touch with our little selves to send Their forces through us, and that
Their life shall become the life of the Society; that out of this
rejoining of spiritual and temporal a greater spirituality shall
circulate in every vein and vessel of the Society, and it shall become
again truly a vehicle of the Masters of the Wisdom. It may be that it
is preparing for a greater and a nobler life, making the place ready
for some greater one to come, who shall worthily and strongly wield
the power that I am bound to wield too weakly, but yet, perhaps,
strongly enough to make that preparation possible. Perhaps you and I
together are strong enough and wise enough to till the field, where
another shall sow the seed that shall grow up into a greater
civilisation and mark a step forward in the history of humanity. That
is our great opportunity, that the possibility that I see opening
before us in this policy now changed for the second time. It may be
that we have learned enough in the last eighteen years to tread this
path rightly, to tread it sufficiently to prepare a field for a
greater one to come; and that is the hope in which I live at the
present time. I believe that it is possible, if only we can rise to
the height of our great opportunity, that someone will come from the
far-off land where greater than we are living, and take this
instrument and make it fit to be a tool in a Master's hand--some
Disciple greater and mightier than I, someone belonging to the same
company, but far wiser and far stronger than I. And that such a one
will take this Movement and make it a little more what the heart of
the Masters desires--more truly a Brotherhood, more full of knowledge,
more really linked to the higher worlds by a centre of wise
Occultism--that seems to me the great possibility which is opening
before us. But, as I said, I know not if we are great enough to take
it, or are still too small; but it is to that great work that I would
invite your co-operation; it is to that mighty task that I would ask
you to address yourselves. At least believe in the possibility of it;
at least raise your eyes to that great stature to which it may be our
Society shall attain. For if we can rise to it, then it means that we
shall be builders of the next civilisation, that our hands shall take
part in the making of the foundation of the humanity that is still to
be born; it means that we shall be its forerunners, its heralds, that
we shall be the messengers whose feet shall be fair upon the
mountains, telling of the coming of a greater man, of the birth of a
more spiritual humanity. And even supposing that, accepting that
ideal, we fail, supposing that we are not strong enough, and wise
enough, and unselfish enough, to do it, then, then--if I may quote the
words of Giordano Bruno--"It is better to see the Great and fail in
trying to achieve it, than never to see it, nor try to achieve it at
all."
The Relation of the Masters to the Theosophical Society
Those of you who have been present in the Queen's Hall on Sunday
evenings will remember that I spoke there a fortnight ago on "The
Relation of Masters to Religions." There, of course, I dealt with the
subject in the most general possible way, while here I propose to deal
with it more closely; but I must ask all of you, as I asked you last
Thursday and the preceding Thursday, to remember that in dealing with
the Theosophical Society we are only dealing with one part of a
world-wide and, as I might say, century or millennium-wide story--the
story, practically, of the relation of the spiritual world to the
physical. Although I am now going to deal specially with the relation
of the Masters to our own Society, I would ask you all to bear in mind
the more general relation of which I have spoken elsewhere. I do not
want to repeat what there I said, but I want to recall to your minds
the leading principle that the Theosophical Society cannot claim an
exclusive right to any special spiritual privilege, that the spiritual
privileges that it enjoys are part of the general spiritual heritage
of the world, and that you have to consider any special case in
relation to those general principles. So that in thinking of the
Masters in relation to our own Society, we must bear in mind how very
wide are their relations to all great spiritual movements, to all
religions, and that all who are spoken of in the different faiths as
Founder or Founders of a particular religion would fall under the
name, Master.
Now I was hesitating a moment in completing that sentence, because one
almost has to explain that in thus using the word one is including in it
a little more than is included under the term in the special
significance with which we are going to use it now; for in the case of
the religions of the Hindus, the religion of the Buddhists, and
the religion of the Christians, when we speak of the Founder of each of
these religions, we are speaking of great personages who, in the Occult
Hierarchy, are higher than those whom we call Masters: in the case of
Hinduism, the Manu, who is the Lord really of the whole of the Fifth
Root Race; in the case of Buddhism, the Buddha, who is a
teacher of all gods and men before He takes up His place as the
illuminated, the supreme Buddha. And in the case of the Christian
Religion also, there is something peculiar in the life of the Founder.
You have there, in the first place, a being whom we call by the name
Jesus, in himself a disciple, but living in the world at that time under
exceedingly strange and peculiar conditions. Some of you may have read
with some amount of care that section of the third volume of _The Secret
Doctrine_ which is called "The Mystery of the Buddha." I am bound
to confess that as it stands there it is very confused, partly
intentionally, I think, on the part of the writer, but also partly in
consequence of the fact mentioned in that volume, that you have there
put together a large number of fragments, and they were put together by
myself at a time when I knew very much less of the arrangement, so to
speak, of those relationships between the higher and lower worlds than I
do now. Hence there is some darkness there that belongs to the subject,
and some that belongs to the incompetence of the compiler. The result of
the two together is a good deal of confusion to any student who has not
the key to it. I am only concerned for the moment with one of these
statements, with what are called "the remains of the Buddha"--not
a very comfortable name, because it gives one the idea of a corpse--that
is, empty bodies of the Buddha on the various planes. Those have
been preserved on the higher planes for special purposes, and are
occasionally used under very peculiar conditions, when subtle bodies of
a very pure and very lofty character are needed for some particular
purpose. Now in the case of Him who was known as Jesus, the subtle
bodies were these particular bodies that are kept on the higher planes,
and He was allowed to use these for a number of years, holding them, as
it were, as tenant for the great personage who was to take possession of
them later. Then came the lofty being known as the Bodhisattva,
who took possession of these vehicles which had thus been kept ready for
Him, and He who was the disciple and now is the Master Jesus took birth
later as Apollonius of Tyana, and so passed onwards step by step until
he became one of the Masters of the Wisdom.
I made that slight digression because otherwise I should have conveyed
a slightly false impression by the phrase "all Founders of religions."
We mean amongst ourselves by the word "Master," when used accurately,
a very distinctly marked rank in the Occult Hierarchy; He is a being
who has attained what is called "liberation" in the East, what is
called "salvation" in the West; a being whose soul and Spirit have
become unified, who lives consciously on the highest plane of our own
universe--the fivefold universe--and whose centre of consciousness is
on the atmic, sometimes called the nirvanic, plane. Living in
full consciousness on that plane, He has no sense of bondage in any
form with which He may ally Himself. He has passed during His
Arhatship beyond all desire for life in form, or life out of form.
He has thrown away those fetters; together with the limiting
"I-making" faculty, the limit of individuality, that also has gone.
