be expended soon, or late? Germany has woven round herself a shirt of
evil causes that will cling to her and chafe her flesh for generations.
“It must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the
offence cometh.”
The karma of nations is known to the Masters and Adepts.
The karma of England! Have you ever thought about the karma of England?
Granting that she has done much wrong, as all old nations have, yet
she has allowed herself to be used by the world-will. She, more than
all the other old races, has been an instrument in the unifying of the
races. Did you fancy that the British Empire was a fortuitous concourse
of atoms? Did you think the British Empire merely happened?
And now the British Empire _may_ be used further. She may be used
in Belgium. And I do not mean the mere presence of her army in Belgium.
It is said that the Masters, the world’s teachers, hold back the awful
karma of the world. I am trying to do a little toward holding back the
awful karma of Germany.
She has disgraced the human race in Belgium. Everything that has been
believed about German outrages in Belgium is true except one thing.
So far as I know, and I have enquired of those who know more than I,
German soldiers have not cut off the hands of living Belgian children.
But they have murdered women, and outraged women, and mocked and
insulted pregnant women, and maltreated the new-made mothers of babes
that they have murdered. They have burned men alive, and they have
buried men still alive.
I say that Germans have done these things. Should I say that the forces
of evil, the beings of evil, the superhuman and the once-human forces
of evil, have done these things, using as their instruments the forms
of German soldiers from which they had thrust for the moment the moral
soul?
Take it whichever way you please, for both ways are true. The men who
ravaged and destroyed Belgium were not all obsessed, save that evil
may be always an obsession.
Help to hold back the awful karma that Germany has made in Belgium.
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and
hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that
despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of
your Father who is in heaven.”
_March 27._
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The law of ethical causation.]
LETTER IX
UNSEEN GUARDIANS
IN the devastated region of Belgium--and most of Belgium is
devastated--there stands a little house unharmed and tranquil as before
the war. Round about it are ruined walls, standing black with smoke or
grey with the powder of shell-fire.
Two women live there, middle-aged women. They did not flee their home
when the war-tide rushed over them. They were frightened--yes, but they
did not flee. They saw neighboring houses in flames, they heard the
detonation of shells bursting; but they remained between their four
thin walls, and waited and prayed. Four gods they prayed to, God the
Father and God the Son, and two others--their father and mother, who
had passed on some years before into the other world, their Belgian
father and their German mother!
So great was their faith that they believed they would be unharmed, and
they were not harmed. Incredible as it may seem, that little house
stands there secure in the midst of desolation.
Love is a protective force. The father and mother of those two
middle-aged women had loved each other tenderly. Race was no barrier
to their love. The German woman and the Belgian man had taught their
children that Germany was their mother and Belgium was their father.
Their bones lie together in the village churchyard, and their souls
kept watch when the armies passed over. They guarded the children they
loved.
Does this seem an impossible story? I know it to be a fact. I have
spoken with that father and mother, and I shall speak with them again.
Their faith is rare, and their love is rare, and their reward has been
rare.
It is easier to guard a little house than to move a mountain, and it
has been said that faith like a grain of mustard-seed could move a
mountain.
Those two souls had not yet passed away from the neighborhood of the
earth; they waited for their children. When the war-tide rolled over,
they stood guard at the doorstone of their home. The spirits of the
peaceful dead do not like the sound of shells, but those two did not
fly away. Had they been frightened from their vigil, the little house
might now be like its neighbors.
Am I over-credulous? Do you remember my telling you one day years ago
that you were not credulous enough? I see that you remember. These
two--the Belgian father and the German mother--were also credulous, as
the world uses the word, and their children were credulous, too. Had
the nations been equally credulous of the power of love, there would
have been no war; for there would have been no armies to make war.
I am not preaching against armies. I am only preaching love and faith.
When love and faith grow greater, armies will grow smaller, and war
will be at an end.
I asked the Belgian father how he felt about the war, and he looked
toward his German wife; I asked the German mother how she felt about
the war, and she looked toward her Belgian husband. Neither would speak
for fear of wounding the other.
