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CHAPTER II - The Cultural Unfoldment of the Race - Part 1

CHAPTER II

The Cultural Unfoldment of the Race

CIVILISATION AND CULTURE

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Much emphasis is being laid today upon education—coordinating, relational, psychological, vocational and equipping.  To this must be added the old method of memory training and the attempt either to infuse religion into the mind of the child or to omit it with decision and with purpose.  Modern education has been primarily competitive, nationalistic and, therefore, separative.  It has trained the child to regard the material values as of major importance, to believe that his particular nation is also of major importance and that every other nation is secondary; it has fed pride and fostered the belief that he, his group and his nation are infinitely superior to other people and peoples.  He is taught consequently to be a one-sided person with his world values wrongly adjusted and his attitudes to life distinguished by bias and prejudice.  The rudiments of the arts are taught him in order to enable him to function with the needed efficiency in a competitive setting and in his particular vocational environment.  To read, to write and to be able to add and do elementary arithmetic are regarded as the minimum requirement; to know something of past events—historical, geographical, literary, philosophical and scientific—are likewise added in many countries and for certain classes of people.  Some of the literature of the world is also brought to his attention.

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The general level of world information is high but usually biassed, influenced either by national or religious prejudices, serving thus to make a man a citizen of his own country but not a human being with world relations.  World citizenship is not emphasised.  The teaching imparted stimulates the latent mass consciousness of the child, and evokes the memory (racial and individual) through the impartation of facts—uncorrelated facts—most of them unrelated to daily living.  These facts could serve (if used as seed thoughts in meditation and technically employed) to recover from that race consciousness and racial memory, not only national history but past history as well.  I mention this in order to emphasise the danger of such undue emphasis upon the past, for if this were done on a large scale it would prove disastrous; it would put a premium on racial and national ideals and objectives and would lead rapidly to racial crystallisation and senility—metaphorically speaking.  An example of an effort in this direction was seen going on in Germany, and in a lesser way in Italy; it culminated in the Axis.  Fortunately, the tide of life in the youth of any nation can be trusted to swing the thought of the race into a better direction than the evocation of past glory, so-called, and the emphasising of the things which should be left behind.

I would like here to enlarge somewhat upon the interpretation of the much used words (frequently also misused):  culture and civilisation.  For it is the production of some form of culture—material or spiritual, or material and spiritual—which is the objective of all education.  Education is the major agent in the world.

Civilisation is the reaction of humanity to the purpose of any particular world period.  In each age, some idea must be expressed in the current racial idealism.  In Atlantean times, the idea that predominated was basically sensory religious idealism or mysticism, expressing itself in terms of approach to a felt but unseen deity, an expression of the [40] way of feeling.  Yet there were highly sensitive races, composed of nations and groups who laboured over the development of the feeling nature, consciously sometimes, but mostly unconsciously.  Their attitude to each other, as individuals or nations, was primarily sensitive and emotional—a state of consciousness (I cannot say state of mind) most difficult for the modern Aryan race to grasp, or even intuit, for with us the mind is beginning to function.  Their attitude to the deity was equally sensitive, and their religious activities were mystical and devotional, devoid of any mental understanding.  They were significantly emotional in reactions to beauty, to the terror evoked by divinity and to the emotional characteristics of God, to the sense of light and to wonder.  The mysterious, the sense of awe, the following blindly of some recognised "sensitive" of a higher order than the ordinary human being, and the interpretation of God and nature in terms of feeling-perception—these laid the basis of that ancient civilisation and have largely coloured our present racial attitudes, at least up until the advent of Christ, Who wrought great changes in the human consciousness and ushered in a new civilisation.  Children are still largely Atlantean in their consciousness; it is with them a form of recapitulation, analogous to the prenatal stage; the same recapitulation goes forward upon the Path when a man develops the mystical consciousness anew, after he has evoked his mental nature and prior to unfolding true occult awareness or knowledge and the reactions of the higher mind.  The problem before Education is to take the Atlantean consciousness of the child and make it Aryan or mental.  The Atlanteans had no educational system as we understand the term.  The kings and priests intuited; the masses obeyed.

