First, the point reached by humanity itself is one of the
major and primary causes. This
evolutionary status has brought mankind to the threshold of a door upon the
great path of evolution and has indicated an unfoldment which necessitates
drastic changes in man's entire attitude to life and to all his world
relations. These changes are being
self-initiated by him and are not imposed upon him by an outside force or by
the coercion of humanity in any form.
This is an important point to be grasped. It might therefore be stated that;
1. Man is now at the point where the principle of
intelligence is so strongly awakened within him that nothing can arrest his
progress into knowledges which would be dangerously misused and selfishly
applied if nothing were done to call a halt and thus safeguard him from
himself—even at the cost of temporary pain.
He must be taught to react to a higher and better sense of values.
2. Millions of human beings are now integrated or at the
point of integration. They are beginning
to function as a unity within themselves, preparatory to a higher process which
will enable them consciously to integrate into the greater Whole. From the form side of manifestation, mind,
emotion and brain are working in unison.
Now the higher correspondence of these lower forces—wisdom, love and
direction—must appear; the more subtle energies must be enabled to express
themselves. Instinctively and
mystically, humanity perceives that need with a clear definiteness. The instinct to go forward to higher
achievement, to enquire and to search for that which is better, remains
potent. Humanity can be trusted to push
onward and to make progress. The
Hierarchy of Love is, however, endeavouring to hasten the process, thereby
taking the risk of complications in so doing.
3. Certain men and women in every field of human thought are
expressing the potency of the unfoldment of their achieved integration and (if
you will but believe it) the reality of their soul contact, by emerging out of
the dead level of humanity. They stand
forth above their fellows through the very force of their
personality-integration and because they can function as high grade and
idealistic persons. From the altitude at
which they stand (relatively high from the human standpoint, and interesting
from the hierarchical point of view), they are seeking to mould the racial
thought and life to a certain pattern which seems to them—according to their
inclination, type and ray—to be desirable.
These individuals in the fields of government, religion,
science, philosophy, economics and sociology are having a united powerful
effect, some of it of a high and good order, some of it not so good. They affect their civilisation materially if
their emphasis is there; they produce a cultural effect subjectively and
spiritually if that is the impression they seek. Their motives are often sound and good, for
they all have a touch of true idealism, but—being as yet inexperienced in the
ways of the soul—they make many mistakes, are sidetracked in dangerous ways and
lead many people into error and trouble.
In the long run, the result will be the awakening of the public
consciousness, and that is ever good.
Second, the emerging of a new racial type. The subjective outlines of this type can already
clearly be seen. So glamoured are we by
the form side that many claims are made today that the new race is to be found
in America. The new race is forming in
every land, but primarily in those lands where the fifth or Caucasian races are
to be found. Among the fourth race
peoples, however, a few, such as those to be found among the Chinese and the
Japanese, are being discovered by the Hierarchy and are making their real and
esoteric contribution to the whole.
Let me also make one definite statement at this point which
may cause some surprise. The fifth
kingdom in nature, the spiritual, will emerge out of the fifth root race. Such is the esoteric control of the Law of Correspondence.
I would remind you nevertheless that the only fourth root race people to be
found upon our planet are the Chinese, the Japanese, the various Mongoloid
races in Central Asia (and they are somewhat intermixed with the Caucasian
race) and the hybrid groups found in the many islands in the southern waters in
both oceans and hemispheres, as well as the descendants of the races which a
million years ago made the South American continent famous for its
civilisation. I am necessarily widely
generalising.
The new racial type is far more a state of consciousness
than a physical form; it is a state of mind more than a peculiarly designed
body. In time, however, any developed
state of consciousness invariably conditions and determines the body nature and
produces finally certain physical characteristics. The outstanding type of awareness of the
coming new race will be the widespread recognition of the fact of the mystical
perception. Its primary quality will be
the intuitive understanding and control of energy; its contribution to the
development of humanity is the transmutation of selfish desire into group
love. This can be seen working out
noticeably even today in the attitudes of great national leaders who are not,
as a rule, animated at all by selfish ambition, but are controlled by love of
their nation and thus by some definite form of idealism—hence the great
emerging ideologies. Ponder on this
point, get a wider picture of the growth of the human consciousness, and grasp
somewhat the goal of the new and coming educational system.
