Blavatsky Blogger
Taking Theosophical
ideas
into the 21st
century
Occult View of the War
Written about 'The Great War'
(World War One)
By
The Great
War is the one topic of the day, the one thing about which everyone speaks-the
one thing, also, about which everyone thinks, and yet vast numbers of people
are not thinking rightly about it. There are many who do not know what to
think. They are torn by a number of different ideas, and they find it hard to
take a balanced view. On the one side there is often a rush of hatred called
forth by awful barbarities, by unexampled cruelties; on -the other side there
is a strong feeling -a well founded feeling-that war is an awful and inane
thing, which never settles any point properly, because the side that wins in a
war need not at all necessarily be always the right side. Providence, they say,
is on the side of the biggest guns, and the old mediaeval idea that what was,
was always decided by some higher power does not find invariable acceptance in
the present day. People say: "We know that war is an evil and a wicked
thing; we know that peace is right and beautiful; so how can we fight with any
heart?" Yet, on the other' hand, when such awful filings are happening, is
it not every man's duty to do what he can to stay the evil? So there is a
general uncertainty of feeling, and many people hardly know what line they
ought to take.
Perhaps a
statement of facts with regard to the war from the inside may help you as to
the attitude which we ought to adopt. In my own mind that attitude is absolutely
clear and definite, and I shall endeavor to put it before you with such
advantage of knowledge of the inner side of things as has come to me, because
the attitude which men take with regard to this war is a matter of great
importance. It is quite true that the one thing to be thought of now is to win.
But many of us are not able to go and fight, and the attitude that we take with
regard to this matter may make the final settlement a comparatively easy thing
or an almost impossible thing and, therefore, it is not unimportant that we
should have the right ideas clearly in our minds.
In order
to have clear ideas upon any subject we must first of all have the facts at our
command. There is always a hidden side to everything-a side which is unseen by
the ordinary man, uncontemplated by the ordinary
thinker; yet that unseen side is nearly always vastly more important and vastly
more informing than the side which is seen.
I am going
to try to give you some glimpse of the hidden side of this great struggle, and
I hope that that may help you to take up an attitude, to form an opinion, which
will be helpful and not harmful when we come to the settlement later.
On the
surface this war seems simple enough, although incredible. All who know anything
of the real history of events-I mean from the external point of view-know that
Germany has been prepared through many, many years with a careful, calculated
thoroughness which has, perhaps, never been equaled in the world, to make a
spring at the throat of Europe; just precisely that-to make a tremendous bid
for world-domination. I know that even that much is not generally believed in
All that
is on the surface and is obvious.
Calculated, detailed, and marvelously unscrupulous as was the preparation, it
has been fully equaled by the execution, which has been carried out with a
deliberate brutality, with a finished cruelty never before approached. I know
that is a strong thing to say, but you have only to read unimpeachable evidence
to see that it .is true. Unfortunately, I know it to be true. I have had in the
course of work on other planes opportunities of observation for myself. I know that
the most awful stories you have heard are absolutely founded on fact. I am
sorry, but it is so. We have to face things as they are, so that actually we
have come to see that Kipling was right in his memorable phrase, "We shall
now have to revise our vocabulary; we shall now have to divide the inhabitants
of the earth into human beings and-Germans." I am-sorry, but I am telling
you the facts of the case.
If you
think of it, that is a most amazing thing; and remember that, so far as we have
been allowed to hear, there has been no protest. Just think-I do not want to
stir up your passions, it is the last thing I would desire to do; but just
think of the things which have happened. Remember the
You have all, I am quite sure, known people belonging to this race.
I, at least, have known many Germans.
I belong
to the Theosophical Society-a society which has branches in every country in
the world. I have met men of that race. I have known them,
they have been friends of mine. I am sure that the same is true of a great many
of you.
