London Lectures of 1907 by Annie Besant (books to read for beginners txt) 📖

head. So that I do not fear to provoke a false pride, but rather to get rid of a false humility, when I ask you to see in this Movement, which belongs to the Great Lodge and is its child, to see in it the same forces at work that you see working in the world-history, and to realise that here also correspondences exist, and that we may guide our Movement most worthily by seeing those correspondences and utilising them for the common good.

So let us pause now, after these high flights, in the little valley in which we live, and see whether in the Theosophical Society any such process of events may be seen as has been played on the great world theatre, in the drama of evolving humanity. For mind! we have no meaning unless we are related to that, and our Movement has no sense unless it retraces the steps of the great world drama, as every great spiritual movement does, from the time of its birth to the time of its passing away, and its incarnation in some other form. I do not claim it for our Society only, but for all great spiritual movements--churches, religions, call them what you will.

Now, we began our Movement as humanity began its education. There was no difference between spiritual and temporal. The whole Society was regarded as a spiritual movement; and if you go back to those early days, and read the earliest statements, you will find it said that this Society existed in what then were called three Sections: First, Second, and Third. The First Section was the Brotherhood, the Elder Brothers of Humanity; the Second, those who were striving to lead the higher, the more spiritual life, and were in training for the purpose; and the Third Section made up the bulk of the Society. Those three Sections were the Theosophical Society. So that it began on a very lofty level; and its First Section, the Elder Brothers, Those whom we speak of as Masters, They were regarded as forming the First Section of the Society, and as part of it; and the Society has linked closely the Second and Third Sections under the First, as in the days when the Gods walked with men, in the early story of humanity. And They came and went far more freely then than later, and mingled more with the Society, taking a more active part in this work; and it is wonderful to read some of the old letters of the time, and the close and intimate knowledge shown by those great Teachers of the details of the work of the Society, even of what was written about it in an Indian newspaper, and what ought to be answered, and so on. And the Society grew, became more numerous, and spread in many lands; and naturally as it spread, many of these ties somewhat weakened so far as the Society, as a whole, was concerned--not weakened with individuals, but somewhat weakened with the Body at large. And so things went on and on, until the Society passed through the same stage through which humanity had passed when the Priest-Kings entirely disappeared, and when those words were spoken by one of the Great Ones: "The Society has liberated itself from our grasp and influence, and we have let it go; we make no unwilling slaves.... Out of the three Objects the second alone is attended to; it is no longer either a Brotherhood, nor a body over the face of which broods the Spirit from beyond the Great Range." And when that time was well established a change was made in the organisation of the Society. It was no longer, so to speak, one and indivisible, but two parts were made--Exoteric and Esoteric; and, as you know, for some time the Colonel fought against that, thinking it meant an unwise and dangerous division of authority in the Society, until, as he was coming over here with his mind in opposition to the proposal that H.P.B. should form the Esoteric Section, he received, on board the steamer on which he travelled, a letter from his Master telling him to carry out what H.P.B. wished; and, ever obedient as he was, for when his Master spoke he knew no hesitation, when he arrived here in England he did what he had been told, and authorised the formation of what was then called the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society. You can read all this for yourselves; it is all in print. Then came that distinct cleavage of Exoteric and Esoteric--the two heads, H. S. Olcott and H.P.B., one wielding the temporal and the other the spiritual authority in the Society. It meant that the Society had ceased to be the spiritual vehicle it was in the earlier days. It meant, as was printed at that time, that some of the members wished to carry on the Society on its original lines, and so they formed themselves into this Section under her, on the original lines. So it went on, like that time in the history of humanity, in order that certain faculties might grow and become strong, and that the spiritual side for a time might seem apart, and the other might go its own way unruled. Many difficulties grew out of it, but still they were not insuperable--a certain clashing of authorities from time to time, and certain jealousy between the one and the other. These things were the inevitable concomitants of the separation, of the differences between the spiritual and temporal sides, the Spirit and the body, as it were. So things went on until the President passed away. When H.P.B. left us, she left me in charge of her work, as her colleague did in Aḍyar lately, thus uniting again the two powers, the two authorities, in a single person.

