London Lectures of 1907 by Annie Besant (little readers TXT) 📕

the nations amongst whom they dwelt, amongst whom they had grown up. For the building of a new type is not made out of those in whom the type of the old Race, that which is before those who are selected for a changed line of evolution, has flowered. The triumphs of evolution in the Fourth Race, as the Fourth Race judged them, were by no means the best material for the building of the Fifth. Those who were most admired in the Fourth, those who were regarded as the flowers of their own nations, were those in whom the kâmic faculty, with its allied psychic powers, was most developed, was most triumphant. For you must remember that in the very different civilisation of those days, psychic powers were playing an enormous part in all the most highly developed people of the time. Where the dawning principle of manas began somewhat to triumph over the kâmic, there the psychic faculties inevitably diminished in their power, and showed themselves very much more feebly than in the leaders of the time, those who were the pioneers of the civilisation of the day. The faculties most valued at that time were least to be recognised in those who were the chosen of the Manu; for what He was seeking was the dawn of the intellectual principle, and where that dawns, the psychic for a time is submerged. I cannot dwell now on the reason for that; the psychism of the time was the psychism of the whole of the astral body, and not the psychism which succeeds the intellectual development, which is the result of a higher organisation of that body into special organs of astral senses--the well-known chakras. The reason is well known among all students of the different stages of evolution, and the only reason I allude to it now is because I want you to recognise a very significant fact: that those who were chosen out of that civilisation by the Manu, in order that he might make a new Race out of them, were not the people who were the leading examples of the highest civilisation of the time. Those were left behind in their own environment. Those were left behind to carry on their evolution along the lines already becoming the lines of the past, and not the lines of the future. And these people in whom the psychic powers were less shown, and in whom the less valued intellectual power was germinating, on lines more fitted for the development in future, they were chosen out for the building of the Fifth Race, and carried away from their Fourth Race surroundings into the far-off land of their education. There of course they remained until the time came when the Manu incarnated amongst them--and so on. That is old history on which I need not dwell.

Let us apply those same principles to the choosing out of another Root-Race, and we shall see that just as then, for the fifth Root-Race, the mânasic principle was selected, so in the choosing out for a Sixth Root-Race, the buḍḍhic principle must be the one which must be sought for in order that the material may be shaped in which it will be possible for it in its turn to develop. There again I must remind you that the buḍḍhi of the Sixth Root-Race in this Round will be something very different from the evolution of the pure buḍḍhic principle in its own Round, the Round that belongs to it in the future evolution of humanity: it will be buḍḍhic contaminated with kâma, showing out much of the kâmic characteristics--inevitably, inasmuch as it must work in kâmic matter. Hence you must not take quite your ideal buḍḍhi, such as you may fancy it in its perfection--the magnificent principle of Pure Reason, in its higher intuitive power--but a shadow, a reflexion of it, such a shadow and reflexion as is able to take its veils, its garments, from the matter of our own Round. None the less, that will be the distinguishing, the dominant principle of the Sixth Root-Race, and therefore I ask you to fix your mind on that as the goal towards which all roads in the present should tend. Far-off indeed it is, counting as we count time; but tendencies show themselves long, long before they appear upon the surface, recognisable to the eye of the flesh. In each sub-race appears a principle which manifests itself more fully, more thoroughly, in the corresponding Root-Race; and therefore, though it will only be possible for us at the present time to work towards the next sub-race of our own Fifth Race, which is already beginning to appear upon the surface of our globe, none the less is it true that in quickening the evolution of that sub-race it is the next Root-Race to which we must look for our guiding principle; that is the far-off Pole-star by which we must guide our ships at the present time, that the point towards which we must steer, however far off we must sorrowfully admit that it is.

Let us then, recognising that fact, that the Sixth Root-Race will be the embodiment of the next principle in us, the buḍḍhic principle, that of Pure Reason--as distinguished from Intellect, which is Reason reflected in Activity--when you realise that, and remember that the note of buḍḍhi is union--not yet unity but union--you will find that as much as you require for your guiding principle in the evolution of the corresponding sub-race, whose foot is now on the threshold. So that in this fashion, though seeming to go so far abroad into the past and the future, I bring you to the practical question of the next step forward in human evolution.