How should I feel now if my nation were at war, you wonder? But since
the eyes of my memory opened and I saw my past lives, I realize that I
have had so many nations, have fought in so many armies, have lain in
the lap of so many mothers of mine in so many lands, that my spirit is
uprooted.
I have joined the great White Brotherhood, to which all men are
brothers and all women sisters. It would be difficult for you to see
with my eyes. I watch and wait, like the parents of the two old maids
in Belgium, and so far the house of my faith stands untouched by the
fires of war.
In the great White Brotherhood there are members from many races, there
are members from the races now at war. Do you fancy that they looked
askance at one another when the world went mad? They did not look
askance at one another. Each stood guard where he could do the most
good. Each sought to soften the blow for the brethren of his brother,
each sought to soften the hearts of his own blood-brethren. But as
this war was written in the stars, the Teachers of the world could not
prevent it when the hour struck.
Do you know what it means to be a member of the great White
Brotherhood? It means to work for the welfare of the human race, for
the good of the planet as a whole.
And there is another thing I want to tell you. You have heard of a
Black Brotherhood. It is a misnomer. Brotherhood is never black. There
is no Black _Brotherhood_. There are many Black Masters, for
Mastership, like a garment, may be either white or black. In this war
the black forces who have inspired hatred in men have worked for one
end, and that very fact will weaken their power to do evil for a long
time, when the results of their present labors are over.
Do you get my meaning? A combination of evil forces, in the very act
of combining, weakens the individual power of its members; for evil is
strongest when individual.
Two who are full of love may work together with the power of four; but
two who work together for evil have only the power of--shall I say one
and a half? And one and a half against four! If you love power, use
power for good and increase it.
It is because of the _multitude_ of elementary evil forces, all
hurling their malice at the world, not because of their combination,
that this madness was made possible.
Hate is a disintegrating force. Those who hate after this war will
disintegrate themselves. Those who love after this war will grow
strong. France especially will grow strong, because there is more love
than hate in France. France loves so much that even her enemies do not
hate her. It is not merely because she is not so brutally strong as her
great enemy.
Love your enemies. That is the surest way to overcome them.
_March 29._
LETTER X
ONE DAY AS A THOUSAND YEARS
AS I am writing about war, I wish to talk to those who have lost their
loved ones in this war.
You who grieve for the untimely dead, have you not read that one day
shall be as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day?
We must start on the basis of rebirth, whose other name is rhythm, and
whose course is immortality. Immortality presupposes no beginning and
looks forward to no end. The spirit always was and always will be. In
the life of the spirit one day is as a thousand years and a thousand
years are as one day.
Birth is the morning of a new day, and death is the evening of that
day, and the period between lives is the period of sleeping and
dreaming. Or you may turn it the other way and say that life is a dream
and death the awakening to reality. But the rhythm is sure.
Falling asleep is a passing through the astral world, much as the soul
passes through it after death. You who write for me, and a few others,
pass through it in full consciousness. Some day all men will pass
through it consciously and will bring back the memory.
You who grieve for the dead, remember that a lifetime is but a day to
the immortal spirit. Often have you parted from a loved one for a day
and felt no grief thereat. The loved one left home to perform a duty
and you felt sure that the next day you would see him again. Can you
not feel that in the next day of the soul, the next lifetime (it is all
the same in eternity), you will greet your loved one again?
Friends do not meet in every life unless they are very intimate. As
you do not see one friend or another oftener than once a week, so in
the greater days of the soul you may not meet all your friends every
day. You part from one on Monday with a definite engagement to meet on
Friday. Four days, four lifetimes, it is all the same in eternity.
But from some you only part for a few hours, from noon to sunset, and
meet again in the evening in the intimacy of home. Those who have left
you now at the midday of life will perhaps come home to you at the
sunset; which is only another way of saying that they may meet you at
the end of this day of the soul, the end of this life, and be with you
in the twilight period of the astral life and in the sweet dream of
heaven beyond. Do not grieve. Love waits for its own.