Now, what does it mean to the Society? That is the question for us. What is it to bring forth in our Movement? Ill or well? It is only possible, at this beginning of the road, to point out the two things that _may_ happen. For the Society and its President together will have to settle which of the two shall come. It may be that They, who from behind look on, may foresee what is coming; or it may be, as it often is, that They also are not able completely to say what shall come out of the clashing wills of men, differing views, possible antagonisms. Two possibilities there clearly are before us, either of which, I suggest, may come. For you and for me it is to decide which shall come. And I can only tell you how it seems to me, and you must judge and act as you think right. For at last our Society, like humanity, has reached the point when the individual must do his duty, and must no longer be a child guided entirely from without, but a man with the God within co-operating with the God without. Hence it is not a question for any to decide for us: we have to decide it for ourselves. And as I say, I can only put to you what seem to me the two possibilities. Let me take the bad possibility first. It may be that I, in whose hands these two powers now are placed, shall prove too weak to bear that burden, too blind to walk along that difficult path. It may be that I shall err on the one side or on the other, either making the Society too exoteric and empty, a material thing, or, on the other hand, pressing too far the spiritual side, with all that that means. It may be that the task is too great, and that the time has not come. I recognise that as possible; for in all questions of peoples, persons, and times, experiments may be made which it is known will fail, in order that out of the failure fresh wisdom may be gathered, and it may be that this shall be a failure. And if so it matters not, for out of that failure some higher good will spring. That is the conviction of those who know that the Self is ever in us, and that the Self can never perish; so that it matters not what catastrophe may come, provided faith in the Self remains secure with His endless possibilities of recovery, and greater powers of manifestation. And it may quite well be that, in hands as weak and knowledge as limited as mine, failure will meet this great experiment which the Masters are making, and that we shall find that neither President nor Society is fit to take that step forward, are both still too childish, not sufficiently mature, and therefore not able to tread the path which is the path upwards to the spiritual life, when the organisation shall again become but the mere outside veiling of the spiritual life, carrying the message of regeneration to the world, and the birth of a new civilisation. That is one possibility that should be faced. And the other?

The other is that we may permit the Great Ones to be sufficiently in touch with our little selves to send Their forces through us, and that Their life shall become the life of the Society; that out of this rejoining of spiritual and temporal a greater spirituality shall circulate in every vein and vessel of the Society, and it shall become again truly a vehicle of the Masters of the Wisdom. It may be that it is preparing for a greater and a nobler life, making the place ready for some greater one to come, who shall worthily and strongly wield the power that I am bound to wield too weakly, but yet, perhaps, strongly enough to make that preparation possible. Perhaps you and I together are strong enough and wise enough to till the field, where another shall sow the seed that shall grow up into a greater civilisation and mark a step forward in the history of humanity. That is our great opportunity, that the possibility that I see opening before us in this policy now changed for the second time. It may be that we have learned enough in the last eighteen years to tread this path rightly, to tread it sufficiently to prepare a field for a greater one to come; and that is the hope in which I live at the present time. I believe that it is possible, if only we can rise to the height of our great opportunity, that someone will come from the far-off land where greater than we are living, and take this instrument and make it fit to be a tool in a Master's hand--some Disciple greater and mightier than I, someone belonging to the same company, but far wiser and far stronger than I. And that such a one will take this Movement and make it a little more what the heart of the Masters desires--more truly a Brotherhood, more full of knowledge, more really linked to the higher worlds by a centre of wise Occultism--that seems to me the great possibility which is opening before us. But, as I said, I know not if we are great enough to take it, or are still too small; but it is to that great work that I would invite your co-operation; it is to that mighty task that I would ask you to address yourselves. At least believe in the possibility of it; at least raise your eyes to that great stature to which it may be our Society shall attain. For if we can rise to it, then it means that we shall be builders of the next civilisation, that our hands shall take part in the making of the foundation of the humanity that is still to be born; it