It is true
that in that Theosophical Society we had a foretaste of this endeavor to
dominate the world, for the German Section of the Theosophical Society rose
against tlie rest of it and tried to obtain supreme
power in the Society some years ago, before this war was in sight They employed
exactly the same weapons that are now being employed by the political agents of
the German press;_ the same unscrupulous lies, the same discovery ot spies in all sorts of unexpected places. We in the Theosophieal Society went through-on paper, of course
mainly-a small edition of this attempt to capture the whole organization. We
did not understand then; the .tter unscrupulousness of
it all astounded us Now we see that it was only part
of the whole German scheme -an attempt to get hold of a world-wide Society,
through which something might have been done to help the German plan of
world-domination. Fortunately, the scheme was defeated, with all its attendant
calumny and treachery. We have all known men of German race; were they on the
whole the kind of people who would behave in this fashion? You know that they
were not. Do not you see that this dire change requires accounting for- that it
needs something absolutely unusual, something entirely novel in the way of an
explanation 7 I will try to tell you exactly how it did happen-how it is
happening.
Here is
another point. We all of us feel, I think that we are engaged more or less in a
war of principle that there are great principles at stake, that we are fighting
for liberty, far what is called democracy. I have not personally by any means
an unalloyed admiration of democratic methods; but I do say that democracy at
least means an effort towards liberty for the people though I think there is a
good deal which is crude and unfinished and unscientific about it.
We are
fighting, then, surety, for this democracy and liberty on one side as against
terrible tyranny and slavery on the other. It is not only the right of
existence of smaller nations. You know it has been quite openly stated in the.
German press that the day of small nations is over, that Germany does not want
small nations, that they have no right to exist. It is not only that that is at
stake, but more nearly than that is it honor, and the keeping of a pledge. You
know well how the next man below the Emperor described a solemn treaty as
"only a scrap of paper" and could not understand how we could wish to
go to war merely for this scrap of paper. It is against that kind of thing that
we are fighting. The fact that our enemy has miscalculated docs not, after all,
make the matter any better; the fact that they cynically judged us by
themselves-that they supposed that Ireland would be certain to rebel (because
it seemed on the verge of civil war) if England were attacked; the fact that
they believed that you in Australia, with our fellow-citizens of the Empire in
Canada and the Cape of Good Hope, would all take the opportunity to break away-
that is what they expected. They calculated on all that. They have
miscalculated, but that does not make their case any better.
So quite
clearly we are standing for principles. And I can tell you this-that more truly
than you know, and on a greater scale than you know, is this
a question of principle.
We know
that there are forces which work against evolution as well as those which work
in favor of it. We know that there is frequently a small, even a personal
struggle -taking place between these forces over individuals, and sometimes
over what seem to us quite small things. But we know also that now and then
great world-crises arise where good and evil set themselves against one another
in serried array, and humanity is influenced by these powers and driven into
taking part on one side or the other. The last occasion on which so great a
world-struggle took place was in Atlantis some J or 13,000 years ago. There was
a great fight then between those who were on the side of good and those who were
on the side of selfishness.
We may
read something of the action of the Lords of the Dark Face in Atlantis in THE
SECRET DOC-Madame Blavatsky devotes much time and energy to expounding their
line of work. We must try to understand that there may be people who are doing
what to us seems absolutely evil, and yet they may think themselves justified
in their action. They may think that the line which they are taking is not evil
but, in the long run, good. Tt is true that when they
say: "in the long run, good," I think they generally mean good for
themselves; but these Lords of the Dark Face had their own view of evolution
and to themselves they justified it, much along the line in which some people
in these days try to justify the action of Judas Iscariot on the ground that he
was more anxious than the rest that the Master's glory should be shown forth to
the world and so he put Ins Master in a position where he thought that : must
show forth His glory. However incredible it may scorn, that view is gravely put
forward by some writers.