His consciousness, then, working on this atmic plane, works
indifferently up and down through all the five planes, and the whole
of these together form to Him but a single plane, the plane of His
waking consciousness. That is an important point to remember, for
there is often a certain confusion of thought with regard to this term
"waking consciousness." It ought not to mean simply the consciousness
that you and I may have as waking consciousness, confined to the
physical world; but the consciousness which--enlarging stage by stage
as the active centre of consciousness rises through the planes
inwards--is aware of all which is below that centre; and is aware
thereof without it being necessary for the person to leave the
physical body, in order that that consciousness may be in an active
and working condition. The waking consciousness is the normal, daily
consciousness, and may include the physical plane; or physical and
astral; or physical, astral, mental; one more when you take in the
buddhic; one more when you take in the atmic; and provided
that the person whose consciousness is spoken of does not need to
leave his active body, his body of action, in using his consciousness
on any of these planes, does not have to throw the body into trance in
order to be conscious on any or on all of them, we speak always, then,
of that consciousness as being "his waking consciousness." Some
disciples, for instance, will often include in the waking
consciousness the astral, mental, and even buddhic planes; but
it is characteristic of the Master alone that He unites in His waking
consciousness the whole of the five planes on which our universe is
gradually unfolding. So that we may define the position of the Master,
for the moment, as that of a Person who has reached liberation; the
meaning of that being that he is living in the Spirit consciously;
that he is in conscious relation to the Monad, above the atmic
plane; his centre of consciousness is there, and as the result of the
centre of consciousness being in the Monad, the whole of the five
planes become part of his waking consciousness. As regards the bodies
there is also a difference: the whole of the five bodies of these
planes act for Him as a single body, His body of action. That does not
mean, of course, that He cannot separate off the parts if He needs to
do so; but it means that in His ordinary, normal condition, the whole
of His bodies are only layers of a single body, just as much as solid,
liquid, gases, and ethers, for you and me, form our physical body, and
we need not trouble to distinguish the matter belonging to one
sub-plane or another. So to the Master, the matter of the whole of
these planes forms His body of action, and although He is able to
separate one part from another if he desires, normally He will be
working with the whole of them together, and the whole will constitute
the instrument of His physical or waking consciousness.
It is hardly necessary to add to that definition that He is one who is
always in possession of a physical body; it is implied in the very
description I have been giving. That part of it is important only, or
chiefly, when you are considering the question of liberation in
relation to a number of different classes, as we may say, in this
great Occult Hierarchy, the names in the West are not familiar, and
there is no particular need to trouble you with them for the moment in
the Samskrit form. Speaking generally, you have a class I have
just alluded to, the Masters who possess the physical body, and
another who are without that body, and are therefore not called
Jivanmuktas (the name you so often find in our books in relation to
the Masters) but Muktas, with a prefix which means "without a
body." Then again you may have other classes, Beings who perform
various functions in the universe; some, for instance, animate the
whole of the physical universe, and are distinguished as being what is
called blended with matter, the class that gives the sense of life,
of consciousness, to all those things in Nature which so much impress
the mind occasionally when we are face to face in solitude with some
splendid landscape--some great forest, perhaps, in the silence. We
need not go into these various classes; I only mention them in order
to separate from the rest that particular class of freed, liberated,
or, if you like the Christian term, "saved," persons, who no more need
come involuntarily into incarnation, but who are free both as regards
consciousness and as regards matter.
Now these great Beings that I have just defined ought to be separated
in your thought for a very practical reason that we shall see in a
moment; they ought to be separated in your thought from those still
mightier Beings in the grades of the Occult Hierarchy that stretch
further and further upwards into the invisible worlds. For you lose a
great deal practically when you mass the whole of them together, and
fail to recognise the particular function of a Master, as regards the
world in which He voluntarily takes incarnation. It is the kind of
distinction that we have sometimes put to students as regards the use
of the words Jesus and Christ; Jesus denotes specifically the man, the
living man, the Master, who is still in possession of a physical body,
and in close relation to the physical earth; the Christ, in a higher
sense, is an indwelling spiritual being, who can be reached by the
Spirit, but not seen as such by the eyes in any phenomenal world. So
again there is the yet loftier Being to whom the name of Christ is
applied amongst the Christians, when they are speaking of One we call
the Second LOGOS; these are Beings of different grades, and in
different relations to mankind; but the Master, as Master, is a man,
and the manhood must never be forgotten. It was on that point that
H.P.B. laid so much stress in speaking of those Beings with whom she
had come into physical contact, whom she knew in their physical
bodies; and one thing, as you know, which she protested against in
relation to this type of Being was the putting Them too far away from
human love and sympathy, making Them belong to a class of beings to
whom at present They do not belong, and hence making a gulf between
Them and humanity which ought not to be made, because the making of it
destroys Their value to the people who make it. A phrase she once
used, that I have quoted to you before, is the complaint that "they
have turned our Masters into cold far-off stars, instead of living
men," and on the fact that They are living men she continually
insisted; for it is by virtue of that living manhood that They are
able to play the part that They play in the evolution of the race.
Others have other work to do as regards humanity, as regards the
destinies of the nations, and so on, but these particular people are
still in close touch with the humanity to which They belong, and They
deliberately refuse to go on away from it, remaining with it until
humanity, at least with regard to very, very large numbers of its
members, has reached the position in which They stand to-day, as the
promise of what humanity shall be, the first-fruits of humanity as it
is. They are specially concerned with the direct teaching, training,
and helping of man, in the quickening of his evolution; and the reason
the body is retained is in order that this close personal touch may
be kept, primarily with Their disciples, and then through Their
disciples with comparatively large numbers of people. And it is a
marked and significant fact, that just in proportion as a religion has
lost touch with this aspect of the Divine Life which we call the Life
of the Master, so has it tended to become more formal, less highly
vitalised, less spiritual, with less of the mystic element in it, and
more of the literal; so that it becomes necessary in the efflux of
time that every now and again a Master should come forth from the
Great White Lodge, and testify again upon earth to the reality of the
tie between the Elder Brothers of the race and the younger brothers
who are living constantly in the physical world.
