|
|
|
LETTER XXVI
THE
AQUARIAN AGE
February 2,
1918.
You
have wondered why the Masters speak now of the interests of the common man,
while in former times they said little about them. But do you not know that
when the need for a thing has come, the work of the Masters with the world
is to urge the world in the direction of its destiny?
You have read of the iron age, the golden age, etc., and that the
golden age follows the iron. You may have wondered how states so utterly
dissimilar could be juxtaposed. Now between the iron age and the golden age
there is a period of transition, a period short as compared with one of the
great ages, for example the longest one, the golden, which is given as one
million, seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand years.
I have not visited you this evening to
announce that the golden age is immediately at hand. Oh, no! But we approach
the termination of a minor cycle, and the period of transition from the
present state of the world to the next* will be of about one thousand years.
That is to say, this period of one thousand years will bring us to the
middle of what is called the Aquarian age, for the half of one of these
lesser Zodiacal periods is approximately of that length.†
What is the Aquarian age? You know the
humanitarian nature of Aquarius. You also know the characteristics of the
planet Uranus, to which Aquarius is now attributed. Well, the inference is
obvious. We shall have an Aquarian world, and a world where things will go
after the manner of that strange and abrupt planet Uranus.
The old-fashioned world is passing away, the Jupiterian world,
and we are entering upon a period of change, political, social, religious
and personal. There is going to be an attempt at a federation of states, a
federation of souls. Nothing but this war could have effected it—with the
suddenness characteristic of that mysterious planet Uranus.
In the later Aquarian age the creative will of man will have
such scope as the world has not dreamed of. It will be set free from the
limitations which have held it. When all men are assured of a means of
livelihood, how free they will be in mind! The freedom of the past in
a free country like America is nothing like the freedom which the new age
will usher in.
When education is really universal, the
moral as well as the mental will be trained, and new ideas will have room to
develop in the developing brain.
Be not afraid, O world! Three years ago, even we who see far out
here had grave doubts for the future of your planet. But the great Masters
always told us that the world would pass through its period of trial, still
poised on its old axis, and that the forces which make for order would
triumph over the forces which make for disorder. Have you not noticed in
the psychic world a lessening of strain? Have you not noticed an absence of
the hostile and adverse beings that in the
early months of the war seemed to threaten the earth and you and all men
with a triumphant malice? That is a straw which shows the way of “the winds
that blow between the worlds.”
I am glad
that you are a keen observer of psychic states. That faculty of observation
will be of use to you in the years that are to come. Those who cannot adjust
to new conditions will pass out for a time and return later with the fresh
outlook of children, to take up their experience in the new age.
There will be much rebellion in the beginning. Things are not so
stable as they seemed four years ago. The war has proved that they
were not really stable.
The wave of psychic research that is now sweeping across the
world will wear thin the veil between the visible and the invisible. More
and more men and women will live in two worlds at the same time; for the two
worlds occupy the same space, and their differences are differences of
consciousness, of vibration, the latter including a difference in states of
matter.
Men will
grow more magnetic under the influences that will play upon them. They will
affect each other more and more, and that is one reason why greater freedom
will be necessary. With the greater sensitiveness which the new time will
bring, it will be more difficult for large families to live together a
common life. While the tendency is for all mankind to be one family in
sympathy, more and more it will be recognized that each man requires privacy
for his best development. The tyranny of the family will give place to
freedom in the family. Strip family life of its tyranny and it may be
very charming.
The
sensitive and highly charged beings of the new age would explode if they
should be obliged to sit every evening round the family “centre-table,”
listening to the maunderings of the least progressive among them, who by
reason of greater age assumed the right to lay down the law. This does not
mean that children will not honor their parents; but under the new
dispensation parents will honor their children’s need for the individual
life, and will give it to them—thereby securing their own freedom.
The freedom of the later Aquarian age will be manifest in the
mind. “Heresy” will cease to exist; the word will become obsolete.
The sin
against the Holy Ghost will be understood as the attempt to enchain the will
of another.
Great friendliness will result from this mutual tolerance. We
hate only those whom we fear, and in a tolerant world there will be few
seeds of hatred.
All men will study; the school is only the first stage of study.
When man becomes his own schoolmaster he makes great strides.
What you know of art, music and literature can give you but a
vague idea of what these arts will become in the age that is to follow. Take
the catchwords of the immediate past, impressionism, for example. It will be
applied to all the arts.
Science is only in its swaddling-clothes. Aquarius is a sign of
air, the old books tell us, and the air holds many secrets which you must
take for your own, not only secrets of transportation but psychological
secrets. The airplane and psychical research grew up together.
You have
not taken the last redoubt of electricity. That also has treasures for you.
When you can draw that from the air where it hides from you and
laughs, you will have little need of coal, and the miners can leave the
bowels of the earth and play in the sunshine of the heights.
Inventions! I see in the “pattern world” I told you about in my
first book many things that would puzzle you down here. New fabrics will be
worn before many years, and the patient silkworm will not be the aristocrat
it now is.
The human ego is coming into its own. When it loses selfishness
it will find itself. That is not a paradox for its own sake, but the
statement of a psychological fact.
The
seeming chaos will take form, and in it you will find new beauties. I will
not conceal from you the knowledge that many will use the word chaos during
the reconstruction period. But be at peace. The formless shall take on form.
The clairvoyance that is developing in man will help him to see, where the
eyes of his old faith would have been blind. He will trust the future and
trust his brother, and will not be deceived. The intuition of the soul will
point man to the substance which he needs for his well-being. Behind and
within the air is the ether, which is substance, which is God. And man will
take it for his uses, with the consent of God, who joys in giving Himself to
His children.
As I said
before, the Masters urge the world along in the direction of its destiny;
but they are too wise to hurry it. They see the face of the cosmic clock,
and they wake the world at the hour of the new sunrise. We are blest in
being their servants.
*
Still far short of the golden age, probably. --E.B.
† This does not correspond exactly
with the popular Hindoo reckoning. But automatic writings are what they are.
I can cut out repetitions, etc., but I cannot rewrite, add to, or distort.—E.B
. |