The Lords
of the Dark Face in Atlantis were intensifying themselves as separated beings
against the stream of evolution. We hold that The trend of evolution is towards
unity-that this vast multiplex Universe that we see around us is all the
expression of One Mighty Power, and that as from Him we all came out so to Him
one day we shall all return-not losing our sense Of individuality, not losing
the memory and the benefit of all our experience, but certainly rising ever
higher and higher into perfect realization of our unity with Kim. Therefore to know it to be pleasing to Him that we should work ever
towards that unity. But those who hold the opposite view think that the
Deity seta up this current which we call evolution in order that we may
strengthen ourselves by fighting against it; and, although we do not believe
that, we can see that it is a possible view and it is clear that men who hold
it will not live at all as we do. We think that such people are vitally in
error, that they are allowing themselves to be clouded by the lower self; still
we see that they try to justify their position by a certain line of argument.
It is not necessary to suppose that those Lords of the Dark Face were doing
evil for evil's sake; but they held what we consider wrong and selfish views as
to the intention of the Deity. I have myself heard some of their successors of
the present day say: "Yon people think you know what GOD means; your
Masters hold these views and, of course, yon follow them. But we have a
different view; we are following the traditions of a very ancient school and we
contrive to hold our own fairly well."
In
Atlantis this attitude led, among the ordinary and commonplace followers, to
extreme selfishness find sensuality, to general unscrupulousT
SB-and irresponsibility. It led to an extraordinary condition in which each man
set up an image of himself and worshiped that as a God -a perversion of the
perfectly true idea that God is within everyone of us, and that if you cannot
find Him within yourself it is useless to look for Him elsewhere. So it came
about *that there was a Vast revolution against the Ruler of the Golden Gate,
and practically the good and evil forces which are always seeking to influence
the world found physical expression in that great series of battles in
Atlantis. In that case the majority of the population was distinctly on the
side of evil, and the evil won. Because the evil won, it was necessary more
than 1,000 years afterwards to whelm that great island of Poseidonis
beneath the waters of the Atlantic; and 65,000,000 people died within 24 hours
in that great cataclysm.
This time
once more the forces of good and evil have materialized themselves here on the
physical plane, and the mighty contest has come down again to this level.
Remember,
we are the same people who were in Atlantis, and it is probable that we took
our part in the struggle- with the minority, let us hope-yet perhaps some of ua with the majority; it is a long time ago and we cannot
be certain.
I remember
reading a terrible story £ fiction only, I hope, for it could hardly have been
actual fact) of the recovered memory of a past incarnation. There was once a
man, an earnest and devout Christian, who through the accident of subjecting
himself to mesmeric treatment found that in a trance condition he was able to
gain glimpses of what he felt to be past lives of his own. Incredulous at
first, the strength and vividness of his experiences soon forced him to admit
that they must be real reminiscences; and in this way he acquired much
interesting information about mediaeval periods. Then arose in his mind a wild
but fervent hope that if lie could press his memory further, he might discover
that he had been on Earth during the lifetime of Jesus; he yearned
inexpressibly for a glimpse of that Divine Presence; he imagined himself
following and ecstatically worshiping the Lord whom he so loved; he even dared
to hope that perhaps he might have had the supreme honor of martyrdom for his
faith, Further and further in successive trances he pushed back his
recollection until at last, with inexpressible thankfulness and awe, he
realized that he had trodden the- sacred soil of Palestine at the very same
time as that majestic Figure. And then, with a shock so terrible that it left
him a dying man, he knew the appalling truth that in that life of long ago he
had been a rabid unit in an angry crowd, yelling wildly: "
Crucify Him ! Crucify Him!''
I trust
devoutly that we were all on the right side in that stupendous struggle in
Atlantis; but, however that may have been, at least the very same people are
having their chance again now, but this time the majority, thank Heaven, is on
the side of the good, and the good will win. This very fact-that many who were
on the wrong side then are on the right side now-is full of hope and cheer for
us, for it shows that in spite of all appearances to the contrary the world is
evolving; and, however disheartening are our failures, we arc on the whole
better men than we were 12,000 years ago. Therefore we may hope to avoid for
some thousands of years to come a cataclysm on the tremendous scale that sank Poseidonis. But if the evil won, the cataclysm would
follow; it must follow, for the Deity intends that humanity shall evolve, and
if part of humanity deliberately casts itself out of the line of evolution,
that particular set of bodies and minds ~must be wiped out, and must begin
again under .other conditions. The souls will come back to birth again
presently, scattered all over the world in various countries, so that there can
no longer be the same terrible strength of united unscrupulousness that has
made that nation a danger to the world. "
We must
not think, if we can help it (I know how hard it is to help it), that all the
people who fight on the side of evil are necessarily all wicked people.
