III

THE COMING OF A WORLD­ TEACHER

FRIENDS: I will ask you to throw your thoughts back for a moment to the first lecture of this series. I shall have to refer to it more de­finitely in a moment, for deliberately in that lecture I tried to lay the foundation on which the superstructure of tonight might appear to you more natural and more convincing; for an isolated fact, separated from all those to which it is related, may seem strange, bizarre, incred­ible. Just as a fragment of a child’s puzzle, lifted from the table, unrelated to any surround­ings, shows curious outline, unintelligible form, but dropped into its proper place in the puzzle completes the whole, which is seen to be natural and significant, so the great happenings in the history of the world, looked at divorced from all else, seem unintelligible, impossible; but when they come in a regular sequence, when they are recognised as part of a perfect whole, then that which was strange becomes [51] natural; that which was incredible becomes believable; and we realise that, however strange it may have appeared, torn away from its place in history, there is nothing in it incredible or even strange when we see it in its rightful place.

But before I turn to the right place of the great World-Teacher in history, let me for a moment raise you above the outer story of events that men call history, and ask you to turn your eyes to Those who guide the events in history, who shape human evolution, who administer the laws of nature. There is be­yond and behind all physical happenings a mighty Hierarchy of graded order, in the hands of which lies the government, the direction of the world; a mighty Hierarchy, the true Rulers of men, of whom all earthly Kings and Teachers are but the shadows or the symbols; a great Hierarchy which has guided our race and shaped its destinies from the birth of our humanity down to the present day, and which will guide in the millennia of the future as it has guided in the millennia of the past. That mighty Hierarchy has two chief departments concerned with the growth and the evolution of man - one the department that guides the outer evolution, that shapes the forms of races, that raises and casts down civilisations, to whom Kings and the nations of the world are as pawns in the mighty game of life; the other the department of teaching, which gives religion [52] after religion to the world as the world has need of it, which, holding in its hands the vast circle of the Truth, gives out portions of that Truth from time to time in forms to be understanded of the people; that which gives to the world its spiritual Teachers, the Founders of all its faiths, and guides all its spiritual and moral unfolding: And in those two great de­partments visible throughout human history by their working, you have in each of them a Head, who uses the forces of the whole, who directs their energies to foreseen ends.

At the head of the ruling department - so far as appearance in the world is concerned - stands the mighty Being from whom our very name of man is drawn. He is the Manu, The Man, the type of each race as it gradually is builded, the perfect man of every race, who gradually develops in the race the qualities embodied in Himself. And as the name Man means the thinker, the reasoner, the intelligent one, so this name of the typical man, the Manu, stands for the Ruler, the Lawgiver of the race. And side by side with him, his Brother in the great work of evolution, stands the World-Teacher, called by that name in some of the ancient books of earth, known as the One who em­bodies in Himself the wisdom which is the truth that feeds the human race. And those two, the Ruler and the World-Teacher, stand at the head of the two departments of which I have spoken, stand as types of the Hierarchy [53] as a whole in its ruling and its teaching power. And in the Scriptures of the faiths from time to time this comes out, although unless you know the underlying truth, the fact as it occurs in history may not strike you with its full significance. And yet, to those of you who have been brought up from childhood on the Christian Bible, the Jewish Bible, this fact ought to come out as natural and customary; for you see there at the head of the young Jewish nation the two types of which I am speaking, in the well-known familiar names of Moses the Lawgiver and Aaron the High Priest of the Jewish people; for in all these Scriptures you have represented over and over again the same great facts of human evolution. And under those two names the same facts come out of the Lawgiver and the Teacher, the Head of the State and the Head of the Religion. And that which is sometimes called the Great White Lodge, that mighty body of the Guides and Teachers of mankind, that is the root of all the great thought which from time to time comes out to the helping of the world. Its messengers are ever moving among men, bringing to them the truth of which the age has need. And you may trace in the long line of the great geniuses in literature, in art, in science, the messengers of that one great Hierarchy which, hidden out of sight, guides the destinies of men.

