[words in brackets are my own]

8. Christ and the Coming New Age.

“As we come to an end of our consideration of the world today and its dominating rays, working through the nations and conditioning the people, there is a final point which I would like to make; it lies in the realm of religion and concerns the significance of Christmas. From the very night of time, as well you know, the period wherein the sun moves northward again has been regarded as a festival season; for thousands of years it has been associated with the coming of the Sun-God to save the world, to bring light and fruitfulness to the Earth and through the work of the Son of God to bring hope to humanity. The Christmas season is regarded by those who do not know any better as uniquely the Festival of the Christ, and this the Christian churches have emphasized and to this all churchmen testify. This is both true and false. The Founder of the Christian Church — God in the flesh — availed Himself of this period and came to us in the dark of the year and initiated a new era in which light was to be the distinguishing note. This has been true from several angles, even from the purely physical, for today we have a lighted world; everywhere lights are to be seen and the pitch dark nights of olden times are fast disappearing. Light has also descended on the earth in the form of the "light of knowledge." Today, education whose objective is to lead all men on to a "lighted way," is the keynote of our civilisation and is a major pre-occupation in all countries. The removal of illiteracy, the development of a true culture and the ascertaining of truth in all fields of thought and of research are of paramount importance in all lands.

Thus, when Christ proclaimed (as He assuredly did), along with all world Saviours and Sun-Gods, that He was [Page 148] the Light of the worlds, He inaugurated a marvellous period in which humanity has been widely and universally enlightened. This period dates from Christmas Day, two thousand years ago, in Palestine. That was the greatest of all Christmas Days and its emanating influence was more potent than was any previous arrival of a Bearer of Light, because humanity was more ready for the light. Christ came in the sign of Pisces, the Fishes — the sign of the divine Intermediary in the highest sense, or of the medium in the lower; it is the sign of many of the world Saviours and of those Revealers of divinity Who establish world relationships. I would have you note that phrase. The major impulse driving the Christ towards special work was the desire to establish right human relations; it is also the desire — realised or unrealised — of humanity, and we know that some day the Desire of all nations will come, that right human relations will be found everywhere and that goodwill will implement that fulfilment, leading to peace in all lands and among all peoples. [Pentecost is dependent upon right human relations – a common unity or community; it is also the recognition and understanding that the Holy Spirit is here now, everywhere present on that plane of unity].

Down through the ages, Christmas Day has been recognised and kept as a season of new beginnings, of better human contacts and of happier relations among families and communities. Yet just as the churches have descended into a profoundly materialistic presentation of Christianity, so the simple Christmas Day which would have pleased the heart of Christ has degenerated into an orgy of spending, of acquiring good things, and is regarded as a period which is "good for trade." We need, therefore, to remember that when any phase of life-inspired religion is interpreted entirely materially, when any civilisation and culture loses its sense of spiritual values and responds mainly to the material values, then it has served its usefulness and must [Page 149] pass away, and this in the interests of life itself and progress.

The message of the birth of Christ rings ever new but is not today understood. The emphasis during the Aquarian Age, the age into which we are fast entering, will shift away from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, and from the infant Saviour to the Risen Christ. Pisces has seen, during two thousand years, the spreading light; Aquarius will see the Rising Light, and of both of these the Christ is the eternal symbol.

The ancient story of the Birth will become universalized and be seen as the story of every disciple and initiate who takes the first initiation and in his time and place becomes a server and a lightbearer. In the Aquarian Age two momentous developments will take place:

1. The Birth Initiation will condition human thinking and aspiration everywhere.

2. The religion of the Risen Christ, and not of the newly born Christ or of the crucified Christ, will be the distinctive keynote.

It is seldom realised that hundreds of thousands of people in every land have taken, or are preparing to take, this first initiation, called the Birth at Bethlehem, the House of Bread. Humanity, the world disciple, is now ready for this. Indications of the accuracy of the above statement can be seen in the re-orientation of people everywhere to things spiritual, their interest in human good and human welfare, the perseverance they show in their search for light and their longing and desire for a true peace, based on right human relations, implemented by goodwill. This "mind as it is in Christ" can be seen in their revolt against materialistic religion and in the widespread effort to be [Page 150] seen in Europe and elsewhere to return the land (Mother-Earth, the true Virgin Mary) to the people. It can be seen in the constant movement of people throughout the world from place to place, symbolised in the Gospel story by the journey of Mary with the infant Jesus into Egypt.