In the present race a different civilised attitude is emerging and is nearing its consummation.  In each age, some idea functions and expresses itself in both racial and national idealisms.  Its basic trend down the centuries has [41] produced our modern world and this has been strictly materialistic.  A nation today is regarded as civilised when it is awakened to mental values and at the same time it is demanding material values; and when the mind (the lower mind)—in its memory aspect, its discriminating and separative aspects, its analysing functions, and its ability to formulate concrete ideas based on material perception, material desire and material purposes—is receiving the training which will make a material civilisation, and has made our material civilisation what it is today.  With the emphasis shifting away from feeling-perception to mental attitudes towards life, with the desire to make the material life of the citizen of every nation the dominant factor in the national thought, with the mind unfoldment consecrated to material living, and with science definitely committed to the enunciation only of the provable and concerned only with the energies of material effect, is it any wonder that the major consideration of our modern civilisation lies in the field of the economic life?  We are occupied with material conditions, with the object of increasing possessions, with bettering worldly situations, elaborating physical plane living, and substituting the tangible for the intangible, the concrete for the spiritual, and physical values for the subjective values.  However, these latter must some day emerge into expression.

The above statement is superficial and of so general a character that it does not deal with the relatively small minority who do sense these larger values and are working to bring about their emergence into the racial life.  These people are the custodians for the advance ideals of the current civilisation, but the energy which they release works out frequently in the establishment, temporarily, of the more concrete values.  My remarks are only partial, and the facts equally so.  I exaggerate perhaps; yet maybe I do not.  Nevertheless, the fact remains that the two great civilisations about which we can really know anything—the Aryan [42] and the Atlantean—present two extreme objectives or positions towards which the humanity of the two periods directed and still direct their attention.

The Atlantean civilisation was definitely religious in its attitudes; religion was the commonplace of life and the raison d'être of all that was.  The world after death was the subject of interest and unwavering, unquestioning belief.  The subtle influences emanating from the unseen realms, the forces of nature and man's relation to them through a keen sensitivity, and the entire gamut of his emotional attitudes constituted the life of the race, and coloured all that there was or might have been of embryo thought.  The result of all this, inherited by us when history as we now have it arose (from the time of the flood, whenever that might have been), can be expressed by such words as animism, spiritualism, lower psychism and feeling.  The sense of God, the sense of immortality, the sense of subtler inner relationships, the sense of worship and the undue sensitivity of modern man is our outstanding heritage from the civilisations which existed upon old Atlantis.

Upon all this basic structure the exact opposite is being imposed today, and in the reaction—normal, right and developing—man is laying a superstructure in which the emphasis is increasingly upon the tangible, the material, the seen, and upon that which can be proved, diagnosed, analysed, and utilised for the improving of man's outer life and his material position upon the planet.  Both civilisations have gone too far, and in the swing of the pendulum we shall inevitably return to a middle position, to the "noble middle path."  This middle way, utilising the best and the highest ideals which the two preceding civilisations have produced, will characterise the coming Aquarian Age and its civilisations.  Such an expression of the material and the immaterial, of the seen and the unseen, of the tangible and the spiritual has ever been the goal and the objective of those who comprehend the true meaning of culture.  In [43] the last analysis, and for the purposes of our theme, civilisation concerns the masses and the racial consciousness, while culture concerns the individual and the unseen spiritual man.  Therefore a civilisation which is a full expression of true culture lies far ahead in the development of the race.

Culture is the approximation of the two ways—feeling and mind; of two worlds—sensitivity and thought; and of the attitudes, relational in nature, which will enable a man to live as an intelligent, subjective being in a tangible physical world.  The man of culture relates the world of meaning to the world of appearances and regards them in his mind (thus recognising them with his brain, an indication of an established link or relationship) as constituting one world with two aspects.  He moves with equal freedom in both worlds, and with simultaneity as far as his consciousness or his sense of awareness is concerned.  Even in Atlantean times there were those who comprehended the significance of culture as an outgrowth of civilisation.

The masses must be civilised as a step towards giving them that culture which will make of them true and significant human beings.  A human being has perforce to be a man, capable of living in the world of external realities, and at the same time capable of recognising himself as living in an inner world, as a mind and a soul.  He then expresses an inner subjective life of such potency that it controls and dominates the physical plane life, motivating it and giving it true direction.  This attitude of the human being and the task of bringing this condition of consciousness to fruition, have been regarded for centuries as the task of organised religion, whereas it is essentially and necessarily that of education.  It is true that the Church in ancient days was the educator of the time, but the emphasis was laid upon the inner and subjective life, and as a rule no attempt was made to fuse and blend the two—outer material well-being and inner spiritual existence.  Education is the task of the outstanding [44] thinkers of the race and the responsibility of all governments, one however that they seldom recognise.

