SECTION
THREE
FORCES
BEHIND THE EVOLUTIONARY PROGRESS OF THE RACE
THE
DOCTRINE OF AVATARS
May 1941
As we enter
the momentous month of May this year, I have asked myself if there is any way
in which I can arouse the world aspirants and my disciples to a truer
appreciation of the immanent significance of the presented opportunity, and
also if there is any way in which I can simplify and make more real to you the
Doctrine of the Coming One—linked as it is to the teaching of every great
religion. In all of them, the idea of a subjective, spiritual Order, concerned
with the developing welfare of humanity, is to be found.
This is an
age of culminations. Such culminations appear today in the field of religion as
well as in the field of science and politics. All the great lines of human
approach to reality and to truth are passing out of the realm of the tangible
and exoteric, into that of the intangible and esoteric. Science is rapidly
becoming the science of the unseen and of the unprovable; religion has emerged
from the realm of the mystical into the clearer atmosphere of the occult, and
must now emphasise the reality of the unseen as the efficient cause of the
seen; politics and governments are engaged with processes of thought and
ideologies.
What then
is the true inner structure of reality which will provide the needed strength
for humanity at this time, thus sufficing to satisfy man's demand for truth and
prove adequate to answer his ceaseless yet intelligent questions?
I would
assert here that the great and satisfying reply [Page 286]
to all human questioning and human need is to be found in the doctrine of
Avatars, and in the continuity of divine Revelations. This is the persistent
belief—ineradicable and unalterable—that (at major moments of world need) God
reveals Himself through Appearances, through a Coming One. This doctrine is
found in all the basic world religions, in every time and age; it appears in
the doctrine of the Avatars of the Hindu faith, in the teaching of the return
of Maitreya Buddha or the Kalki Avatar, in the belief in the Western world in
the return of Christ and His Advent or second Coming, and in the prophesied
issuing forth of the divine Adventurer of the Moslem world. All this is tied up
with the undying belief of mankind in the loving Heart of God, Who ever meets
man's need. The witness of history is that always the appearance of man's
necessity has been met with a divine Revelation.
The reason
for this faith, innate in the human heart, is to be found in the fact of the
nature of Deity itself. The Christian statement that "God is Love" is
founded on that deepest, recognised, spiritual fact. The expression of this
divine characteristic can be summed up in the words from The Voice of the
Silence:
"Compassion
is no attribute. It is the Law of Laws—eternal Harmony, Alaya's Self; a
shoreless, universal essence, the light of everlasting right and fitness of
things, the law of love eternal."
To this
everlasting Compassion the cyclic appearance of the Sun Gods of the ancient
myths, the World Saviours and the Avatars bear witness and are the guarantee.
The Wesak
Festival
At the time
of this Wesak Festival, I would call your attention to the fact that the annual
return of the Buddha to bless His people everywhere and to convey the message
of wisdom, light and love to humanity—coming as He does [Page 287] from the very Heart of Deity Itself—is the outer
evidence and guarantee of inner divine guidance and revelation in this present
world cycle of 2500 years. Year by year He returns. For a brief minute He
reminds us that God exists and ever loves; that He is not unmindful of His
people; that the heart of the universe is unalterable compassion, and that man
is not alone. To bring this recognition about and to make this appearance
possible, a living Triangle of Energy is created and focussed through three
great spiritual Individuals, Who evoke recognition both in the East and in the
West. They are known to believers of every faith and all nationalities. These
Three are:
1. The Lord
of the World, the Ancient of Days, Sanat Kumara, the planetary Logos,
Melchizedek, He to Whom Christ referred when He said, "I and My Father are
One."
2. The
Buddha, the Illumined One, the Revealer of the light and the wisdom which come
to us from sources far greater than our planetary Life, a Messenger of the
Gods.
3. The
Christ, the Son of the Father, the World Saviour, the Redeemer. He Who has
remained with us and Who is gathering His sheep into His fold, the Lord of
Love.
