THE PERFECTING OF MAN/PART 5
THE CHRIST
TRIUMPHANT
AND THE WORK
OF THE HIERARCHY
THE long steep Path is trodden, and He who has
climbed it, who has passed and assimilated all human experiences, He who has
nothing more to learn in this world-system, who has faced the agony of
isolation, who has passed for the last time through the gateway of death, He
stands triumphant, with the door of the fifth great Initiation open before Him,
great vistas of glory stretching beyond it. Nirvana, as it is called in the
East, that all-embracing consciousness,
that extinction of the lower self, and the full expansion of the Spirit,
that stretches before Him,
all-embracing, all-powerful, and there break from His lips the triumphant
words: “Lo, I am He who liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for
evermore”. Master of life and death, freed from every fetter that can bind, all
power given to Him in heaven and in earth, He stands the Perfect Man, the cycle
of humanity accomplished, the ideal of Divine Manhood fulfilled; in the
language of the East, He who is liberated; in
that of the West, He who has attained final salvation. The one of whom
it was said that the Christ was born in him has now attained the stature of the
fulness of Christ. He stands among the many Brethren of whom the Christ is the
Firstborn. He has “become a pillar in the temple of my God who shall go out no
more”. You catch in Christian and in Hebrew Scriptures from time to time a
glimpse of such mighty Figures, as you read in the Hebrew Old Testament of that
mighty One who was met by the patriarch Abraham, of whom it was written:
“Without father, without mother, having neither beginning of days nor end of
life, made like unto the Son of God, He abideth a priest continually”. Such is
the mighty triumph of the man who now has reached the Perfection of Humanity;
the long past lies behind Him, with its struggles, its failures, its successes.
He has been born for the last time; over Him death has no longer power; He has
become one of the Masters of the Wisdom; He has gained eternal life.
And now there stretch before Him, having
accomplished His pilgrimage, seven paths that lead him onwards in the great
realms of superhuman life, seven paths of glory and of power, of which all,
save one, free Him for ever from the burden of human flesh. Into mightier
realms, where matter is but the obedient servant of the Spirit, thither may He
pass to work in the vast universe in which He stands now as King and Priest,
and as He stands gazing at those seven
pathways, He sees but one that turns back to the earth that lies behind Him, where the burden of the flesh must still
be borne, where the weight of physical matter
must still encumber, one path that keeps Him still to labour in the
world, while the other six stretch
onward, far away from our earth.
As He stands there, across the exquisite music
which surrounds Him there sounds a sob of pain, a wailing from the earth that
lies behind. He hears the cry of humanity in bondage; He sees the gropings of
the ignorant, the helpless, and the blind. He sees the suffering that He has
transcended, the weakness that in Him has turned to strength, the helplessness
that in Him has been crowned into power. His race has cast around Him the only
fetters that still have power to bind the enfranchised, the liberated Spirit;
they are the fetters of compassion; they are the bonds of love; the old
sympathy for the humanity of which He is the flower; for those who still he in
darkness and the shadow of death while Light Eternal is radiant around Him. And
then He turns backward to the world that He had left. Then, instead of casting
away the burden of the flesh, He takes it up and bears it still, in order that
He may help mankind. The body which was the body of humiliation, and has become
the glorified and spiritual body, He still is willing to wear, that He may not
lose close contact with the humanity that He loves. And so, holding the mighty
consciousness that He has won, but
bearing still the burden of the flesh, He remains in the world that He
has the right to leave, in touch with
the humanity that cries out to Him for help. And so He becomes what we call a
Master, a liberated Spirit who still bears the burden of the flesh. He it is,
and such as He, rising in grade beyond grade of superhuman wisdom and power -
He and such as He form the Occult Hierarchy, which consists of the Guardians of
the world. They it is who, remaining
with us, remain to help, to guide, to strengthen, to uphold, so that humanity
may not be without its Guides along the
Path, may not be left to wander unhelped, unaided, in the difficult ways of human evolution.
