Selfishness and competition are the keynotes in this "Age of Progress," for nations as for individuals. The "struggle for life" and the desire for national and personal "security" are the prolific parents of most human woes and crimes. They are rooted in almost complete ignorance of man's nature and his relation to the Universe.

Intolerance of other views than our own is pre-eminently the fruit of ignorance and jealousy. It and the world's other moral ills require for their cure a sound philosophy based on: Universal Unity and Causation; Human Solidarity; the Law of Karma; and Reincarnation. How do these offer the key to a just and happy world?

Universal Unity and Causation point to the One All, the universal ceaseless Motion which is the basis of all manifested things. A stream can rise no higher than its source, and in presenting this infinite Divine Presence as the root of all, Theosophy affords infinity of opportunity for growth. Witness the heights achieved by Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Tsong-kha-pa and other Great Souls.

The solidarity of humanity rests upon that Universal Unity in essence (the spirit aspect and the source of all degrees of consciousness) and in substance (the material basis from which come all types of forms in which dwells consciousness of varying degrees). Universal Causation means, among other things, that no one can sin or suffer the effects of sin, alone. The action, good or bad, of one reacts upon all and upon himself.

Intellectual realization of human brotherhood depends upon the understanding and the assimilation practically, in daily living, of the doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation, not as they are so often misunderstood in the modern East, but in their broader sweep and explanation as set forth in ancient wisdom, restated as Theosophy.

Karma is not fatalism, but, like its corollary, Reincarnation, is a teaching full of hope. For, if the present is the outcome of the past, then now, today, it is in the power of individuals and mankind as a whole to counteract old evil causes by right present acts. The future will then be mitigated to the extent that it will be the combined product of the present and the past.

Equilibrium or harmony in the material world is justice in the moral one. Lincoln enunciated a Theosophical truth when he declared, "Nothing is ever settled that is not settled right." Or, as we find in the ancient Indian Code, the Manava Dharma Shastra:

Justice, being preserved, will preserve; being destroyed, will destroy. Take heed lest justice, being overthrown, overthrow thee and us all.

Can any fail to see a connection between the decades of international competition, prejudice, hatred and the strifes and struggles prevalent today? Or, in India, between the creation of untouchability and India's manifold problems? Will the lesson be learned or will the teeming millions of sufferers be the unconscious invokers of a new and more terrible Nemesis on a complacent and almost utterly selfish humanity?

The basic teachings of Theosophy offer a worthy purpose for life, in place of the present widespread frustration. They give the masses what is needed to do justly, to love mercifully and to walk humbly with their Inner God, the Ray of the Immortal presence whose voice speaks in their intuition and in their conscience. The leaders of the people will need more, and in the science and the metaphysics of the practical restatement of Ancient Wisdom as set forth in The Secret Doctrine, the greatest minds can find their fullest scope.

Theosophy puts forward the true Socialism, which does not seek the welfare of any group, not even the largest, but, recognizing the true fraternity of all—older brothers and younger—seeks to promote the Commonwealth. The higher socialism involves not a pulling down to a common level, but a levelling up of all to a higher average status. All cannot be made equal, physically, mentally or morally. But equal opportunities can and should be afforded for each to take the next step in advance for him.

This requires a far-reaching transformation in political and social as well as economic conditions. This will result from application (not mere talk) of the principles involved. It will result in a lessening of the cries for individual "rights" and the voluntary assumption of responsibilities, with little or no thought of personal honours or rewards. The dignity of labour, the risks and responsibilities of capitalists, the stability of family life, the necessary educational and penal reforms, etc., will all receive due recognition and attention if—if our writers, our legislators, our philanthropists, will take a universal viewpoint; a viewpoint based on rigid justice to all beings, themselves included.

EXERTION IS GREATER THAN DESTINY!

It is because the artist loses himself in the reality of that which he describes or depicts or reveals, because of his individual self-effacement, that his work is a spontaneous expression of himself. That is one meaning of the penetrating saying of Jesus: "He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life shall save it." Personal spontaneity is always objective, always in terms of the independent reality of an object which absorbs us. There is no other self-expression possible. If we block the avenues of the outpouring of self, if we withdraw from the reality of the world, if we allow our actions to be subjectively determined by mere instincts and habits, following our inclinations, we do not express ourselves, we frustrate our own self-expression, surrender our freedom and suffocate all creative spontaneity. The artist does not act by impulse, still less by the compulsion of rules, but by the nature of the reality which he apprehends. By doing this he becomes free and his action becomes a self-expression. In no other way can self-expression be achieved. In particular it cannot be achieved by will or purpose. The man of iron will is always the man who cannot be spontaneous, who cannot act in terms of reality, who cannot be free.

—John Macmurray