Adyar Pamphlets
No.- 53
East and West - The
Destinies of Nations
by
Annie Besant
May l915
THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING HOUSE, ADYAR
( INDIA )
1.
In
this "East and West" , and in another lecture
entitled "The destinies of Nations" which follows hereafter,
I propose to deal with the making of history in a way that seems to me to give
much deeper interest than one can find in studying it in the ordinary
historical textbooks. Here we shall take a more general view, while, in the
succeeding lecture, we shall specialise. We shall consider the premises which
underlie the present conflict in the Far East, and the broad results which flow
from the triumphs in arms of Japan.
For we have before our eyes a great object-lesson, and in this twentieth
century, as H.P. Blavatsky told us, some of the outstanding accounts between
eastern and western nations are to be settled. Because of this, I wish to bring
some thoughtful minds towards a deeper view of the actions of the men who play
great parts in the world-drama we call history, so that instead of looking at
the events of ordinary life among the nations as though they were really guided
by rulers and statesmen, we may learn to understand that the drama of the
nations has an Author who writes it, and that the actors play the parts for
which they have prepared themselves in the past; the players are actors in, and
not creators of, the world's history.
2.
Now,
in order to set forth this view of life, and to render intelligible part of the
argument that I desire to submit, I must define what I mean here by "
ideals". I mean the dominant ideas expressed in civilisations, being
shaped and moulded according to the dominant ideas or ideals, the views as to
life-values, that rule in the minds of the nation concerned. And I say
"eastern" and " western " ideals, because the differences
between these, and their utility in the evolution of humanity at large, must be
understood if we would rightly follow the acts of the world-drama. And we need
to understand that in the present condition of affairs then is a distinct
weighing down of a balance that had grown too light and was threatening to kick
the beam, so that humanity was menaced by a loss of ideals vital for its full
development. It is not that I want to put the ideals of the East and West in
antithesis. .Rather I want to show that both are necessary in the great
evolution of humanity, and that there was a danger of late years that the
eastern ideals might perish. That humanity might not thus be deprived of part
of its ideal wealth, it became necessary to redress the balance between East
and West, between Europe and Asia. That
redressal could only take place by checking the conquering march of Europe, and
giving back to Asia some of its ancient
independence. So that looking at the present struggle, whether our sympathies
go with the one nation or with the other, it is wise that we should understand
the deeper issues concerned, and read with eyes of wisdom rather than with eyes
of passion the pages of history now being unrolled before us.
3.
I
have said I do not want to put these two ideals in conflict. None the less, to
some extent, that conflict has been inevitable; and it is, I think, the part of
a student of the Divine Wisdom to try to feel peace amid combats, and to fix
his eyes steadily on the goal to be arrived at, so that he may not be whirled
off his feet by the turmoil of the moment. If we look back over the nineteenth
century we shall notice that more and more the West has been dominating the
East — by conquest primarily, but to an immense extent by the spread of western
thought and civilisation following in the wake of conquest. We have seen in
eastern lands that the old ideals tended to disappear. That they did not make
their way largely in Europe would have been of small import; but that they
should be menaced with death on the soil of their birth was a true peril to
humanity. As western arms and commerce spread, western thought among eastern
nations began to claim predominance, the more readily and the more dangerously
that it was associated with the conquering sword, with the growth of military
power. Some of the conquests in the East were very definite in their nature, as
that of India, by Britain ; others less above board, but none the less
effective. And Europe grew more and more to regard Asia as her natural
inheritance, so that Asian policy was to be directed, Asian interests were to
be controlled, not for the benefit of Asian peoples but for the enrichment of
Europe. This was done largely under the guise of commercial interests; but the
commercial interests were the commercial interests of the West, seeking to
discover for itself new markets and further expansion. No one asked, when
questions of the open port, and so on, were discussed, whether the eastern
nation concerned would benefit in its commerce by the intrusion of western
rivalry; no one asked whether eastern industries could meet without peril of
destruction the rough shock of western competition; no one ever dreamed of
considering, in the many debates that have taken place in the parliaments of
Europe in connection with Asian affairs, whether these nations of the East
would be the better, the happier, the wealthier, for the forcing upon them of
goods for which they did not ask. All that was considered was the question of
the market for Europe, and the European countries quarreled among themselves
for advantages among eastern peoples. The commercial contest was not between
Europe and Asia, but between European nations planted on Eastern soil without
the consent of the natural owners of the land. Wars even were begun in order to
force the open market on Asian nations, wars often started by peoples who
closed their own markets against the goods of the foreigner. All the
considerations that here are regarded as binding were entirely disregarded in
dealing with the eastern peoples, and China, for instance, was to be compelled
to admit into her land foreign goods she did, not require, and even detested,
while, on the other hand most of the western nations guarded themselves by
protective duties and legislation against the competition of Chinese goods and
of Chinese labour. The whole current of affairs meant the complete
subordination of the East to the West, and that carried with it the perishing
of the eastern, and the substitution for them of western, ideals.
4.
Now
this substitution of ideals has made but small way at the present time. Of
course, in India, to some extent you find a substitution of western ideals
among a certain class of the population. A number of English-educated youths
among the Indians have accepted enthusiastically the ideals that are current in
the West, but the vast masses of the Indian people are thereby unaffected. Not
only the agricultural and artisan population, but the population rich with the culture
of eastern thought and literature, remain unaffected. But then we must remember
that the affected classes are the most energetic, those with the most power of
influencing the activity of the country, if not its thought. So that they weigh
heavier than they count. The numbers are comparatively small, but the weight
behind those numbers of power of thought, quick intelligence, keen enthusiasm,
these weigh heavily in the scale.