In these
Three, Whose nature is radiant love and light, humanity can grasp in some
measure the nature of divinity. They are greater than is known or realised;
human intelligence and aspiration can only sense Their essential nature; Their
spiritual potency has to be stepped down if mankind is to bear the pressure of
the impact of the energy They wield and seek to transmit. It is this stepping
down process which takes place at the time of the May Full Moon, and it is brought
to a "focus of transmission" by the massed intent of the Hierarchy
and the massed demand of the world aspirants and disciples—itself drawn forth
by the massed need of the people of all lands.
[Page
288]
Here, my
brothers, is a simple statement of the facts which must be grasped by all of
you who seek to participate intelligently in the Wesak Festival and who are
anxious to act as transmitters of the spiritual energy which will, at that
time, be poured out to suffering humanity. This Wesak Festival in 1941 can
prove to be a "Changer of Conditions" and a major turning point in
the life of mankind if every spiritually minded person can bring himself to the
needed point of selflessness, disciplined purity and resultant receptivity.
There are
certain fundamental truths which lie behind all revealed religions. They are
essential to the spiritual growth and the progressive realisations of divinity
by man. All else found under the term "doctrine" and allied phrased
are but expansions of these fundamentals, explanatory in nature, expressive of
human interpretations, and formulations of evolutionary recognitions. These are
mainly additions and are in the nature of adornment, speculation and
prediction; they are constantly subject to change, to rejection or development
as man's intellect and spiritual perception unfolds; they are not basic or
unalterable. It is the unalterable truths which must be discovered and
recognised as the new world religion takes form on Earth and conditions human
thought and consciousness in the coming New Age.
The Basic
Truths To Date
These basic
truths never change because they are related to the nature of Deity Itself and
have become apparent to mankind through revelation, as evolution has proceeded
and man has developed the needed perceptive faculties and the required
persistence of search, plus the unfolding of the inner light of the soul. These
truths, inherent in the divine nature, reveal the soul of God. They are:
1. The Law
of Compassion. This is the truth of right relationship, of loving
understanding, of actively expressed Love. It is the foundation of brotherhood
and the expression of the inner unity.
[Page
289]
2. The Fact
of God. This is the truth that Being is God Immanent and God Transcendent; it
involves the recognition of the great Whole and the related part; it is the
knowledge of divinity, ascertained through right relationship and identity of
origin. It is the revelation of the life of God, pervading all that is (God
Immanent), and of that same life, providing that still greater cosmic relation
(God Transcendent) which is the final guarantee of all progress and of
progressive revelation. `Having pervaded this whole universe with a fragment of
Myself, I remain' is the challenge of Deity and the eternal hope of humanity.
This is the answer of Life Itself to the demands of humanity, to the enquiries
of science and to the whole world problem. God is here, present among us and in
all forms of expression; He includes, pervades and remains beyond. He is
greater than all appearance. He reveals Himself progressively and cyclically as
man gets ready for further knowledge.
3. The
Continuity of Revelation. Ever down the ages and at each human crisis, always
in the hours of necessity, at the founding of a new race, or in the awakening
of a prepared humanity to a new and wider vision, the Heart of God—impelled by
the law of compassion—sends forth a Teacher, a World Saviour, an Illuminator,
an Avatar. He gives the message which will heal, which will indicate the next
step to be taken by the race, which will illumine a dark world problem and give
to man an expression of a hitherto unrealised aspect of divinity. Upon this
fact of the continuity of revelation and upon the sequence of this progressive
manifestation of the divine nature is based the doctrine of Avatars, of divine
Messengers, divine Appearances, and inspired Prophets. To all these history
unmistakably testifies.
4. The
Inevitable Response of Humanity. I have expressed in these simple words the
instinctive spiritual reaction of man and of the undying human spirit to the
three above foundational truths. This divine spirit in humanity must ever, and
most surely does, respond to the divine Appearance. The witness to this is sure
and proved. There is that in [Page 290] mankind
which is akin to God and which recognises its own when it appears. Such is the
unshakable reality in the human heart, and recognition is the inevitable reward
and result of revelation.
5.