Then followed, as we are told in the New Testament, a cycle of thirty years wherein all we know is that the infant Jesus grew to manhood and could then take the second initiation, the Baptism in Jordan, and begin His public service. Today the many who in this life have taken the first initiation are entering the long silence of that symbolic thirty years wherein they too will grow to manhood and take the second initiation. This initiation demonstrates the complete control of the emotional nature and of all Piscean characteristics. The thirty years can be looked upon as a period of spiritual unfoldment during the three divisions into which Aquarius (and consequently the New Age now upon us) will be divided. I refer to what is technically known as the three decans of each sign. In this sign the waters of the Piscean age will, symbolically speaking, be absorbed into the water-pot carried on the shoulder of Aquarius in the symbol which is distinctive of this sign, for Aquarius is the water-carrier, bringing the water of life to the people — life more abundantly.

In the Aquarian Age, the Risen Christ is Himself the Water-Carrier; He will not this time demonstrate the perfected life of a Son of God, which was His main mission before; He will appear as the supreme Head of the Spiritual Hierarchy, meeting the need of the thirsty nations of the world — thirsty for truth, for right human relations and for loving understanding. He will be recognised this time by all and in His Own Person will testify [Page 151] to the fact of the resurrection, and hence demonstrate the paralleling fact of the immortality of the soul, of the spiritual man. The emphasis during the past two thousand years has been on death; it has coloured all the teaching of the orthodox churches; only one day in the year has been dedicated to the thought of the resurrection. The emphasis in the Aquarian Age will be on life and freedom from the tomb of matter, and this is the note which will distinguish the new world religion from all that have preceded it.

It is significant that two important episodes are related in the final part of the Gospel story — one preceding and one following immediately after the apparent death of the Christ. They are:

1. The story of the upper chamber to which the man carrying the water pot and typifying Aquarius led the disciples, and in which the first communion service was held, participated in by all and foretelling that great relationship which will distinguish humanity in the coming age, after the tests of the Piscean Age. Such a communion service has never yet been held, but the New Age will see it take place.

2. The story of the upper chamber in which the disciples met and arrived at a true recognition of the Risen Christ and at a perfect and complete understanding of [Page 152] each other in spite of the symbolic diversity of tongues. They had a touch of prevision, of prophetic insight, and foresaw a little of the wonder of the Aquarian Age.

The vision in men's minds today is that of the Aquarian Age, even if they recognize it not. The future will see right relationships, true communion, a sharing of all things (wine the blood, the life and bread the economic satisfaction) and goodwill; we have also a picture of the future of humanity when all nations are united in complete understanding, and the diversity of languages — symbolic of differing traditions, cultures, civilisations and points of view — will provide no barrier to right human relations. At the centre of each of these pictures is to be found the Christ.

Thus the expressed aims and efforts of the United Nations will be eventually brought to fruition and a new church of God, gathered out of all religions and spiritual groups, will unitedly bring to an end the great heresy of separateness. Love, unity, and the Risen Christ will be present, and He will demonstrate to us the perfect life [on the scale of humanity as a whole].

“In the Gospel story there are two major episodes in the life of the Master Jesus which throw some light upon this fourth entrance through the door of initiation: the Transfiguration and the Crucifixion. In both of them the three aspects of the personality are symbolized. In the first case, they are symbolized by the three apostles who in bewilderment and profound humility took part in the third initiation, [Page 354] the Transfiguration; in the second case, the three were depicted by the three Crosses—the two thieves and the central Master. The difference in the fourth initiation is definite; it lies in the fact that the four aspects of the personality (counting the dense physical body as one aspect and the etheric vehicle as a second aspect of the physical body) are involved, for this fourth emanation of fire by friction has a potent and destructive effect upon the dense physical body. The Great Renunciation involves the rejection of the physical life at any cost, and that cost frequently involves its physical death.

The Great Renunciation or fourth initiation has, therefore, two aspects: the outer involvement or objective happening in the eyes of the physical plane onlooker, and the subjective aspect, portrayed symbolically by the three Crosses and those who hung upon them.

The implications emerging out of this symbolism are not easy to see, even when the superficial meaning is apparent, because that superficial meaning hides and veils a universal reality. The Master Jesus passed through the door of the fourth initiation and overcame the final hindrances offered by His perfected personality. He died upon the Cross. All the four aspects of His personality participated in the event, and all four aspects electrically obstructed His passing though this door, even to the point of their complete destruction—bringing a final liberation. Something universal was also symbolised which had naught to do with the Initiated Master Jesus.

