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The Externalization of the Hierarchy - Section II - The General World Picture
The World Crisis from Hierarchical Viewpoint April-May 1940 Another Wesak Festival will be close at hand when you receive this communication. Its urgency, imminence and finality prompt me again to attempt to awaken those of you who receive it to the present opportunity and to the spiritual urgency of this high moment in human affairs. The three Full Moon periods of April, May and June are most significant and determining, and upon what happens during the next few weeks, whilst the sun is still moving northwards, much will depend. In this communication I would like to do two things: First of all, give you a better idea as to how the spiritual Hierarchy of our planet regards the present world crisis, and secondly, indicate to you certain major eventualities which are dependent upon three things: A possible divine intervention which may be brought about through the aspiration of all right-minded people, plus the intelligent and constant use of the [212] Great Invocation, now being used in its tens of thousands by the world aspirants in every country. The emergence of certain clear lines of demarcation between the activities of the Forces of Light and the forces of materialistic aggression. The place which clear thinking, wise speech and skill in action should play in the attitude of the world disciples and the men and women of goodwill everywhere. I shall endeavor to speak with a reasonable brevity and clarity, and I do so with complete freedom from what you call bias. I speak in terms of humanity - without distinction of race, color or nation; I have no particular political views, because I know that all potential theories, ideologies and governments are temporary states and conditions, controlling different groups of human beings on their way from the human state to the divine. This is a point of view oft overlooked by many of you who - temporarily and oft fanatically - belong to one or other of these ephemeral states of mind and passing human attitudes. I have no particular religious preferences, knowing as I do that all roads lead to God and that the sense of divinity is so dominant and inherent in the human heart that naught at any time can crush it out; life, experience, trial, pain and instinctive human orientation lead all men finally back into the light of God. I can and do, therefore, love all men, irrespective of nationality and present ideas, as do all with whom I am associated. Looking upon the moving screen of time with a vision which reaches into the future and is inclusive of the past (for this is the prerogative of all trained world disciples) I know that present events will play their timely part, will give place to others in due time, and that - when the immediate processes of readjustment in human values, spiritual objectives and political schemes, religious orientations and territorial syntheses are completed - the world will settle down again to the processes of daily living. The immediate opportunity and situation in which we find ourselves [213] will have proved dynamically useful or (such is the sad possibility) negatively futile. A fresh cycle of civilization, culture and growth will have been inaugurated which will be colored by the ancient hues of selfish desire and aggressive acquisitiveness, or by the newer and more beautiful coloring of happy and satisfactory international relationships, of religious understanding and of the much needed and demanded economic cooperation. Such a dual possibility confronts us now. One - new, right and spiritually oriented; the other, ancient, evil and undesirable. Whether man will go forward into the better way of life or permit the perpetuation of the old ways and the domination of selfish personal, national and racial interests remains yet to be determined. Two things are, however, obvious to us as we look at the present world situation; first, that the lines of demarcation between the two ways of living and the two objective attitudes are far more clearly defined than at any previous time in the history of humanity; secondly, that it is the muddled thinking of vast masses of well-meaning people (many of them not immediately implicated in the world conflict) which is largely responsible for the slowness of the final crisis and the postponement of the advancing decision. For decades, we, the teachers of the race of men, have watched certain great world (or planetary) tendencies take shape, assume defined and pronounced outlines and become conditioning potencies. This shaping and definition was essential if the issue was to be presented with clarity to humanity, thus enabling a basic choice to be presented to the sons of men and the placing in their hands of certain determinations which could, if rightly directed, carve out for them a new and better future. Such a presentation has never before been possible, because never before has mankind been at the stage where it could grasp the situation intelligently, or been so closely and rapidly interrelated by the radio, telephone, the press and the telegraph. The needed choices can now be made in cooperation, in consultation and with open eyes. The choice is clearly before the thinking people [214] in every country, and upon their decision rests the fate of the less intelligent masses. Hence the present responsibility of the national leaders, of the representatives of the people in the governments, of the churches, and of the intelligentsia in all lands, without exception. There should be no shirking or evasion of responsibility. There is, however, much.
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