Progress. The reaction of the individual man and of the masses of men to the
continuity of revelation—historically proved—cannot be denied. It is the basic
fact of religion. The types of that revelation may vary but each new
revelation—given in response to human need and demand—has ever led humanity
onward towards a steadily brightening goal and a greater glory. The revelation
may come on varying levels of the human consciousness. It may be the revelation
of new lands to conquer, terrestrial or mental. Some person pointed the way. It
may be the recognition of new laws and facts in nature, scientifically grasped
and used; it may be the response of intelligent man to increased knowledge,
producing a new type of civilisation. Some liberated spirit pointed the way. It
may be the response of the human heart to the Heart of God, leading to the
mystical beatitude, and to the recognition of spiritual Being. It may be the
reaction of man to some new teaching, some further unfoldment, resulting in a
new and enriched religious approach to the centre of life. Some Messenger
pointed the way. But always it has meant progress, a moving forward, a
rejection of some existing limitation, a repudiating of the undesirable and the
evil. Always it involves the recognition of the possible, the ideal and the
divine.
6.
Transcendence. This means the innate capacity to pass beyond so-called natural
law. This surmounting of limitation is ever taking place and this process of
transcendence will call forth increasing recognition. It marks the next major
phase in the manifestation of divinity in man; it signifies domination over
physical law and humanity's imminent triumph over the forces which have for so
long held him to earth. Of this transcendence the present mastery over the air
is the symbol. Man is rapidly mastering the four elements. He cultivates the earth;
he rides the waters; he [Page 291] controls the
electrical fires of the planet, and he flies triumphant through the air. The
question now emerges: What, my brothers, next? Another transcendence lies
ahead. It is one of the things which the coming Avatar will reveal.
With the
lesser leaders, whom the human spirit evokes to its assistance, I shall not
deal. I seek to unfold somewhat the Doctrine of Divine Messengers, of Avatars.
From whence come They? What is Their nature? Who are They and what is Their
relation to humanity, to the Hierarchy and to still greater groups of Lives?
These are questions which normally arise and need clear answering.
An Avatar
is a Being Who—having first developed His Own nature, human and divine, and
then transcended it—is capable of reflecting some cosmic Principle or divine
quality and energy which will produce the desired effect upon humanity, evoking
a reaction, producing a needed stimulation and, as it is esoterically called,
`leading to the rending of a veil and the permeation of light.' This energy may
be generated within the human family and focussed in a responsive Messenger; it
may be generated within the planet itself and produce a planetary Avatar; it
may be the expression of the life impulse and energy of the solar system, or of
sources outside the solar system and therefore cosmic. But always it is
focussed through a manifesting Entity, is called forth by a demand or massed
appeal, and evokes response and consequent changes in the life activity, the
culture and the civilisation of mankind.
The
response or reaction of humanity to the divine Messenger establishes in due
time the recognition of something transcendent, something to be desired and
striven for, something which indicates a vision which is first a possibility
and later an achievement. This is the historically proven process and testifies
eventually to a fact. This new fact, when added to the facts established by
other and earlier Avatars, enriches the spiritual content of the human
consciousness, enhances the spiritual life of the race, and stimulates man to
move a step forward into the world of reality [Page 292]
and out of the world of illusion. Each revelation brings him nearer to the
world of causes.
At the
present time, the Avatars most easily recognised and known are the Buddha and
the Christ, because Their messages are familiar to all and the fruits of Their
lives and words have conditioned the thinking and the civilisations of both
hemispheres; because They are divine-human Avatars and represent something
which humanity can more easily understand; because They are of like nature to
mankind, "flesh of our flesh and spirit of our spirit." They
therefore mean more to us than any other Divine Emergence. They are known,
loved and followed by countless millions. I would ask you to ponder on the
potency of the nucleus of force which They have set up. The establishing of a
nucleus of energy, spiritually positive, is the constant task of an Avatar. He
focusses or anchors a dynamic truth, a potent thoughtform or a vortex of
attractive energy in the three worlds of human living. Then, as the centuries
pass, that truth and the effect of Their lives and words begin steadily to
condition human thinking; the established thoughtform acts increasingly as a
transmitter of divine energy as it expresses a divine idea, and this in time
produces a civilisation, with its accompanying culture, religions, policies,
governments and educational processes. Thus is history made. History is but the
record of man's cyclic reaction to some inflowing divine energy, to some Avatar
or some inspired Leader.
A. Bailey, The Externalization of the Hierarchy, p.p. 285-292
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