Unquestionably mauy of them are appallingly wicked;
but equally unquestionably many of them are not so by nature
; they are victims of a mighty obsession-an obsession so tremendous in
its power that if you and I had been subjected to it, we too might not have
seen our way clear through it and come out of it unstained; who can tell?
Thousands and thousands of people as good as we, have not come through it
satisfactorily. The power behind which is contrary to
evolution can and does seize upon a whole nation and obsess it and influence
it. It is true that it cannot do that (just as is the case with
individual obsession) unless there is in the obsessed something or other which
responds. But if there be in any nation a majority, or even a powerful
minority, which-perhaps through pride, perhaps through grossness and
coarseness, through not having opened up sufficiently the love side of the
nature, through having given itself too entirely, too unscrupulously to
developing intellect-is already in that condition of ready response to evil,
then the rest of the nation, the weaker people, are simply swept along with
them, and they cannot see straight for the time. "We must try to realize
that.
What,
then, was there in
The
professor takes first the crime of maliciously or feloniously wounding. Of this
there occurred in
During the
same time there were in England 97 murders, which would lead us to estimate
those in Germany at 170; the number given is 350--almost exactly double what
might be expected; and there is a further complication due to the fact that (we
read) there are hundreds upon hundreds of man-killing in the Fatherland which
the German law does not technically term murders- which, therefore, do not
appear in murder statistics.
Of rapes
there were in
The number
of illegitimate children was with us 37,041 -- a sufficiently shameful total,
which should lead us to look for perhaps 65,000 in the larger country; instead
of this there are 178,115.
Of
malicious damage to property-a peculiarly mean and cold-blooded crime-I regret
to say that we had in
God forbid
that we should set ourselves up to be self-righteous; we English have our
faults, and grave faults; but when- we examine those statistics we cannot but
realize that there has been a difference in the average level of morality; we
begin to see how this incredible and awful obsession has happened, and why it
was that the plan originally made by the Great Ones for this particular little
bit of human evolution could hot be carried out.
It was
hoped that the Fifth Root-Race would stand as a whole or, at any rate that the
fifth sub-race would stand as a whole, arid the hope
was nearly realized. The Powers that stand behind human evolution worked long
through their pupils to prevent this catastrophe. Whether these Powers knew all
the time that the labor would not achieve its end, I cannot tell. "We
sometimes think of Them as knowing beforehand all that
will happen; whether They do or not, I know not, but at least it is certain
that in many cases They work most earnestly to produce certain results and to
give to men certain opportunities. Through the failure of humanity to take the
chances offered, the results may not then be attained. They are always
eventually attained,' but often they are postponed for what to us seems an
enormous time. The Great Deity of the Solar System, the LOGOS Himself, knows
perfectly all that will happen, and knows who will take his chances and who
will not. That we must believe; whether all who work under Him also know that,
we cannot tell. Certainly I know that a .great conflict between good and evil
forces has long been impending over us. I know also that it need not have taken
precisely the form it has, if only some of those to whom great opportunities
were offered had risen to the level of those opportunities and had taken them.
Some have
taken them. This mighty
It was
hoped that the other nations which belong to bur sub-race would join in a great
confederation.
