Chapter VI: Part II: The Place of Phenomena in the Theosophical Society (3)

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.