Some friends you may meet again two, four or seven lifetimes away; but
those who are really your intimates, your lovers, your own, you will
meet again at the sunset, or at the latest tomorrow--the next day of
the soul on earth.
How will you prepare for the meeting? Will you not work cheerfully
all day, knowing that at dusk Love will come back to you? As sunset
approaches, will you not robe yourself in the white garment of faith,
the evening garment, and watch for Love at the window? Love will come.
Can you not in anticipation hear his footstep on the gravel? Can you
not hear the click of the lifted latch? Will you not go forward with a
smile to greet Love? Surely, one day shall be as a thousand years and a
thousand years as one day.
I took counsel with the soul of an English officer who died in leading
a charge. His death was quick and painless. A shot through the heart
and he found himself--after a period of unconsciousness--still, as he
supposed, leading a charge.
But there was no enemy before him, nothing but the tranquil fields
above the tumult; for so great was his exaltation of spirit--he had
died with the thought of his Love in his heart--that he had gone up and
up to the region where Love may have room.
Seeing nothing before him he paused, looked round and saw me.
“Brother,” I said, “you have left the war behind you.”
He understood. Those who have lived for weeks in the tents of Death are
not slow in recognizing Death when he lifts the curtain.
“And what of the charge?” he asked eagerly. “Was the charge won?”
“Yes,” I replied, “the force of your spirit won it.”
“Then all is well,” was his answer.
“Rest a little,” I said. “Rest and talk with me.”
“Have we met before?” he asked. “For your face is familiar to me.”
“My face is familiar to many on the battlefields,” I said.
“When did you come----out here?”
“Three years ago.”
“Then you can teach me much.”
“Perhaps I can teach you something. What do you want to know?”
“I would know how to comfort one to whom my death will bring great
grief.”
“Where is she?” I asked.
He named the place.
“Then come,” I said, “I will go with you.”
We found a beautiful woman in a little room in England, a little room
which contained a little bed. And in the bed was a boy four or five
years old. We could hear the voices of the mother and child as they
talked together.
“And when will father come home?” the little one asked.
“I do not know,” said the mother.
“Father _will_ come home, won’t he? Are you sure that he will come
home?”
“I pray that he comes home soon,” was all the mother said.
The eyes of children, as they pass into the twilight world, the world
between waking and sleeping, are sometimes very clear.
“Why, father has come home!” the child cried, and he stretched out his
arms to the father with a glad cry.
And the mother knew and was very still.
But her grief was softened by knowing that he whom she loved had come
home and that her child had seen him. I think he will remain with her
until she can join him here. The delay will not retard the progress of
his soul. Love is the fulfilling of the law. There is time in eternity
for love and the delays of love. In love a thousand years are as one
day.
_March 29._
LETTER XI
MANY TONGUES
LEARN languages. My work in this war has been hampered by my knowing so
little of German.
With the souls of those long here I can hold converse by pure thought;
but the souls of the newly-come speak the language they spoke on earth
and often that language is but a _patois_. That is one reason why
I have had best success among the English armies.
I can read the thoughts of the Germans and the French, but they cannot
always understand me. The father and mother of the two women in Belgium
had been so long out here that we could understand each other’s
thoughts.
Learn languages. When you come to work in this world you may want them
even more than on earth, for distances here are short as thought, and
one goes from place to place in the twinkling of an eye.
_March 30._
LETTER XII
THE BEAUTIFUL BEING
THE angel we call the Beautiful Being, who guided me on my journey
among the planets, would like to insert here a few words on Love and
Hate. They seem to be an expression of the mortal and the Immortal
Self, in the early days of the war.
LOVE AND HATE
_One whom I loved made war on me, and the nations of the earth made
war on one another. The green fields were stained with blood and the
hum of the harvest crickets was drowned in cries of pain and rage, as
men rushed on to wreak their hate upon their human kindred. My heart
was sadder than the skies of the London winter. No joy there seemed
in all the earth; for love was dying and peace was dead, and men were
going everywhere to death._ MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN
_was written on the walls of the human temple_.
