It is from the spiritual hierarchy that come all the religions of the world. There the question may arise, "Then why do they differ so greatly?" Because the peoples to whom they are given differ greatly. The difference of temperament and viewpoint between the Orient and the Occident is enormous. We are evolving along the outer, the objective, and our civilization represents the material conquest of nature. They are evolving the inner, the subjective. In the Orient the common trend of conversation is philosophical, just as in the Occident it is commercial. Such different types of mind require somewhat different statements of ethics, but the fundamental principles of all religions are identical.
When a new era in human evolution begins a World Teacher comes into voluntary incarnation and founds a religion that is suited to the requirements of the new era. Humanity is never left to grope along alone. All that it can comprehend and utilize is taught it in the various religions. World Teachers, the Christs and saviours of the race, have been appearing at propitious times since humanity began existence.
Most readers will probably agree that a World Teacher known as the Christ did come and found a religion nearly two thousand years ago. Why do they think so? They reply that God so loved the world that he sent his Son, the Christ, to bring it light and life. If that is true how can we avoid the conclusion that He, or his predecessors, must have come many a time before? The belief that He came but once is consistent only with the erroneous notion that Genesis is history instead of allegory, and that the earth is about six thousand years old! Science has not determined its age but we know that it is very old, indeed. Many eminent scientists have made rough estimates, taking into consideration all that we have learned from astronomy, geology and archeology. Phillips, the geologist, basing his calculations upon the time required for the depositions of the stratified rocks, put the minimum age at thirty-eight million years and the maximum age at ninety-six million years. Sir George Darwin, basing his calculation wholly upon astronomical data, puts the earth's age at a minimum of fifty-six million years. Joly arrived at his estimate by a calculation of the time required to produce the sodium content of the ocean, and concluded that the age of the earth is between eighty million and one hundred million years. Sollas is said to have made careful study of the matter and he finds the minimum to be eighty million, and the maximum age to be one hundred and fifty million years. But perhaps the most exhaustive study of the matter, and that made by the use of the later scientific knowledge, was by Bosler, of the French scientists. He bases his calculations upon the radio-activity of rocks and arrives at a minimum earth age of seven hundred and ten millions of years. Thus it will be observed that as our knowledge grows the estimated age of the earth increases.
In the face of such facts what becomes of the assertion that God so loved the world that he sent His Son to help ignorant humanity about two thousand years ago—but never before? What about the hundreds of millions of human beings who lived and died before that time? Did He care nothing for them? Did He give his attention to humanity for a period of only two thousand years and neglect it for millions of years? Two thousand years, compared to the age of the earth, is less than an hour in the ordinary life of a man. Does anybody believe that God, in his great compassion, sent just one World Teacher for that brief period? What would we say of a father who gave one hour of his whole life to his child and neglected him absolutely before and after that? Countless millions of the people who lived and died prior to the coming of the Christ were very much like ourselves. They belonged to ancient civilizations that often surpassed our own in many desirable characteristics. They were educated and cultured in their time and fashion. They were fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and husbands and wives, with the same kind of heart ties that we have. What of them? Were they permitted to grope in the moral wilderness without a Teacher or a ray of light? Of course the idea is preposterous. If God so loved the world that He sent his Son two thousand years ago He sent Him, or some predecessor, very many times before. By the same token He will come again. The only logical escape from such a conclusion is in the materialist's belief that He never came at all.
All religions crystalize, become materialized, and lose their spiritual significance. That is precisely what has happened to the various great religions of the modern world, including Christianity. It is no longer the dynamic thing in the lives of the people it once was. That's why a world war was possible. The fault is not with the teachings of the Christ. The trouble is that the world has not lived by them. We need a restatement of the old teachings in the terms of modern life that shall again make it a living force in the lives of men. It is when the World Teacher is most needed that he comes; and when has the need been greater than now? The world war has demonstrated the failure of so-called Christian civilization. We have seen the highest type of that civilization revert to the law of the jungle, deliberately disregard the usages of civilized warfare, and commit atrocities that would shame barbarians. We surely need no further proof that the Christian religion has not accomplished all that the spiritual hierarchy had a right to hope for, and that the coming of the Christ again is a necessity.
But the spiritual hierarchy sends its great ambassadors only when the time is propitious, only when the world is ready to listen. Perhaps such an event can never be predicted in terms of time, but only in those of conditions. When the strength of the nations is spent, when the slain totals appalling numbers, when few homes of high or low degree are without their terrible sacrifice, when the heart of the race is filled with anguish, when famine and disease have done their awful work, and humanity fully realizes what the reaction from greed, lust, cruelty and revenge actually means, the world will be ready to listen as it never listened before, and after that we may reasonably expect the Christ to again appear to re-proclaim the ancient truth in terms of modern life.
The supermen are not myths nor figments of imagination. They are as natural and comprehensive as human beings. In the regular order of evolution we shall reach their level and join their ranks while younger humanities shall attain our present estate. As the supermen rose we, too, shall rise. Our past has been evolution's night. Our present is its dawn. Our future shall be its perfect day. Think of that night from which we have emerged—a chaos of contending forces, a world in which might was the measure of right, a civilization of scepter and sword, of baron and serf, of master and slave. That, we have left behind us. Think of the grey dawn that our civilization has reached—the dawn of a public conscience, of individual liberty, of collective welfare, of the sacredness of life, but with armed force still dominant, with war the arbiter of national destiny, with industrial slavery still lingering, with conflict between the higher aspirations and the lower desires still raging—a world of selfishness masked by civilized usage, a world of veneered cruelty and refined brutality. In all that we now live. But think of the coming results of evolution!—an era in which love shall replace force, when saber and cannon shall be unknown, when selfish desires shall be transmuted into noble service, when, finally, we shall finish the painful period of human evolution and join the spiritual hierarchy to direct the faltering steps of a younger race.
FOOTNOTES:
[N] "The Conservation of Energy," Nicola Tesla, Century Magazine, June 1900.
[O] An Outline of Theosophy, C. W. Leadbeater, pp. 6-12.