Finally, we shall seek to see what are the basic ideas (beginning with the recognised instincts) which have led man, step by step, to his present struggle for world betterment, group elevation and natural self-determination with a view—unconscious for the most part—of providing a better organ of expression within the living organism, humanity.

It is therefore a platitude and truism to state that humanity is today passing through a crisis of immense proportions.  The causes of this crisis must be sought in many factors.  They lie in the past, in the growth through evolution of certain basic tendencies in man; in past mistakes, present opportunities and the powerful activity of the Hierarchy of Love. {i}*  The future is of great promise, provided man can learn the lessons of the present which have been clearly presented to him; he must accept them and understand clearly the nature of his problem and of the crisis with its many ramifications and various implications.

The seething turmoil in which the masses of the people are now living and the emergence of one or two key people in every nation have a close relationship.  These key people make their voices heard and evoke attention; their ideas are followed—rightly or wrongly—with attention, appreciation or distrust.

The slow and careful formation of the New Group of World Servers is indicative of the crisis.  They are overseeing or ushering in the New Age and are present at the birth pangs of the new civilisation and the coming into manifestation of a new race, a new culture and a new world outlook.  The work is necessarily slow and those of you who are immersed in the problems and pains find it hard to view [45] the future with assurance or to interpret the present with clarity.

In the field of education united action is essential.  Surely a basic unity of objectives should govern the educational systems of the nations, even though uniformity of method and of techniques may not be possible.  Differences of language, of background and of culture will and should always exist; they constitute the beautiful tapestry of human living down the ages.  But much that has hitherto militated against right human relations must and should be eliminated.

In the teaching of history, for instance, are we to revert to the bad old ways wherein each nation glorifies itself at the expense frequently of other nations, in which facts are systematically garbled, in which the pivotal points in history are the various wars down the ages—a history, therefore, of aggression, of the rise of a material and selfish civilisation and one which had the nationalistic and, therefore, separative spirit, which has fostered racial hatred and stimulated national prides?  The first historical date usually remembered by the average British child is "William, the Conqueror, 1066."  The American child remembers the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers and the gradual taking of the country from its rightful inhabitants, and perhaps the Boston Tea Party.  The heroes of history are all warriors—Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Richard Coeur de Lion, Napoleon, George Washington and many others.  Geography is largely history in another form but presented in a similar manner—a history of discovery, investigation and seizure, followed frequently by wicked and cruel treatment of the inhabitants of the discovered lands.  Greed, ambition, cruelty and pride are the keynotes of our teaching of history and geography.

These wars, aggression and thefts which have distinguished every great nation without exception are facts and cannot be denied.  Surely, however, the lessons of the evils which they wrought (culminating in the war 1914-1945) can be [46] pointed out and the ancient causes of present day prejudices and dislikes can be shown and their futility emphasised.  Is it not possible to build our theory of history upon the great and good ideas which have conditioned the nations and made them what they are, and emphasize the creativity which has distinguished all of them?  Can we not present more effectively the great cultural epochs which—suddenly appearing in some one nation—enriched the entire world and gave to humanity its literature, its art and its vision?

The war produced great migrations.  Armies marched and fought in every part of the world; persecuted peoples escaped from one land to another; welfare workers went from country to country, serving the soldiers, salvaging the sick, feeding the hungry and studying conditions.  The world today is very, very small and men are discovering (sometimes for the first time in their lives) that humanity is one and that all men, no matter what the colour of their skin or the country in which they live, resemble each other.  We are all intermingled today.  The United States is composed of people from every known country; over fifty different races or nations compose the U.S.S.R.  The United Kingdom is a Commonwealth of Nations, independent nations bound together into one group.  India is composed of a multiplicity of peoples, religions and tongues—hence her problem.  The world itself is a great fusing pot, out of which the One Humanity is emerging.  This necessitates a drastic change in our methods of presenting history and geography.  Science has always been universal.  Great art and literature have always belonged to the world.  It is upon these facts that the education to be given to the children of the world must be built—upon our similarities, our creative achievements, our spiritual idealisms, and our points of contact.  Unless this is done the wounds of the nations will never be healed and the barriers which have existed for centuries will never be removed.