5.
In
China and Japan things have been somewhat different. Japan has the advantage
England also has, of being an island empire. That enabled her to keep within
her own borders, at the same time that she might bring into them anything she
chose from western lands. The westernising of Japan at one time appeared almost
complete, and it was this triumph of western ideals that made the redressal of
the balance absolutely necessary. For with the complete westernising of Japan
would have come a great reaction upon other eastern nations, and Japan, drawing
as she did — as was well pointed out by one of her leading writers — all her
ideals of life from India, would have been a powerful factor in the
westernising of Asia, had she abandoned completely those ideals.
6.
China,
affected on her seaboards, was not at all affected in her inland parts. There
she preserved her old teachings and her old morality, butt there was a
question, in the descent of an armed empire on her coasts, whether it would be
possible for her to retain that isolation when Europe was practically bordering
her country with colonies under European rule. The time was critical. Those who
guide human destinies saw that the eastern ideals were in danger of being
trampled out, and that the West would only listen to lessons enforced by the
mailed hand. It was necessary to change the balance, and it is changing under
our eyes.
7.
Now
what are these Eastern ideals regarded as so important by the great
Intelligences that guide the destinies of nations? One leading eastern ideal is
that the world is under a divine governance, that the destinies of nations are
guided from the invisible world. In eastern lands the unseen worlds always play
an immense part in the drama of human life, whether in the form of
ancestor-worship so largely prevailing in Japan, or in that same form, one of
the great ruling creeds of China; whether in a modified form of that same idea
in the daily sacrifices to the Pitrs in India, or in the form of the
recognition of non-human Intelligences, such as in the West are spoken of as
Angels or Archangels. There is thus acknowledged to be a most powerful,
constant, and directive action playing on the world of men from superhuman
Intelligences that do not belong to the human evolution.
8.
That
belief is universal in the West. It is not a mere lip belief; it is an active,
working belief recognised in ordinary life. If over in the West some public
men, discussing some question of public policy, talked about the influences of
Angels as one of the things with which politicians had to reckon, you can
imagine the kind of comments that would be passed in the journals on the
following morning; but in the East that is natural; the work of the Devas, as
Indians call the Angels, is part of the recognised work of the world, and every
nation has its ruler in the unseen world, guiding the rulers on the physical
plane. How utterly different is the attitude to life among peoples who thus
regard superhuman Intelligences as constantly intermingling in human affairs.
We find the belief very much, of course, among the Jews of old, where they
speak of the Angels of the nations. We find allusions to them in the canonical
Scriptures, sometimes veiled under the name of Jehovah, or Elohim — translated
into the singular form God, though plural in the Hebrew — the Hebrew not
meaning by that at all the supreme God of the universe, but the tribal national
Deity, such a one as we should call an Archangel at the present time. And that
this is so is obvious when we find that in the battle fought by Israel against
opposing forces, he was able to drive out the inhabitants of the hills but not
the inhabitants of the plains, because they had chariots of iron, and the one
who was able to conquer the hill-men but not the plain-men was the
"Lord"; yet surely it was not the universal Deity who was thwarted in
His attempts by the mere possession by His opponents of chariots of iron. And
so among the early Christian Fathers, especially in Origen, you will find many
allusions to the national Angels that belong to particular peoples and not to
the universe at large. It is true that in modern days in the western world the
name of God is very often invoked in national strifes, and each nation claims
that help as belonging specially to itself. But I heard the other day of a
little boy making a remark that seemed to me to show a truer insight into the
relation of God to man than many of the statements made by rulers and by
statesmen, when they claim the success of their arms as proofs of the divine
favour of the Lord of all. For, hearing his elders discussing the war now going
on, and hearing a difference of opinion as to whether God was on the side of
the Japanese or Russians, he struck in with his young voice and said: "I
do not think God fights either for the Japanese or Russians; nor do I think He
would fight for us if we went to war, although of course we should ask Him to
do it; for God is against no nation, but He is for every one." That the
divine government is carried on by these various subordinate agencies, who
often struggle among themselves as men on the physical plane also struggle, is
a view interwoven into the very fibre of eastern thought, although it has
vanished from the West. .And that ideal of the invisible worlds mingling ;in
the affairs of men was one that had to be saved.
9.
This
view of a divine governance moulds the eastern idea of human government; it is
always thought to be drawn from above and not from below. The idea that a King
rules by the voice of the people rather than by divine authority is only just
making its way into eastern thought among nations influenced by western ideas.
The result of the view that he who sits upon the throne rules by divine
appointment and not by human suffrage has been that all through the East the
responsibility of the higher for the welfare of the lower has been a definite,
established thought. You find it through all the literature, although it is
perishing now. Confucius, asked by a King why thieves were so prevalent in his
land, remarked : "If you, O King, lived honestly and justly, there would
be no thieves within your realm". So again, through all the old laws of
India, you find the King, the governor, the ruler, right down to the pettiest
village official, held responsible for the happiness, health, prosperity, of
the people whom they ruled. Hence the difficulty very, often in the elder days
of finding any one who would take office as governor of a district, of a town,
or of a village. Strictly held accountable, by the ruling hierarchy right up to
the King himself, for the happiness of the ruled, the place was not a bed of
roses, and there was less satisfaction to pride than demand on time and
industry. For, great as was the power of the King in eastern lands, there was
one thing that ever stood behind his throne, administered by invisible rulers.