In the old days, long; long ago, ere our own [54] proud fifth Teutonic sub-race had taken into its hands the sceptre and the leadership of the world, among the earlier peoples and in the earlier days, the messengers were honoured, the teachers were welcomed and revered. Only with the growth of the concrete mind in man, and of that self-assertive individuality which is priceless for the evolution of man, although in many of its manifestations repugnant and distressing; only since that particular part of human nature took the predominant place and stood at the head of evolution, only since then have the messengers been slighted instead of reverenced, been despised instead of welcomed. And hence the danger today, that the story of the Messenger, of the mighty Teacher rather, who came to the childhood of the fifth sub-race, the Teutonic, may be repeated again in our own days when that sub-race has reached its maturity; for the story of the messengers since Christ came to earth has been a story of persecution, of torture, of murder, of uttermost re­jection. And sometimes one wonders, looking over the recent past, whether the world be ready for the coming of a World-Teacher once again, or whether the measure meted out to the smaller teachers may perchance again be meted out when the Greatest stands on earth, visible once more.

But ere we challenge that question, let us consider that the World-Teacher is the one who is the Founder and the central figure of [55] each great faith in turn; for each sub-race, as you know, has its own religion, given to it in its earlier days, moulding and shaping its ex­pression as it grows to youth and to maturity. So, looking at the world-faiths in relation to the world sub-races, we find a great succession of mighty Teachers who in very truth are all one and the same Teacher, appearing upon earth again and again for the helping and the teaching of the people. For while the Ruler gradually evolves the people and shapes sub-race after sub-race, the World-Teacher, standing beside him, comes out to sub-race after sub-race, and gives each a religion appropriate to its needs, carefully designed for its own special and peculiar evolution.

And ever the World-Teacher is connected with what are called the Mysteries; that is the Secret Teaching, the esoteric side of the reli­gion which is given to those strong enough to receive it, old enough to understand it, the backbone of every exoteric religion, that which Origen called Gnosticism, the Knowledge, with­out which a religion tends gradually to decay and to pass away. The World-Teacher, when He comes, ever gives to the religion its Mysteries, in and by which the truth shall be kept alive. Ready you are to recognise that in the past history of faiths older than your own; but many of you do not realise that the World-Teacher, when He came to you; re­established for Christianity the Mysteries that [56] the elder faiths also had enjoyed, and that, in the writings of the early Church those Mysteries are spoken of; that, as seen in the teaching of the early bishops and martyrs of the Church, it was in the Mysteries that they gained their knowledge. But these Mysteries pass away when pupils are lacking, though the teaching belonged in the early days to the Christian Church, quite as much as to any of the elder faiths of the world.

And in those Mysteries the teaching of the World-Teacher was ever one and the same. You may recognise them when glimpses of the teaching come out in the philosophy or the religion of the time. It is ever the proclama­tion of the universal Self, and of the particular or specialised Self which is the individualised fragment of the whole. The existence of those is the fundamental fact that man needs to know for his progress - the identity of nature between the two, and the need for man to realise that identity and to know himself as one with the Universal Life - that supreme teaching by symbol, by allegory to the outer world, and plainly expressed to the inner, is the very central truth which all the Mysteries were established to teach, to impart to their Initiates.

If we look at the different sub-races and trace it thus, using the knowledge that may be gained of those inner things, we may see how each time the World-Teacher used a symbol a little different, but ever enwrapping the same [57] fundamental truth. We may look over the sub-races that have preceded our own, and see how in each of those the teaching was given which left traces on the outer Scripture, on the exoteric teaching of the faith. In the stock of our race, the first great Aryan people, there they had as the World-Teacher the great One known under the name of Vyasa, and He taught the one truth by the figure and the symbol of the Sun. The Hindu today will tell you of the Person, of the Spirit, in the Sun, and the most sacred formula, the most power­ful mantra of Hinduism is still a cry to that supreme Sun, and the prayer that it may irradiate the hearts of men. The Sun in the heavens - yes, the visible symbol of the God­head; the Sun in the heart of man, the Self individualised in him; that both were identical, and that man must find the Reality within him­self ere he can know it as a certain truth outside him. It was in that form that the teaching was given to the mother of our sub-race, and still exists in the Indian land today.

