FAREWELL TO THE CENTURY PAST
A cycle has ended!
Great as have been the achievements of the sweeping rush of material development throughout the period of our modern civilization, now at its height, it has not brought the happiness that was hoped from it, and that its most active participants have expected. But the great Helpers of Humanity knew otherwise, and that mere material prosperity is but as the dead sea fruit, pleasant to the eyes, sweet at the first taste, but which turns to ashes in the mouth. Modern civilization has had as its end to gratify the senses and the intellect, but the hearts of men have been starved; as a goal it is, therefore, a failure, and must give place to a new era.
Yet the past century has been a century of preparation; it has witnessed the revolt from agnostic materialism on the one hand, and from extreme religious dogmatism on the other — the former bred from but the deadly foe of the latter; and out of the clash between the parent and child has arisen a cry for help from the Heart of Humanity — an appeal that through the cycles has never been in vain, though the help given and so near at hand has been so oft rejected. Yet not rejected in the nineteenth century. For there have been those, devoted, loyal, true, to the messengers of Light, and who, recognizing them, have made possible the success of their work, have responded to their message and proclaimed the dawn of the new Age of Peace and Brotherhood.
One of the distinguishing features of the past century, marking it as preparatory to the new time, has been the enormous material progress along industrial lines, and the development of commercial relations between all nations and all parts of the globe by means of steamships, railways, telegraphs, cables and all the developments of electricity and other natural forces, so that the barriers of isolation of all peoples have been broken down and their interdependence on the outer physical plane made manifest.
As one result of the intermingling of races, the West has given to the East its impulse to material civilization (a questionable gift if standing alone, and if viewed in its most marked results on savage and so-called uncivilized peoples), and in return gaining in even greater measure an insight into, and an impulse towards, the contemplative mystical side of human experience and a hitherto unknown literature on the deepest problems of life. Yet this, too, standing alone would avail little to the Western world, and be of questionable benefit, as is the intense material activity of the West to the East. One thing was needed, the link between the self-seeking material activity on the one hand, and the also self-seeking, contemplative, apathetic, pseudo-spirituality on the other — a link that, in uniting these, should also revivify and place in due relation both natures in man, of which these were but the outer expression — revealing the true object of man's activities on the material plane and his power of attaining conscious life on the spiritual plane; making the former subservient to the latter, awakening the higher impulses of his heart, and so bringing the intellect and all the intense activities of passion and desire and the sensuous material nature into subjection.
That link was found primarily in one person — H. P. Blavatsky — through whose instrumentality the Theosophical Movement received life and energy in the last quarter of this century. Following her and continuing the link were her associate Helper, William Quan Judge, and their successor, the third Helper of the century, Katherine Tingley, through whose sacrifice and guidance the Theosophical Movement has resulted in the establishment of the Universal Brotherhood Organization, and who, with those who have proved their loyalty and devotion to the cause of Humanity, has kept "the link unbroken" — that link which now is outwardly the Theosophical Movement and Universal Brotherhood, but inwardly is the power of devotion and unselfish service of humanity — a living power in the hearts and lives of men.
Let us for a moment look more in detail at the lines of development during the past century.
Surveying the ground retrospectively, we see that human nature has gained chiefly in the quality of intense activity. The pressure which this material civilization has exercised on the race has compelled exertion on the part of every individual who would keep his place in the ranks — an intense exertion of the natural instinctive faculties, the senses and intellectual powers of the material man.
The progress in chemistry, physics and all the sciences, in mechanics and all branches of industry, has increased the demand for physical comfort and made luxuries a necessity; it has accentuated concrete sensuous existence in every form.
But the enrichment of knowledge of the laws of the Universe in their bearing on material existence, though incapable of satisfying the higher nature and filling the mind with contentment, and failing as an ultimate of progress, yet from another standpoint must be acknowledged as an agent in the evolution of the human race. The great faithfulness, intense application, and often self-forgetfulness, in the search for truth, although employed in the wrong direction — lacking the true compass of the spiritual life — in the ever-changing and delusive realm of material phenomena, must still be acknowledged from another standpoint as agents of progress. And that the result of any individual's efforts has not been greater and in exact proportion to the energy expended, and, in the case of the spiritually minded, commensurate with his aspirations, cannot be altogether laid at the door of the individual's perverseness, nor can the imputation of lack of desire be laid to his charge; but the trend of the times must be taken into account, and the dark cycle through which collective humanity has been passing, and which the human race, as a whole, is largely responsible for. To these, and to the false teachings of those claiming to hold the keys of life and death, are mainly due the blindness and ignorance of the mass of humanity in regard to their higher nature and destiny. Against these the average man has been all but powerless; only the heroically strong awakening to their divine possibilities could make headway and breast the tide of the combined powers of selfishness, bigotry and materialism.