_And I said to my heart_:
“_Where have we drifted in the midday of our life? And why do we wait
for the sunset? For love has failed, and the world has failed, and have
we not failed, too?_”
_Then as I sat gazing into the nothingness of my own faith, I heard a
voice that seemed to come from the centre of all things and the voice
said_:
“_Take your pen and write, for to him who has lost everything the
treasures of the Self are opened._
“_I am that Self that you had forgotten when you looked outside for
love. I am the Self that the nations had forgotten when they went out
to destroy one another. I am the One Self, and my house is in all these
hearts that throb with hate and love. When they wound each other they
wound me; when they doubt each other they doubt me; when they love each
other they love me. There is no other way of realizing me save by love
and hate and faith and doubt. For love and hate are two poles of the
one magnet, and doubt and faith are my twin-born children._
“_He who has never doubted all, knows not the meaning of faith; and
he who has never been hated, knows not the meaning of love._
“_When the heart is empty of joy I fill it with myself. When my own
destroy each other on earth they rush together in heaven. Freed from
the blindness of the body they see each other true._
“_Two soldiers went forth to war, and the bullet of each pierced the
heart of the other. Their hate was hot as love. Then in the sudden
darkness of death they reached for each other’s hand; their hate had
found its other pole and they melted together in love._
“_Two friends went forth to war against each other, and with
every wound they drew nearer together--the soul of each grieved for
the other’s pain, and neither in death nor life can one escape the
other._
“_Would you avoid a loved one, then never dare to hate him. The soul
has pity when the brain is pitiless; the faith of the soul may be
strongest when the mind is weak with doubt._
“_The soul of the brain that hates you keeps watch when the brain is
still, it wipes with its vapory hand the tear-drops from your eyes._
“_When you weep in dreams, know that your soul is weeping for the
tears you have caused your enemy. When you wake with wet eyes, you are
paying the debt of love._
“_Be kind to him who loves you, for love is a helpless waif; if you
drive it from the heart it can only wander alone._
“_Be kind to him who hates you, for his waif is wandering alone._
“_When you go to sleep, send love to the one who wounds you by day.
If you go to sleep in hate you will wake with wet eyes._
“_I am the go-between. I am the Self whose house is in every heart.
I take messages in the darkness. I am too great to be proud. I run
errands for my own._
“_How well you have tried to hate I know by your heart’s sadness.
That you have failed to hate is because your soul is sleepless._
“_I am the go-between and I keep my lantern lit._”
_April 1._
LETTER XIII
THE BODY OF HUMANITY
I HAVE said that as twenty of us stood in the palace at Potsdam and in
the Wilhelmstrasse, the greatest of the Teachers was not with us.
You do not know the name by which we know him, nor do you need to know.
He is one who has left so far behind him the personal limitations of
life as you know it that he can look upon that life somewhat as the
Planetary Logos may look upon it. He can look at the restless and
warring beings on earth as you would look at micro-organisms through a
lens. Amœba, fat-cell, pus-cell, he sees them all as parts of the great
Whole, and their wars do not make him partisan.
The assertions, the reiterations, the bombastic prayers of the German
Emperor, who goes on the assumption that God must be on his side
because it _is_ his side, do not move this Master even to smiles.
Absurdity and tragedy are one to him, except as they further or retard
the growth of the organism of Humanity.
If you get into your consciousness a _realization_, not a mere
philosophic theory, of the One and the many, you will understand that
the One is in all the many, whether some of them be your friends or
your enemies.
Another thing remember: To posit is to create. Posit and thus create
brotherhood. But do not posit it too violently, lest you climax your
rhythm too soon and produce by reaction the opposite of brotherhood.[2]
The greatest of the Masters seemed to us to posit no new thing when the
war-cloud gathered.
We whose knowledge is not infinite tried to serve as physicians,
tried to cool the fever that was burning the cells of the Great Man,
Humanity. We may be said to have given him mental treatment, to have
urged on the curative process.