Then when He came to the second sub-race, and taught in Egypt under a different name, the name of Thoth whom the Greeks called Hermes, there He took the light as symbol, and first spoke those words familiar to you in the Egyptian fourth gospel that you find in your New Testament today; for He then proclaimed “the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world”, the Light in the [58] heart of man as well as the Light in the universe outside. And the King of Egypt was taught to “Look for the Light”, because only the King who sees God in his subjects’ heart can be verily a King, and evoke the divine side of the nature of his people. And you find that just as the King was taught to look for the Light, so the people were taught to “Follow the Light”. And the doctrine of the Light within and the Light universal was the very centre of the Egyptian or Hermetic Mysteries.

Then He came to the third sub-race, to the Iranians, and He came then under the name of Zarathustra, better known as Zoroaster, and there the Fire was the symbol by which the same great truth was taught; Fire in the heart of man, Fire in the temple for the worshippers, Fire in the sky that gave light to the world. And in those early days, when the priests were really Magi, and knew the great arts that control the elements of nature, then the uplifted hand of the priest of the Fire - like that of Zarathustra, the Son of the Fire - lifted up to heaven, drew down the Fire from the clouds and flung it upon the altar and made that burst into flame. And so great was the impression that the teaching made, that the modern Parsi who still keeps the memory and the tradition of the older worship, when he lights the fire in his temple, the sacred fire that is kept alight year after year, cannot light it in a new temple until after having gathered the fires of earth - the [59] fire of the household hearth, the fire of the blacksmith’s forge, the many fires which men make for labour - he cannot finally light the sacred fire till the lightning which he can no longer call from heaven bursts out in the thunderstorm in the atmosphere, and from a stricken tree, lighted by the lightning, he takes the fire which must burn on the fire-altar of his temple.

Then a fourth time He came to the fourth sub-race, the Greeks, now as Orpheus; but He no longer spoke in Light but in Music, and by the mysteries of Sound he taught the unfolding of the Spirit in man. And to the Greek He spake in Music, and the Orphic Mysteries were those in which the same knowledge was given, and the greatness of Greece was reached. And so by the Sun, by Light, by Fire, and by Music the World-Teacher spoke to the sub-­races that have gone before.

Then that Mighty One returned to earth but once more, to become the Lord Buddha, and to found the religion that still outnumbers any other faith on earth. And then He passed away, never again to take a mortal form, and handed on the duty of the world-teaching to His Brother, who had come side by side with Him through many ages, to Him who is the World-Teacher of to­day, the great Lord Maitreya, whom Christen­dom calls the Christ. And between these two, identical in thought, identical in teaching, there was yet a difference of temperament that [60] coloured all they taught; for He who became the Buddha is known as the Lord of Wisdom, and He who was the Christ is known as the Lord of Love - one teaching the law, calling on men for right understanding, for right thinking; the other seeing in love the fulfilling of the law, and seeing in love the very face of God. Lord of Wisdom! Lord of Love! It is the Lord of Love who is the World-Teacher of today.

First He showed Himself to His ancient people, the Founder of that cult in India which still holds within it the vast majority of the Indian people. The philosophers may worship the Mighty God; the stern intellectual thinker may speak of the One All-Pervading Self; but the Form under which God is worshipped in the myriad homes of India, the Form to which is poured out a devotion and a passionate love that no religion on earth can possibly exceed - it is the Form of Shri Krshna; not the statesman, the warrior, not the one whom you think of when you read the great story of the Mahabharata, but the Shri Krshna who was the Lover of men, the Child and the Youth who is to every Hindu heart today exactly what the Hebrew prophet spoke of when he said: “Thy Maker is thy Husband”. Lover and beloved! Such is the divine Form that holds the heart of India captive in chains today, and while they call Him Krshna you call Him Christ; but He is the one Lord of Love that is worshipped by you both. [61]

Then He came to our fifth sub-race, the great Teacher to give a new religion and to shape the spiritual growth of the Teutonic peoples. He came, and for three brief years of perfect life He carried on His ministry among the Jewish people; but it was pathet­ically said: “He came to His own and His own received Him not”; and though it was said that He spake as never man had spoken, only for three years could they tolerate the Lord of Love amongst them. And after they had slain Him, the records of His Church declare that only some poor hundred and twenty gathered together as disciples. A strange record for the coming of a World-­Teacher; but history has vindicated the power of the teaching, for if His own generation rejected Him, hundreds of generations since have done Him homage, and over Christendom today H is Name is taking on a mightier and ever mightier power, for men are beginning to realise that Christianity is not a church, is not a book, is not an organisation, but is the recognition of a living Christ, and the develop­ment of the Christ-life in man.