Prince
Bismarck was such a one, as Madame Blavatsky told a long ago. While he was
still alive he laid his-plans for the subjugation of
In the
course of the work of the invisible helpers on the battle-field I have several
times encountered and spoken to the Prince, who naturally watches with the
keenest interest all that happens; and some months ago I had an interesting
conversation with him. Speaking of the war, he said that if we were servants of
the Hierarchy and students of Occultism, we must know that
"No,
no; you do not understand. This is a struggle -- which had to come -- struggle
between the forces of law and order, science and culture on the one hand and,
on the other, those of disorder and license, and the degrading tendencies of
democracy. It does not matter how it started. If, as you say;
"We
maintained that we also loved law and order, science and culture, but we wished
along with them to have liberty arid progress. The Prince would have none of
such ideas; he declared that democracy cared nothing for culture, but wished to
drag everybody down to a common level, and that the lowest; that it desired law
to rob and restrain the rich, but itself would obey no law; that it had no
conception of liberty under law (which is the only true liberty) but desired a
triumph of utter lawlessness, in which selfish might should rule, and only
those should be restrained who wished to live and work as free men. Further, he
said that if we ourselves served the true inner Government of the world, we
must know that it is the very opposite of all democratic theories, and that
therefore it is Germany and not England who is fighting for the ideals of the
hierarchical Government. "Which," he asked, "is nearer to the
true ideal of a King-our Kaiser, who holds his power from GOD alone, or your
King George, who can strike out no line of his own, whose
every action is limited by his ministers and his parliament, so that he can do
no real good? And the French President, what is he but the scum momentarily thrown
to the top of a boiling mass of corruption?''
We were
most indignant at such an insult to our brave Allies; but we could, not but
admit that there was a modicum of truth in some of his earlier remarks. We
tried to tell him that, though we shared his utter disbelief in the methods of
democracy, we thought it a necessary intermediate stage through which the world
had to pass on its way to a nobler freedom, because a scheme (however good')
which was forced upon a people could never lead to its ultimate evolution; but
that men must learn to choose the good for themselves with open eyes, to
renounced their brutal selfishness, not because they were driven to do so at
the point of the sword, but because they themselves had learnt to see the
higher way and the necessity that each should control himself tor the good of all.
The Prince
was absolutely unconvinced; he said that our plan was Utopian, and that we
could never bring the canaille to understand such considerations-that the only
way to deal with them, was the method of blood and iron, forcing them for their
own ultimate good (and meantime for our convenience) into the life which we who
were wiser saw to be best for them.
When some
his was later reported to the King of England, he smiled and said quietly:
"I believe that GOD has called me to the, position which I hold, just as
much as He has called my imperial cousin, the Kaiser; I rule not by force, but
because my people love me, and I want no higher title than that."
I fear we
must admit the Prince's claim that man as a whole is not yet fit for freedom;
but he can never become fit unless he is allowed to try the experiment.^ Of
course at first he will go wrong just as often as he will go right. We shall
have an intermediate period when things are not at all as they should .be, when
they are not by any means as well managed as they would be under a benevolent
despotism. Nevertheless, we shall never get men to advance unless we leave them
a certain amount of freedom. We must pass thro' this unlovely stage of
democratic mismanagement, in order to get a time when the government of the
people will be the government of the best. At present, frankly, it is not that.
Aristocracy means government by the best; democracy means government by the
people. We hope for a time when democracy and aristocracy will be one. We
expect to reach that by our system; we should never get there along the line of
military despotism. That is the real fundamental point at issue; so we see that
this war 'is essentially one of principles.
If any
should be inclined to doubt that a whole nation can be so obsessed from behind,
a nation which has a great deal that is beautiful in its past history, which
has produced some really line people-if any should be disposed to doubt that,
let him, take the official German statements, and read the proclamations of His
Imperial Majesty the Kaiser; the proclamations in which he speaks of himself
(and probably he believes it) as commissioned by God to govern the world; in
which he says:
On me the
spirit of God has descended. I regard my whole task as appointed by heaven. Who
opposes me I shall crush to pieces. Nothing must be settled in this world
without the intervention of the German Emperor."-o See the insane pride of
this, and realize that the whole nation, so far as we know, applauds and
approves. Read Mr. Owen Wister's "embodiment of composite statement of Prussianism compiled sentence by sentence from, the
utterances of Prussians, the Kaiser and his generals^ professors, editors and Nietsche; part of it said in cold blood, a year before this
war, and all of it a declaration of faith now being ratified by action."