He has become a Saviour of the world; He has
gained the right and the power to help; for just as the sun pours down upon the
world his light and life, as all life on earth is stimulated by his rays, as his warmth causes the seed to
germinate, enables the plant to build up its substance, gives vigour and
strength to the animal, and makes possible the life of man, so do these Suns of
the spiritual firmament pour down upon earth Their strength, Their wisdom,
cause to germinate all seeds of good in human kind, pour down life and strength
that enable us to grow. They do not take our place; They cannot substitute
Themselves for us; but by identity of nature, by the height at which They stand
above us, They can pour down Their life to stimulate our growth; and our
weakness becomes strength by the stimulus of, Their power.
So They help the world, help it in ways that
roughly now I will seek to outline for you. Three general ways there are in
which the great life of the Hierarchy pours down upon mankind. From the great
spiritual sphere Their light pours down in general benediction, like the light
of the sun to which I likened it, illuminating and blessing all. All of you
may profit by that, just in proportion as you are receptive to it, just in
proportion as you are able to open your hearts to it, to breathe it in like the
atmosphere that surrounds you. For as the sun
shines, and you may open your windows and let the sunshine flood your
rooms, or you may bar it out with closed
shutters so that it may not illuminate and bring life and health, so is it with this widespread blessing of the Masters’
life, which makes the spiritual atmosphere,
which pours out as spiritual light. Open your windows and Their light
shines in; it is beating against the shutters; and you have only to throw them
open, and your Spirit will be flooded with Their light and strength.
And then there are great organisations, great
communities, religious communities, into which a special Master will pour down
His blessing and His strength. Made as vessels to receive the water of life, as
mighty reservoirs to be filled in order that the water may be distributed, such
are the great religions of the world; such these great spiritual vessels of
many shapes, of many forms, but all containing the one spiritual water, for the quenching of the spiritual
thirst of man. Into those organisations, drawn together for spiritual purposes,
joined with the aim of spreading spiritual knowledge, a Master pours His life
and inspiration, in order that they may distribute it to their adherents, so
that they may give it to those within their pale. Hence the different religions
of the world, with their different sacraments, or means of grace, adapted to
the needs of the time for which they are given, to the temperament of the
people on whom they are bestowed to shape and mould special civilisations, and
so to guide and help the races and sub-races of men.
And in yet a third great way They help the
thought of the world, sending out mighty
thoughts of knowledge, of beauty, of inspiration, specially for those
men and women of genius who have climbed to the point where they can be
individually affected, and made, as it were, channels to the world at large;
great thoughts of knowledge sent to the scientific genius; thoughts of beauty sent to the artist of
genius; thoughts of patriotism and helpfulness to the statesman of genius; thoughts of mighty power
to the literary genius, whether expressing himself in prose or poesy. These
are the blessings sent out by the Masters of Wisdom for the helping and the raising of men; and never a
great inspiration flashes into mind or heart, never some mighty thought
illuminates a whole field of knowledge,
never some exquisite form of beauty, whether for sound or vision, comes winging
its glorious way into our earthly atmosphere but comes from that great
Hierarchy that lives for the helping of man, ever plans new ways, works out new
schemes, by which evolution may be quickened, by which the race may climb.
Some of these take as pupils and disciples - along the lines by which I have
already led you - take as pupils and disciples those who are willing to tread
the Path that They have trodden, so that the ranks of the great Hierarchy may
never be depleted, so long as men need helping, so long as humanity is dwelling
on our globe.
From that more general and individual helping let
us turn to two great departments of
human life, in which the work of the Hierarchy is most specially to be
seen, and in which all who have eyes to
see may trace it as they will. There are two great departments of human life in
which especially help is needed - the Ruling Department, which guides all
natural evolution, changes the face of the surface of our globe, builds and
destroys continents, raises fresh races which grow mightier and pass away,
controls the destinies of nations, shapes the fate of civilisations, balances
up from time to time the great accounts between the races and the nations, and
rules the outer destinies of men. That mighty Ruling Department is one in which
the Occult Hierarchy is ever at work, and there the Ideal Man - the Manu, as he
is called in the East, the word being only the word from which our own ‘man’ is
derived, the thinker - is the one who shapes and guides the activities of this
Ruling Department, under the Supreme Head of the Hierarchy, the Lord of our
world.