Now one distinguishing mark of a Master, His chief function, we may
say, is to perform the greatest act of sacrifice which is known in the
Occult Hierarchy, save the act of the One who is called The Great
Sacrifice, the Silent Watcher, whose sacrificial act is still greater
than the sacrificial acts performed by Those who are spoken of as
Masters. This particular act of sacrifice, occurring from time to time
at the beginning of a new epoch in religion and civilisation, is
performed by one of the Body, who volunteers to start a further
spiritual impulse in the world, and to bear the karma of the impulse
that He generates. That may not appear to you at first glance, unless
you have gone into the subject carefully, to be such a transcendent
act of sacrifice as it really is. It may seem a comparatively small
thing to start such an impulse, and very vague probably are the ideas
of many of you as to what is implied in the statement "bearing the
karma," which the generation of the impulse implies. The great act of
sacrifice lies not only in the truth that He is wearing a physical
body of coarse matter, which hampers Him from time to time, but that
He cannot lay that body aside, once He has used it for giving this
great spiritual impulse, until that impulse is entirely exhausted, and
the religion, or the association, to which it has given birth has
vanished out of the physical world. Take, for instance, the case of
the Master, Jesus: He--by His own voluntary act of course, in the
beginning, for it is always a volunteer who comes forward; such a
sacrifice cannot be imposed--He, voluntarily, giving up His body, and
later taking from the Bodhisattva the guarding of the infant
plant of which the Bodhisattva had sown the seed which was to
grow into the great tree of Christianity, taking that from Him, He
bound Himself by the acceptance of that work to remain in the bonds of
the physical body until the Christian Church had completed its work,
and until the last Christian had passed away, either into liberation,
or re-birth into some other faith. It is the same with the other great
religions, so many of which are now dead--the religion of Egypt, of
Chaldea, and many another. The Masters who had to do with those have
long since cast away Their physical bodies, and thereby ceased to be
what we call Masters, because the religion that each gave to the world
had done its work, and no souls remained who could be further helped
by passing through the teaching and the training of that particular
religion. This is the central idea of the act of sacrifice, and it
becomes the more a sacrificial act because the One who undertakes this
tremendous task cannot tell how the impulse will flow in all its
details, cannot even estimate the amount of difficulty, of delay, nay,
of mischief, that may grow out of the impulse that He has given. In
the first place, He Himself is limited by these bodies that He has
assumed. He cannot use the whole of His vast consciousness within the
limitations of a physical brain and a physical body. Thus, although He
has unified His bodies and is able, so to speak, to run up and down
the ladder of the planes as He will, He is still largely limited in
His activities where He is working in the unplastic matter of the
physical plane; and so, when He undertakes a work like this, He
generates causes whose effects He cannot thoroughly calculate, He
takes the risk which surrounds every great undertaking, He submits
Himself to the conditions of this task upon which He enters, and He is
obliged, having once taken it, to bear it until success or failure has
crowned the effort that He makes.
Those of you who have carefully thought on these subjects will realise
that while the knowledge of a Master is, as regards you or me,
practical omniscience, it is by no means omniscience on His own plane,
relative to the problems with which He has to deal and which He has to
solve. A Master amongst Masters, a Master within the Great White
Lodge, He is amongst His peers, in the presence of His Superiors, and
the problems with which that Lodge has to deal, the questions on which
that Lodge has to decide, are, if I may use the phrase, as difficult
and as puzzling on that plane of being as the problems that we have to
decide down here are on our plane. Hence the possibility of
miscalculation, the possibility of error, the possibility of mistake;
and you can well understand that these beings are subject to such
limitations when you remember the startling assertion that even the
Lord Buddha Himself, high above the Masters, that even He
committed an error in His work on the physical plane. When, then, a
Master volunteers to serve as what may literally be called the
scapegoat of a new spiritual movement, He takes up a karma whose whole
course He is unable to see. And it need not, therefore, be a matter of
surprise that when the time was approaching when another great
spiritual impulse might again be given, according to cyclic law, when
the two who volunteered to undertake the task, to make the sacrifice,
offered Themselves in the Great White Lodge, differences of opinion
arose as to whether it was desirable or not that what we now call the
Theosophical Society should be founded.
The time came, as most of you know, I suppose, for an effort of some
sort to be made. It had been so since the fourteenth century, for it
was in the thirteenth century that in Tibet a mighty personage then
living in that land, promulgated His order to the Lodge that at the
close of every century an effort should be made to enlighten the
"white barbarians of the West." That order having gone forth, it
became necessary, of course, to obey it; for in those regions
disobedience is unknown. Hence at the close of each century--as you
may verify for yourselves if you choose to go through history
carefully, beginning from the time when Christian Rosenkreuz founded
the Rosicrucian Society late in the fourteenth century--you will find
on every occasion, towards the close of the century, a new ray of
light is shed forth. Towards the close of the last century--I do not
mean the one to which we belong, but the century before, the
eighteenth--a mighty effort was made, of which the burden fell upon
two great personages closely connected with the Lodge, though neither
of them, I believe, at that time was a Master--he who was then known
as the Comte de St. Germain, who is now one of the Masters, and his
colleague in that great task, closely allied to him, of a noble
Austrian family, known to us in later days as H.P.B. When those made
their attempt to change the face of Europe, they failed, the time not
being ripe; the misery and the wretchedness of the epoch, the
degradation of the masses of the population, the horrible poverty, the
shameful starvation, all these were the rocks on which split, and was
broken up into foam, the spiritual wave of which those two personages
were the crest. The karma of that, for the one whom we know of as
H.P.B., was the trying and suffering incarnation that she spent
amongst us, when she founded, under the order of her Master, the
Theosophical Society, and gave her life to it that it might live. And
it was that fact, that the last great spiritual effort had been
drowned in bloodshed, it was that which gave her her marked horror of
mixing up the spiritual movement with a political effort, which made
her realise that before a spiritual movement could be successful in
the outer world it must shape, raise, remodel the conscience of those
who were affected by it, that it must not dare to put its hand as a
whole to any great political or social movement before it was strong
enough to control the forces which it evoked. Hence her shrinking
from all idea of this Society plunging, as a Society, into political
work or social reform. Not that individuals of the Society might not
do it, not that members of it might not use their best thought and
energy in order to bring forward and strengthen any movement which was
really for the benefit of mankind; but that the Society as a Society,
as the vehicle of this great torrent of life, must not pour that
torrent into any physical and earthly vessel, lest again it should
break the vessel into pieces, lest again it should put the hands of
the clock back, instead of forward, as was done in France. So for this
time it was to be a spiritual movement, and the work was to be
spiritual, intellectual, and ethical. Those were to be its special
marks, this its special work; and when the two great Teachers who were
identified with the movement--her own Master and His closest co-worker
in the Great White Lodge, the two who over and over again in centuries
gone by had stood side by side as fellow-workers in the civilisations
of the past--when They volunteered for this great emprise, doubt, as I
said, arose among Their peers. The lesson of the eighteenth century
was not forgotten; the question inevitably arose: "Is the West ready
for a movement of this sort again? Can it be carried on in such an
environment without doing, perhaps, more harm than the good which it
is capable of accomplishing?" And so, much discussion arose--strange
as that may sound to some, in connection with a body of workers so
sublime--and most were against it, and declared the time was not ripe;
but these two offered to take the risk and bear the burden, offered to
bear the karma of the effort, and to throw their lives into the
shaping, guiding, and uplifting. And as the question of time is always
one of the most complicated and difficult questions for Those who have
to deal with the great law of cycles and the evolution of man, it was
felt that it was possible that the effort might succeed, even although
the time was not quite ripe, the clock had not quite struck the hour.
