;
they are not convinced of the potency of invocation or of prayer; they are
failing to realise that it is possible to work ardently for those conditions
which will lead to peace, and yet fight simultaneously so that those conditions
may be available; they fail to love all men without exception in their longing
to see their own loyalties emerge triumphant; they work doubtingly, hoping
for the best but believing in the worst; they use the method of prayer and
of invocation because such methods seem to have been successful in the past,
and because they are told that "faith can move mountains," but
they feel inwardly quite hopeless and uninspired and are not at all sure
what faith intrinsically is; they realise that a united front and a spirit
of joyous certainty are psychological assets of well-nigh invincible potency,
but they feel unable to arouse within themselves the slightest enthusiasm.
It is this negative and lukewarm attitude, this mental
uncertainty and this failure to link up the spiritual and the physical worlds
in a positive relationship which is holding back the Forces of Light and
the actual presence of the Spirit of Peace, and thus negativing a possible
divine intervention. It is the test of group work. The faith of many individuals
is real and deep, but they stand alone; the knowledge that the few have
of the nature of the waiting Forces of intervention is being negated by
the faithlessness of the world disciples and aspirants, weighed down by
world karma, by their own physical fatigue and by their horror of the present
situation, plus the difficulties of individual circumstance.
The problem can be most simply stated. Either the spiritual
Hierarchy exists, with all its potencies of love, wisdom and skill in action,
or for ages humanity has suffered [Page 225] from hallucinations; either
Christ and His group of Masters, initiates and disciples are facts in the
natural processes of evolution, historically proven and known through Their
spiritual activity down the ages, or men have been victims during those
ages of a gigantic fraud—emanating from what and where? Either the consistency
of the evolving presentation of the spiritual effort of the Hierarchy is
a witness to a great reality or mankind has developed a mentality which
is an instrument for the fabrication of non-existent facts, and this is
in itself so paradoxical as to give the lie to the inference. Either the
spiritual worlds and the three worlds of human endeavour can be related,
or there is nothing to past beliefs, to ancient stories of manifesting divinity
and to the constantly recurring periods of divine intervention.
I would here face you with these alternatives and would
ask you to consider your own position in these matters. Does the story of
Easter and of the living Christ carry no truth, and is it not possible for
that Risen Christ to express His power on Earth through His chosen instruments?
Is there no foundation for the myth of the annual return of the Buddha,
holding the door open between Shamballa and the Hierarchy so that, at need,
intervention may be possible through that open door? Is it only a silly
dream and a fantasy that at the time of the June Full Moon, Christ—in the
closest cooperation with the Buddha—links the Hierarchy with Humanity? Is
it quite impossible that when humanity awakens to the fact of this mediatorship
and can then avail itself of the straight line of ascent and descent through
the doors held open by the Buddha and the Christ, some stupendous appearing
may be imminent and suddenly take place? May it not be possible that through
the ascent of man's aspiration and spiritual desire, and through the descent
of the waiting Potencies, certain great changes may take place, for which
all the past has been only preparatory and through which the Aquarian Age
of brotherhood and understanding may make itself felt by virtue of these
great Potencies?
The two Full Moons of May and June present to you [Page
226] a new opportunity to participate in the release of the planetary Life
from the thraldom of the Forces of Materialism. If you are to do your share
in this work of salvage, it will necessitate certain attitudes and activities
on your part which I would like briefly to touch upon, leaving you to take
right and appropriate action and to follow, with all other disciples and
aspirants, the indicated stages:
1. Study with care and answer with sincerity and to your
own complete satisfaction the questions I put to you earlier in this communication.
When you have done this, you will know where you personally stand.
2. For the entire week prior to the May Full Moon and
the June Full Moon endeavour to do the following things:
a. Link up with all disciples, aspirants and men and women
of goodwill throughout the world and in all nations, using the creative
imagination.
b. Eliminate out of your consciousness all negativity,
seeing yourself clearly as ranged on the side of the Forces of Light; you
are, therefore, not neutral in thought. See to it also that when taking
right action in the conflict against the forces of materialism you preserve
ever a spirit of love for all individuals who have been swept into the vortex
of their potency.
c. When meditating and invoking the Forces of Light, endeavour
to forget entirely all your own personal difficulties, tragedies and problems.
Disciples have to learn to carry forward their work for humanity in spite
of personality stresses, strains and limitations.
d. Prepare yourselves thus for the work of the two Full
Moons, keeping your objective clearly in mind and submitting yourselves
to an adequate temporary discipline.