The educators who face the present world opportunity [47] should see to it that a sound foundation is laid for the coming civilisation; they must undertake that it is general and universal in its scope, truthful in its presentation and constructive in its approach.  What initial steps the educators of the different countries take will inevitably determine the nature of the coming civilisation.  They must prepare for a renaissance of all the arts and for a new and free flow of the creative spirit in man.  They must lay an emphatic importance upon those great moments in human history wherein man's divinity flamed forth and indicated new ways of thinking, new modes of human planning and thus changed for all time the trend of human affairs.  These moments produced the Magna Charta; they gave emphasis, through the French Revolution, to the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity; they formulated the American Bill of Rights and on the high seas in our own time they gave us the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms.  These are the great concepts which must govern the new age with its nascent civilisation and its future culture.  If the children of today are taught the significance of these five great declarations and are, at the same time, taught the futility of hate and war, there is hope of a better and happier as well as of a safer world.

Two major ideas should be taught to the children of every country.  They are:  the value of the individual and the fact of the one humanity.  The war boys and girls have learnt, from appearances, that human life has small value; the fascist countries have taught that the individual is of no value except in so far as he implements the designs of some dictator—a Mussolini or a Hitler.  In other countries, some people and some groups—through hereditary position or financial assets—are regarded as of importance and the rest of the nation as of little importance.  In still other countries, the individual regards himself of so much importance and his right to please himself of so much moment that his relation to the whole is entirely lost.  Yet the value of the individual and the existence of that whole we call Humanity [48] are most closely related.  This needs emphasising.  These two principles, when properly taught and understood, will lead to the intensive culture of the individual and then to his recognition of his responsibility as an integral part of the whole body of humanity.

In the schools of today (grammar or primary schools, high schools or secondary schools, universities or colleges, using terms in general use) there can be seen an imperfect and symbolic picture of the triple objectives of the new education:  Civilisation, Culture, Unification.

The grammar or primary schools might be regarded as the custodians of civilisation; they must fit the child for citizenship, teach him his place as a social unit, and emphasise his group relations, thus fitting him for intelligent living and evoking the racial memory through the courses given, in order to lay the foundation for his human relations.  Reading, writing and arithmetic, elementary history (with the emphasis upon world history), geography and poetry will be taught.  They must teach him certain basic and important facts of living, foundational truths, coordination and control.

The high schools or the secondary schools should regard themselves as the custodians of culture; they should emphasise the larger values of history and literature and give some understanding of art.  They should begin to train the boy or girl for that future profession or mode of life which it is obvious will condition them.  Citizenship will be taught in larger terms and the world of true values be pointed out and idealism consciously and definitely cultivated.  The practical application of ideals will be emphasised.  They should teach the youth of the world in such a manner that he will begin to fuse the world of appearances and the world of values and of meaning in his consciousness.  He should begin to relate the worlds of objective outer living and of inner subjective existence.  I am choosing my words with care.

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Our colleges and universities should be a higher extension of all that has been already done.  They should beautify and complete the structure already erected and should deal more directly with the world of meaning.  International problems—economic, social, political and religious—should be considered and the man or woman related still more definitely to the world as a whole.  This in no way indicates neglect of individual or national problems or undertakings but it seeks to incorporate them into the whole as integral and effective parts, and thus avoid the separative attitudes which have brought about the downfall of our modern world.

The college or the university should in reality be the correspondence in the field of education to the world of the Hierarchy; it should be the custodian of those methods, techniques and systems of thought and of life which will relate a human being to the world of souls, to the Kingdom of God, and not only to other human beings upon the physical plane; not only to the world of phenomena but also to the inner world of values and quality.

Again I repeat, this fitting of a man for citizenship in the Kingdom of God is not essentially a religious activity, to be handled by the exponents of the great world religions.  It should be the task of the higher education, giving purpose and significance to all that has been done.  If this seems idealistic and impossible to you, let me assure you that by the time the Aquarian Age is in full flower, this will be the assured and recognised objective of the educators of that time.

The following sequence suggests itself as we consider the curriculum to be planned for the youth of the immediate generations:

            Primary education.................... Civilisation................... Ages 1-14

            Secondary education............... Culture........................ Ages 14-21

            Higher education...................... Spiritual....................... Ages 21-28

It is only our economic material emphasis and pressure which force the young to work before they are mature. [50] It should also be remembered (and this is being more widely recognised) that the quality of the young children now coming into incarnation is steadily getting better and higher.  They are in many cases abnormally intelligent, and what you (in your technical parlance) call their I.Q. is frequently phenomenally high.  This will be increasingly the case, until young people of fourteen will have the equipment and intelligence of the brilliant college men and women of today.