And then the Teaching Department, that from which
all religions come which inspire and colour civilisations: at the head of that
department, two grades above the grade of a Master, stands the Supreme
Teacher, the Teacher of angels and of men, whom in the East they call the
Wisdom, or Bodhisattva, whom in the West they call the Christ. His the duty of
watching over the spiritual destinies of mankind; of guiding, blessing,
maintaining the various religions of the world, founded in outline by Himself.
His the duty of appointing one Master or another as the special Guide and
Protector of a special religion, while His own benediction flows ever upon the
whole of the living religions of the time. His the great duty of appearing from
age to age to inspire a new religion, to strike a keynote, until all the notes
shall have been struck that make up the great religious chord of our humanity, varied but all harmonious, giving
out different tones but forming one mighty chord.
Looking backwards over the past of our race, we
see how he came from time to time, the Bodhisattva of the past, the Christ of
the past, who gave the earlier religions to the great Aryan Race; who built up the fabric of
Hinduism for the Aryan root-stock; who taught as Thoth in Egypt, later known as
Hermes, the mighty Revealer; who came as Zoroaster to the great Persian Empire,
thirty-one thousand years ago; who came as Orpheus to the Greeks, founding the Orphic Mysteries from which all
other Mysteries in Greece were gradually
successively derived; who spoke as the Sun in India, as Light in Egypt,
as Fire in Persia, as the exquisite
Beauty of Music and Sound in Greece; who gave to each great nation in turn its
own religion, laid in each the foundation of the civilisation which that
religion was to colour and to inspire;
and who, then, having done His work, came forth for the last time in Hindustan,
there to reach the Illumination of the Buddha, and with Buddhism closed
the ancient cycle, and left to His Successor
the opening of the new.
For when the World-Teacher has performed His
task, when He has appeared over and over again to build in turn the great
religions which it is His function to reveal, then when a great world-age is
over, He comes for the last time, speaks His last word, reaches the final
Illumination, and passes away from earth. Thus in Buddhism that great cycle of
antiquity found its ending; in that great religion the last word of the ancient
world was spoken, and He who had taught, He who had illuminated, the Christ of
that elder world, He passed away, His work for humanity completed, His task
accomplished, His Successor ready to take His place.
Then opened the new cycle, the new age of racial
life. The old was closed, the new was to open, and with the fifth sub-race, the
Teutonic sub-race that now is leading the nations of the earth, a new cycle was
to open, and to it there came the new Bodhisattva, the new Christ, to be the
builder of a yet greater civilisation. He came among the Jewish people to give
out His message and to meet His destiny, to be rejected by His contemporaries,
murdered by the people from whom He took His body. But none the less, out of
the apparent failure there came a magnificent success; out of the apparent
utter breakdown of the mission grew the tree which overshadows Europe and
America today.
Two notes He struck, both of vital importance,
both marking the beginning of a new age, and the line which in due time that
age would have to follow.
All the great civilisations of the past had been
built on the family as unit. The man, it was declared in India, consists of the
man, the wife, and the child. And so if you look back into all those old
civilisations, you will see the individual as comparatively nothing, the family
the foundation of the State, and out of the families the State built up, and
civic duty the mark of highest morality. In the new age the note that was
struck was the note of the individual,
not of the family, of the value of the individual, of the necessity of the
building of the individual, the thought
of the one human being standing alone for the time to learn strength and self-reliance. Out of that
thought, with all that was necessary for its full evolution, with the clouding
of the idea of reincarnation and the going forward with the loss of that to the
idea of an everlasting heaven and an everlasting hell, out of that grew the
overwhelming sense of the importance of the present life, of the value of the
individual soul, which it was the first duty of Christianity to add to the
thought of the world. It meant combat, strife, for a time chaos, well-nigh
anarchy, but without that the future would have been impossible. Unless the
stone was hewn out of the quarry, unless it was made to be alone for a time,
hewn into form, shaped into the necessary appearance, polished; until that was
done and the individual stones were ready, a great temple of the Brotherhood
of Humanity could not possibly have been builded. Rough is the work of the
chisel and the mallet, full of dust and confusion the clamour of the stoneyard;
but out of the dust and the clamour, out of the blows and the chipping away,
there comes the polished stones of strong individuals fit to be synthesised
into a building, fit to be put together to make a mighty Brotherhood; for you
must build your Brothers before your Brotherhood can be made. And this past
struggle of individualism was a necessary precedent for the building of a
mightier and happier race.