That something is denoted by the word Danda, and it is translated
"punishment" by Max Müller in his translation of the Institutes of
Manu. But I believe the true translation would be the word "Justice,"
or "Law", rather than "punishment" — Justice regarded as a
Deva ruling Kings more sternly than peoples, so that where the King went
against Justice, Justice cut him off. So you have the famous warning, that you
may read, coming from the lips of a Hindu statesman to a young monarch, where
he is warned to dread above all else the cries of the weak.
"Weakness", says the dying statesman, " is the worst foe of
Kings. The curse of the weak, the tears of the weak, destroy the throne of the
oppressor." And that thought goes through all the old theories of
government in the East; so that even to-day, in India, if there be famine,
plague, pestilence, it is the government that is blamed for it by the masses of
the people. The old idea there is , that every national misfortune is the fault
of the rulers who have neglected their duty, and not the fault of the ruled.
Such an idea is utterly outside the range of thought of a western thinker or
statesman; and yet, for the safety of the Indian Empire, it is necessary to
understand the thought of the Indian people, and not merely the thought of the
West, and to deal with that thought as it spreads through the minds of the vast
masses of the uninstructed population, uninstructed in western ways, but not
uninstructed in their own traditions.
10.
Let
us pass from that view to the next great ideal that we find in the East,
growing naturally out of this ideal of the responsibility of the rulers for the
ruled: the idea of Duty. The word "duty" does not carry with it the
force of the Samskrt word "Dharma" which means far more than that. It
means the law of all his past, whereby the man is incarnated into the place for
which his evolution fits him; the law which, placing him there, surrounds him
with all the necessary duties, by the discharge of which his next stage in
evolution will be made. All that is contained in the Indian word
"Dharma". Coming into the world, then, with the past behind us, we
are guided into improper environments. In the duties imposed upon a man by that
environment lies his best path of evolution. If he follow them well for the
progress of the soul; if he disregard them, progress for him becomes
impossible. Hence the social and political ideal of eastern nations is built on
duty, to take the narrower word. The ideal here, of course, is
"rights". A man has certain rights with which he is born; that idea made
the American Revolution, and later the French, and still later became the basic
thought of the political and economical writers of the early days of the
nineteenth century; but that idea of rights has no existence in the East. It
has its place in evolution, but it is an ideal of combat, of competition,
absolutely necessary, with all its undesirable accompaniments, as a stage in
the progress of humanity; but it is the very antithesis of the eastern ideal,
which sees a man surrounded by duties and is practically blind to his rights.
No man following an eastern ideal says: "It is my right to have so and
so". Duty, yes, duty to all around, to inferiors, to equals, and to
superiors, but always duty, and no excuse for broken duty because another has
broken his duty to oneself. Hence arises an entirely different attitude towards
life; hence the ease of ruling eastern peoples. Now I am not arguing for the
one or the other ideal, but only trying to make us all realise the profound
difference between the two, and the value to the world of that ideal of duty,
that it should not wholly pass away from the minds of men. What it can do
embodied in a nation, we have seen in the triumphs of Japan.
11.
Out
of that ideal, again, grows another thought: the relative character of all
morality. A man born into a certain environment of duty finds his proper
morality in the discharge of the duties imposed upon him by his environment.
Hence his morality will vary with his position, with his stage in evolution. No
eastern sage or thinker dreams of laying down one common moral ideal for all;
that is a purely western fancy, and does not on the whole work very well. In
the East the fighting caste will have its own set of duties and its own
morality; the caste of teachers will have its own, duties and its morality,
very different from the humility of the fighter; the merchant caste will have
its own duties and its own morality; and the peasant and the artisan will have
- their own moral code and duties. The servant has his special code, with comparatively
few duties to be found within it — obedience, honesty, and good service — but
those to be thoroughly discharged. Outside that, what would be willed wrong is
not regarded as wrong for him. The other parts of moral codes will find their
accomplishment in lives yet to be lived. There is no hurry. We need not try to
compass universal perfection in a single life — the most impossible of all
impossible tasks. If we learn the duties belonging to our stage and do them
well, our progress is secure. Hence the moral code will vary with every stage.
I will take a common example. A man out in India surrenders everything, has
become what in the West would be called a monk of the most extreme type of
poverty. He owns nothing; he has given his life for service of the world, and
those who guide the world will direct that life. His only to give. He has no
further care for his own life. With that view of absolute surrender goes also
the duty of absolute harmlessness. He must not touch a life sharing the world
with him. The venomous snake must go unslain, the tiger go unharmed. He must
not use any power of the surrendered life to defend it against the attack of
any other creature ; for if the serpent or the tiger come to him and slay, it
comes as a messenger from behind the veil to tell him that his service in that
body is over. But the same rule does not apply to the householder, to the man
who has children to guard, servants to protect, animals who are part of his
household. He, being the guardian of the younger, more helpless lives, must
stand between them and peril, and it is as much his duty to slay the intruding
serpent, if it menaces them, as it is the duty of the Sannyãsin to let it pass
unharmed. Hence arises much confusion in the western mind in reading eastern
books, because they read, as binding upon all, ideals which in the East are
related to their proper stage of evolution — a doctrine that in the West finds
small acceptance. And naturally so, among modern Christian people, because the
Sermon on the Mount is thrown broadcast as the moral ideal, but that ideal of
non-resistance applied to the ordinary man of the world is impossible, and
therefore disregarded. When a man like Tolstoy applies it all round, people say
that he is a "crank". Certainly he is very unwise. No State could
live on such a foundation, false alike for the citizen and the thief, true only
for the Saint. The late Archbishop of Peterborough said that, a nation founded
on the Sermon on the Mount would very soon go to pieces. But then is it not a
pity to put the Sermon on the Mount as binding on all Christian men ? For the
result is that, inasmuch as they know it to be impossible for them, it leads
them to profess a belief with the lips which does not guide the life. The view
of the relativity of morality, is another of the valuable eastern ideals which
then, may have something to do and to say in the West.
