It looks to me that we must spend the second half of our lives getting rid of half the things we learned in the first half of our lives. The following was given out by the Tibetan Master in 1943.
All past divine revelations have brought humanity to the point where (spiritually speaking) man's essential divinity is theologically recognised, where the brotherhood of man and the Fatherhood of God are recognised ideals and where science has demonstrated the fact of an unfolding purpose and the existence of a fundamental, intelligent Agent behind all phenomena. Step by step man has been led through prayer, the voice of desire, through worship, the recognition of deity, through affirmation of the fact of human identity of nature with the divine, to a belief in the divinity of man. Orthodox religion emphasises the divinity of the Christ, and He Himself has told us (and the New Testament in many places emphasises it) that we also are divine, all of us are the Sons of God and that as He is so are we in this world and that we are able to do still greater things than Christ did because He has shown us how. Such is the religious background of the spiritual thinking in the world. Therefore, taking our stand on these truths, acknowledging the fact of our divinity and recognising the glory of all past revelations and the still more glorious promise of the future, we can begin to realise that the time has now come for the presentation of the new step in this unfolding revelation. We can realise that to our past programmes of prayer, worship and affirmation, the new religion of Invocation and Evocation can be added, in which man will begin to use his divine power and come into closer touch with the spiritual sources of all life.
This new form of the one religion will be in fact the Religion of the Great Approaches—approaches between mankind and the great spiritual Centres which operate behind the scenes, between groups of workers on the physical plane and in the three worlds of human evolution and spiritual groups upon the inner planes, such as the Ashrams of the Masters and the egoic groups with which all human beings are in subjective—though usually unknown—relation.
The new religion will be one of Invocation and Evocation, of bringing together great spiritual energies and then stepping them down for the benefiting and the stimulation of the masses. The work of the new religion will be the distribution of spiritual energy and the protecting of humanity from energies and forces which they are not, at the particular time, fitted to receive. A little careful thought will show you how, at the coming Full Moon Festivals, these thoughts are present: the protection and liberation of humanity and the stimulation of mankind through the distribution and the transference of spiritual energy so that the right steps can be taken in any given period, leading mankind out of darkness into light, from death to immortality and from the unreal to the Real.
I would have you, therefore, add to your mental and spiritual activity the recognition that you are participating in the task of anchoring the basic tenets of the new world religion—the flower and fruition of the past and the hope of the future.
More along this line, I may not write at this time. Later I will elaborate for you the greater and the lesser festivals of the spiritual year as they will gradually supersede the festivals of the present world religions in the East and in the West. (See: The Reappearance of the Christ, Chapter VI.) Much that you have learnt and gradually absorbed will then be seen fitting into the general spiritual plan. You will find that the spiritual year is divided into two periods (symbolic of spirit and matter); the period in which the Sun moves northward and the period when it travels on the southern way. You will find that the month divides itself into two periods likewise, that of the waxing and the waning moon and you will find the future emphasis laid throughout the world upon the Easter Festival, the Festival of the Risen Christ; upon the Wesak Festival, the Festival of the Buddha or of Illumination; and the June Full Moon, the Festival of Unification carried forward by the Christ, the Master of all the Masters and the Teacher alike of angels and of men….
In the first part of my message under this title (see: The Reappearance of the Christ, Chapter VI) I had much to say about the form into which the great world religions in the East and in the West have crystallised and its consequent deterioration. It will be essential, therefore, to look at and appreciate the fundamental truths which that form has preserved, even whilst hiding them. It will be valuable for us to realise that within the churches men of God and disciples of the Christ have ever worked, laboured and suffered. They have seen and agonised over the distortions and the misrepresentations. They have been hindered by the organisation, oft despised by the theologians, and have remained simple in the midst of learning. They have been loving and universal in their individual consciousness, among the separative and fanatical. They are the glory of the church—oft hated when alive and oft canonised after death. Their glory lies in the fact that they testify to the progress of the spiritual man and express in fullness what is in every evolving man; they are the flower of evolution and the tried representatives of God. In the indictment of the churches, given earlier, let us not forget the Christians found within those churches.
