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The Reappearance of the Christ - Chapter V - The Teachings of the Christ
CHAPTER FIVE The Teachings of the Christ It might be useful to make a few opening remarks upon the general subject of the teaching given (down the ages) by the Sons of God Who have come forth in the hour of humanity's need, in order to present to the consciousness of the men of Their time certain required ideas and concepts of truth. When They come, Their aim is to meet the immediate need in such a fashion that the ideas presented may become ideals to which eventually the life of mankind would later conform and bring about a better civilization. There has been a great continuity of such teaching down the ages. There is not the time to write or the time to read a complete analysis or statement as to the progressive revelation of ideas which great and illumined minds, authorized by the spiritual Hierarchy of the planet, have brought to humanity. All the cyclic Teachers (to differentiate Them from the many lesser Teachers) have mastered life for Themselves in the three worlds of human evolution - physical, emotional and mental - have achieved control of the physical level of consciousness, of Their emotional-feeling nature, and have attained mental understanding and finally enlightenment. The problem of the Hierarchy has been (and still is) how much exact truth humanity can comprehend, and to [103] what extent absolute truth can be presented to their awakening minds; They have to decide which aspect of universal truth will enable man to emerge out of his difficulties and thus move forward on the Path of Return to God; They have to know, therefore, at what point on the ladder of evolution humanity stands at any given period. This in itself presents a field of research to Them. The method hitherto followed has been to decide what is the major factor lacking in man's perception of reality (at any given time), and what recognized divine truth has in it the seeds of a living activity for a humanity in a particular condition, necessitating a certain type of help. They have also to determine how that help can best be presented, so that its results will be lasting, cultural and effective. Hitherto, the presented concepts have been formulated by the world Teachers of the period, and presented to a picked and chosen few whose task it has been to take the newly presented idea and promulgate it among those men who are enlightened enough to accept it, to spread it, to live it and to make it popular. This they have done for ages with more or less success. It is also not possible here to give the relatively few truths which guided the development of humanity in old Atlantis; these, however, form the firm foundation of all later teaching. We can study (as a background to our consideration of the teachings which Christ will give after His reappearance) several of the minor concepts which today underlie the teaching of all the world religions, and which modern religious teachers should be presenting to the public mind. The first such Teacher is of such ancient date that it is not possible to say when He truly lived; even His name is a modernized one, given to an ancient hero-teacher. His name is Hercules. He presented to the world, through [104] the form of a pictorial and world drama (symbolic in nature) the concept of a great objective, only to be reached as the result of struggle and difficulty. He pointed to a goal toward which men must make their way, no matter what the obstacles; these obstacles He portrayed in the Twelve Labors of Hercules which were dramas and not factual occurrences. He thus pictured for those who had eyes to see and hearts to understand the nature of the problem to be solved upon the Path of Return to God; He depicted the Prodigal Son's journey back to the Father's house, and the tests and trials which all disciples, aspirants and initiates have to face and which all Those Who today compose the spiritual Hierarchy have already faced. When this statement is considered, it must include also the Christ Who, we are told, "was in all points tempted like as we are" (Heb. IV, 15.), but also passed triumphantly the tests and trials. At some also unknown date Hermes came and, so the records say, was the first to proclaim, Himself as "the Light of the World." Later the great Teacher, Vyasa, appeared. He gave one simple and needed message that death is not the end. From His time, the thinking of humanity about the possible immortality of the soul can be seen to stem. Vaguely and instinctively, men had hoped and sensed that the discarding of the physical vehicle was not the final consummation to all human struggle, loving and aspiration; in those early days, feeling dominated and instinct led; thought was not found among the masses of men as it is today. In this period of culmination in which we now live, the work of the spiritualistic movement, in its many forms, is in reality the emergence of that stream of thought-energy and of the idea which Vyasa, thousands of years ago, implanted in the human consciousness. The effort of the intellectuals [105] to prove the scientific possibility of immortality is part also of this great stream, carried onto intellectual levels, thus salvaging Vyasa's work from the mists and glamors and the psychic dishonesty with which it is now surrounded. The fact of immortality is today on the verge of scientific proof; the fact of the survival of some factor has already been proved, though what has been demonstrated as surviving is apparently not in itself intrinsically immortal. The factual nature of the soul, and the fact of soul survival and of its eternal livingness, go hand in hand and have not yet been scientifically proven; they are, however, known and recognized as truths today by such countless millions and by so many intellectuals that - unless mass hysteria and mass deception is posited - their existence is already correctly surmised.
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