The last great ideal of wide spreading importance that I can deal with here is
the ideal of what is now called the " simple life," and of voluntary
poverty. There must be in a nation some standard of social position. Among most
of the western nations, coining down from feudal times, the standard of social
position has been a standard of birth. Of late years that has become largely
mingled with a standard of money, partly because great wealth often received
the title which placed its owner among those whose titles came to them by long
descent, and partly because, with the growing luxury of the time, wealth
weighed more and more heavily us a social distinction. The result of that is
widely to be seen in the vulgarising of society, in the loss of noble manners,
stately and dignified. A man making a vast fortune has not, as a rule, time,
leisure,or taste for the culture of the more delicate mental faculties, and
those graces that go with a culture that has come down through centuries. And
so gradually, in the western world, a new standard asserts itself against the
standard of birth : the standard of great wealth. Society is adapting itself to
the new conditions; no future Tennyson will write about :
12.
that
repose
That stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
13.
The
manners of the great lady of the past are indeed past, and loud voice, noisy
laughter, familiar gestures, have taken the place of the soft tone, the low
musical In laughter, the courteous but stately bearing of the leaders of
society, when a golden key did not open all doors. And the change means much,
for
14.
Manners
are not idle, but the fruit
Of loyal nature and of noble mind
15.
An
aristocracy should he the custodian of stately manners, dignified bearing,
artistic culture, simple or splendid living, according to the seemliness of the
occasion, the ever-present example of " good taste ". It is now only
too well symbolised by the motorcar, rushing headlong, careless of life and
limb, screaming its right of way discordantly, rattling noisily and panting
furiously, regardless of all comfort but its own, scattering dust and evil
smell on all behind it.
Now in the East, wealth has never been regarded as the standard of social'
consideration ; on the contrary, the gathering of wealth was the work of the
third caste, not of the second nor of the highest. The warrior and the teaching
castes had not the duty of gathering and holding wealth. The warrior had to be
generous and splendid. You may still find in India an immense display of wealth
in rulers and princes on State occasions; but go into their houses when no
great ceremony is going on, mingle with them in their domestic life, and you
will find there a simple life — splendour for the ceremony of the rank,
simplicity for the service in the home. And when from the warrior caste with
its public splendour you pass on to the class of learning, then wealth is
marked as a disgrace, not as reason for pride. "The wealth of a teacher is
his learning", it is written. And social consideration you must remember,
has gone to the teacher, not to the millionaire, so that the millionaire and
the prince alike bow down at the feet of the half naked but learned man. That
gives an entirely different standard of social life, and it works effectively
even now, with all the changes that have come over Indian life. The ordinary
round of living, so much alike in the different classes, draws these different
classes together in a way that is never dreamed of in the West. You send for a
man in India to sell you a shawl. He comes into your room and sits down on a
carpet near you. He plays with your children ; he talks with you as friend with
friend, until the coolie comes along with the shawls for you to choose from. He
would never dream of taking what is here called a liberty; he is too
well-mannered. To meet you in that way is not taking a liberty, but the
recognition of a common human life. And so right through; and inasmuch as the
clothing and the food are very much alike in the different classes, save where
western influence has spread, there is not the same bitterness and jealousy as
you find in the West, where the life of the poor is compulsorily simple, and
the life of the rich luxurious and complicated. Both alike in their home will
wear but a single cloth — finer in one case than in the other, but still the
simple common garment worn in similar fashion; both sit down to their meals in
similar ways, and the difference of the meals is not so great as you might
think. These forces it is which make the general refinement of the people to be
noticed in India. You may meet a man who is but a labourer, but his manners
will be the manners of a gentleman. A gentleman gives a play in his house, and
any one may walk in from the street and share the amusement; part of the hall
is kept for the invited guests; the uninvited crowd outside this, perfectly
well-mannered and content. You find refinement there, because the standard for
all is so much alike in those outward things. To live luxuriously means to live
in the western way, and among the bulk of the people it is rather a reproach
than a praise, although there is a growing desire to imitate, which is
threatening largely to corrupt the old simplicity of the Indian life.
Now that simplicity of material life which lays stress on knowledge, character,
service, instead of on wealth, how well it would be for western nations if that
also made its way to some extent among them ! The frightful competition, the
multiplication of endless articles of luxury, the crowding of houses with
useless furniture, and the heaping on that furniture of still more useless
knickknacks, so that when you go into a room it is more like a bazaar than a
room — all these things you see on every side do not tend to beauty but only to
ostentation. It is the vulgarising of the whole of the peoples, and the
dragging them down to a lower plane of life. It means increasing competition,
increasing struggle. It means the growing poorer of the poor, while the wealthy
become wealthier; for it means the turning of labour into useless channels, the
multiplication of new wants and the devisal of new objects to meet those wants,
until all life grows complex and overburdened. And while I would not ask that
every life should be as simple as the best Indian life, I do say that it would
be well for England, and well for all the western nations, if those who alone
can do it — the wealthy and the highly placed, especially the highly placed,
even more than the wealthy — followed a noble simplicity and a dignified beauty
of life, which would encourage.true art but discourage idle show, and replace
ostentation by beauty, and undue luxury by simplicity.