This symbolism and its meaning are related to the three Crosses which stood side by side and to the relationship between those who hung upon them. In the three figures humanity itself is portrayed and also related to the Hierarchy, and this "pictorial event" is a parallel to the one already considered—the initiation of the Master Jesus. In the Crucifixion, in this fourth passing through the door of initiation and in the staging of this event, two great and different individualities—the Master Jesus and the World Saviour, the Christ—are implicated; two major happenings [Page 355] are indicated, and the Christian Church has confused the two and related both of them without discrimination to the Master Jesus. Yet one event was a hierarchical occurrence and the other was a great human crisis; one was the entrance of an initiate into the Mysteries of death, involving in the process all the four aspects of His nature; the other was a dramatic portrayal to mankind of three groups to be found within the human family:

1. Unregenerate man, pictured by the unrepentant thief.

2. The struggling aspirant, moving consciously towards liberation, symbolised for us in the repentant thief.

3. The Hierarchy, composed of all who have passed to liberation through the medium of human experience, and thereby representing to us a guarantee of achievement.

Students would do well to keep this fourfold picture and this threefold symbol clearly distinguished in their minds, for individual attainment and the group possibilities are both involved; each is, however, distinct; in the one case the Master Jesus is the participator, and in the other and the more esoteric occurrence it is the One Who overshadows Him, the Christ. It was the Master Jesus who "died" and entered into the tomb, thus climaxing His long series of incarnations and ending—by destruction—the hold of matter on the spirit; through the tomb He passed into the Hierarchy, and the destiny of the Christian Church was committed to Him; that destiny still lies in His hands. But in the Gospel story, it is the Christ Who is indicated as appearing after the resurrection and not the Master Jesus, except in the one brief episode wherein He appeared to Mary, weeping outside the door of the sepulchre. The other episodes are universal in their implications, as indicated by:

1. Christ walking with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus—a symbol of the essential dualism of spirit and matter, as embodied in a world Saviour.

2. Christ appearing to the disciples in the upper room, [Page 356] symbolising the zodiac, for Judas Iscariot was there, standing for the sign at the time in power; the other eleven disciples representing the remaining signs through which the sun must pass.
 

3. Pentecost. This event does not portray the triumph of orthodox Christianity (as the theologians believe and teach), but signifies the universal dissemination of the Christ consciousness throughout all time in the heart of every human being; to this the words and promise, "Lo, I am with you all the days, even until the end of the world," bear witness.

….

“Speaking symbolically, the first step after the advent of the spirit of the resurrection will be similar to that in the Biblical story. Mary, that woman of sorrow, of experience and of aspiration, [stood] … as the symbol of materialism. [In this depiction she is unawakened matter, later she is holy matter through which Spirit manifests – both are divine aspects of God]. Humanity must say with her, "They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid Him." But—she said it to the Lord Himself, not recognising Him and realising only her own deep need and despair. So must it be again. Humanity—materialistic, suffering, facing the future with despair and agony, but still aspiring—must go forth from the cave of matter, seeking the Christ and at first not recognising Him or the work that He is attempting to do. The churches—materialistic, hide-bound and submerged in their theological concepts, seeking political power or possessions, emphasising stone buildings and cathedrals whilst neglecting "the Temple of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens"—are occupied with the symbols and not with the reality. Now they must learn to recognise that the Lord is not with them and they too must go forth, as Mary did, and seek Him anew. If they will do so, they will surely find Him and again become His messengers.

What I have to say to you, I intend to divide into two parts: [Page 472]

The Work of the Christ Today

The Coming Work of Reconstruction

These two convey the same basic ideas and thus complement each other. They proclaim the fact that all that truly concerns us is that which takes place upon Earth in line with the "blueprints" which guide the work of the Christ. (When I use the phrase "concerns us" I refer to man's physical, emotional and mental reactions.) They [the two statements] proclaim the fact that every state of consciousness is anchored within humanity and that all are factual here and now, did men but know it. They proclaim also the truth that Christ has never left us for a distant heaven of nebulous outlines, but that He is ever within our reach. They proclaim also the fact that His interest, His arduous labours on our behalf and the activities of His working disciples, the Masters of the Wisdom and the Lords of Compassion, are with us, here and now. They proclaim that we are not alone, but that the Forces of Light and of Enlightenment are constantly working; that the strength and the wisdom of Those who know are being mobilised to aid mankind, and that nothing can now arrest or prevent the contact between that intelligent aspiring centre, called humanity, and the inner spiritual group, the Hierarchy.

