LIGHT OF THE WORLD

The light of the world is always a hope in the hearts of those who seek a greater role in the world. There is an inner conviction for those who have awakened their spiritual sight; a conviction that the day will come when certain spiritual leaders will appear on the world scene who will raise the spiritual consciousness of humanity by their individual effort in various fields.

   Many who believe they recognize this trend in world affairs, point out the growth of interest in occult phenomena and in subject related to parapsychology which catch the public eye. But popular interest in occult and psychic phenomena does not equate to a spiritual awakening of humanity. There may be a peripheral awakening, but psychic phenomena and the occult in themselves, can exist entirely devoid of any real spiritual content.

    There is a trend however on the part of many good people, to be concerned about the spiritual, emotional and material welfare of underprivileged communities. This deep concern for other reveals a spiritual  awakening in many people who give no thought to the phenomena of so-called psychics and occultists. Their only concern is to do something now fro those needy people who have been cut off from the mainstream of life. They are the outcast, handicapped and underprivileged masses who have been cast aside by society because they don't or can't conform. Many are children, unwanted and without the love and guidance of parents or friends. In their eyes, nobody cares.

DEDICATION TO SERVICE

If scientist and politicians directed their attention to lifting a little of the burden of humanity, the light of the world would stand revealed. But we're still waiting while we direct our attention to the sufferings of others in need. Although we may feel powerless to help then many people in their plight, we must hold fast to the knowledge that what little we can do is needed and help is on the way. We must persist in the knowledge that our good works and prayers are helpful and achieve worthwhile result, even though we sometimes see little evidence of it. There is a gradual awakening of the part of many who dedicate themselves to service. Their concern is for more human values which reveal spiritual insight and deeper values.

   Those who have dedicated themselves to helping the needy, whether in the fields of medicine, sociology or many other sphere, aren't necessary mystically inclined; but they do reveal a deep spiritual motivation which  is greatly needed today. It is to be hoped that those who are mystically inclined will also become involved by radiating a spiritual love to all humanity service is the keynote of all mystical work. For preparation is the mystical life we must sooner or later feel the stirring of our deeper spiritual self which urges us to serve the interest of raising humanity to a higher lever of thought and conduct.

   Without the slightest doubt, there is a new spiritual awakening today. Small though it is, it can seen here and there where dedicated people are prepared to stand against all odd and be counted for the advancement of humanity, and especially to assist the underprivileged in society. This trend shows that the light of the spirit of humanity can be rekindled and that there is hope for the future destiny of mankind as long as there are men and woman who place their spiritual qualities above their material desires.

There will always be something we can do, no matter how small and inconsequential it may seem. The helping have we give to someone in needs of others. Service is the key to a better understand of life, for as we give of ourselves and share our lives with others, as fully as possible, so will our enriched. It is in giving that we receive, and to receive th greatest rewards in life we must be  prepared to put aside many of our self-interest and be more concerned for others. what we share will be returned to us in great measure.

    The more we give thought for each other and have the willingness to give some help to one another, the more the spiritual light will grow in the hearts of men and women, gradually bringing a new dawn of greater light and understanding between all people. Then will come to the fore those spiritually enlightened people of all races who will point the way to higher advancement, not by what they say, but because they will be living example of the spiritual way of life.

KNOWLEDGE FROM COSMIC

The ancient records reveals that the early leaders of the Great White Lodge had to depend almost exclusively upon Cosmic Illumination for the great knowledge which they preserved for us. With all their understanding of cosmic laws, they occasionally questioned some of the great truths that come to them. it seems, however, that at time wen by additional information confirmed the startling facts that they had received, and in this way their doubts were gradually cast aside and they learned to put dependence upon the knowledge that came from inner attunement .

The problem which we have to face today is due to the great  amount of education we have had in schools and through books and which is not correct or dependable knowledge. In other words, the ancients did not have a great storehouse of misinformation and untrue ideas which had to be removed as the new knowledge or correct knowledge came to them. We, on the other hand, have so much of this misinformation that is commonly accepted as true and commonly used in our everyday lives that when a different fact is given to us, even by some person who is a recognised authority, we are very likely to be doubtful and hesitate to accept the new information. If the new information conforms with what we have already learned or what we believe, we accept it readily enough; if, however, the new knowledge is so contrary and so different from what we have always understood, we either hesitate to accept the new facts or tend to modify them to fit our former beliefs.

It is plain to be seen, therefore, that the ancient had a great advantage over us. It may have taken them many centuries to learn how to mediate and to attune themselves with the Cosmic and thereby receive the great cosmic knowledge but in those centuries they had not acquired much untrue information which had to be set aside with difficulty. I do not mean by this that during the centuries of their evolution in thinking they did not build up certain belief and ideas of their own. These ideas were simply conclusions that they had come to from observation or from the expression of belief of others and such information did not constitute a system of facts. Everyone knew that most of the beliefs they had were based upon too greatly or adhered to against all reasoning or against new knowledge that might come their way. For this reason the thinking man or woman in the mystery schools of the past was always willing to cast aside any of the ideas that had been given to him or her by parents or friends or other for the newer facts that the Brotherhood taught.