16.
Now,
to come back to my starting-point. Those ideals of the East were in danger of
perishing. Humanity cannot afford to let them die. Western energy, western
initiative, western willingness to bear responsibility, are all good for
eastern life ; but the West has also much to learn from the East as well as
much to teach, and the danger was lest the growing power of the West in the
East should kill out those great ideals which change men's attitude to the
world and to life as a whole. And if the balance is being redressed today, if
on land and sea an eastern nation is conquering a western, it is because the
West will only learn to respect where armed force can hold its own against the
West, and eastern ideals have no chance of anything save contempt and despisal
until they are lifted on high in a hand that can wield the sword, and show
itself as strong on the field of battle as it is in the realm of mind.
17.
THE DESTINIES OF NATIONS
18.
IN
the last lecture I pointed out that certain great ideas, necessary for the
evolution of the race, may be said to belong especially to the civilisations of
the East, and that those ideas were in danger of being trampled out by the
advancing western civilisations. We saw that that was a danger to humanity at
large, the ideals of both eastern and western civilisations being necessary in
the future of the world ; and that it became necessary for some definite
interference to take place to re-establish the balance of thought. I now want
to draw attention to the nature of that interference, to show what lies behind
the destinies of nations and what forces guide the current of affairs, so that
we may see through the veil of events to the forces that guide them. The great
world-drama is not written by the pen of chance, but by the thought of the
Logos, guiding His world along the road of evolution. In the course of that
evolution many beings are concerned. We have to look on this world as part of a
chain of worlds all closely interlinked, all the inhabitants of these different
worlds having something to say in those parts of the drama which are being
worked out in each. We are all living in three different worlds, and not only
in one; and whether in the physical world, or in the next world, the astral, or
in the third, the heaven world, the inhabitants are busy with the general
conduct of affairs which affect all three. Life becomes enormously more
interesting when we recognise that it is shaped not only in the physical world
but in other worlds as well, and that when we trace the destinies of nations we
find that those destinies stretch backward, and that the working out in the
present is largely conditioned by the energies of the past.
19.
Let
us look for a moment on the rough plan of the whole. Let me put it as though it
were a great drama written by a divine pen. The story of the world, and the
various parts of the actors on the stage, are all therein written. What is not
laid down is who the actors shall be, and with regard to this a large amount of
what is called choice comes in. This drama is the manifestation of certain
great ideas in the Divine Mind, ideas written, as it were, in the heavens; for
it is suggested in very ancient thought that what we call the signs of the
Zodiac have a definite connection with the course of human affairs. Of that, in
the broad outline, there is no doubt in the minds of any who have penetrated
somewhat behind the veil. The importance of those starry influences cannot be
over-estimated; for inasmuch as human beings are related in the composition of
their physical and other subtler bodies to the worlds among which they move in
space, there must be magnetic relations existing between them and the system of
which they form a part, and at certain epochs in the history of evolution there
will be one or another dominating influence present in the atmosphere in which
men think and act, and they can no more escape that influence than their bodies
can escape the influence of the far-off sun. The great drama, then, is the
grand plan of human evolution. It is full of parts which are to be played by
the nations, but not necessarily by this or that nation; for the nation
qualifies itself to play a certain part which may be offered to more than one
nation, and one or another may rise to the height of its great opportunity.
20.
Leaving
that for a moment, let us ask a question as to the forces which help to adapt
players to parts. Is there to be found, in what seems the great chaos of human
wills, any guiding force which brings the actor and the part together? You
cannot well have a drama vast as the world-process, as evolution, and then a
great gap between the Author of so vast a plan and individual players who make
up the nations and choose the parts.
21.
How
is the right player to be brought into touch with his part in the history of
the nation, in the history of individual successive births and deaths? That is
the next point to grasp.
22.
Now
the vast machinery for bringing together the parts and players is found in the
hierarchies of superhuman Intelligences recognised in all the religions of the
world, and in the occult teaching on which they are founded. Not one great
religion of the past or of the present does not see surrounding the world and
mingling in its affairs the vast hierarchies of spiritual Intelligences into
whose hands is put the work of bringing together the players and the parts. You
will see if you turn to the religions of the nations of the past, how they have
recognised these workings as playing a great part in the practical shaping of
the destinies of nations. Not one great people of antiquity that did not have its
own national "Gods".
The word "Gods", however, as used in the English tongue, is very
confusing, for it is applied not only to those great hosts of Intelligences,
but also to the Supreme, the Logos, the Author of the drama. Now in the nations
that have other religions than the Christian, this confusion does not arise. It
is when the Christian is contemplating those whom he calls the " heathen
" that the greatest confusion arises, for over the whole of their vast
theology he uses the one name "God". And yet he might easily escape
that by remembering that his own cosmogony is only a reproduction of the older
thoughts of these more ancient peoples. In the East there is one name which is
used for these Intelligences — the name "Devas", from the root
"div", to "shine" or to "play"; the "shining
ones", or the "playing ones", would be the English translation.
When Bunyan so often used the term "shining ones", he was using a
quite eastern phrase, for it is by that name that the East knows this great
hierarchy of Intelligence. Among the Christians and Musalmâns, whose religions
are drawn largely from the Jewish, the name "Angel" is used, the
terms "Angel", "Archangel", "Cherubim",
"Seraphim", and so on, being represented in the older faiths either
by the word "Deva" or by a word derived there from."God",
in the Christian sense, is known by other names, and no confusion arises.