And so permission was given, and the two assumed the responsibility.
How the earlier stages were made is familiar to you all; how they
chose that noble worker Their disciple, known to us as H.P.B., and
prepared her for the work she had to do; how in due course They sent
her to America to search there for a comrade who would supply what was
lacking in herself--the power of organisation, the power of speaking
to men and gathering them around him, and shaping them into a movement
in the outer world. And you all know the story of how they met; you
all know how they joined hands together. One of them has put the whole
thing on record, for the instruction of the younger members of the
Society now and in centuries to come. The movement began, as you know,
closely watched over, constantly protected by those two who had taken
this burden of responsibility upon Themselves. And you may read in
many of H.P.B.'s letters, how continual in those days was the touch,
how constant the directions; and it went on thus year after year--for
the first seven years at least of the Society's life, and a little
more; you may read in the issue of the _Theosophist_ (June) a letter
from one of these same Teachers, showing how close was the interest
taken, how close the scrutiny which was kept up in all the details of
the Society's work. In publishing that letter I thought it only right
to strike out the names which occur in the original. It would not be
right or fair to print those publicly yet, as you can perfectly well
see when you are able to supply the blanks which are left for names.
You may read in that letter how the Master who wrote it had been
watching the action of a particular branch, how He had marked in
connection with another branch some of the members of the branch who
were working ill or not well; how He pointed out that such-and-such
members would be better out of the branch than in it, were hinderers
rather than helpers--all going to show how close was the watch which
They then kept upon the branches of Their infant Society. And so again
you may read in other letters than that, suggestions of writing
letters to newspapers, and so on, which would strike you as very
trivial if they came from the Masters at the present time; how a
letter might be written here, an article answered there; how a leading
article ought not to be allowed to remain with its false suggestions
to the injury of the Society, and so on. But there came a time, with
the increase of the numbers in the Society, when many came in who had
not the strong belief of the outer founders in the reality of the life
of the Masters and Their connection with the Theosophical Society, and
disputes and arguments arose. And if you turn back to the
_Theosophist_ of those days you will see a great deal of discussion
going on as to who were the Brothers, and what They did, and what
relation they bore to the Society, and so on; until at last They grew
a little weary of this continual challenging of Their life, and work,
and interest, and gave the warning which still exists amongst the
papers of the Society, that unless before a very short time these
questions were set at rest, and the fact of Their relation to the
Society was generally recognised, They would withdraw again for a time
into the silence in which They had remained so long, and would wait
until conditions were more favorable before they again took Their
active part in the guiding of the Society's work. Unfortunately the
warning was not taken, and so the withdrawal into the comparative
silence took place, and the Society entered on that other cycle of its
work on which, as you know, the judgment of the Master was passed in
the quotation I made the other day, that "the Society has liberated
itself from our grasp and influence, and we have let it go; we make no
unwilling slaves. It is now a soulless corpse, a machine run so far
well enough, but which will fall to pieces when.... Out of the three
objects, the second alone is attended to; it is no longer either a
Brotherhood, nor a body over the face of which broods the Spirit from
beyond the great Range." Thus Their relations to the Society of the
time altered, became less direct, less continual. Their direct
influence was confined to individuals and withdrawn for the Society at
large, save as to general strengthening, not because They desired it
should be so, but because so the Society desired, and the Society is
master of its own destiny, and may shape its own fate according to the
will of its majority. Still They watched over it, though not permitted
to "interfere" with its outer working so much as They had done in the
earlier days, and H.P.B. was obliged to declare that They did not
direct it. The relation remained, but was largely in abeyance, latent
to some extent, as we may say, and They were waiting for the time when
again the possibility might open before Them of more active work
within the movement which They had started, whose heavy karma They
were compelled to bear.
The fact that They bear the karma of the Society as a whole, seems to
me one which members of the Society ought never to forget; for, coming
into this movement as we have done, finding through the Society the
teachings which have changed our lives, having received from it the
light which has made all our thought different, which has rendered
life intelligible, and life on other planes familiar, at least in
theory, and to some in practice, it would seem that the very commonest
gratitude, such as men or women of the world might feel for some small
benefactions shown by friend to friend, that even that feeling, small
and poor as it is, might live in the heart of every member towards
Those who have made the existence of the Theosophical Society
possible. I do not mean, of course, in those who do not believe in the
fact of Their existence; and there are, quite rightly and properly,
many such amongst us; for it is the foundation of the Theosophical
Society that men of all opinions may come within its ranks and benefit
by the splendor of its teachings, whether or not they accept them one
by one. Their non-belief does not alter the fact that the teachings
come to them through the Society, and from Those who made the Society
a living organism upon earth. Nor do I mean in saying that this
feeling of gratitude should exist in the heart of each, that anyone
need take the particular view of the Masters which I myself take,
founding that view, it may be, on more knowledge than very many of
those who reject it personally can be said to possess. In all these
matters every member is free, and I am only urging upon you your
responsibility at least to try to understand, where you touch matters
of such far-reaching importance; and at least to consider that you
should not add to the burden on those mighty shoulders more than you
can avoid adding. Now none of us, whatever we may happen to know--the
differences of knowledge between us are trivial as compared with the
difference between all of us and Them--can surely escape the duty of
considering whether by his own ignorance, and carelessness, and folly,
and indifference, he is adding to that burden which They bear. For
They cannot avoid taking the karma that you and I largely generate, by
virtue of Their unity with this Society, and the fact that Their life
circulates through it, and that They have sacrificed Themselves in
order that it may live. By that sacrifice they cannot avoid sharing
the karma that you and I are making by every careless thought, by
every foolish action, by every wilful or even not wilful ignorance,
the burden that They have taken out of love for man and for his
helping. And I have often thought, when I have been trying dimly to
understand the mysteries of this divine compassion, and the greatness
of the love and of the pity which moves those mighty Ones to mix
themselves up with our small, petty selves, I have often thought how
strange must seem to Them, from Their position, the indifference with
which we take such priceless blessings, the indifference with which we
accept such mighty sacrifice. For the love that These deserve at our
hands is surely beyond all claim of kindred, of blood, of touch
between man and man; the claim that They have upon us, these Men who
are Masters and Teachers, for what They have given and made possible
for you and me, seems to me a claim beyond all measuring, a debt
beyond all counting. And when one looks at the Society as a whole, and
realises how little as a whole it takes account of those deep occult
truths into touch with which it has come, how little it realises how
mighty the possibility that these supreme acts of sacrifice have
opened before every one of us, it seems almost too sad to be credible,
too pathetic to be expressed; one realises how sometimes Their hearts
must be wrung, as the heart of the Christ was wrung when He stood and
looked over Jerusalem, and knew that the people to whose race He
belonged were driving further and further away their possibilities,
and were despising that which He had brought for their redemption. How
often His cry: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets
and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thee together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not"--how often must that same cry go out from the
heart of the Masters, when They look at the movement for which They
are responsible, and realise how little its greatness is understood by
those who are its members, and are reckoned within its pale.[1] For if
even for one brief hour you could realise the heart of the Master,
and what He feels and knows with regard to this movement which is His,
it seems to me that in the light of even that brief meditation there
would be a throwing away of personalities, there would be a trampling
down of silly pride, a casting aside of careless obstinacy, a yearning
to have some share in the sacrifice, and to give ourselves, however
petty we may be, side by side with that sublime sacrifice which They
are making year after year for us, unworthy of Their compassion. And
yet nothing less than that is the movement which lives by Their life;
nothing less than that is the relation of the Masters to the
Theosophical Society. They bear it in Their heart, They bear it on
Their shoulders, They offer daily sacrifice that this spiritual effort
may succeed in the helping and the uplifting of the world. And They,
so great, speak to us, so small; and none will surely refuse to listen
who catches one glimpse of the possibility of Their speech; none will
reject Their pleading, who can hear one whisper of that Voice; and the
one thing that one hopes for, that one longs for, with regard to
oneself and to all who are members of the Society, is that amongst us
there may be some ears found to hear the voice of the Masters, and
some hearts mirroring enough of their compassion to at least sacrifice
themselves for the helping of the world.
