The Theosophical Forum – February 1943

A NOTE OF CHEER FOR THE FUTURE (1) — G. de Purucker

Our Work, the offspring of the Gods in their starry dwellings, continues in beauty and in inner peace. Spread the word wherever you may or can, that now we have a greater chance to do our work than ever before — a strange paradox. The reason is that while all the governments have their hands full, restrictions of all kinds are numerous and the penalties for their violation are heavy, yet the hearts of men, precisely because they bleed and ache, are more ready than during the sunny days of peace and prosperity to hearken to the God-Wisdom which blesses us. The very uncertainties of life make this so in whatever country, with friends or so-called enemies, for they are all human beings, and we have brothers in the so-called enemy-countries, whose hearts ache like ours ache, and whose hearts bleed as ours bleed. They do their duty as we do ours, and for that they should have the respect which we ask to be given unto us. I cannot say much, but I know this: that I do not think we have lost one single Fellow through the abandoning of his belief, his convictions, or his Theosophical duty; although in many countries now his work is confined to his own fireside, or, if he be solitary, to his own study. I know this: that wherever they may be, in any part of the world and speaking any language, our Theosophists are looking forward to what they know will some day come — to peace and an enlargement of the spirit, and to a rebinding of the old ties of fellowship amongst us all.

Beautiful indeed and wonderful is it that the things of the spirit over-ride and rise above the things of the mind and of the body. What would Theosophy be if it could be overthrown in a man's heart by any calamity or catastrophe whatsoever? It would not be worth a snap of the fingers! There is where we are invincible — in the fire of the spirit and in the flame of that fire which burns in all our hearts. No matter what a man's belief may be, no matter what his brain-mind thinking or convictions may be, within, as the inmost part of himself, there burns forever that soul-light of union with the Divine, which means union with our brothers, all brothers of the human race. And it is good that this should be so; for this holy light never tells a man to neglect a duty he owes to his own country. It tells him to do his duty and to do it manfully, but to do it in the light of the Divine.

Remember this: all clouds one day shall roll away and the blessed golden sunlight shall bathe us all once again, a sunlight which is inner as well as outer; and I mean by that the sunlight of vision and of conviction and of hope and of what the early Christians called pistis or faith, which is the essence of things unseen but known; and the things of the body are what we owe to Caesar. Render unto Caesar the things which are his and unto the Spirit Divine all other that is Its.

Do you realize, Companions, that these simple, fundamental Theosophic thoughts, easy of comprehension even by a child but full of profoundest meaning and reality to the grown man or woman, live in the minds of all our Theosophists everywhere? Keep this thought in your hearts: Russian or German or Briton or Italian or American or Chinese or Japanese, it matters not: wherever Theosophy sheds its light there burns this inner fire; and if the time shall ever come, as we believe it will in the future when all men shall be so regenerated by our God-Wisdom that reality to them will be higher than ambition or profit or anything else, tragedies like the present will never, never come again.

A man is great in proportion to his thinking, and by naught else. Shall I add, his feeling? It may not be required, because deep thought is likewise deep feeling.

FOOTNOTE:

1. Spoken at the meeting of the Headquarters Lodge, Point Loma, March 29, 1942. (return to text)



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