It is not possible for me to prove the truth of these statements, but a study of the race and of the modern child in our more civilised countries will indicate trends and tendencies which may make my position sounder in your final estimation.  You would all do well to study carefully this distinction between culture and civilisation.

Putting this same truth in other words, and recognising as a basic premise the essentially supernormal potentialities of the human being, we might say that:

The first effort of education to civilise the child will be to train and rightly direct his instincts.

The second obligation upon the educators will be to bring about his true culture, by training him to use his intellect rightly.

The third duty of education will be to evoke and to develop the intuition.

When these three are developed and functioning you will have a civilised, cultured and spiritually awakened human being.  A man will then be instinctively correct, intellectually sound, and intuitively aware.  His soul, his mind, and his brain will be functioning as they should and in right relation to each other, thus again producing coordination and correct alignment.  Some day an analysis will be made of the contribution of the three great continents—Asia, Europe and America—to this triple unfoldment, as far as the Aryan race is concerned.  The glory of humanity must, however, be remembered; it consists in this:  each race has produced those who have expressed the highest [51] which was possible in their day and time—men who blended in themselves the triplicity of instinct, intellect and intuition.  Their numbers were relatively few in the early stages of mankind's unfoldment, but the process of speeding up the development is rapidly going forward, and many are today fitting themselves for the "higher education" in the true sense of the term.  Much more will be accomplished when the educators of the world grasp the purpose of the process as a whole planned unfoldment, and will then give their attention to the instinctual, intellectual and intuitive training of the race in such a manner that the whole twenty-eight years of training will be seen as an ordered, directed process, and the goal will be clearly visioned.

It will be apparent, then, that those to be taught will be gauged from the angles upon which I have touched:

a. Those capable of being rightly civilised.  This refers to the mass of men.

b. Those capable of being carried forward into the world of culture.  This includes a very large number.

c. Those who can add to the assets of civilisation and culture "the equipment" required for the process of functioning as conscious souls, not only in the three worlds of instinctual and intellectual living, but in the world of spiritual being also, and yet with complete continuity of consciousness and with a complete triple integration.

Not all can pass into the higher grades, and this must be appreciated.  The gauging of ability will be based upon an understanding of the ray types (the science of esoteric psychology), on a comprehension of the condition of the glandular and physiological equipment, upon certain specific tests, and upon the new form of astrology.

I would here make a simple request to the earnest student.  Ponder on the following four statements:

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1. The antahkarana expresses the quality of the magnetism which opens the door into the teaching centre of the Great White Lodge.

2. The antahkarana is the conscious integrating force.

3. The antahkarana is the medium of light transference.

4. The antahkarana concerns the continuity of man's perception.

THE PROCESS OF UNFOLDMENT

I would like to add to the preceding analogy one more, which will serve to clarify the process of unfoldment in your minds and make the entire theme (from the racial angle) still more clear and definite:

General racial development...... Civilisation................... Path of Purification

Training of the Intelligentsia...... Culture........................ Path of Discipleship

Production of the Illuminati....... Illumination.................. Path of Initiation

It will be apparent to you, therefore, that the whole goal of the future and of the present effort, is to bring humanity to the point where it—occultly speaking—"enters into light."  The entire trend of the present urge forward, which can be noted so distinctly in the race, is to enable the race to acquire knowledge, to transmute it into wisdom by the aid of the understanding, and thus to become "fully enlightened."  Enlightenment is the major goal of education.

It is precisely in this region of thought and of recognition that the distinction is found between the work of the Buddha and the work of the Christ.  The Buddha achieved "Enlightenment" and was the first of our humanity to do so.  Lesser grades of enlightenment have been frequently achieved by many previously incarnating Sons of God.  Christ, because of the attainment of the Buddha and because of His own point in evolution, was enabled to inaugurate a new era and institute a new goal, wherein another divine principle was enabled to come into manifestation and to achieve [53] general recognition.  He inaugurated the "age of love" and gave to the people an expression of a new divine aspect, that of love.  The Buddha culminated the "age of knowledge."  The Christ began the "age of love."  Both ages embody and express two major divine principles.  Thus the new education has been made possible by the work of the Buddha.  This will indicate to you how slowly evolution moves. The new religion has been made possible by the work and the life of the Christ.  Speaking esoterically, the knowledge petals of the human egoic lotus have unfolded, and the Buddha accelerated the rapid action of this happening.  Now the love petals of the egoic lotus of the human family are also unfolding—the rapidity of this occurrence being the result of Christ's action.  Can you understand the significance of what I am attempting to tell you, and can you grasp the meaning of what I am going to say?