Yet the picture of the past is not wholly dark or without hope, for, though failing in its search for happiness, the intensity of the search, the enormously accelerated energy which humanity has acquired in all departments of activity, is an earnest of rapid progress in higher development once the path of Truth, Light and Liberation is seen — the path of Universal Brotherhood — already proclaimed by H. P. Blavatsky, William Quan Judge and Katherine Tingley.
Out of the fierce struggle for a mere bodily existence, demanding all the energies of mind and body and making utterly futile any hope of the ideal, the soul may yet arise purified, purged of the dross, ennobled by the discipline, strong to scale the heights of wisdom and tread the path of unselfish devotion for humanity. For a new gospel has been proclaimed by our teachers — the gospel of Hope, even to the despairing. The tidings have gone out to- all the earth that within the heart of each is the divine spark; that the soul of man is immortal, and his life here but a day out of many days; that though ''sorrow endure for the night, joy cometh in the morning." Even to-day it is difficult to fully estimate how great the change that has been wrought in the life of the Western world by the reviving of the ancient teachings of Reincarnation and Karma, but modern literature, the press, even the pulpits, stand witness to the fact. Instead of an unknown future beyond the gates of death — a return to nothingness of the materialist, or the fanciful heaven or burning hell of the orthodox religionist — is the soul-perceived knowledge that another day of life awaits us beyond the night of death; that we shall again take up the scattered threads of experience; meet again those whom we have both loved and hated, and reap what we have sown. Slowly, yet surely, men are awakening to the fact that they themselves are the weavers of the web of their destiny, and that the pattern of their lives now, and in the future, as in the past, is of their own design.
What greater hope can be given to the despairing, the drunkard, the fallen, yes, and to the criminal, than this message; that, however hidden from view, lost in degradation, covered up by moral deformity and vice, there is still in their heart of hearts a divine spark, which they may fan into a flame, and that not even the faintest desire or the feeblest effort after a better life can fail of its reward. And the present life-cycle of a man may close apparently without a shadow of hope, and yet the trials, the many seeming failures and hopeless struggles may have been the balancing of the accounts of many lives of selfishness and wasted effort, and out of the purifying fire the soul may arise, fresh and clean, to enter upon a new life and new opportunities in the coming cycle.
But it is not only in recalling to men the great truths of life that the Theosophical Movement or Universal Brotherhood stands in the forefront of the world's progress, but in every department of human endeavor, touching with a magic wand Art, Literature, Music, the Drama, and even entering the world of Industry. It is the "little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump"; it has set the pace, marked out the path, and is leading the whole world into a new life.
The Leader's New Year's greeting in symbolism appears now on the cover of this magazine. Many of our readers will recall her vision of the great future, which she related to them at the Congress last Spring at Point Loma, in which she saw all humanity turning to enter the portals of Universal Brotherhood. We are indebted to Brother Betts, of Chicago, for having so clearly grasped the conception and brought it out so beautifully and with such breadth in his drawing.
Mark the standard given to the world in the practical Humanitarian Work of the International Brotherhood League, founded by Katherine Tingley, non-political and unsectarian, not one of its officers receiving salaries or other remuneration for their work, which they do, and to which they contribute in time and money because of the love that is in their hearts. Study the objects of the Universal Brotherhood, the International Brotherhood League, the Isis League of Music and Drama, and all the other departments of activity. A new touch has been given to life. It can never be quite the same, even to the man who has only casually heard of this work; and it revolutionizes, vivifies, heightens the life and consciousness of all who enter upon it to aid it for the sake of suffering and discouraged humanity.
During the past century Music and the Fine Arts have been taking greater and greater part in the life of humanity, and their refining influence must also be counted as factors in the fight against materialism. Many a soul has for a time been awakened from heavy slumber and aroused from what might have proved the sleep of death by the lofty strains and harmonies of the great masterpieces of Music and the Drama. But the crowning touch w7as needed, their true place in life was not understood. It is "as vital educative factors in the life of humanity" that once more as in the far, far distant days of the past they will awaken the deeper, truer nature of man and lead him to new heights. In the revival of the ancient mystery plays, e. g., the "Eumenides" of Aeschylus, as well as in other departments — especially in. the education of children in the "Lotus Groups," a keynote has been struck that will ring a note of joy throughout the coming Century.