The next thing you must remember is that the flowering of the Fifth Root-Race will go on long, long after the beginning of the sixth sub-race is seen. For these Races and sub-races overlap each other; and just as at the present time the majority of mankind belongs to the Fourth Root-Race and not to the Fifth, but the Fifth Root-Race dominates the evolution of the world, although still in a minority, so is it of sub-races also. The sixth sub-race will be at first in an almost inappreciable minority, but coloring the whole; then multiplying more and more, until it becomes an appreciable minority. Then, as it grows more and more numerous, and nations are born of it, it will begin to dominate and lead the civilisation of the then world. But even then the Fifth Race will be in an enormous majority for ages and ages yet to come. The fifth sub-race has not yet touched its highest point, has not yet asserted itself to the point to which its evolution will reach in the centuries that lie immediately before us. It is nearing its highest point; it is climbing rapidly now to its zenith; but still many years of mortal time intervene between the present day and the day when it will rule in the height of its power. It is climbing fast in these days; but still, compare it with the corresponding point in the Atlantean civilisation, and you will realise that it has not yet climbed to its highest point. For every Race must overtop the Race that has gone before it, and we have not yet reached even the level of the old Atlantis in knowledge, and therefore in power over the lower nature, although, as I said, the climbing now is rapid, and will become more and more rapid with every ten years that pass over our heads. For there is that speciality in evolution, that it ever goes forward at an increasing rate. The more it develops its powers, the more swiftly do those powers multiply themselves; so that, to quote a well-known phrase of a great Teacher, "it grows not by additions but by powers." And this civilisation of ours will rush forward more and more rapidly with every decade that passes. Still, the very fact that it has not reached the highest levels of the Fourth tells you that time lies before us in the building of the sixth sub-race, and that is our immediate work. We need not trouble now any further about the Sixth Root-Race; for whatever builds the sixth sub-race amongst us is contributing to the building of that Root-Race of the future. The same faculties are demanded, although then at a higher level, and we can come down to our humbler level and consider what the sixth sub-race is to be. And in that we shall realise the work and the future of the Theosophical Society.

The great characteristic of that Race is to be union, and all that tends to union is a force which is working for the coming of that sub-race, no matter whether very often the force looked at from without is often repellent. It is not the outer manifestation of the moment, but the tendency, the direction of the force which is important. There may be many things, more beautiful on the surface, which have accomplished their aim, and are on the downward path towards decay, whilst the things that are rising, still below the horizon, have, as all germinal things have, much about them that is repellent and that will be used up in the growth of the coming creature, before it really manifests upon earth. It has been said by a Master that if we could see with the eye of the Spirit the generation of the human being, his ante-natal life, we should understand the generation of worlds, the generation of universes. And that, again, is a general principle. Let us see one or two lessons that we may draw from it at the moment.

Take the evolution of a seed into a plant, and what do you find? A tiny germ surrounded by a mass of nutrient matter; and before that tiny germ will show itself in root, and stem, and leaf above the ground and become visible to the eye of the observer on the earth, that nutrient material must be absorbed by the growing germ, and changed into the exquisite tissues of the plant that is to be. And so, if you take the growing germ, animal or human, how unlike is that budding creature from the animal or the man that shall be! How lacking in beauty in many of the methods of its growth, of its nutrition, of its gradual shaping! And by what marvellous alchemy of inspiring life does the living germ gather into itself all the nutrient matter that surrounds it, and shapes it into organ after organ, until the perfect creature is ready to be born into the world. And as in these cases, so with the growth of a sub-race, of which the germ is planted now. How much has to be done before it is ready for the birth-hour, that yet is at a measurable distance from the moment that the germ is planted in the womb of time. Try to realise the analogy by means of the image that I have suggested, and it will not then seem so unlikely to you, that which is true, that in our own times again many messengers have come out from the Manu of the future, in order that those messengers may strike certain keynotes, which mark the chief characteristic of the child that is to be. That note is well known at the present time: we call it Brotherhood.

Now notice at the present time how many such messengers are found scattered throughout the world, and how the varied organisations of men of every kind are tending in that direction, and are more and more recognising that as the keynote of their progress and their evolution. There are, so far as I know, only two great organisations at the