I would remind you that I write as one who believes in the great spiritual realities and who regards the unfolding spirit of man as the unshatterable evidence of the existence of "the One in Whom we live and move and have our being." I speak as one who believes in and loves the Christ and who knows Him to be the Master of all the Masters and the Teacher alike of angels and of men. I am one who looks to the Christ as the supreme expression of divinity upon Earth and who knows the extent of His sacrificial work for humanity, the wonder of the revelation which He brought, the imminence of His return and of His coming Assumption of spiritual rule in the hearts of men everywhere. I know that He has no pleasure in the great stone temples which man has built whilst His people are left without practical guidance or reasonable light upon their affairs; and I know too that He feels, with an aching heart, that the simplicity which He taught, and the simple Way to God which He emphasised have disappeared in the fogs of theology and the discussions of churchmen throughout the centuries. I know that He realises that the words He spoke have been lost in the labyrinths of the ecclesiastical minds which have sought to interpret them, and that the simple teaching of the Approach to God which He taught has been superseded by the pomp and ceremony of elaborate rituals.
To sum up: Because of the divergences of the many exoteric faiths, the multiplicity of the sects and cults in both the Orient and Occident, and the quarrels of theologians over words, phrases and interpretations, the sons of God—in process of development—are left without the needed help to contact the Christ and His great group of disciples, the spiritual leaders of humanity; the way to Christ, the living, loving Expression of God, is not made clear to the seeker. Together, the two great Sons of God present to mankind—the One in the East and the Other in the West—a complete and perfect representation of Deity; by Their lives and words They guarantee to man the possibilities always latent in the human spirit.
Today the Christ and the Buddha wait until the hour strikes. Then Their united effort, plus the invocative appeal of all who truly know and truly love, will bring humanity the new revelation for which they wait.
The new world religion must be based upon those truths which have stood the test of the ages. This I said elsewhere and enumerated four of those truths:
1. The Fact of God
2. Man's Relationship to God
3. The Fact of Immortality and Eternal Persistence
4. The Continuity of Revelation and the Divine Approaches.
These four facts are basic realities and truths which have conditioned the masses of men for aeons. Human unhappiness is founded primarily upon man's inability to live fully in the consciousness of these four fundamental realisations. But they are steadily taking shape in human thinking, and for them the United Nations fights.
Two more great and foundational facts are also part of the human state of awareness.
5. The fact of our relationship with each other. This is as much a foundational spiritual fact as is God Himself, because it is linked with our knowledge of Him as Father.
This relationship we call "brotherhood" and it expresses itself (or should I say, it will eventually express itself?) through human fellowship and right human relations. For this we work, and humanity is moving towards that relationship—and that in spite of the fact of war.
6. The fact of the Path to God. Awareness of this has been preserved for us down the ages by those who knew God and whom the world called mystics, occultists and saints. Opening out before aspiring men stretches the Way. The history of the human soul is the history of the search for that Way and its discovery by the persistent.
In every race and nation, in every climate and part of the world, and throughout the endless reaches of time itself, back into the limitless past, men have found the Path to God; they have trodden it and accepted its conditions, endured its disciplines, rested back in confidence upon its realities, received its rewards and found their goal. Arrived there, they have "entered into the joy of the Lord," participated in the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, dwelt in the glory of the divine Presence, and then returned to the ways of men, to serve. The testimony to the existence of this Path is the priceless treasure of all the great religions and its witnesses are those who have transcended all forms and all theologies, and have penetrated into the world of meaning which all symbols veil.
These truths are part of all that the past gives to man. They are our eternal heritage, and connected with them there is no new revelation but only participation and understanding. These are the facts which the World Teachers have brought to us, suited to our need and capacity at any given time. They are the inner structure of the One Truth upon which all the world theologies have been built, including the Christian doctrines and dogmas built around the Person of Christ and His teaching.
Dimly sensed by the evolving human consciousness hovers another emerging truth of a larger nature—larger because related to the Whole and not just to individual man and his personal salvation. It is an extension of the individual approach to truth. Let us call it the truth of the Great Cyclic Approaches of the divine to the human of which all world Teachers and Saviours were the symbol and the guarantee. At certain great moments, down the ages, God drew nearer to His people and humanity (blindly and unconscious of their objective) at the same time made great efforts to draw near to God. On the part of God, this was intentional, conscious and deliberate; on the part of man, it was largely unconscious, forced upon him by the tragedy of circumstance, by desperate need and by the driving urge of the collective soul. These Great Approaches can be traced down the centuries, and each time one took place it meant a clearer understanding of divine purpose, a new and fresh revelation, the institution of some form of a new religion and the sounding of a note which produced a new civilisation and culture, or a fresh recognition of relationship between God and man or man and his brother.