And so through all that clash of individualism,
through all that chaos of warring classes, men and women see that the Christ
breathed another note, lost in the earlier years, but presently to become
dominant and all-compelling. It was the teaching that He that is greatest is to
be as he that doth serve, that strength accomplished is meant to be yoked to
service, that the measure of power is the measure of duty, and that those that
are highest should be the helpers of all. Through Christendom the note of
self-sacrifice has breathed as it has breathed through none other of the great
faiths of earth, and while at first you see the clash of the individuals, you
see it is only a means to an end, the fitting of the individual to help. And so
out of the teaching of the Christ and the opening of the new cycle there has
grown up a civilisation battling and tumultuous, but yet m which a social
conscience is being born, a realisation of human duty, a recognition of human
responsibility. And when individualism
has done its work, when it has worked out its inevitable destiny, then will
come back the Teacher, to show how the
stones are to be fitted together; He, the great Master Builder in humanity, He
shall again appear, to build up a new sub-race, to shape a universal religion.
He literally shall not come to destroy but to fulfil, and to draw around
Himself the many creeds of earth; for now the day is approaching when the words
He spoke shall be fulfilled: “Other sheep I have that are not of this fold;
them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice and shall follow me, and
there shall be one fold and one shepherd”. And that shepherd shall be the
mighty One, who is the Master of Masters, the Supreme Teacher, the Teacher of
the world, who stands at the head of this Teaching Department of the Occult
Hierarchy, who is the Head of all earth’s faiths, who loves and blesses and
will unite them all.
But I said there was also a great Ruling
Department, in which the Ideal Man stands out as guide. That has also its work
going on amongst us, side by, side with the gentler, more hidden, more
spiritual work of the Christ. Look over the story of man and see how, as you
study it, it more and more unfolds the features of a mighty Plan, in which all
the races and the sub-races and the nations of mankind have each their appropriate
place, each its function and its duty. Look back over history and see the
mighty changes that have altered the surface of our globe. Remember how the
great naturalists tell us of a time when the huge continent of Lemuria
stretched where now the Pacific rolls. See how more and more science is
beginning to recognise that once Africa and America could be reached from each
other dryshod, and that a vast continent spanned East and West where now is the
Atlantic Ocean, and a mighty ruling race was there that spread its civilisation
far and wide over the globe. See how with our own great Aryan race both these
continents have vanished, and the surface of earth and water redistributed
makes the habitat for the ruling race of the time. Glance onwards and see the
signs of the building again of a coming continent, of islands thrown up in the
vast Pacific, of extraordinary volcanic activity busy shaping the foundations
of a new continent on which humanity
shall live and flourish, when much of our own has been broken up, shall have
disappeared. Realise that that changing surface of land and water goes side by
side with the building up of different types of humanity; that the Lemurian
continent had its own type of which the negro is a mixed remnant today; that
Atlantis had also its race, the fourth, of which you can find traces in the
North American Indians, traces in the old Egyptians, myriads in China and
Japan, for the fourth race is still the most numerous upon earth. And then see
your own type arising, the great fifth
race type, the Aryan, spreading over the whole of the habitable world, divided
into its various sub-races, each distinguishable enough when pure, as you can
distinguish the Kelt from the Teuton, the Latin from the Scandinavian. See how
that race is spreading and growing, how it is dominating and ruling, how it is
colonising and building a mighty Empire. Look onwards for some hundreds of
years, and you will see that race rising to its summit, building a mighty
World-Empire greater than the past has known, into which shall flow all the
power and the glory of the nations, in which shall be incarnate that wondrous