23.
In
all the old religions these Devas played an enormous part, and each nation had
its own particular set of Devas. The Egyptians regarded certain superhuman
Intelligences as their earliest lawgivers,and the connection between the human
lawgiver, the Divine King, and the Deva is always clearly marked. Every
civilisation takes its rise in a little group, partly human, partly superhuman,
to which it looks back and from which it draws its laws. The Greek had his
Demigods or Heroes, and his Gods or Devas. So among the Chinese, the Persians,
the Indians, the same idea is found of the nation being founded by the group
which contained the human lawgiver and the Deva who worked with him in the
building of the nation. Celsus hints that the Beings " to whom was.
allotted the office of superintending the country which was being legislated
for, enacted the laws of each land in co-operation with its legislators. He
appears then to indicate that both the country of the Jews, and the nation
which inhabits it, are superintended by one or more beings, who co-operated
with Moses, and enacted the laws of the Jews" (Origen, Con. Cel.
V, xxv).
24.
Now
the Divine Kings, the Heroes, passed, but the Deva remains still at the head of
each nation, a real existence in the astral and heavenly worlds, with a crowd
of less developed intelligences under his guiding hand. And when you come to
the Jews, you find that idea very clearly laid down in their scriptures. I
pause for a moment upon it, because the sentence I am going to take from the
Old Testament, from Deuteronomy, gives exactly the idea which I want
to take in considering the working out of a nation's destinies: " When the
Most High divided the nations, when He dispersed the sons of Adam, He set the
bounds of the people according to the number of the angels of God; and the
Lord's portion was his people Jacob (Deut., xxxii, 8, 9, Septuagint). To many
modern readers the latter part of that sentence, "the Lord", may
sound surprising, for they are accustomed to connect that word with the Supreme
God; but we can see from the whole of the sentence that it is the name
"Most High" which indicates the Logos, the manifested God, and He '
divides all the nations of the world according to the number of the angels, and
to one great angel, "the Lord", He gives Jacob, Israel, as his
peculiar portion. Origen, in dealing with this, alludes to the "reasons
relating to the arrangement of terrestrial affairs," and points out that
in Grecian history " certain of those considered to be Gods are introduced
as having contended with each other about the possession of Attica; while in
the writings of the Greek poets also some who are called Gods are represented
as acknowledging that certain places here are preferred by them before
others" (Cau.Cel. V, xxix). And so he points out that after what lie
regards as the symbolical dispersion, .at the building of the Tower of Babel,
the different nations were given to these groups of celestial beings (Ibid.,
xxxiv). This idea of "the ministry of angels" is very general among
the early Christians; thus we have in Hermas the vision of the building of a
tower :
25.
"
And I answering said unto her, These things are very admirable; but, lady, who
are those six young men that build ?
26.
"They
are, said she, the angels of God, which were first appointed, and to whom the
Lord has delivered all his creatures, to frame and build them up, and to rule
over them. For by these the building of the tower shall be finished.
27.
"
And who are the rest who bring them stones
"They also are the holy angels of the Lord; but the other are more
excellent than these. Wherefore when the whole building of the tower shall be finished,
they shall all feast together beside the tower, and shall glorify God, because
the structure of the tower is finished" (1st Book of Hermas, Vision iii,
43 - 46).
28.
Clement
(1st Epistle, xiii, 7) quotes the text above referred to. Also the following
remark about Jesus, made by Satan to the Prince of Hell, is noteworthy :
"As for me, I tempted him, and stirred up my old people the Jews with zeal
and anger against him" (Gospel of Nicodemus, xv, 9). The Jews were under
Saturn, or Jehovah, according to Origen. The same idea, is taught among the
Musalmâns. They regard the angels as taking a very active part in the affairs
of men. And it is hardly necessary to remind you that in the great epic poems
of India, the Mahãbhãrata and the Ramãyãna, you find the Devas mingling with
the affairs of men, so that when great quarrels are to he decided they
manifestly take part in the strife, each struggling for the particular tribe or
nation placed in his hands for its evolution. A correspondent, Mr. Tudor Pole,
of Bristol, tells me that there is an old Teutonic legend that on New Year's
Eve all the "Inner Rulers", the Angels of the nations assemble before
the Council of the Gods to receive their orders for the coming year; each has
his request to make as to the destiny of his nation during the coming year; the
Council arranges the part that each nation shall play during the ensuing year,
and the great Lords are consulted. Finally, the Rulers disperse, some with
music and joy, some weeping, some in great agony.
29.
In
Greece there is much mingling of " Gods" and men, and the Greeks,
despite their philosophy, took the matter as real, not as fairy-tale, although
the philosophers in Greece, as among the Hindus and Buddhists, did not worship
these "Gods". In the 7th Book of the Odyssey we read how
"Minerva meets Ulysses, in the likeness of a young maiden bearing a
pitcher", and she guides him to the place of Alcinous, a place guarded, in
Atlantean fashion, by immortal gold and silver dogs, made by the mind of
Vulcan. And so again in many another tale, written when men's minds were less
blinded than they are today.
30.