[Footnote 1: This was spoken some weeks before the issue of Mr.
Sinnett's extraordinary manifesto, denying "the things most surely
believed among us."]
The Future of the Theosophical Society
There are two futures of the Theosophical Society to which we may
address our attention: the immediate future, and a future further off.
And I am going to begin with the future further off, because it is
only by recognising the nature of that future that we can properly
devise the means whereby we may bring it about. For in all human
affairs it is necessary to choose an end to which effort should be
directed, and the nature of the end will govern the nature of the
means. One of the great faults, I think, of our modern life is to live
in what is called a hand-to-mouth way, to snatch at any momentary
advantage, to try to bring about something which serves as an
improvement for the moment without trying to understand, without
caring to consider, whether in very many cases the temporary
improvement may not bring with it a more fatal mischief than that
which it is intended to remedy. And at least in the Theosophical
Society, where we try to study tendencies, and to understand something
of the forces which are working around us in life, we ought to avoid
this popular blunder of the time, we ought to try to see the goal
towards which we are moving, and to choose our immediate methods with
reference to that goal. Of course, when I speak of a goal and an end,
I am using the terms in a relative, not in an absolute sense--the
goal, the end which is within a measurable distance, and so may be
taken as a point towards which the roads on which we travel should
tend. Let us, then, look first on that goal, and see its nature and
the kind of methods which will help to realise it upon earth.
You are all familiar in the Theosophical Society with the theory of
cycles, so that you are accustomed to look upon events as tending to
repeat themselves on higher and higher levels of what has been called
the "spiral of evolution." For while it is true that history does not
repeat itself upon the same level, it is also true that it does repeat
itself upon successively higher levels, and that anyone who is
studying Theosophical teaching as to the evolution of man, the
evolution of globes, the evolution of systems, the evolution of
universes, may very much facilitate his study by grasping the main
truths which underlie each of these in turn. We are continually
repeating on a higher plane that which we have done upon a lower. Our
terms are a constant series of repetitions, so that if we understand
their meaning in one series we are able to argue to their meaning in
another. And I have often pointed out to you with respect to these
recurring cycles of events, and recurring terms, that especially among
Hindus, and in the Samskrit language, you find whole series
of terms, the meaning of each of which varies with the term from
which the series starts; so that if you know them once, you know them
for all occasions. Take a very familiar case. Let me remind you of the
word "samadhi." That is a relative term, and is the last of a
series, which has regard to the waking consciousness of the individual
and the plane on which the centre of the waking consciousness is
found. So that before you can say what the word "samadhi" means for
any individual, you must ascertain on what plane of consciousness his
normal centre is at work; and when you know that, then you can pass up
step by step until you come to the term in the series which is
represented by that word "samadhi." It is the same over and over
again in our Theosophical studies, and especially do we find this to
be true in the characteristics--important in this particular
relation--the characteristics of the great Races, the Root-Races, as
represented in miniature in the sub-races of each Root-Race. If we can
find out those characteristics, trace them and see how they are
brought about in the course of evolution in the small cycle which is
nearer to us, the cycle of the sub-race, then it is comparatively easy
for us, as regards the future, to foresee the appearance of those
characteristics in the Root-Race that corresponds to the sub-race. And
I shall want to use that method in dealing with the future of the
Society; it is for that reason that I draw your attention to these
continually recurring cycles of times and events. Now if we look back
to the Fourth Root-Race, we can study in the history of that Race the
evolution of the Fifth. We can see the methods used to bring about
that evolution. We can trace the means which were employed in order
that that evolution might be made secure; and we can see, by studying
that which lies behind us, that the fourth sub-race of that Root-Race
showed out the characteristics of the Fourth Race as a whole; that the
fifth sub-race of that Fourth showed out some of the characteristics
of the Fifth Root-Race that was to follow in the course of evolution.
And in this way, applying the analogy, if we can trace out to some
extent for ourselves the characteristics of the sixth sub-race which
is to succeed our own fifth sub-race, then we shall be on the track of
the line of evolution which will bring about the Sixth Root-Race when
the time for its coming strikes. Let us glance back for a moment to
see the main points of the evolution of a sub-race and a Race.
When our own Fifth Root-Race was to be evolved, certain types were
chosen out of the fifth sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race, and they
were chosen by the Manu who was to guide the evolution of the Fifth
Root-Race. Those types showed out in a comparatively germinal fashion
the mental characteristics which were to grow out of the selected
groups. And you may learn, if you care to do it, how those choices
were made, and how the first choice was a failure. Chosen as it was by
the wisdom of the highly exalted being whom we speak of as the Manu,
none the less the material in which He tried to work proved too
stubborn, too little plastic, to adapt itself to His influence
striving to shape and to mould it. And in consequence, after prolonged
efforts, He threw aside the families that thus He had selected, and
began making a new choice, a fresh selection, in order to see if the
second choice would prove more fortunate than the first. And the way
He chose them was a simple and effective one: He selected a certain
number of His own disciples and sent them out as messengers to the
various nations of the world, that constituted that part of the great
Fourth Race which He had chosen for His second experiment. He sent
them into nation after nation, with the mission to gather out of that
nation those who appeared to be the most promising for the work which
He had to carry out. They tried in various fashions, sometimes by
direct invitation, where the characteristic that was being sought was
clearly developed, namely, the lower mind. It was the development of
the lower manas that was the keynote of the selection; for the Fifth
Root-Race was to show out that development of the lower manas. I say
"lower manas" rather than "manas"; because the full development of the
manasic principle in man is reserved for the Fifth Round, and not for
the Fourth, and we, of course, are still in the Fourth Round. That
Fourth Round, pre-eminently kamic, must necessarily color every
evolution which goes on during its existence, and high as we may
strive to raise manasic powers amongst us, we cannot escape from the
fundamental vice of our birth, from the manasic standpoint, that we
are plunged in kamic matter, and that the matter in which we work is
matter of the Fourth Round, adapted to the kamic principle, and not
matter of the Fifth, adapted to the manasic. Hence the best thing that
we can do is to evolve the lower manas, manas deeply tinged with kama.