3. For the two days prior to the Full Moon, on the day
of the Full Moon itself, and for the two succeeding days (five days) endeavour
at sunrise, at noon, at five o'clock P.M., and at sunset, plus the exact
time of the Full Moon in your own [Page 227] land, to say the Great Invocation
with the intent to invoke, precipitate and anchor in outer manifestation
the waiting Potencies. Do this aloud when possible, and in group formation
whenever feasible. It is the focussed power of your unemotional thought
which will bridge the present existing gap and link more closely the two
worlds of spiritual activity and of human demonstration.
4. Repeat this activity for three days each and every
month—the day prior to the Full Moon, the day of the Full Moon, and the
succeeding day. As a preliminary exercise to these three days, you could
take an earlier three days of preparation, and thus increase the effectiveness
of your effort.
Many people the world over have for years been trained
to recognise two things. First, the importance of the Wesak Festival at
the time of the Full Moon of May, because it not only objectively links
the major Eastern religion with the major Western faith, but because it
esoterically provides the key to the open door between Shamballa and the
Hierarchy, between the purpose of God (still unidentified by man, owing
to his relatively low stage of evolution which makes it beyond human comprehension
at present) and the method of God, which is love; it provides also the link
between the Buddha, temporarily embodying will-wisdom, and the Christ, embodying
love-wisdom, and also between humanity, focussed in consciousness through
the Christ, and the Hierarchy, focussed in consciousness through the Buddha.
Owing to the stress of humanity today and the urgency of the response which
that distress evokes in the Hierarchy, the synthesis of these two reactions
to the world crisis can prove adequate to bring in that outside assistance
which could end the conflict along right lines and bring not only relief,
but illumination to the human consciousness. But again—speaking here to
a representative body of aspirants and disciples—I would state that the
focus and the emphasis is not yet adequate to guarantee this extra-planetary
response.
Nevertheless, it could be if, in your own life of meditation
[Page 228] and of discipline, in your speech with others and in the general
tone of your intercourse with your environment, you can eliminate the negative
and more selfish reactions and (for the sake of human welfare) temporarily,
at least, live at your highest point of aspiration.
Secondly, you have been trained in the belief that all
the information which I have given out anent the relation of the Buddha
and the Christ, and of the Hierarchy, Humanity and Shamballa, will form
part of the coming new world religion and that the theme of the Great Approaches
will constitute the basic fundamentals of the future spiritual teaching.
This too you must have in mind, for the work you are asked to do at the
coming two Full Moons, and during the less important full moons of the year,
is not only related to the present emergency, but is also constructively
related to the future faith of humanity. Bear this also in mind.
You will note that what I have said concerns your mental
attitudes and your emotional reactions to present world affairs. It concerns
also your soul tension, your willingness to undergo soul tension, and your
capacity to stand as part of the great chain of intermediaries who are today
being called to the service of the race in an hour of urgency. It concerns
the organising of yourself as an integrated personality in relation to your
soul and to humanity; it involves the recognition of the work which you
can do from the point of integration. I would ask you to ponder with care
upon this paragraph, stating the possibilities of your task.
I call you to a period of clear thinking. I seek not to
mould your political approach to life, but I do seek to aid you to see humanity
and its welfare—not only in terms of your own nation or your own political
group—but in terms of the whole, and as we, the teachers on the inner side,
are forced to see it. I seek to see you free yourselves from the condition
where you are swayed by propaganda of a political, national or religious
kind, and deciding for yourself where you, as a soul, must stand in this
world crisis and on which side you will place the emphasis of any influence
you may wield; I would have you note where your highest ideals [Page 229]
will lead you and whether the springs of your life's decisions and attitudes
are truly pure and unadulterated.
I seek to draw your attention away from the many minor
issues, the many clamouring voices, and from the widespread concentration
upon the unworthy pasts and the undesirable aspects of all nations (without
exception), and help you to see with clarity the major dualism which underlies
the present world conflict—might against right, materialism against the
higher values, freedom against imprisonment, cruelty against fair dealing,
liberty and safety against fear and aggression. Then, having balanced these
pairs of opposites within your consciousness, decide where your loyalty,
your interest and your ability to serve will be placed, and then go forward
to further the ends of one or other of the two groups, at no matter what
cost, but knowing where you stand and why you stand there.
That the will of Shamballa may be enabled to express itself
through love and through the meditation of the Hierarchy, working through
all disciples, aspirants and men and women of goodwill, is the earnest prayer
of your fellow disciple and co-worker.
