About 18,000,000 years ago an event of supreme importance occurred on this planet. The Hierarchy of Builders concerned with the preparation of a physical body for the use of Humanity having produced a vehicle through which Mind could work, the Solar Hierarchy, Lords of Mind, who had developed in past periods, now did their part by quickening the fires of Mind latent in their younger brothers of this present planetary cycle. Thus opened the human drama. For the kindling of the fires of Mind made of man a self-conscious being, equipped for a self-directed rise toward self-conscious godhood. Mind not only enables man to master the body, but it can be used to mirror forth the Divinity latent in human nature, which man must learn to manifest in Earth-life.
Age after age, in life after life, race after race, civilization after civilization, these Egos, charged with human responsibility and power, have been sowing and reaping experience on Earth, working at the human job. They have risen and fallen and risen again in their cyclic upward climb, and now they have reached the halfway house on their long journey.
We are those Egos. What have we accomplished? Today, when thinkers agree that Humanity faces a severe crisis, it is time to take stock, to give an account of ourselves. Few believe that a "last day" of reckoning is at hand. What is there for us still to do?
No doubt man has established control of physical forces. His inventions have eliminated distance, have brought people of every part of the world into closer relations than ever before and brought about a state of recognised economic interdependence. There is actually a physical basis for a united life of Humanity. But, and it is a large "but," man has also developed scientific violence to such a point that he has the power to put the present civilization out of commission almost at one blow; and the nations live in fear, not knowing which of their rivals may use some terrific means of partially accomplishing wholesale destruction. The urgent problem is to awaken an inner directing Self that realizes the unity of all beings and a great common purpose, so that life may be safe for man to continue his progress.
Aside from Theosophy, however, there is available no plan of human life that shows its relation to the universal scheme, no hint of what future cycles hold for man, no knowledge of the latent powers which, brought into conscious function, are adequate for the mastery of present and future situations in Earth-life.
The half of the human task that remains to be done is the rendering of the intermediate, psychomental part of human nature pellucid so that the impulse, the wisdom, of the inmost Divine Self can be clearly mirrored to the waking consciousness. Men are today more self-conscious; but the personality unillumined by the Self deeper than mind is not the enduring Ego, the creative Individuality to be fully brought into function in the coming cycles. A united life for Humanity can be achieved only by those who are aware of the deeper Divine Self in which all have their root. It is only "individuals," awakened to this inner, underlying unity that can unite; can be themselves and permit others to be themselves; can differ without dividing; can draw upon inner resources spiritually alight with power that can kindle in other men the trust in themselves and their fellows that will send fear slinking away from human life.
The dynamic powers of the spiritual and divine nature of man are still to be brought fully into function in human life. They are not at the command of those who do not believe in the existence of this inner nature. Their sphere of influence is unattainable by those who do not believe in the essential unity of all beings. They can be exercised collectively only by individuals whose consciousness is illumined by light from that inner Self, whose every act and thought in relation to their fellows takes into consideration those most often unrealized facts which, when ignored, make united effort seem impossible. They have never been used collectively, as it is our destiny to use them in the cycles now before us. So tremendous, so subtly undermining to all selfish, greedy passion and violence are these un-aggressive, non-violent, inner powers that the evil forces which now menace human welfare may be dissolved, transformed, redirected into channels bearing benefits to all.
Is it beyond belief that higher, freer, nobler human associations than have yet been known on Earth are possible of realization? Not for those whose hearts have been responsive to the promptings of that inner Self in which all are rooted. Not for those to whom Theosophy has given a new framework of thought about the future of Humanity on Earth. Not for those who accept the discipline that makes man master of the inner world, and brings into play the spiritual dynamics that can melt stony hearts, and the wisdom that can clear confused minds. Creative, compassionate individuals can unite in directing human activities in harmony with divine, universal laws of life. As human beings we have this to do.