Now that I have led you up to that point, sub-race after sub-race, with the World-Teacher coming to each in turn and giving to each a religion, and when I remind you that in our own days, by the testimony of the ethnologists, a new type of sub-race is now beginning to arise, what is the inevitable corollary, what [62] the next thing in succession that you and I should look for? If, during five sub-races, ever the Teacher has appeared to teach and help, shall the one that is now being born be alone left without a Teacher? Shall the World-Teacher refuse to come, as He has come in every similar case before? That is the argument from the rational standpoint that I would ask you to consider, if it seems so strange and so impossible that in our own days, as aforetime, some mighty Teacher should come into the world to uplift and to help. We are so apt, with all our pride of intellect and of nationality, to deem ourselves too small to be blessed with the presence of a World-Teacher; and yet, if He has come five times before, under the exactly similar condition of a new type appearing on the earth, why should this one be left out of the series, and that which has been done five times before fail to our own generation? That is one thought you may well consider when you are making up your minds whether, in speaking of the World­-Teacher coming, I am dreaming and fancying, or am speaking words of truth and soberness, like those who bore witness to His coming when last His Feet pressed the surface of our earth.

There is another argument, not historical, but yet strongly appealing, it seems to me, which you may consider when you are thinking over the likelihood of such an event; and it

[63] is that in the study of history, wherever you see the signs of a great idea spreading over the mind of the people, a tendency which is going to accomplish itself in human history, that then, when the time is ripe, the idea ever becomes incarnate in a person, and the person makes visible on earth that which has gradually been growing into the hope and longing of the people. In smaller cases you recognise it is so. Men thought and dreamed of a United Italy, and that idea took form in Mazzini the prophet and Garibaldi the warrior. And so in the case of Germany. Much talk of a German Fatherland, poets singing of it, men who wrote books speaking and pleading for it; but it was only when the idea became wide­spread, when the hearts of the nation were turning towards it, that it became incarnate in Bismarck the statesman, in Moltke the general. And so it is ever true that where an idea is burn in the hearts of the people and spreads far and wide among them, some great man is born in whom that idea takes shape, who carries it to realisation. And when you see, as I pointed out to you a fortnight ago, a growing tendency towards union among re­ligions and among peoples; when you find men speaking of universal peace; when you find them discussing the possibility of federation - ­then you may know that the world-movement towards union must needs take incarnation in those who shall accomplish it. And who shall [64] make the union of religions actual save the World-Teacher who has given religions to the world? In this sense it is true what the pro­verb says, that “coming events cast their shadows before”; for the events occur in the spiritual world, and the expectation of those events is the shadow in the minds of men which gradually forecasts the realisation here. And so, when w e hear on all sides the cry that a great religious teacher is needed; when we find from pulpit after pulpit there rings out the longing for a great teacher who shall draw men’s hearts together and make the brotherhood of religions an actuality in the world; then we begin to understand that we are face to face with one of those world-movements that embody themselves in world-leaders, and that the longing for a universal World-Religion will become incarnate in the person of a World-Teacher, who will make that religion manifest on earth.

And as, by thinking along these and other lines, we see in the world around us, in the changing events of the great panorama that is ever moving before our eyes; as we realise by our reason that we are just touching on one of these great crises in human history; as intuition, which is the voice of the far-seeing Spirit, confirms the conclusion at which the reason has haltingly arrived; ah, then shall arise in our hearts a question: When He comes, will the world receive Him? When He comes how [65] shall we know Him? How shall we avoid repeating the sad tragedy of His last appear­ance upon earth? Shall history here repeat itself, and the story of Judea, Jerusalem, and even Calvary once more be played, a mighty tragedy on the stage of the theatre of the world?