Third, the ending of the Piscean Age, which has brought to
the point of crystallisation (and therefore of death) all those forms through
which the Piscean ideals have been moulded.
They have served their purpose and done a great and needed work. It might be asked here: What are the major
Piscean ideals?
1. The idea of authority. This has led to the imposition of
the different forms of paternalism upon the race—political, educational, social
and religious paternalism. This may be
either the kindly paternalism of the privileged classes, seeking to ameliorate
the condition of their dependents (and there has been much of this; or the
paternalism of the churches, the religions of the world, expressing itself as
ecclesiastical authority; or the paternalism of an educational process.
2. The idea of the value of sorrow and of pain. In the process of teaching the race the
necessary quality of detachment, in order that its desire and plans shall no
longer be oriented to form living, the Guides of the race have emphasised the
idea of the virtues of sorrow and the educational value of pain. These virtues are real, but the emphasis has
been overdone by the lesser teachers of the race, so that the racial attitude
today is one of sorrowful and fearful expectancy and a feeble hope that some reward
(in a desirable and usually material form, such as the heaven of the various
world religions) may eventuate after death, and thus compensate for all that
has been undergone during life. The
races today are steeped in misery and an unhappy psychological acquiescence in
sorrow and pain. The clear light of love
must sweep away all this and joy will be the keynote of the coming new age.
3. To the above thought must be coupled the idea of
self-sacrifice. This idea has lately
shifted from the individual and his sacrifice to the group presentation. The good of the whole is now held
theoretically to be of such paramount importance that the group must gladly
sacrifice the individual or group of individuals. Such idealists are apt to forget that the
only true sacrifice is that which is self-initiated, and that when it is an
enforced sacrifice (imposed by the more powerful and superior person or group)
it is apt to be, in the last analysis, the coercion of the individual and his
enforced submission to a stronger will.
4. The idea of the satisfaction of desire. Above everything else, the Piscean Age has
been the age of material production and of commercial expansion, of the
salesmanship of the products of human skill which the general public is educated
to believe are essential to happiness.
The old simplicity and the true values have been temporarily relegated
to the background. This was permitted to
continue without arrest for a long period of time because the Hierarchy of
Wisdom sought to bring the people to the point of satiety. The world situation is eloquent today of the
fact that possession and the multiplication of material goods constitute a
handicap and are no indications that humanity has found the true road to
happiness. The lesson is being learnt
very rapidly and the revolt in the direction of simplicity is also rapidly
gaining ground. The spirit of which
commercialism is the indication is doomed, though not yet ended. This spirit of possession and the aggressive
taking of that which is desired has proven widely inclusive and distinguishes
the attitude of nations and of races as well as individuals. Aggression in order to possess has been the
keynote of our civilisation during the past fifteen hundred years.
Fourth, the coming into manifestation of the Aquarian
Age. This fact should provide the
grounds for a profound and convinced optimism; nothing can stop the
effect—growing, stabilising and final—of the new, incoming influences. These will inevitably condition the future,
determine the type of culture and civilisation, indicate the form of government
and produce an effect upon humanity, as has the Piscean or Christian Age, or
the earlier period governed by Aries, the Ram or Goat. Upon these steadily emerging influences the
Hierarchy counts with assurance, and the disciples of the world must likewise
learn to depend upon them. The
consciousness of universal relationship, of subjective integration and of a
proven and experienced unity will be the climaxing gift of the period ahead of
us.
In the coming world state, the individual citizen—gladly and
deliberately and with full consciousness of all that he is doing—will
subordinate his personality to the good of the whole. The growth of organised brotherhoods and
fraternities, of parties and of groups, dedicated to some cause or idea, is
another indication of the activity of the coming forces. The interesting thing to note is that they
are all expressive of some grasped idea more than of some specific person's
determined and imposed plan. The Piscean
type of man is an idealist along some line of human development. The Aquarian type will take the new ideals
and the emerging ideas and—in group activity—materialise them. It is with this concept that the education of
the future will work. The idealism of
the Piscean type and his life upon the physical plane were like two separate
expressions of the man. They were often
widely separated and were seldom fused and blended. The Aquarian man will bring into
manifestation great ideals, because the channel of contact between soul and
brain, via the mind, will be steadily established through right understanding,
and the mind will be used increasingly in its dual activity—as the penetrator
into the world of ideas and as the illuminator of life upon the physical
plane. This will ultimately produce a
synthesis of human endeavour and an expression of the truer values and of the
spiritual realities such as the world has never yet seen. Such again is the goal of the education of
the future.
