LETTER XXII
THE LEVER OF WORLD UNITY
November 19, 1917.
DO you not see that the unifying influence of America is already being felt in the war? Do you not see how America, through the President of the United States, is drawing the Allies together? That is her destiny, to assemble all nations in a brotherhood of democratic freedom and mutual helpfulness. This demand of President Wilson for a council, for unified action in prosecuting the war, is one of the most significant events in history. For the first time a group of friendly nations may really work as one, putting aside all personal jealousies and fears—for a great world end.
It is the lever of world unity which shall lift the burden of wastefulness that heretofore has cost the world half the fruits of its labor.
Oh, nations of Europe, do not fear the great free land across the waters! She wants nothing of you, save now the privilege of helping you to save yourselves, and in the future to work with you for the ideals that will make you all strong.
The Anglo-Saxon race must again be like one family, though in two houses; but bye and bye, when America shall have amalgamated her foreign residents with herself in one indissoluble race, she will still be your sister, O Britain! and you two shall counsel together for the further enlightening of the world.
Sometimes I go high in the etheric regions and look down upon the earth, so high that the horizons bound one hemi-sphere after another. The horizons of time are also thus expanded, and I see ahead of and behind the present hour. I see the causes that have brought the world to its present impasse. You will have to remove the wall that separates you from the age of enlightened brotherhood.
You have read about the golden age of the past. Did you think it was a fanciful story, to amuse children in the fire-light? I tell you it will sometime be realized again, and on this earth—now rent by hatred and war.
You must retain all you have won from the mines of the earth and from the activity of your own brains. Inventions and arts, they will all have their place in the new age that is coming, and hitherto unimagined art and science will add further to the glory and comfort of life. It will be the fault of your own folly and blindness if you lose anything of value to the soul. The soul needs matter as matter needs the soul. Because we look forward to an age without hatred and wasteful division, we do not look forward to an age of idleness and inertia. Limitless will be the opportunities for genius, for talent, for ambition.
The greatest aristocracy of earth is the aristocracy of mind and soul, and mind and soul will be cultivated. The education of the future will be not only practical but humanistic; nothing will be thrown away that makes for beauty or for thought. The treasures of dead languages will not be thrown into the dust-bin. After the labor necessary to provide for the material wants of the world, time will be left for art and beauty and scholarship, for social discussion and religious exaltation. The mystic also will have his place.
Three years ago I would not have dared to prophesy a happy outcome for this tragic fracas. More than two years ago I told you that the battle had been won in the regions above the earth—won by the powers of good, who labor for the welfare of mankind. How can you doubt? If the war had ended two years ago, the world might have gone on more or less as it went before. But now it can never go back to the old selfish ways. In the need that will follow the war the races will help one another; they will turn to one another as brothers and sisters turn.
Never lose faith that out of this tragedy will come the guerdon of the world’s desire. I see it, I live for it (for I live more vitally than you); and that you may see and live for it also I struggle against the lightness of my present body, that has a tendency to carry me away from the dense regions where you suffer and pray, you men of earth.
You who have followed me from those early days when I wrote you letters from the lower astral world, describing as a traveller in a strange country the things I had seen; you who followed me through the hells of astral turmoil during the early months of the war, follow me yet a little further. I will show you the way as it has been shown to me. And you will walk in that way, though stumbling at first and groping for the thread of purpose through the labyrinth of reconstruction, in the days that shall be called days of peace. For perfect peace will not come at once. You will have to work for it, as you have worked for triumph in war. But if you have faith, you will ride the stormy waters into the haven of a new earth. And a new heaven will spread above the earth, for heaven is largely peopled from below; it recruits its population from below. No new angels are being created now. The outgoing Breath rests, and the indrawing Breath is about to begin. You who have practised “yogi breathing” know how difficult it is to hold the breath out for more than a short time. It can only be done by force of will. The tendency is to return, as the tendency in the race is to return towards the Source from which it came. It is therefore I say that you cannot retard, save for a little while, the flow of the race-breath towards harmony and peace and love.
This struggle of men with each other in the selfishness of separation is like the struggle of the yogi not to inbreathe—the young and inexperienced yogi; for the wise one breathes at stated intervals, and knows when the period is full.
The race knows. It will follow the law of the outflow and inflow. You cannot prevent it. So yield yourselves to the current that would carry you back to God.
It will not be a hurried journey, for the inflowing breath is measured too. There will be time for labor and for rest, and to gather flowers by the way.
Do you fear the return to God, however slow it may be? I who have tasted death know there is nothing to fear; and I who have tasted the new life tell you there is everything to hope.