If, instead of across the glamour of the cen­turies and the wonderful radiance which the worship of millions has shed on the figure of the Christ, if instead of that which draws your worship now, you were looking at Jerusalem of 2000 years ago, how different then would seem the story of that life, how different the judgment you would pass on that new Prophet that had arisen among the Jews! Can you not by your imagination to some extent recall the inevitable features of the time? Can you not picture to yourself the young, unknown man rising amid a proud, a haughty people, and giving them a message other than the message they expected? Can you not realise the type of onlooker who criticised the new Preacher, who questioned His sanity, His morality? Some said: “He is a good man”; “Nay,” said others, “He deceiveth the people”; and others called out: “He hath a devil and is mad; why hear ye Him?” Oh, try to live for a little time in those early centuries; try to realise the feeling of the people, the fickle populace who for a moment heard Him gladly and then caught up stones to cast at Him; the people swayed by [66] every breath of change, now loving and now hating, now shouting “Hosanna!” and then “Crucify!” Try to think what you would have felt had you been one of that Jewish people then - a stranger, a man not learned in the teaching of the Pharisees, no Rabbi or recognised teacher of the people; perhaps stirring up the people, perhaps causing discontent and even rebellion, a heretic in religion, perchance a danger to the State. And then you will understand the satis­fied calm that fell on Jerusalem when the people knew Him dead, and they felt a source of danger had been cleared away, a possible cause of evil had been cut down at the root. For how shall a man know the Teacher? Only by the teaching that He gives. The value of the teaching of the Christ showed itself in history; it did not show itself to the people who heard the words fall from His lips. And it is not surprising; for the higher the Teacher the more difficult is it to grasp the value of the teaching that He gives. The acceptable teacher is the man who says a thing a little better than we can say it, but says what we want said; not the man who is high above us and who speaks the things of heaven in the dull ears of earth. Oh, would you and I recognise such a teacher, if He came in the London of today instead of in the Jerusalem of 2000 years ago?

In order that that question may be answered more or less by some suggestion, let me bring it down from 2000 years ago to the London [67] of our time, and see how far the prejudice of the day would be against the coming of such a Teacher, how far the thought of today would be willing to bow before the words that He might speak.

Take one thing, very common, very simple, very widespread - your prejudice against races whose colour is other than your own. Suppose the Christ took the body of a coloured man, would you be willing to recognise Him as the Supreme Teacher? Why! He could not go into many of your colonies; He would be shut out of Australia, Canada, South Africa. And that prejudice is no more strange than the prejudices which prevented the Jews from recognising the Christ in one of their own people. This is one of the practical questions you want to consider; for in the past the Teachers have all been Easterns, of the races that now you despise and think to be lower than your own. How then if He takes an eastern body? will you be willing to acclaim Him as your Teacher? The Christ was an Eastern. But the men who worship Him shut out the Easterns who are nearer to Him in blood than they are themselves, and no one here seems to think very much of it; no one here seems to consider that they may be building up a wall of prejudice which shall prevent their eyes from recognising Him when He comes. And so one of the things from which you should clear your minds, if your vision you would have clear, will be every [68] pre­judice of race, every prejudice of colour, all that pride that makes you think the white man is the favourite of God and none other. Until that is thrust out of the heart of every one of us, until we extend hands not of patronage and condescension but of equal brotherhood to men of every race and every colour, may it not be that when the Christ is amongst us we shall reject Him because He is not of our blood and kind?