The astral forces with which we struggled were like germs of disease in
the air. From the view-point of the great Master they were no more than
infusoria which you could see through a lens.
Adjust your view to eternity as well as to time, if you would
understand him and help him in his work. But do not regard your own
work as unimportant because it is in time, because from the greater
point of view you fancy that it may appear small.
How does a man become a Master save by doing his work as if the health
of the whole planetary organism depended on it? The perfect health of
the organism does depend on the work of every cell.
Now let me tell you why this war had to be. The time had come
when humanity must realize brotherhood in preparation for the new
race that had to be born. Instead of that, there was greater and
greater separation in feeling, though the material discoveries and
organizations of the last hundred years were making brotherhood
possible in the material world.
The rhythm of separateness was climaxed by this war of separation.
Without it the brotherhood of man would have been retarded by man’s
refusal to work emotionally with the law that had already been
demonstrated to him in the physical world.
In other words, the body had grown faster than the soul and the soul
had to suffer with the body; the soul had to be torn in order that it
might heal itself by its own power, the power of love.
I spoke of not climaxing too violently the rhythm of brotherhood. That
applies to all rhythmic waves. The Germans desired to be the ruling
race of the world. They posited their own superiority so violently that
they are producing the opposite of superiority. Posit with calmness.
They might have been the leaders in the new spirit of unity. They
have failed and have lost their opportunity. The mass of Germans in
the United States might have been a unifying force between the United
States and Germany. See what they are now!
The reason why Germany was not permitted by the Masters to have large
colonies of her own was so that her surplus population might scatter
over the earth and mix with other races. The German blood needed
mixing. Her efficiency in material ways might thus have leavened the
world.
Instead, she became drunk with her own greatness. She climaxed the
rhythm that might have carried her steadily forward. It is a karmic
failure she has made.
The races are like organs in the body of Humanity. If one race refuses
to work with and for the body of Humanity as well as for itself, it
becomes diseased.
If Germany would even now turn to the Supreme Unity and worship the One
of the System instead of her little racial god, she could recover the
ground she has lost, after a time of suffering and initiation. Will she
do it? That remains to be seen. Help with the Masters to hold back the
bad karma of that race.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: I have been somewhat troubled by the unusual expression,
“climax a rhythm.” But as there are many rhythmic ripples in every
great wave, and as the highest reach of a wave may be said to be
its climax, I assume that “X” is using words with the same judicial
precision which he used on earth, and that the climax of a rhythmic
wave may be called the climax of a rhythm.--_Editor._]
LETTER XIV
THE FOEMAN WITHIN
YOU have something more to do than simply to write down what I say
about brotherhood. With selfless devotion you must help the world to
realize it, pointing out the way to individuals and aggregates of
individuals.
Universal Brotherhood! It has a pretty sound, and mouths have repeated
it for the sake of its music, when the meaning of it was neither in the
heart nor in the brain.
Universal Brotherhood is not only the brotherly relation between the
units of the Many, but Universal Brotherhood is also their unity,
conscious and real, in the One Self. Universal Brotherhood is the
return of the Many to the One, as well as their enjoyment of the
journey itself.
You have repeated the old Hindoo word, formula, mantra, AUM, repeated
it like a parrot; but if you had realized AUM I should not have to
preach brotherhood to you, and by “you” I mean all men and women who
have prattled of Universal Brotherhood.
A-U-M--the One, the Many, and the Union between them: the Self, the
Not-Self, and the Negation of separateness. AUM, the seed, the plant
and the perfume.
What do you fancy that you are in the world for?
You have heard of Mulaprakriti, you Theosophists: Mulaprakriti,
root-nature. You have heard of the three gunas, or qualities of
Mulaprakriti, satwa, rajas, tamas: _satwa_, light, being, peace;
_rajas_, action, passion, assertion; _tamas_, darkness,
inertia, denial.
Some of you have also heard of Christ, Lucifer, Ahriman.--Satwa, rajas
and tamas, again, under other names.
You Kabalists have heard of Neshamah, Ruach, Nephesh: aspiration,
individual intelligence, materiality.