Today, and for the past hundred years, we have been in a different position. Most of the fact and a great part of the knowledge that each one of us attains during childhood and youth come to us through printed books and through the word given to us by teachers in schools or by lectures. We have accepted such knowledge being the mere opinions or beliefs of other people but as being the actual facts discovered and maintained by scientific investigation. Therefore we consider our general knowledge to be very dependable and not such nature as to be cast aside easily. We are making a great mistake in this belief, however, because we are finding out daily that the mere fact that some explanation is printed in a book or taught by a thousand teachers is no guarantee that it is either correct or even partially dependable.

I say that we are discovering this. I mean that we, as mystics and perhaps several million other people are making this discovery. the vast multitude, however, have not made this discovery and they are still laboring under the impression that knowledge printed in a book or newspaper, or statement made by teachers, contain absolute truth, that the person who has a different explanation or knowledge must, first of all, disprove the information given in the books or taught by the teachers before he can present with conviction the new knowledge he has to offer. If we analyse the matter, however, we will see that there is no difference between the ancient teacher who stood in the midst of a green patch in a valley and expressed some of his beliefs about life and nature to a group of ignorant people who were ready to believe everything he said, and the man who has some peculiar ideas or explanations of his own today and is able to raise enough money to print those ideas in a book. Even teachers and professors secured their knowledge mostly through the reading of books written by someone else, and therefore they are expressing only the ideas of another. For this, the printed opinion is no more dependable than the verbal opinion. The only dependable source of knowledge is that which comes from within after we are attuned with the Cosmic.

In the past, the teachers in the Great White Lodge very often startled and surprised their students with the revelation of facts not known to others  or by the revelation of facts that were contrary to what was commonly believed. It is fortunate for us that most of those who belonged to the Great White Brotherhood and who received this new knowledge accepted, tested, proved and continued that teaching of it. Otherwise, today we would not have the great knowledge preserved for us that we do have. Throughout the centuries that have passed, there has been a great deal of false knowledge growing up in the mind of people along with the true knowledge. We of this time and period in the world, have acquired and inherited a great mass of knowledge, part of which is speculative, untrue, doubtful and undependable, and part of which is absolutely correct and provable. What we are trying to do is to separate the one from the other and get rid of the information that is false, modify the information that is partially true and test the information that is doubtful, while at the same time we add to our minds the knowledge that has been proved true and absolutely dependable.

SEPARATION OF TRUE AND FALSE:

You will agree that it is a large undertaking to analysis inherited knowledge, test it and separated the pure from the dross. That is the reason for such organisation as Enlightened mystic Order, Amorc and so on with its rules and regulation; that is the reason we study and work together. All of us are naturally reluctant to cast aside such knowledge as seems to be true and to fit in with the scheme of things. Take, for instance, our belief in the effect of the moon on tides. There was a time when the average man, woman and child did not know what caused the rising and falling of the tides and, or course, when an explanation was given to them they were quite ready to accept it because they had no other belief about it that interfered with or affected their belief in the new information. After generations had accepted a certain explanation in regard to the effect of the moon  on tides and after million of people had found that explanation seemed to be perfectly satisfactory, it is only natural that such people would be reluctant to cast aside that information. Now it is true that for all general purpose the explanation that science gives us about the effect of the moon on tides, and which our parents and grandparents studied in school, appears to be true. Since it seems to conform with the other laws of the universe, we accept it as true and hesitate to have it cast aside or upset or contradicted by anyone who has a different opinion.

Let me ask you this question: have we any proof that is really convincing to us that the explanation about the effect of the moon on tides is correct ? The mere fact that it explains the coincidence between the moon and the tides or that it helps us to understand how the tide rises and falls and the fact the explanation fits in with the periods of the moon exactly to the hours and minutes, are really no proof that the explanation is correct.

The addition fact that our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents believed it, and the eminent scientists believe it, is also no proof that is correct. The minute we hesitate to accept new knowledge because our present knowledge satisfactorily explains things to us, we are closing our mind to illumination, thereby fooling ourselves. Long before the scientist, William Harvey, discovered that the blood circulates through the body, it was a common belief among the multitudes throughout the world that the blood did not circulate. The old idea about the blood had been  taught in every school by scientists and teachers to such an extent that everybody was thoroughly convinced that the blood remained stationary in the body. Harvey had great difficulty in convincing the world that the blood circulates. Another scientist had great trouble in convincing the world that the earth revolves; and we all know that Columbus, as well as others, had great difficulty in convincing the public that the earth is round.

Some of the general beliefs and teachings common to all religions are so unrealistic, when we stop to analyse them, that we wonder why we ever believed some of the theories . Let me give you an illustration of one of the most common belief that is certainly so unrealistic that we cannot help smiling at it: in the Christian teachings millions of people accepted as an absolute fact that God created and populated this earth, and that after God had put people on this earth. He send His Son Jesus here to save us and to redeem the world.

According to that story, this planet called Earth is the only planet in the universe and we are simply one ball floating in space. All the people that God made and everything else that God made are on this one earth. Therefore, Jesus had to come only to this one planet to save the people living here. Yet the very ministers, clergymen, priests, professors, teachers and others who teach this Christian idea admit that there are other planet that God made. If this is so, then God must have sent Jesus or some other son to the other planets to save the people and to improve conditions there, or else God ignored the other planets and simply sent His son o this one called Earth and gave all His attention to us.