Of
course, in modern times this idea has disappeared, and it must seem like a
fairy-tale to modern readers when one brings such thoughts into touch with what
may seem to them things, so much more real — the strifes of Kings, and the
politics of the modern world. And yet behind all these the coordinating forces
are still continually at work ; and when the time comes for a nation to play a
triumphant part in the current history of the world, then, many years before
the time of the triumph, there are guided into that nation by the Deva souls
which are fitted for its building up and guidance in the coming struggle. And
when the time comes for a nation to sink low in the current history of the
world, there are guided to incarnation there souls that are weak, undeveloped,
cruel, tyrannical, having fitted themselves to fill such actors' parts in the
great national drama. Let us keep, then, that theory in mind : the drama on the
one side, this great coordinating agency on the other, guiding the self-chosen
actors to their appointed parts.
31.
And
now let us look at some of the nations themselves, and see how far the
destinies that they are working out - fit in with this view of a guiding hand
behind the veil. Let us take for one instance the building up of a mighty
western empire, so that the great Fifth Race, with its evolution of the
concrete mind, might play its part in the drama for the benefit of humanity at
large. And let us see, if we can, whether certain definite currents may not be
traced which show a plan definitely worked out, and not the mere mingling of
the chaotic wills, ambitions, and selfishnesses of nations.
32.
Slowly
was prepared this part of a nation to stand high above the nations of the
world. The first nation to whom that part was offered was Spain, who had been
preparing for it by a very marked and extraordinary evolution. Into her was
poured the great flood of learning which linked itself with the dying
philosophy of Greece, and drew its rich stores from the Neo-platonic schools;
into Southern Spain came the great incursion from Arabia, rich with all the
knowledge brought from the mighty schools of Baghdad, which spread over
Southern Spain and thence over Europe. To her was sent Columbus, who made it
possible for her to spread her conquering troops across, the Atlantic and
subject the new world to her imperial sceptre. How did Spain meet that
wondrous, opportunity ? In the wake of Columbus came the army, subjecting Mexico
and Peru to her sway, and destroying their ancient civilisations, outworn and
ready for destruction. She had laid upon her shoulders the task of building up
in that new world a civilisation based on the solid foundation left there by
Atlantis, capable of supporting the structure of the new thought and knowledge.
All know how she missed her opportunity; how she drove out from her own country
the Moors and Jews, the inheritors of the knowledge, the philosophy, and the
science; and how, in the new world, with her greed of gold, she cared nothing
for the peoples placed in her hands, but trampled them into the dust. So her
part in the drama was taken away and offered to another people.
Another nation became a candidate — a nation which, with many faults, had also
many great virtues. England, spreading abroad her race, more and more subjected
to her sway land after land. She gained the offer of a world-empire by an act
of national righteousness—the liberation of the slaves from bondage,
accompanied by the great act of national justice which sacrificed no one class,
but placed the burden of the liberation on the whole nation. For that, those
who guided her destinies were offered the possibility of world dominion. All
the nations that tried to establish themselves in that great land of the East,
India, one after another failed, until the English race placed its feet
therein. The story of the placing is not good to read, and many crimes were
wrought; yet on the whole the nation tried to do its best and correct the
oppressions wrought in India — then so out of reach — as witness her action
towards her great proconsul, Warren Hastings, when for his evil deeds she
brought him to trial in the face of the world. So, despite many faults, she was
allowed to climb higher and higher in the eastern world, partly also because
she offered, with her growing colonies and language, the most effective
world-instrument for spreading the thought of the East over the civilisations
of the West. All know how far that has gone, how all over Northern America, in
far-off Australasia, as well as in her own land, eastern thought and philosophy
have everywhere penetrated, so that the treasures of Samskrt learning kept so
jealously until the time was ripe for their dispersion, are being spread over
the surface of the globe.
33.
Continually,
by lessons ever repeated, those Higher Ones, who guide the nation, are striving
to impress upon England the lesson that by righteousness alone can a nation be
exalted in the long run. And in a critical moment, when luxury was growing too
enervating, too selfish, the terrible lesson of South Africa branded on the
English conscience the lessons that duty and right must go before luxury.
Through the fires of disaster a lesson was taught to England which, may God grant,
she has learned for her future guidance.
34.
And
then there came the question of what nation should be chosen for the work of
lifting up those ideals of the East. India, at this stage of the world's
history, could not do the necessary service; she was learning her lessons under
a conqueror; but there was a nation in the Far East which had within it the
possibility of learning the lesson, and the Devas of the nation began to
concern themselves with the attempt to train up in that far-off island a people
who should be fit for the mighty task of uplifting eastern thought, of showing
that conquest might go on hand in hand with gentleness and self-control, and
that a nation might spring into a mighty power without losing its sense of
duty. The work began by a change in the education of the people; which might
make the nation conscious of itself, and then into the soil thus prepared a
group of heroic souls was born. The Mikado of Japan, a mighty soul, fit to
incarnate for that nation its own greatness, fit to use such power that in
brief space of years he might transform the nation, put it into new shape,
evolve in it unknown forces, and at the same time show out a personality so
wonderful that all that nation look to him as Ruler by Divine Right, from whose
sacred person flow the powers which in the nation are shown forth, every
triumph reflecting new glory on his personality. And round him gathers one
great one after another, for the labour of raising up the nation, until at
every point of importance you see a statesman, a general, an admiral, fit to
lead people from triumph to triumph. A group of strong souls is guided to
incarnate there, in order that the nation may fulfil its destiny; for no nation
can bo great unless at the centre there be an ideal, and a perfect loyalty and
self-devotion. It is no mere lip phrase, but voices a feeling deep in the heart
of the soldier and of the general, when they thank their Ruler for the victory
in the field, and with the eastern devotion say that he is the representative
of God amongst them.
35.