Out of that Fourth Race, then, were selected the people who showed
most plainly the budding of this intelligence which was needed, the
messengers of the Manu striking a note which attracted those in whom
this lower manasic principle was more highly developed than among
their comrades and peers. Gradually from different nations groups of
men and women gathered round the messengers of the Manu, who then
began to lead them away from their own people, from their own nation,
from all their surroundings, in order to seek the appointed place
where the Manu was grouping those on whom the great experiment was to
be made for the second time. Slowly and gradually they were thus
gathered together out of the nations into which the fifth sub-race of
the Fourth Race had spread. And the flower of those nations, attracted
by the key-note struck by the messengers, gradually gathered round the
Manu, and became the material, the nucleus, of the new Root Race. As
you know, He took them far away to the Sacred Land, shutting them away
from the masses of the Fourth and Third Race peoples, and dividing
them by physical barriers from all that might contaminate and stain.
Very, very different were those people from the generations which
thousands upon thousands of years later were to spring from them in
physical succession; rather, to the people about them were they folk
who were developed in an uncongenial fashion, people who were by no
means looked up to and admired in the nations amongst whom they dwelt,
amongst whom they had grown up. For the building of a new type is not
made out of those in whom the type of the old Race, that which is
before those who are selected for a changed line of evolution, has
flowered. The triumphs of evolution in the Fourth Race, as the Fourth
Race judged them, were by no means the best material for the building
of the Fifth. Those who were most admired in the Fourth, those who
were regarded as the flowers of their own nations, were those in whom
the kamic faculty, with its allied psychic powers, was most developed,
was most triumphant. For you must remember that in the very different
civilisation of those days, psychic powers were playing an enormous
part in all the most highly developed people of the time. Where the
dawning principle of manas began somewhat to triumph over the kamic,
there the psychic faculties inevitably diminished in their power, and
showed themselves very much more feebly than in the leaders of the
time, those who were the pioneers of the civilisation of the day. The
faculties most valued at that time were least to be recognised in
those who were the chosen of the Manu; for what He was seeking was the
dawn of the intellectual principle, and where that dawns, the psychic
for a time is submerged. I cannot dwell now on the reason for that;
the psychism of the time was the psychism of the whole of the astral
body, and not the psychism which succeeds the intellectual
development, which is the result of a higher organisation of that body
into special organs of astral senses--the well-known chakras. The
reason is well known among all students of the different stages of
evolution, and the only reason I allude to it now is because I want
you to recognise a very significant fact: that those who were chosen
out of that civilisation by the Manu, in order that he might make a
new Race out of them, were not the people who were the leading
examples of the highest civilisation of the time. Those were left
behind in their own environment. Those were left behind to carry on
their evolution along the lines already becoming the lines of the
past, and not the lines of the future. And these people in whom the
psychic powers were less shown, and in whom the less valued
intellectual power was germinating, on lines more fitted for the
development in future, they were chosen out for the building of the
Fifth Race, and carried away from their Fourth Race surroundings into
the far-off land of their education. There of course they remained
until the time came when the Manu incarnated amongst them--and so on.
That is old history on which I need not dwell.
Let us apply those same principles to the choosing out of another
Root-Race, and we shall see that just as then, for the fifth Root-Race,
the manasic principle was selected, so in the choosing out for a Sixth
Root-Race, the buddhic principle must be the one which must be
sought for in order that the material may be shaped in which it will be
possible for it in its turn to develop. There again I must remind you
that the buddhi of the Sixth Root-Race in this Round will be
something very different from the evolution of the pure buddhic
principle in its own Round, the Round that belongs to it in the future
evolution of humanity: it will be buddhic contaminated with kama,
showing out much of the kamic characteristics--inevitably, inasmuch as
it must work in kamic matter. Hence you must not take quite your ideal
buddhi, such as you may fancy it in its perfection--the
magnificent principle of Pure Reason, in its higher intuitive power--but
a shadow, a reflexion of it, such a shadow and reflexion as is able to
take its veils, its garments, from the matter of our own Round. None the
less, that will be the distinguishing, the dominant principle of the
Sixth Root-Race, and therefore I ask you to fix your mind on that as the
goal towards which all roads in the present should tend. Far-off indeed
it is, counting as we count time; but tendencies show themselves long,
long before they appear upon the surface, recognisable to the eye of the
flesh. In each sub-race appears a principle which manifests itself more
fully, more thoroughly, in the corresponding Root-Race; and therefore,
though it will only be possible for us at the present time to work
towards the next sub-race of our own Fifth Race, which is already
beginning to appear upon the surface of our globe, none the less is it
true that in quickening the evolution of that sub-race it is the next
Root-Race to which we must look for our guiding principle; that is the
far-off Pole-star by which we must guide our ships at the present time,
that the point towards which we must steer, however far off we must
sorrowfully admit that it is.
Let us then, recognising that fact, that the Sixth Root-Race will be
the embodiment of the next principle in us, the buddhic
principle, that of Pure Reason--as distinguished from Intellect, which
is Reason reflected in Activity--when you realise that, and remember
that the note of buddhi is union--not yet unity but union--you
will find that as much as you require for your guiding principle in
the evolution of the corresponding sub-race, whose foot is now on the
threshold. So that in this fashion, though seeming to go so far abroad
into the past and the future, I bring you to the practical question
of the next step forward in human evolution.
The next thing you must remember is that the flowering of the Fifth
Root-Race will go on long, long after the beginning of the sixth
sub-race is seen. For these Races and sub-races overlap each other;
and just as at the present time the majority of mankind belongs to the
Fourth Root-Race and not to the Fifth, but the Fifth Root-Race
dominates the evolution of the world, although still in a minority, so
is it of sub-races also. The sixth sub-race will be at first in an
almost inappreciable minority, but coloring the whole; then
multiplying more and more, until it becomes an appreciable minority.
Then, as it grows more and more numerous, and nations are born of it,
it will begin to dominate and lead the civilisation of the then world.
But even then the Fifth Race will be in an enormous majority for ages
and ages yet to come. The fifth sub-race has not yet touched its
highest point, has not yet asserted itself to the point to which its
evolution will reach in the centuries that lie immediately before us.