A new definition of God was given us when the Buddha taught that God was Light and showed us the way of illumination, and when Christ revealed to us that God was Love through His life and service on earth. Today the knowledge aspect of illumination is being comprehended, but the inner meaning of love is only now dimly sensed. Yet light and love have been revealed to the world by two great Sons of God in two Approaches. A new Approach is on the Way, bringing us the next needed truth. We ask ourselves: What will it be? For it, the knowers and lovers of God and of their fellowmen are prepared; for it, the masses of men wait.
Some of these Approaches have been of a major nature, affecting humanity as a whole, and some of them are of less importance affecting only a relatively small part of mankind—a nation or a group. Those Who come as the Revealers of the love of God come from that spiritual centre to which the Christ gave the name "the Kingdom of God." Here dwell the "spirits of just men made perfect"; here the spiritual Guides of the race are to be found and here the spiritual Executives of God's plans live and work and oversee human and planetary affairs. It is called by many names by many people. It is spoken of as the Spiritual Hierarchy, as the Abode of Light, as the centre where the Masters of the Wisdom are to be found, as the Great White Lodge. From it come those who act as Messengers of the Wisdom of God, Custodians of the truth as it is in Christ, and Those Whose task it is to save the world, to impart the next revelation and to demonstrate divinity. All the world Scriptures bear witness to the existence of this centre of spiritual energy. This spiritual Hierarchy has been steadily drawing nearer to humanity as men have become more conscious of divinity and more fitted for contact with the divine.
Behind this spiritual centre of Love and Light another centre is to be found, for which the West has no name but which is called in the East by the name Shamballa. Perhaps the Western name is Shangri-Lha—a name which is finding recognition everywhere and which stands for a centre of happiness and purpose. Shamballa or Shangri-Lha is the place where the Will of God is focussed and from which His divine purposes are directed. From it the great political movements and the destiny of races and nations and their progress are determined, just as the religious movements, the cultural unfoldments and spiritual ideas are sent forth from the hierarchical centre of Love and Light. Political and social ideologies and world religions, the Will of God and the Love of God, the Purpose of divinity and the plans whereby that purpose is brought into activity all focus through that centre of which we are each consciously a part, Humanity itself. There are, therefore, three great spiritual centres on the planet: Shamballa, the spiritual Hierarchy, and Humanity.
There is definite Biblical testimony to this highest of all centres, Shamballa. At moments of crisis in the earthly life of Christ we read that a Voice spoke to Him, the Voice of the Father was heard by Him, affirming His Sonship and setting the seal of approval upon His acts and work. At that moment a great fusion of the two spiritual centres—the Hierarchy and Shamballa, the Kingdom of God and the world of Spirit—was brought about, and thus spiritual energy was released on Earth. We need to remember that the work of all World Saviours and Teachers is to act primarily as distributors of divine energy and as channels for spiritual force. This outpouring manifests either as the impulse behind a world religion, the incentive behind some new political ideology, or the principle of some scientific discovery of importance to the growth of the human spirit. Thus do religions, governments and civilisations find their motivation. History has demonstrated that again and again these developments are the results of the appearance and the activity of some great man at an advanced stage of development. Those who come forth as Teachers, Saviours or Founders of a new religion come forth from the Hierarchy and are of the highest order of spiritual perfection. Those who convey to man the purposes of God through new ideological concepts are not as yet of so high an order, because man is not yet ready for the highest presentation. Much has yet to be learnt and mastered by man, and spiritual unfoldment always outpaces the outer expression of human relationships and the social order; hence the world religions come first and produce the conditions which make the work of the rulers possible. Those who come forth from the spiritual centre, Shamballa, are of great power, however, and the thread of Their influence can be traced throughout history in great declarations and pronouncements such as the Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence and the Atlantic Charter. Those who come forth from Shamballa or the Hierarchy for the release and the guidance of humanity are evoked by human desire and demand, for there is a spiritual interplay existing between Humanity and the Hierarchy, and between both and Shamballa.