What is the synthesis which will later be thus
produced? Permit me to list a few
factors without elaboration:
1. The fusion of man's differentiated spiritual aspirations,
as expressed today in many world religions, into the new world religion. This new religion will take the form of a
conscious unified group approach to the world of spiritual values, evoking in
its turn reciprocal action from Those Who are the citizens of that world—the
planetary Hierarchy and affiliated groups.
2. The fusion of a vast number of men into various
idealistic groups. These will form in
every realm of human thought and they in turn will gradually be absorbed into
ever larger syntheses. I would call your
attention to the fact that if the various educational groups found in the world
today, in every country, were to be listed, certain underlying and analogous
trends would appear: their wide diversification, their basic foundation upon
some idea of human betterment and their unity of goal. Their many ramifications and subsidiary
groups constitute a vast interlocking network throughout the world which is
indicative of two things:
a. The steadily growing power of the man in the street to
think in terms of ideals which are founded upon certain ideas and which have
been put forward by some great intuitive.
b. The gradual upward shift of man's aspirational
consciousness by these ideas, his recognition of the idealism of his fellow men
and his consequent training in the spirit of inclusiveness.
This growing trend towards idealism and inclusiveness is, in
the last analysis, a trend towards love-wisdom.
The fact that men today misapply these ideals, lower the vision and
distort the true picture of the desired goal, and prostitute the early grasp of
beauty to the satisfaction of selfish desire, should not prevent the
realisation that the spirit of idealism is growing in the world and is not, as
in the past, confined to a few advanced groups or one or two great
intuitives. The discussions of the man
in the street are today connected with some political, social, educational or
religious philosophy, based on some school of idealism. From the standpoint of Those Who are
responsible for man's evolutionary development, a great step forward has been
made in the last two hundred years. What
were the themes of the intellectuals and the philosophers in the middle ages
are today the points for animated discussion in restaurants, railway carriages,
or wherever people consort, argue and talk.
This is apt to be forgotten, and I would ask you to ponder on its
implications and to enquire what is liable to be the final outcome of this
widespread ability of the human mind to think in terms of the larger Whole and
not only in terms of personal interest, and to apply forms of idealistic
philosophy to the life of practical affairs.
Today man does both these things.
What, therefore, does this indicate? It signifies a trend in the consciousness of
humanity towards the fusion of the individual with the whole, without his
losing, at the same time, his sense of individuality. Whether he joins a political party, or
upholds some form of welfare work, or joins some of the many groups occupied
with forms of esoteric philosophy, or becomes a member of some prevalent ism or
cult, he is increasingly aware of an expansion of consciousness and of a
willingness to identify his personal interests with those of a group which has
for its basic objective the materialising of some ideal. Through this process it is believed that the
conditions of human living will be bettered or some need will be met.
This process is going on today in every nation and in all
parts of the world, and a census of the world educational groups and the world
religious groups (to mention only two out of many possible categories) would
prove the staggering number of such bodies and affiliations. It would indicate the differentiation of
thought, and at the same time substantiate my conclusion that men are
everywhere turning towards synthesis, fusion, blending and mutual cooperation
for certain [Page 125] visioned and specific ends. It is, for mankind, a new field of expression
and of enterprise. Hence the frequent
misapplications of the newer truths, the distortion of the values sensed and
the perversion of the truth to suit individual aims and ends. But as man gropes his way along these lines,
and as the many ideas and the various ideologies present to him points of
choice and indicate emerging standards of living and of relationship, he will
gradually learn to think with greater clarity, to recognise the differing
aspects of truth as expressions of a basic subjective reality,
and—relinquishing no part of the truth which has set him or his group free—he
will learn also to include his brother's truth along with his own.
When this attitude has been developed in the
field of practical education we shall find nations and individuals developing
the ideas which seem to suit the national or personal psychology, yet
recognising the reality, potency and usefulness of the point of view of other
individuals and nations. When, for
instance, the ideas contained in the teaching on the seven rays are of general
recognition, we shall find the growth of psychological understanding, and the
nations and the world religions will arrive at mutual understanding.
[EDUCATION IN THE NEW AGE, pp116-25]
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