It is nearing its highest point; it is climbing rapidly now to its
zenith; but still many years of mortal time intervene between the
present day and the day when it will rule in the height of its power.
It is climbing fast in these days; but still, compare it with the
corresponding point in the Atlantean civilisation, and you will
realise that it has not yet climbed to its highest point. For every
Race must overtop the Race that has gone before it, and we have not
yet reached even the level of the old Atlantis in knowledge, and
therefore in power over the lower nature, although, as I said, the
climbing now is rapid, and will become more and more rapid with every
ten years that pass over our heads. For there is that speciality in
evolution, that it ever goes forward at an increasing rate. The more
it develops its powers, the more swiftly do those powers multiply
themselves; so that, to quote a well-known phrase of a great Teacher,
"it grows not by additions but by powers." And this civilisation of
ours will rush forward more and more rapidly with every decade that
passes. Still, the very fact that it has not reached the highest
levels of the Fourth tells you that time lies before us in the
building of the sixth sub-race, and that is our immediate work. We
need not trouble now any further about the Sixth Root-Race; for
whatever builds the sixth sub-race amongst us is contributing to the
building of that Root-Race of the future. The same faculties are
demanded, although then at a higher level, and we can come down to our
humbler level and consider what the sixth sub-race is to be. And in
that we shall realise the work and the future of the Theosophical
Society.
The great characteristic of that Race is to be union, and all that
tends to union is a force which is working for the coming of that
sub-race, no matter whether very often the force looked at from
without is often repellent. It is not the outer manifestation of the
moment, but the tendency, the direction of the force which is
important. There may be many things, more beautiful on the surface,
which have accomplished their aim, and are on the downward path
towards decay, whilst the things that are rising, still below the
horizon, have, as all germinal things have, much about them that is
repellent and that will be used up in the growth of the coming
creature, before it really manifests upon earth. It has been said by a
Master that if we could see with the eye of the Spirit the generation
of the human being, his ante-natal life, we should understand the
generation of worlds, the generation of universes. And that, again, is
a general principle. Let us see one or two lessons that we may draw
from it at the moment.
Take the evolution of a seed into a plant, and what do you find? A
tiny germ surrounded by a mass of nutrient matter; and before that
tiny germ will show itself in root, and stem, and leaf above the
ground and become visible to the eye of the observer on the earth,
that nutrient material must be absorbed by the growing germ, and
changed into the exquisite tissues of the plant that is to be. And so,
if you take the growing germ, animal or human, how unlike is that
budding creature from the animal or the man that shall be! How lacking
in beauty in many of the methods of its growth, of its nutrition, of
its gradual shaping! And by what marvellous alchemy of inspiring life
does the living germ gather into itself all the nutrient matter that
surrounds it, and shapes it into organ after organ, until the perfect
creature is ready to be born into the world. And as in these cases, so
with the growth of a sub-race, of which the germ is planted now. How
much has to be done before it is ready for the birth-hour, that yet is
at a measurable distance from the moment that the germ is planted in
the womb of time. Try to realise the analogy by means of the image
that I have suggested, and it will not then seem so unlikely to you,
that which is true, that in our own times again many messengers have
come out from the Manu of the future, in order that those messengers
may strike certain keynotes, which mark the chief characteristic of
the child that is to be. That note is well known at the present time:
we call it Brotherhood.
Now notice at the present time how many such messengers are found
scattered throughout the world, and how the varied organisations of
men of every kind are tending in that direction, and are more and more
recognising that as the keynote of their progress and their evolution.
There are, so far as I know, only two great organisations at the
present time that have deliberately taken Universal Brotherhood as
their motto, their cry, in the world: the one is Masonry, the other is
the Theosophical Society. Those are the only two which proclaim
Universal Brotherhood. For although many religions declare
Brotherhood, they do not make it universal; it is a Brotherhood within
the limits of their own creed, and a man to become a brother must come
within the limits of the religion. See how clearly that is declared in
the great and universal baptismal ceremony which marks the entrance of
the child into the Christian Church. In that sacrament he is "_made_ a
child of God." He was not a child of God before, from the Church
standpoint. He was born under the wrath of God, in the kingdom of
Satan. In the ceremony of baptism he is made a child of God, an heir
of the kingdom of heaven; and that is the keynote of the Churches
everywhere: those outside are not children of God. And you must
remember that it is that Fatherhood of God which connotes the
Brotherhood of man. Only by the rooting in the Father-Life is the
Brother-Life intelligible. And because the Theosophical Society knows
no limit of creed, no limit of religion, and declares that every human
being is, in his own essential nature, one with the Supreme Life and
the Supreme God, because of that its Brotherhood is universal, and
knows none as outside its pale. Every man, no matter what he is, is
recognised as brother. He comes not into the Brotherhood, nor can he
be cast out from it. His Spirit, his Life, places him in it: it is a
fact beyond us, above us. We have no power either to create it or to
destroy. We recognise the great fact, and we do not call ourselves the
Universal Brotherhood, but only a nucleus in it--a very different
thing; the Brotherhood is as universal as humanity, that is our
fundamental doctrine, and it implies that Brotherhood is as universal
as Life. So also with Masonry, where it is rightly seen and
understood--no barriers of creed, all men equally welcome within the
Masonic Lodge. I say "where rightly understood," for there are lands
where Masonry has spread, where the Lodge has become exclusive as the
creed has become exclusive; and among American Masons, I believe, the
negro, as negro, is not admitted into the Masonic Lodge. But that is
the denial of Masonry, a disgrace to it, and not a triumph. And
although it be true that Masonry has lost widely its knowledge, it
still for the most part remains a Brotherhood, and in that it has in
it the link of a life that will not die, and that has every
possibility of revival throughout the earth.
Quite outside these two, limited brotherhoods are proclaimed in every
direction now. The Church asserts it within its own limits. All
religions assert it within their respective limitations. Outside
religions and churches the same cry is heard. Socialism declares it,
and tries to build its policy upon it. Everywhere this cry of
Brotherhood is heard, although it has not yet been lived, and that is
one of the signs of the coming birth of the sub-race, in which
Brotherhood shall be the dominant note of its every civilisation, and
in which a civilisation that is not brotherly, in which there are
ignorant people, and poor people, and starving people, and diseased
people, will be looked at as barbarous, and not really as civilisation
at all. Its note is Brotherhood, the dominant note of the coming day.