group of mighty intellects, that now and again comes out into the world to a
race when it reaches its zenith, to be incarnated in the future as in the past
in that wondrous triumph of the great Teutonic sub-race. See how it holds the
West, how it is gripping the East; realise that all the spreading has a
purpose, and that behind it stands its Manu, guiding and shaping the mighty
Empire which yet shall be. Realise that all wars and all conquests have a
purpose, that when a nation invades another, oversweeps it, dominates it for a
time, that at that period the nation that is conquered profits, as well as the
conqueror who learns his lesson. When the Greeks conquered part of India they
brought with them their Art, and left deep imprinted on the Art of India the
mark of Greece the all-beautiful. When from Central Asia there swept down into
India the mighty flood of the Mughals, that developed another form of Art and
enriched the country that they conquered. All these conquests of East by West
and West by East work into the mighty Plan, and spread abroad through the
nations the treasures that otherwise would be enclosed within the limits of a
single country.
Open your eyes to wider horizons; see the
mightier, larger Plan; realise that a nation is
separated to build up something of value to humanity, and then is spread
abroad and scattered that it may carry everywhere that which within its own
boundary it made. These wars and conquests, these struggles of nation against
nation, of race against race, they all have their place in the mighty Plan;
they are guided by the Manu, who knows exactly what is wanted for each, and
makes the wondrous mingling by which humanity grows. Look back, if you will, to
the last great struggle that took place in the East between Russia and Japan,
and you will see behind those warring armies that two mighty ideals were at
grips with each other. Eastern ideals were losing their influence too rapidly;
eastern thought was not sufficiently respected. And because the balance which
has swung up and down so often between East and West had long been on the side
of the West, therefore were East and West flung against each other in those
terrible battlefields of Asia, and an eastern nation came out as conqueror for
a time, not for itself, but for humanity, that some of the great eastern ideals
might not be lost for the world. And so we realise that wherever there is
struggle, there the Manu is guiding; that wherever there is turmoil, there the
strong hand of the Lord of Men is shaping the future. Oh, it would seem
terrible to you if you saw, coming down from some vast mountain side, the
glacier ploughing its way, or the river bursting over all obstacles and
spreading flood and destruction in a valley, and blotting out human and animal
life. But come back centuries later; visit it again when a thousand years have
rolled by, and the same valley ploughed by the glacier is glorious with flowers, golden with corn; the children are
playing there, and man is happy. Destruction only means rebuilding; death only
means new life. Humanity through many trials wins to mightier stature, and the
Hierarchy plans and guides for the uplifting of all at last.
And so when over the country today there sweeps
the storm of unrest and strife, when war of classes - more terrible than war of
nations - desolates our country, and makes men’s hearts tremble with fear;
when there seems no outlook; when there seems no remedy; when the resources of
the past civilisation are exhausted, and those of the future are not yet
clearly seen - Oh then remember the words of the Christ: “Let not your heart be
troubled,” for the birth-pangs of the present have in them the promise of the
future. All is well where the Occult Hierarchy, grown from amongst our own
flesh and blood made glorious, is behind the warring wills of men, and is
shaping even evil to purposes of good.
And so I would leave you with a word not of hope,
but of certainty, not of doubt, but of fullest assurance. Where Christ is the
Teacher, where the Ideal Man is the Ruler, all must be well with the world of
which they are the Lovers and the Guardians. Foundations may break up around
us; it is only that they may be better relaid. Buildings may crash down around
us; they are outworn, and nobler temples shall arise where they have fallen
into ruins. There can be no despair for
a race that has produced a Christ and a Buddha. There is no despair for a
humanity where men are everywhere growing into God.
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