The Teacher, I said, is justified by the teach­ing. How shall we be able to recognise the spirituality of the teaching, if it puts things in a different way from the way to which we are accustomed: if it presents some great spiritual truth from a new aspect and in a new light? First, by trying in our own selves to develop the spiritual above the intellectual and the emotional, to unfold in ourselves the spiritual life which will recognise its kin when it sees spirituality in its highest and most wonderful form. For the measures of heaven are not the measures of earth, and the divine scales differ very much from our human balances. We admire very often pride and high estate, splendour of intellect or magic of emotion. But the spiritual man is gentle, calm, meek, and un-resentful. How shall you, ever ready to defend yourselves against unjust attack, ever ready to prove you are in the right and the other in the wrong, ever eager to take up the weapon to strike when you have been struck, [69] who think it unmanly to bear insult in silence - how shall you appreciate the majesty of the dignity which when accused remained silent before His judges, and to every threat and accusation made He answered not a word? Why! if you hear an accusation against anyone and that person remains silent and does not defend himself, you say he is guilty, otherwise he would defend himself, bring a suit for libel, or take some other means of that kind. But that is not the way of the spiritual life. Those are not the weapons of the great Ones of the race. “When He was reviled He reviled not again; when He suffered He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.” There is the spiritual secret; the law is sure, the law is just, the law is good; you do not need to avenge yourselves. If you have been wronged the great law will right you; and none can harm you unless you have made the weapon for your striking; for only those who have wronged receive back the blow on themselves. And so, if you would know the Christ when He comes, cultivate the spirit of the Christ - to bear insult with forgiveness, to bear accusation in silence, to refrain from anger, not to return evil with evil but with good. And if in yourselves you can develop those Christ-like qualities, then shall your vision be clear to recognise Him when He comes; for although in you they are imperfect and in Him perfection, still the nature will be the same and [70] will know its own, and recognise the greatness that otherwise would blind the vision.

If you would know the Christ when He comes, try to develop in yourself not only that gentle­ness and patience, but all the qualities which go to the making of the spiritual man - the love for all you meet, whether attractive or unattractive; the patience which becomes more patient face to face with ignorance and stupidity; the love which becomes more gentle when it finds shy­ness, when it finds weakness in its way; the qualities that are sometimes laughed at as womanly - but would that every woman had them; the heart that feels and understands when misery is before it, and that keeps nothing back when it has aught to give.

If you would know Him when He comes, then check the tendency to decry the great, and to find faults in what is noble. So many people, looking at the sun, only see the spots; and no man, they say, is a hero to his valet de chambre. But why not? Not because he is not heroic, but because the heart of the valet de chambre cannot appreciate heroism. We criticise; we find petty faults; we lay stress on petty mistakes; and we miss the soul of good­ness and of greatness, perchance, in those who are around. Oh, cultivate reverence, although it be against the common feeling of the time. Be not ashamed to admire. Be not ashamed to be reverent to that which is greater, nobler than yourself, for the power to admire means [71] really the faculty to achieve. That which you recognise to be noble, by the very recognition you rise nearer to it and become liker to it. Reverence greatness wherever you see it, in outer life, in inner life, in the genius of the writer, the painter, the sculptor, in the holiness of the saint, in the compassion of the pitiful. In every one that you meet try to see the best and not the worst. Meet every one, be it even the criminal, as the potential saint; for by that love and respect to that which only exists in germ, the seed will burst, and presently will grow into flower and into fruit.

God is in every man, and if you do not see Him it is your eyes that are blinded; and if you would see the divine in its mighty per­fection in a Christ, then see the Christ in your poorest fellow-man or fellow-woman, and verily then you shall know Him when He comes.

When you are able to feel reverence, then do not put a check on the love that flows out to that which you see to be greater than your­self; but nourish the feeling of devotion which is ready to love, which is ready to give, which is able to give itself utterly to that which it knows to be greater than itself. Oh, they said of old that there were some who, when they met the Christ, left all and followed Him. And if, when He stands amongst us in our twentieth century, any of you would fain be among those who on seeing Him leave all and follow, then cultivate that feeling in your daily life while [72] still He is not present manifest amongst us. Thus practise the virtues that will burst into flower when you are in His presence. Try to realise what He must be, the Teacher of angels and men. Try to catch some touch of His spirit of perfect love, some gleam of His nature of perfect purity, some understanding of a power which conquers everything because it wins everything to knowledge and to answer.

If it be so amongst some of us, enough of us to influence the public opinion of our time, then when the Lord of Love comes again, it shall not be a Cross that will meet Him; then when He stands amongst us, it shall not be hatred that shall be poured out against Him; not three brief years alone will He stay with us, but our love will not let Him go, for love fetters even the Lord of Love. Then we who have tried to grow into H is likeness, we who have longed for the glory of His presence, we with our eyes shall behold the King in His beauty, and know the Supreme Teacher when again, ere very long, He treads the roads of earth. [73]