The points that I am seeking to make are as follows:

Because the three knowledge petals of the human egoic lotus are now racially unfolded (and when I use the word "racial" I mean the human family and not the Aryan race), it is now possible for the love petals to unfold.  The energy flowing from the outer tier of petals has had a triple effect:

1. It has vitalised the entire body of humanity, and has produced the present speed, intelligent (or should I say "intellectual"?) civilisation, and our modern culture, wherever it is found.  The brain of humanity is now open to vitalisation, hence mass education.

2. It has opened a channel so that the love petals can vitalise the astral body of humanity, thus leading to general cooperation and group love.  The heart of humanity is now open to vitalisation, hence the philanthropic, goodwill and welfare movements of today.

3. It will make possible, eventually, the vitalising of the mind body by the will or sacrifice petals, and [54] this will give awareness of the Plan, directed purpose, and group synthesis.

The first of these three knowledge petals opened in Lemurian times and brought a measure of light to the physical plane consciousness of humanity.  The second opened in Atlantean times and brought light to the astral plane.  And in our race, the Aryan, the third petal opened and brought the light of mental knowledge to man.  Thus was completed (in the three races) the arduous task of vitalising the threefold manifested world (physical, astral, mental), and the energy of intelligence became a powerful, ruling factor.  Now the task of vitalising man with the energy of love is proceeding and making much progress, and the effects (because they emanate from the second aspect of divinity) will be produced with great facility, and in the realm of conscious awareness.  I say this for your encouragement.

Through the activity of the energy of knowledge you have:

Civilisation................... Culture.............................. Illumination

and in the second case you will have:

Cooperation................ Loving Understanding........ Group Love

There are higher correspondences for which we have as yet no adequate words.

Cooperative goodwill is all that can, at this time, be expected from the masses, and this is the sublimation of the forces released through civilisation.  Loving understanding should be the hallmark of the cultured, wiser group, plus an ability to correlate the world of meaning with the world of outer effects.  Ponder on this sentence.  Group love is, and must be, the outstanding characteristic of the Illuminati of the world, and it is at this time the motivating power of the Masters of the Wisdom, until such time that enough disciples are expressive of this particular force.

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When the will or sacrifice petals of the human egoic lotus are opened, there will then be the appearance of a still higher triad of correspondences.  These will be known as:

Participation................ Purpose............................. Precipitation

Therefore, as a result of the evolutionary processes in humanity, there will appear the following category of forces or energies, each of them demonstrating certain definite qualities, and they will parallel the opening of the petals in the human lotus.

You can note from the tabulation that the love petals are indeed showing signs of opening and this will make clear to you the possibility of certain hoped-for events.  The world has to move forward regularly and in order.  Premature happenings are usually disastrous.

All this concerns the cultural unfoldment of the race and is proceeding apace.  When the conditioning factors are better understood and their method and purpose are grasped, we shall see an effort on the part of those interested in education to move with greater rapidity; this will hasten the achievement of culture by the masses, and the attainment of illumination by the more intellectual group.

There is one point that I would like to make here.  In the future, illumination will be viewed primarily from the intellectual angle and the whole subject will be approached mentally, and not so definitely (as is the case today) from the angle of religion.  Illumination, mysticism and religion have gone hand in hand.  One of the major contributions of the present age to the unfoldment of the race has been the growing recognition that spirituality is not to be confused with and confined to the acceptance and the following of the precepts contained in the world Scriptures; it cannot be held down to the implications given to these Scriptures by an orthodox priestly caste, nor can the trends of ancient theologies govern.  God can be known by His works, and these works can be more easily appreciated through the revelations [56]

                                                EDUCATION  AND  SCIENCE                    

I.    KNOWLEDGE.......... Civilisation......................... Culture.................................... Illumination
          PETALS               
  The Masses of Men  .........The Intellectuals    ..................Spiritual Man
                                         Path of Purification  .........Path of Discipleship   ..............Path of Initiation                 