The Work of the Christ Today

Forget not one important point. The Hierarchy itself is the result of human activity and aspiration; it has been created by humanity. Its members are human beings who have lived, suffered, achieved, failed, attained success, endured death and passed through the experience of resurrection. They are the same in nature as are those who struggle today with the processes of disintegration but who—nevertheless—have in them the seed of resurrection. All states of consciousness are known to Them and They have mastered all of them; They have mastered them as men, thus guaranteeing to humanity the same ultimate achievement. We are apt to look upon the members of the Hierarchy [Page 473] as different radically from humanity, forgetting that the Hierarchy is a community of successful men and women, Who earlier submitted Themselves to the purificatory fires of daily living, working out their own salvation as men and women of affairs, as business people, as husbands and wives, farmers and rulers and that they know life, therefore, in all its phases and gradation. They have surmounted the experiences of life; Their great Master is the Christ; They have passed through the initiations of the new birth, the baptism, the transfiguration, the final crucifixion and the resurrection. But they still are “men” and differ from the Christ only in the fact that He, the first of our humanity to attain divinity, the Eldest in a great family of brothers (as St. Paul expresses it), the Master of the Masters and the Teacher of angels and of men was deemed so pure, so holy and so enlightened that He was permitted to embody for us the great cosmic principle of love; He thus revealed to us, for the first time, the nature of the heart of God.

These perfected men, therefore, exist; They are more than men because the divine spirit in them registers all stages of consciousness and awareness—subhuman, human and superhuman. This inclusive development enables them to work with men, to contact humanity at need, and to know how to lead us forward to the phases of resurrection.

……….

479

It is a fallacy to believe, as some do, that the main trend of Christ's work is through the medium of the churches or the world religions. He necessarily works through them when conditions permit and there is a living nucleus of true spirituality within them, or when their invocative appeal is potent enough to reach Him. He uses all possible channels whereby the consciousness of man may be enlarged and right orientation may be brought about. It is, however, truer to say that it is as World Teacher that He consistently works, and that the churches are but one of the teaching avenues He employs. All that enlightens the minds of men, all propaganda that tends to bring about right human relations, all modes of acquiring real knowledge, all methods of transmuting knowledge into wisdom and understanding, all that expands the consciousness of humanity and of all subhuman states of awareness and sensitivity, all that dispels glamour and illusion and that disrupts crystallization and disturbs all static conditions, come under the realistic activities of the department within the Hierarchy which He supervises. He is limited by the quality and the calibre of the invocative appeal of humanity and that, in its turn, is conditioned by the point in evolution attained.

In the Middle Ages of history, and earlier, it was the churches and the schools of philosophy which provided the major avenues for His activity, but it is not so today; this is a point which the churches and organised religion would do well to remember. There is now a shift of His emphasis and attention into two new fields of endeavour: first, into the field of world-wide education, and secondly, into the sphere of implementing intelligently those activities which come under the department of government in its three aspects of statesmanship, politics and legislature. The common people are today awakening to the importance and [Page 480] responsibility of government; it is therefore realised by the Hierarchy that before the cycle of true democracy (as it essentially exists and will eventually demonstrate) can come into being, the education of the masses in cooperative statesmanship, in economic stabilisation through right sharing, and in clean, political interplay is imperatively necessary. The long divorce between religion and politics must be ended, and this can now come about because of the high level of the human mass intelligence and the fact that science has made all men so close that what happens in some remote area of the earth's surface is a matter of general interest within a few minutes. Time and space are now negated.

[Elsewhere DK writes there will also be an emphasis on Science and the scientific approach as an avenue for exploring man’s relationship to divinity, God immanent and God transcendent]

 III. The Festival of Humanity. This will be the festival of the spirit of humanity—aspiring to approach nearer to God, seeking conformity to the divine will to which the Buddha called attention, dedicated to the expression of goodwill which is the lowest aspect of love to which Christ called attention and of which He was the perfect expression. It will be the day pre-eminently on which the divine nature of man will be recognized and his power to express goodwill and to establish right human relations (because of his divinity) will be stressed. On this festival we are told Christ has for nearly two thousand years represented humanity and has stood before the Hierarchy as the God-man, the leader of His people and "the Eldest in a great family of brothers". This will, therefore, be a festival of deep invocation and appeal; it will express a basic aspiration towards fellowship and for human and spiritual unity [this is the heart and essence of Pentecost]; it will represent the effect in the human consciousness of the work of the Buddha and of the Christ. It will be held at the time of the Full Moon of Gemini.