_O ye, who see perplexities over your heads, beneath your feet, and to
the right and left of you; you will be an eternal enigma unto yourselves
until ye become humble and joyful as children. Then will ye find Me, and
having found Me in yourselves, you will rule over worlds, and looking
out from the great world within to the little world without, you will
bless everything that is, and find all is well with time and with you._
KRISHNA.
To make my thoughts clear to you I must go farther back. We do not,
cannot, and I venture to say need not, know how men lived millions of
years ago or even ten thousand years ago, but we do know positively
that, as far back as we have any knowledge of mankind, it has always
lived in special groups of families, tribes, and nations in which
the majority, in the conviction that it must be so, submissively and
willingly bowed to the rule of one or more persons--that is to a very
small minority. Despite all varieties of circumstances and personalities
these relations manifested themselves among the various peoples of
whose origin we have any knowledge; and the farther back we go the more
absolutely necessary did this arrangement appear, both to the rulers and
the ruled, to make it possible for people to live peacefully together.
So it was everywhere. But though this external form of life existed for
centuries and still exists, very early--thousands of years before
our time--amid this life based on coercion, one and the same thought
constantly emerged among different nations, namely, that in every
individual a spiritual element is manifested that gives life to all that
exists, and that this spiritual element strives to unite with everything
of a like nature to itself, and attains this aim through love. This
thought appeared in most various forms at different times and
places, with varying completeness and clarity. It found expression in
Brahmanism, Judaism, Mazdaism (the teachings of Zoroaster), in Buddhism,
Taoism, Confucianism, and in the writings of the Greek and Roman sages,
as well as in Christianity and Mohammedanism. The mere fact that this
thought has sprung up among different nations and at different times
indicates that it is inherent in human nature and contains the truth.
But this truth was made known to people who considered that a community
could only be kept together if some of them restrained others, and so
it appeared quite irreconcilable with the existing order of society.
Moreover it was at first expressed only fragmentarily, and so obscurely
that though people admitted its theoretic truth they could not entirely
accept it as guidance for their conduct. Then, too, the dissemination of
the truth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and
the same manner, namely, those in power, feeling that the recognition
of this truth would undermine their position, consciously or sometimes
unconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign
to it, and also opposed it by open violence. Thus the truth--that his
life should be directed by the spiritual element which is its basis,
which manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to man--this
truth, in order to force a way to man's consciousness, had to struggle
not merely against the obscurity with which it was expressed and the
intentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also
against deliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and
punishments sought to compel men to accept religious laws authorized
by the rulers and conflicting with the truth. Such a hindrance and
misrepresentation of the truth--which had not yet achieved complete
clarity--occurred everywhere: in Confucianism and Taoism, in Buddhism
and in Christianity, in Mohammedanism and in your Brahmanism.