And because we have taken that as our first object, we have a right to
call ourselves a nucleus thereof; and because we definitely recognise
it, we can consciously co-operate with nature. That is the real
strength of our Movement--not our numbers, they are comparatively
small, but our conscious working with the forces that make for the
future. The Theosophical Society is a fragment of the vast
Theosophical Movement which is surging upon every side around us; but
this we have that enables us to be on the crest of that great wave,
that we know for what we are working, we understand the tendencies
which make for the future. Hence in our Theosophical Society we must
above all else hold up this word, and work for it in every phase of
human activity. That word marks out for your Theosophical Lodges what
movements you should help, and what movements you should not help. It
is no use to pour water into a broken vessel, and every vessel that
has not on it the name or the principle of Brotherhood is a broken
vessel that will not hold water for the coming time. But every
movement, however mingled with ignorance, with folly, with temporary
mischief, which seeks after Brotherhood and strives to realise it, is
a living vessel, into which the Water of Life may be poured; and with
those movements you should work, trying to inspire and to purify, to
get rid of that which comes from ignorance, and to replace it with the
wisdom which it is your sacred duty to spread abroad among the
children of men. So that in your public work you have this great
keynote.
And that leads me to pause for a moment on that spreading Socialist
Movement that you see around you on every side. Now, it is making one
tremendous blunder that I need not dwell on here, but that I shall
dwell on to-morrow night in addressing a Socialist Society. They are
forgetting the very root of progress, they are forgetting the building
of brothers, out of which to build a Brotherhood hereafter. They think
that the future depends on economic conditions, on who holds land, and
who holds capital. These conditions are conditions to be discussed
carefully, to be worked out intellectually. But whatever ownership you
have of any of the means of life, if the life is poisoned, it cannot
be healthy in the midst even of a well-arranged society. For society
grows out of men, and not men out of society, and until that is
realised all schemes must fail, for they are founded on sand, and not
on rock. You who have studied and understand, to some small extent at
least, the powers which are working in the world of the present, you
ought to be able to help to eliminate the evil and to strengthen the
good. And the Theosophical Society, among these movements of the day,
must hold up firmly a true ideal. It is the function of the prophet,
of the spiritual teacher, to hold up the ideal, and point ever towards
it, so that individuals may have it ever before their eyes and choose
the roads which lead in the right direction.
And again, the principles that I have put to you may explain to you
why this Theosophical Society, so weak, is yet so strong--weak in its
numbers, weak in the qualifications of its members, not numbering
amongst its adherents the most learned and the most mighty of the
earth, made up of very mediocre, average people, not the great leaders
of the civilisation of the day; but in them all, else would they not
be members of the Theosophical Society, is the dawning aspiration
after a nobler condition, and some willingness to sacrifice themselves
in order that the coming of that condition may be quickened upon
earth. That is the justification of our Society now. We are like the
nutrient material that surrounds the germ, and the germ grows out of
the love, and the aspiration, and the spirit of self-sacrifice, which
are found in our movement, however little developed to-day. And the
fact that we recognise it as duty, as ideal, is the promise for the
future. We are what our past has made us; we shall be what our present
is creating; and if within your heart and mine the longing for the
nobler state is found, that marks our place in the future, and our
right to be among the earlier members of the sub-race that is now
preparing to be born. For our thoughts now are what we shall be in our
next life; our aspirations now mark our capacities then. You know how
the intermediate life is spent, between the death that will close your
present lives and the birth that will open the portal of your next
lives. You know that in the heavenly places you will be weaving into
faculty, into capacity, every thought and every aspiration towards the
higher life which in these days of your weakness you are generating,
and are trying to cherish and cultivate. It is not you as you are who
will make the future, but you as you shall be, self-created from your
aspirations now. And just in proportion as each of you nourishes those
aspirations, and cherishes those ideals, and tries, however feebly, to
work them out amid the limitations of your past which cramps your
present life, just so far will you, in the interval between death and
birth, make the nobler faculties which shall qualify you to be born in
the sixth sub-race upon earth. That should be your keynote in your
lives now, that the inspiring motive, the controlling power. And if
you want to assure yourselves that that sub-race is on the threshold,
as I said, then look at the world around you, and measure the change
which is coming over it. I said we were weak in numbers, that we are
only average and mediocre people; but what about the spread of our
ideas? What about the way in which, during the last thirty years,
these Theosophical ideas have spread through this Fifth Race
civilisation, have permeated its literature, are beginning to guide
its science, are beginning to inspire its art? That is the proof of
the strength of the force, despite the feebleness of the vehicles in
which that force is playing. Very clearly not to you nor to me is the
spread of these ideas due, but to the Mighty Ones behind the Society,
who give the forces in which we are lacking. For the whole Movement is
Theirs; They are working outside as well as within. And Their outside
working shows itself in the innumerable movements which are all
tending in the same direction. It is not we who have spread the ideas.
The ideas are scattered in the mental atmosphere around us, and our
only merit is that we caught them up a little more quickly than other
people, and realise that they are a part of the Eternal Wisdom. That
is our only claim, our only prerogative--consciously, deliberately we
choose these ideas, and however weakly we carry them out, none the
less the choice has been made and registered in the books of Destiny.
For whether you will or not, you must grow in the direction of your
thought; and you cannot be part of this Movement without your thought
being more or less colored by the Theosophical ideal.
People often say: "Why should I come into the Theosophical Society?
You give us your books. You spread your knowledge broadcast
everywhere. I can buy it in the book-shops. I can hear it in the
lectures. Why should I come in?" And I always say: "There is no reason
why you should come in, if you do not wish to come. Take everything we
can give, and take it freely. You are more than welcome to it. We are
only trustees for you. And if you do not care to be among the
pioneers, by all means stay outside, and walk along the smoother paths
which others have carved out for you." But there is one reason that I
may say to you--I do not say it to those outside--there is a reason
why you should be within it. You are more in touch with the forces
that make the future. You are surrounded, bathed, in the atmosphere in
which the future shall grow. All that is good in you is nourished by
those forces. All that is harmonious with them is strengthened by
their overmastering might. You cannot be amongst us without sharing
that inspiration; you cannot be a member without sharing the life
which is poured out unstinted through all the vessels of the
Theosophical Society. Outside it is not worth while to say this, for
that is not a reason for inducing people to come in; but you may
rejoice that good karma in the past has brought you into the Society
in the present. It has given you the right to have this opportunity of
a nobler birth in the coming time, has given you the opportunity of
taking part in that great work which is beginning to be wrought among
humanity. It gives you, from your life in the heavenly places, touch
with powers and opportunities that belong to these ideals in the world
of men, and it gives you the possibility there of touch with the
Mighty Ones whom here, however unworthily, we strive to follow. So
that it is a great thing to be within it, and it means much for the
future of you, if you can keep in it. For the immediate future of the
Theosophical Society is the work of building that next sub-race which
is to come. That is the work for which consciously it ought to be
working now. In proportion as you realise it, so will be the strength
of your labor; in proportion as you understand it, so should be your
share in the gladder work of that happier time. For the future of the
Theosophical Society is to be the mother, and even the educator, of
the child sixth sub-race which already is going through its ante-natal
life. That is its future, secure, inevitable; yours the choice if you
will share that future or not.