Glance
at the other nation in the great duel which is being fought in Eastern Asia,
and see how strangely Russia, a nation with a great future before her, is being
guided through the frightful valley of humiliation. The preparation for that
calamitous part in the drama lies in that which has gone before, even within
the limits of our own lives. There was a moment, some twenty five or thirty
years since, when a wondrous opportunity came in Russia's way. Although
ill-judged, there was a noble impulse underneath the freeing of the serfs, and
there was a possibility that that act might be turned to good purpose for the
nation, and raise it higher, instead of leading it well-nigh to destruction as
it has done. And then there came, out of many souls born just then among the
nobles of Russia, one of the most wonderful things the world has seen — a
flinging of themselves out of their own rank down amongst the poor, the
ignorant and the downtrodden, a giving of themselves by the lads and the girls of
the nobility to the lifting up of the people, not by a far-off charity, but by
a wondrous impulse of uttermost self-sacrifice. And how was that met? The
divine compassion of those youths and girls was met by the fortress of Peter
and Paul, by the mines, and deserts, and snows of Siberia. Nothing more
terrible has been wrought by a government of any people within modern times.
And terrible the Nemesis. Driven by despair, their attempts to uplift in all
gentleness met with the knout and the underground dungeon, with starvation for
the men, with dishonour for the women, what wonder some of them went mad ? What
wonder that some of them at last, after years of patience, after cruellest
sufferings, answered with the bomb to the knout ? This state of affairs was created
in the first place by the bureaucracy, and not by the victims. Thousands upon
thousands of those who would have redeemed Russia died on the scaffolds, were
slaughtered in those frightful mines, until at last the patience of the Gods
grew exhausted, and the time came for the government to learn that governments
exist for the helping and not for the crushing of their peoples.
36.
So
Russia chose by her past that terrible role which now she is playing on the
stage of the world. Against her are all the forces that make for progress;
against her from the astral world the myriads that she sent there before their
time — all her martyrs, all her victims, are struggling against her. Hence the
record of unexampled defeat. And at home, revolution, anarchy, assassination
and mutiny are threatening her government fabric from every side, until for
Russia at the moment, there is only that valley of the Shadow of Death to be
trodden from end to end; and with pain at heart, but with steady hands, her
angelic guardians guide her through the defeat and the disaster, willing that
their charge should learn her lessons whatever the price she pays. For in those
clear eyes the nation's agony for the moment matters little, beside the lessons
that through that agony are learned; and until the tyranny itself is crushed,
and the rulers of Russia learn their duties to the people, she must still tread
the winepress of the divine wrath.
37.
And
see how Russia has been prepared for it. Among all her rulers not one strong
man; weakness and uncertainty everywhere, changed policy at every moment. Mark
the government of him who should be the father, but is the tyrant, of his
people — perhaps not a bad man in himself, but utterly unfit for his post. It
is part of the destiny of a nation that, when the hour of its doom strikes,
nothing but weakness is born into its governing classes, so that those who
would not rule aright may lose the power to rule. And on those terrible
battle-fields of which we have read records in the daily press, is there anything
more pathetic than the dauntless courage of the soldiers, and the hopeless
incompetence of the officers ? It is not that the soldiers do not fight, but
that they are led by men who know not how to lead.
38.
It is
thus that nations are guided from above, and into the nation that has to go
downwards those are guided who inevitably drag it downwards. The same was the
case in Spain — a Child King, and not one able man among the Ministers who
could guide it right in the struggle with Cuba and America.
39.
And
how are these leaders chosen ? They are chosen by their own lives in the past.
A man is found unselfish, brave, and noble, and such a one, in the countless
choices of his daily life, is making the choice for the splendid part that
hereafter in humanity he shall play. And so with those who are great outside,
but have to play a sordid part. By countless selfishnesses and preferring of
themselves, by taking ever the lower path instead of the higher, those men
choose also their parts in history.
40.
Thus
it is that the Occultist looks on human history, and sees preparing around him
on every side the men and women who are to be the players of the future in the
more prominent parts of the world-drama. For none forces upon us any part, nor
imposes upon us special place in the world-drama. We choose for ourselves. We
build up ourselves for glory or for shame, and as we build so hereafter shall
we inevitably be. Hence it follows that for a nation to be great its citizens
must slowly build up greatness in themselves. Hence it is that the greatness
that you see now in Japan is a greatness that you can recognise among her
ordinary men and women, who are willing to sacrifice all that is dearest for
the sake of their country and the glory of their Chief.
41.
And
so with England, if she would fill the mighty part which is before her in the
near future. She must build up her sons and daughters on heroic models, by
placing righteousness above luxury, thought above enjoyment; by choosing the
strenuous, the heroic, the self-sacrificing in daily life, and not petty
enjoyments, small luxuries, and miserable sensual gratifications, out of rotten
bricks no great building can be built, and out of poor material no mighty
nation may be shaped. The destinies of nations lie in the homes of which the
nations are composed, and noble men, women, and children have in them the
promise of the future national greatness. And as we make our conditions better,
higher and more evolved souls shall be born amongst us. While we have slums and
miserable places we are making habitations for little-evolved souls, whom we
draw into the nation. Under the ground the root grows, out of which the flower
and the fruit will come, and poor the gardening science which places a rotten
root in the ground and expects from it a perfect flower and a splendid fruit.
If we would have England great among the nations, and make her destiny an
imperial destiny as the servant of humanity at large, we must cultivate the
soil of character, plant the sound roots of noble, righteous, simple living,
and then the destiny is inevitable, and the nation will be cast for an imperial
part in the drama of the world.
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