Seeing the God in them, and loving and trusting, that will help them to grow out of the limitations, of the blunders and errors that are hindering the divine manifestation. And remember that is what is wanted now, not for yourselves only but for every one around you, so that when the Teachers come They may be able to remain in the world amongst us. They dare not come yet, because even in the Theosophical Society They would not be welcomed. A Master who came amongst you now would not for the most part be very much liked by you; His ways, His views, His thoughts would be so different, He would raise suspicion and dislike. We saw it in the earlier days when They came out more, and were met by judgment and criticism, until one of Them said, in the fashion in which They look at ignorant criticism; “The standard of the Adept is not kept at Simla, it is kept at Shamballah and I try to accommodate myself to that.” There is a great lesson in that for all of us. The standard of those who are passing onward into the higher life is not the standard of the judgment of the people around them, but the standard that the Masters hold up before them, to which they are ever trying to conform. Think of that in your attitude to the people around you; remember that on you, and on people like you everywhere, depends the success or the failure of the next great manifestation of the divine life on the earth; that this Theosophical Society, spread everywhere over the world, is literally the John the Baptist to prepare the way for the coming of the Christ; to fill that part is your work and duty—and need I say, your privilege, your highest honour?
To leave the Society now, in the days which are just dawning, surely it is bad karma enough, and you should only feel the tenderest thoughts of pity towards any who go out from us in the days when to belong to the movement is the greatest crown that can be given for any nobility of past life that any one of us may have had. No words of harshness or of condemnation, nothing that will make it harder for them to return, but everywhere gentlest and most tolerant speech—this is our duty to our immediate brethren; and to the world what I have told you.
And so from this White Lotus Day look forward more than backward, rather to the work that is coming than to the difficulties that are now well-nigh over. Remember, for your strengthening, that the only great shaking has been here and in America, nowhere else. You can count on your fingers practically in other countries those who have been shaken out. You have had the struggle and have come out well. It is practically over now. There may be some slight effort made now to make things difficult, but what does it matter, with such hopes before us, with such strength behind us, with such knowledge within us? Why should we allow ourselves to be ruffled by anything that can take place in this outer world of men? We have been through many such struggles in past lives, shall have to go through many greater ones in lives to come; why make too much of present-day trouble? Those whose lives are in eternity need not be troubled with even what seem to be great difficulties to the men and women of the world. And so to you I would say: Gather together on the Day of Memory, but turn it now more into day of looking forward. Let the past go; it has done its work, it is over. Turn your eyes to the work that is opening before us, more splendid than any work of the past. And remember it is not the Messengers who may stand in front who are the strength of the Society, but that the life comes from the Masters and the strength from the Lodge. Knowing that, you need not mind even if those of us who are well known in the world make mistakes, are attacked, or evil spoken of. Never yet a Messenger of the Lodge that went through life without being evil spoken of, and you need not grudge us the sign of our apostolate; for such has ever been the sign of the Messengers through all ages. Rather rejoice with us that the stress for the time is over, and the days of going forward are upon us; do not let the remnant of the trouble shake any one of you, but know that the Masters are with us, and where they are no failure can come.
Lecture VI
The Nature of the Christ
Delivered to the Christo-Theosophical Society, at the invitation of Sir Richard and Lady Stapley, Tuesday, May 25, 1909.
It is with pleasure that I find myself amongst you, as I have often found myself before. I think my membership in the Theosophical Society is of about the same length as the life of your Society. We both began our careers, so to speak, about the same time, in the same year.
The subject that I have taken is in many ways a difficult one, and one that may very naturally arouse differences of feeling. It is, however, one which is being discussed very much in the Christian Church at the present time, and it is for that reason that it seemed to me that it might be useful if we could exchange thoughts on a subject of enormous importance. I also want to make certain suggestions which I think may be welcomed in regard to an idea to be found in the East, which perhaps is not quite familiar over here; and which presages a unity greater and profounder than could be reached, I think, in any other way. Naturally, I am putting only my own views, and they commit no one but myself. These questions that touch alike the intellect and the heart must always be treated reverently by those who realise the Brotherhood of man, and they are also ideas of the profoundest importance with regard to the future of religion and of civilisation.
In the Hibbert Journal of January last the subject that I have taken for our talk was to some extent discussed from the standpoint of one who I suppose would be called an extremely liberal Christian. The writer is the Rev. R. Roberts, Congregational minister, of Bradford; his name is still in the Congregational Year-book, but I heard that he was not at present ministering in any pulpit. I take his view as my starting-point this afternoon. The title of his article is at first sight a little startling from the ordinary Christian standpoint, “Jesus or Christ?” and he distinctly puts forward the view, and argues for it with a good deal of ability, that we have to do at once with one supposed to be a historical person, and then apparently with what he could only regard as a Mystical Ideal.