                                                                       Plus

                                                RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY               

II.   LOVE    ................... Cooperation    ................ Loving Understanding  ............... Group Love
          PETALS
                The Intellectuals .............World Aspirants............................ The Hierarchy         

                                                                        Plus

                                         GOVERNMENTS  AND  SOCIAL  ORDER

III.  WILL AND   ............. Participation    ................ Purpose    ............................. Precipitation
         SACRIFICE              (in the Plan)                      (Directed Will of all                (of the Plan by the
            PETALS                                                            Disciples)                                  Hierarchy)

 

[57] of science than by the hymns, prayers and sermons of the churches throughout the world.  What then will be the task of the churches in the future?  And what will be the major objective of the coming new religion?  Primarily it will be to bring about the opening of the love petals, thus inaugurating an era of true cooperation, loving understanding and group love.  This will be done by training the people and the individual in the rules of Right Approach.

The keynote of the new education is essentially right interpretation of life past and present and its relation to the future of mankind; the keynote of the new religion must and should be right approach to God, transcendent in nature and immanent in man, whilst the keynote of the new science of politics and of government will be right human relations and for both of these education must prepare the child.

Those working in these three groups must eventually proceed in the closest cooperation, and it is for this planned understanding and this intelligent activity of mankind that the new education must prepare.  In the above comments, plus what I have given earlier, you have the few suggestions which I have sought to make in connection with the cultural unfoldment of the race.  The true history of humanity, which is long and varied and lost in the speculative indications of the esotericists (which, when true, are seldom susceptible of proof), have brought humanity to a point in its evolution wherein the light of knowledge is definitely permeating the dark places of the earth.  A mass of information is now available to those who have the ability to read and write—and the number of these is growing every day—whilst the means of transmission and of communication have practically annihilated time and brought the whole world together as a functioning unit.  A very high level of educational attainment is also emerging in all civilised countries.  The average citizen is in possession of a vast amount of data on every imaginable subject.  Much of it is ill-digested and [58] unusable, yet it tends to the general elevation of the mental process.  The output of men's thoughts in writing and in speech, embodying that which is old, that which is new and modern, and that which is superficial and relatively worthless, is so vast today that it is impossible to register it, and the lifetime of a book is brief.  To crown all, there is a definite effort to bring the resources of education within the reach of every man upon the planet.  This eventually will be done, and the intended type of education will accomplish the following things, thus laying the ground for the future unfoldment of the higher and better education:

1. Make available to the average citizen what has "come to light" in the past.

2. Evoke interest in the new sciences and knowledge which are coming to light in the present.

3. Develop the memory and the power to recognise that which is presented to the mind.

4. Correlate the past with the present.

5. Train citizens in the rights and nature of possession, with the attention to the processes of enjoyment and right use of the material and intellectual gifts of life, and their relation to the group.

6. Indicate, after due study, the right vocation.

7. Teach the methods whereby the coordination of the Personality can be brought about.

All this will turn the man out into the arena of life with a certain amount of knowledge of what has been discovered in the past and what is his intellectual heritage; with a certain amount of mental activity, which can be developed and trained if the man himself so desires it and brings it about by the right handling of himself in relation to his environment; with certain mental ideals, dreams and speculations, which can be transmuted into valuable assets if the man is dowered with persistence, if his imaginative faculties have not been dulled by an unbalanced, enforced curriculum, [59] and if he has been fortunate enough to have a wise teacher and some understanding senior friends.

It will be apparent to you also that the task of the new education is to take the civilised masses and lead them on to the point where they are cultured; to take likewise the cultured people and train them in the ways of the Illuminati.  Eventually it will be found that what is now taught in the schools of the esotericists will be part of the acknowledged curriculum imposed upon the rising generation, and that the teaching given to the advanced, thinking people of the world today will be adapted to the needs of the youth of the period.

THE NATURE OF ESOTERICISM

Educators in the new age will lay an increasing emphasis upon the esoteric approach, and it might be of service if I here attempted to define esotericism in terms of the general average intelligence of esoteric students and their point in evolution.  I would remind you that true esotericism is a far deeper thing (from the angle of the Hierarchy) than you can appreciate.