Read the calm statement: "Weak nations have not the same right to live as
powerful nations. The world has no longer need of little nationalities."
"The Belgians should not be shot dead; they should be so left as to make
impossible all hope of recovery. The troops are to treat the Belgian civil
population with unrelenting severity and frightfulness." Remember all the
horrors of the sinking of the
This is
the real explanation of all that seems so incomprehensible ; these people that
fight us are not fighting only of themselves, they are directed by a power of
will far stronger than their own, and they are driven on to do awful things.
They are willing enough to be driven, for that is part of the obsession. The
men who drive them are utterly unscrupulous, and will use any means whatever to
gain their end, for they know nothing of what we mean by right or wrong. They
hold it as a manly duty to kill out all emotion or sympathy, because they
consider such feelings a weakness. They are pitiless, exactly as a shark is.
The slaughter or torture of thousands or millions is nothing whatever to' them
-- so long as they gain their end.
If this
had not been; if the fifth sub-race had all combined together to present a
perfect front, we should still have had a conflict, but it would have been with
some tremendous uprising of the much less developed races- perhaps another
attempt such as Attilla made to overrun Europe. The
evil would have expressed itself, but it would have been among the backward
nations. It is a great victory for the powers that stand for darkness that they
can take a nation supposed to be in the forefront of civilization and- twist
that to their ends.
We must
not think that all the members of that nation are wicked people. We must not
let ourselves be brought down to their level. They have made it their special
boast to set up a stream of hatred towards us, to compose hymns of hate and
teach them to the innocent school children. We must not be led away into such
foolishness as that. We must have no single thought of hatred. We shall hear of
the most terrible things being done of incredible brutality and horror on their
part; but if we wish to take the occult point of view, we must have no shadow
of hatred in our hearts for all this, but only pity,
The
tragedy of
Therefore
not hatred, but pity, should' fill our minds. But on no account and under no
circumstances must our pity be allowed to degenerate into weakness, or to
interfere with our absolute firmness. We stand for liberty, for right, for
honor, and for the keeping of the pledged word of the nation, and that work
which has come into our hands must be -done, and it must be done thoroughly,
But we must do it because we stand on the side of the Deity, because we are in
very truth the Sword of the Lord, Because this is, indeed, a holy war, in a far
deeper and more real sense than were the Crusades of old. Let us take care that
we do not spoil our work and our attitude by such, an unworthy passion as
hatred. We do not hate the wild beast that is attacking our children, but we
suppress it. We do not hate a mad dog, but for the sake of humanity we shoot
it. We do not hate the scorpion we tread under foot, but we tread on it
effectively. We do not hate a lunatic; we are sorry for him; but we defend our
dear ones against his attack with unflinching determination, and we have no
hesitation in taking whatever steps are necessary to deprive him of the power
to do further harm. There must be 110 thought of hatred, but there must be no
weakness. There must be no sickly sentimentality or wavering. -There are those
who clamor that the mad dog is our brother, and that it is unfraternal
to shoot him. They forget that the men whom his bite would doom to an awful
death are also our brothers, and that they have the first claim on our consideration.
Let us
have that well in our minds, and we shall begin to see what
is the attitude we must take with regard to this terrible war; and if we
do our duty unflinchingly in maintaining that attitude, we shall make the final
settlement infinitely easier. When this is over, as it will be over presently,
when the struggle is of the past, there will still remain the aftermath. Those
among the Allies who have hated will find their hatred turning into fiendish
glee in their victory; hut, having allowed themselves
to be turned aside from the true view of the struggle those- people will be in
no condition to understand calmly and rationally what is to he done. It is only
those who have kept their heads, who have shown themselves philosophers, but
nevertheless puissant soldiers to stand and strike for the right-it is only
they who will be able to judge what can be done and what is best for the world.