One of the most inadequate of the definitions of esotericism is that it concerns that which is concealed and hidden and which, even though suspected, still remains unknown.  The inference is that to be an esotericist is to be among those who seek to penetrate into a certain secret realm to which the ordinary student is not permitted to penetrate.  If this were all that it is, then every scientist and every mystic would represent the approach of the mental type and of the developed emotional type to the world of esotericism and of the hidden realities.  This would not, however, be accurate.  The mystic is never a true esotericist, for he is not dealing in his consciousness with energies and forces, but with that vague "Something other" (called God, the Christ, the Beloved) and therefore, in reality, with that which satisfies the hunger of his soul.  The scientist who is [60] now so rapidly dealing with and entering into the world of forces and energies, is in reality a true esotericist—even if, in his effort to control the sought-for energies, he denies their source.  That is of relatively small moment; later he will recognise their emanating source.

The basic approach for all who endeavour to grasp esotericism, or to teach esoteric students, is to lay the emphasis upon the world of energies and to recognise that behind all happenings in the world of phenomena (and by that I mean the three worlds of human evolution) exists the world of energies; these are of the greatest diversity and complexity, but all of them move and work under the Law of Cause and Effect.  It is hardly necessary for me therefore to indicate the very practical nature of this definition and its applicability to the life of the individual aspirant, to community life and world affairs, or to the immediate conditioning levels of experimental spiritual energies which are constantly seeking impact upon or contact with the world of phenomena.  This they do, under spiritual direction, in order to implement the Plan.  The above statement is foundational in its importance; all other definitions are implicit in it, and it is the first important truth anent esotericism which must be learnt and applied by each aspirant to the mystery and the universality of that which moves the worlds and underlies the evolutionary process.

The first task of the esotericist is to comprehend the nature of the energies which are seeking to condition him and which work out into expression on the physical plane through the medium of his equipment or his vehicle of manifestation.  The esoteric student has, therefore, to grasp that:

1. He is an aggregation of forces, inherited and conditioned by what he has been, plus a great antagonistic force which is not a principle and which we call the physical body.

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2. He is sensitive to and should be increasingly aware of certain energies, at present unknown and of no use to him; of these he must eventually become aware, if he is to move deeper into the world of hidden forces.  They may be energies which, for him, would be evil were he to work with them, and these must be distinguished and discarded; there are others which he must learn to use, for they would prove beneficial and would increase his knowledge, and should therefore be regarded as good.  Bear in mind, however, that energies per se are neither bad nor good.  The Great White Lodge, our spiritual Hierarchy, and the Black Lodge employ the same universal energies but with different motives and objectives; both groups are groups of trained esotericists.

The esotericist in training has, therefore:

1. To become aware of the nature of the forces which constitute his personality equipment and which he himself magnetically brought into expression in the three worlds.  They form a combination of active forces; he must learn to differentiate between strictly physical energy, which is automatic in its response to other and inner energies, and those which come from emotional and mental levels of consciousness, focussing through the etheric body which, in turn, motivates and galvanises his physical vehicle into certain activities.

2. To become sensitive to the impelling energies of the soul, emanating from the higher mental levels.  These seek to control the forces of the threefold man when a certain definite point in evolution is reached.

3. To recognise the conditioning energies in his environment, [62] seeing them not as events or circumstances but as energy in action; by this means he learns to find his way behind the scene of outer happenings into the world of energies, seeking contact and qualifying for the bringing about of certain activities.  He thus acquires entrance into the world of meaning.  Events, circumstances, happenings and physical phenomena of every kind are simply symbols of what is occurring in the inner worlds, and it is into these worlds that the esotericist must enter as far as his perception permits; he will sequentially discover worlds which will call for his scientific penetration.

4. For the majority of aspirants, the Hierarchy itself remains an esoteric realm which demands discovery and which will accept penetration.  I am choosing my words with care in an effort to evoke your esoteric response.

Beyond this point of humanity's destined goal I seek not to go; to initiates and disciples who have not yet taken the Initiation of Transfiguration, the higher realms of awareness and the "secret Place of the Most High" (the Council Chamber of Sanat Kumara) remain deeply esoteric.  It is a higher realm of energies—planetary, extra-planetary and inter-planetary; with them educators have no concern and with their consideration the teaching staff of an esoteric school is not called upon to deal.  The task is to train students in the recognition of energy and force; to discriminate between the various types of energy, both in relation to themselves and to world affairs, and to begin to relate that which is seen and experienced to that which is unseen, conditioning and determining.  This is the esoteric task.