So we who
are Theosophists should hold a firm and steady attitude, and not allow
ourselves to be misled. The path of wisdom is, as usual, a razor edge. We must
not fall over on one side or the other; we must have neither weakness nor
vindictiveness, but a grasp of the real reasons for it all, and of what it is
that is really happening.
The egos
that have been swept into this vortex of hate on the wrong side of the fight
will come back again, they will recover. It is indeed a terrible thing to throw
oneself open to such an obsession. They will have a long way to climb, just as
had those who went wrong in Atlantis; but thousands of those who were on the
wrong side in Atlantis are on the right side now, and that is an. omen of great
hope for us. The world has advanced, otherwise the evil would win again; and
this time it will not win.
So our
attitude must be one of unselfishness and of firm attention to duty. But we
must do our duty because it is our duty, and not because of any personal
feeling of hatred, or oven of horror. We cannot but feel horror at the awful
things that have been done, at the deliberate way they have been justified, at
the terrible things that have been said. We cannot help feeling horror, but
nevertheless we must try to hold ourselves steady, with iron determination as
to what is to be done, but yet with readiness when all this is over to take
once more the philosophical point of view.
The Lord
who is to come-although when He came last time He said to His people : "1 come not to bring peace, but a sword,"
is nevertheless the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Love and the Lord of Life; and
when love and life and peace can he for the people, He will lead them into love
and life and peace. But when the people have made that impossible for
themselves for this incarnation, when these things cannot be for them, then will
the other side of the prophecy come true, that those who draw the sword will
perish by the sword.
In the
midst of raging selfishness let us try to live in utter unselfishness, let us
be full of trust, because we know; however dark and difficult things may be, we
cling to the certainty that evolution is working. We went down in that great
conflict in Atlantis, arid yet we never lost our faith in the final triumph of
good. This time good will triumph even in the outer world; but, remember,
victory will be achieved only by the greatest effort, by the most utter
determination, and the most thorough federation and trust among the people who
are chosen to rule the world and to do the work. To
Let us
take it all as part of the development of the great world. That war is an awful
thing, wrong and-wicked in itself, none can doubt; also that it is an utterly
irrational way of deciding a disputed point. The karma of the man who provokes
a war is more appalling than the human mind can conceive. But for those upon
whom it is forced, as it has in this case been forced upon us, it may be the
lesser of two evils. Since it had to be, Those who
stand behind and direct the evolution of the world are unquestionably utilizing
it for great and high purposes, and thus wringing good out of the very 'heart
of ill. Horrific as it is, it has yet lifted thousands upon thousands of people
clear out of themselves, out of their petty parochialism into world-wide
sympathy, out of selfishness into the loftiest altruism-lifted them into the
region of the ideal. It has raised them at one stroke more than many lives
under ordinary conditions would raise a man.
You know
how nobly people have thrown away their lives-not even for their country in the
ordinary sense 'of the word. Remember that we were not in immediate danger,
though that would inevitably have come later. It was not self-defense; it was
the honor of the flag; it was the name of
Remember
that unselfish and awakened egos are needed at this very moment for the sixth
sub-race, which is beginning in
There are
many who cannot for one reason or another go and fight, though I hold very
strongly that everyone who can should do so.]?But we can all do something to
help. Some of us are too old to fight ourselves--or so the Government thinks;
but at least we can take up the work of some younger man and set him free to
go. That I have done myself. So you may all bear your share in this. All can
help, and, furthermore, all must help; certainly all should be on the side of
the right in a matter like this, and all should do whatever they can to help in
any one of the many indirect ways that are possible.
We are all
trying, so far as may be, to prepare for the coming of the Great Teacher.
Realize that this Great War is part of the world-preparation and that, however
terrible it may be, there is yet the other side--the enormous good that is
being done to individuals.) Perhaps in the distant future, when we come to look
back upon it all with greater knowledge and with wider purview, we shall see
that the good has outweighed all the frightful evil, and that though the old
order changeth, giving place to new, it is only that
God may fulfil Himself in many ways.
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