How prophetic the writer of the Vishnu Purana was when foretelling to Maitreya some of the dark influences of this Kali Yuga is borne out by the following words:

Wealth and piety will decrease until the world will be wholly depraved. Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification....External types will be the only distinction of the several orders of life;....a man if rich will be reputed pure; dishonesty (anyaya) will be the universal means of subsistence, weakness the cause of dependence, menace and presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be devotion; mutual assent, marriage; fine clothes, dignity. He who is the strongest will reign; the people, unable to bear the heavy burden, Kara bhara (the load of taxes), will take refuge among the valleys....Thus, in the Kali age will decay constantly proceed, until the human race approaches its annihilation (pralaya).

(Quoted in The Secret Doctrine, I, 377-78)

An almost unanimous belief is prevalent among men of science and the general public that man's evolution has proceeded from animal savagery to the present "enlightened" era; that the civilized man of today has attained to such a high degree of mental and moral culture that absolutely nothing like it was ever known before. It would be an interesting and profitable study to try to ascertain just what the learned men and women of the present understand by such words as "progress," "civilization," "culture," "education" and "morality." Do "progress" and "civilization" convey only the idea of an intensive growth of material luxuries, a great variety of amusements, a great army and navy and air force, more powerful and deadly instruments of destructions? Does "culture" mean only a veneer of courtesy and social polish? Does "education" mean a cramming of great numbers of unrelated, and therefore undigested, facts; a quickening of the lower mental faculties whereby greater sensuous and sensual enjoyment of life may be had? Does "morality" mean only an outer appearance of virtue and upright conduct?

There are growing and alarming problems which countries with a high standard of living are facing: the growth of physical ailments, of neurotic diseases and insanity, alcoholism and drug addiction, juvenile delinquency and crime, immorality and permissiveness, broken homes and overall distress and unhappiness. Through a strange, ostrich like blindness, the upholders of the wonders of this era do not see the ever-deepening shadow inseparable from all our vaunted progress. Their blindness is caused by the denial of man's inherent divinity. In the light of this divinity, it is seen that the conquest of physical nature which we pride ourselves about has been at the expense of the spiritual side of life; that religious, political and personal freedom has brought no real liberation, but has only intensified man's enslavement to institutions, creeds, parties and customs; and that modern gadgets and labour-saving machines have given man anything but the leisure to cultivate the things of the Spirit. Almost endless would be the task of enumerating the achievements of modern science and technology, and of delineating the uses, on the material plane, to which these achievements can be turned. Are any or all of these things progress? Not necessarily. Not one of the inventions of science possesses the slightest degree of value, of itself. For the real value of anything must be in the extent to which it furthers, either directly or indirectly, the progressive awakenings of Soul; all that exists, exists for the sake of the Soul's experience and emancipation.

What a perfect description does the sixteenth chapter of the Gita give of the theory of life current among most so-called civilized and educated people! They deny that there is any law or rhythm in the universe; they negate all spiritual values, and are so deluded as to think that we are material beings and that all is for enjoyment and sensuous gratification alone. The animal nature in us lives on sensuous gratification, and the more we indulge in it the more we get under the influence of the animal and the demoniac. Is not this strengthening of the animal in us the very reverse of progress? All the rapid "advance" our civilization has made does not constitute one single inch of true progress, whether we consider man's progress individually or humanity's collectively, if our measuring rod remains our understanding of our divine origin, our sacred mission and our final destiny.

Civilization has ever developed the physical and the intellectual at the cost of the moral and the spiritual, and our present civilization is not peculiar in this respect. The very forces which brought about in the past the downfall of other civilizations, mightier than ours, are now corrupting our own. Increasing pari passu with the growth of our material civilization are selfishness, crime, immorality and all the evils imaginable. Ambition and selfish greed, which propel men and women to an incessant chase after wealth and the obtaining at any price of the supposed blessings of this life, cause our civilization to gravitate to the level of empty appearance.

Civilization has depended for ages, says Burke, "upon two principles...the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion." Religion has become no better than canting hypocrisy and the genuine religious spirit is regarded nowadays as insanity. And as for true gentlemen, how many have we left? In the words of Emerson: "The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops, but the kind of man that the country turns out." The best of thinkers are beginning to realize that raising the standard of living of the people does not make them any nobler or wiser.

Does our civilization turn out animal-men, or men and women who walk the Way of the Cultured Mind? What is the Cultured Mind? Like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, etc., culture and barbarism are relative terms. That which to one brought up in the Oriental tradition would appear the height of culture may be regarded by an Occidental as a shocking lack of etiquette. The word "culture," however, assumes a different meaning when we apply it to the inner man and not merely to outer appearances, objects and things. Real culture is a unifying force. Cultured individuals, irrespective of their race or their religion, embody the light of peace, good-will and knowledge. Cosmopolitans and internationalists, they take the whole universe for their province, regard the whole world as a city, consider humanity as a family. Mere formal education informs and instructs, but does not imbue one with the Spirit of Culture which tranquillizes the senses, brings peace to the mind and enlightenment to the heart. Real culture is spiritual. It removes the darkness of selfishness, softens the hardness of conceit, has a mellowing influence upon sharp and cutting natures, engenders altruism and prompts one to look after the interests of others.

Real culture and true progress are impossible without the development of the nobler qualities, without moral elevation and the deepening of spiritual perception. Signs of moral deterioration are becoming more and more evident, and modern education is responsible for it to no small extent. The situation calls for an honest investigation of the crisis we are facing, a crisis which is essentially a moral and spiritual one. Recognizing that all good and evil things in humanity have their roots in human character, we have to consider our situation in that light.

The fact that our civilization has made a mess of things is no reason for despairing; for, if we have placed ourselves in an abnormal condition, then within ourselves is the necessary strength to get out of it. The enemy of progress is not outside of ourselves; it is within us. That enemy of progress is selfishness and pride and their brood which make us think of ourselves as separate one from the other.

Unless we as individuals begin to purify ourselves we shall not be contributing to the progress of humanity en masse. There can never be world improvement without individual improvement; there is no world problem—there is only the individual problem. Discord and wars in the world outside are but the outcome of the archetypal conflict—the conflict between the self of matter and the Self of Spirit within every single human being.

As time rolls on there is a growing latent fear everywhere as to what the future might hold in store for us. It is not unlikely that our civilization may be destroyed by the very forces which it has had the knowledge to create but not the wisdom to control. Civilizations more mighty and glorious than ours have come to dust through loss of the vision of truth and moral failure, and there is no reason why ours should be an exception. But that does not mean the stoppage of the progress of mankind; human souls must go on and on in their divine pilgrimage. The ascending arc of the spiral of human evolution may bring us to a better time.

Ignorance is destroyed only by Knowledge. Ignorance is composed of false conceptions, and actions on the basis of false conceptions can only lead to more ignorance and its results in sin, sorrow and suffering. The Theosophical Philosophy, as given by Those who brought it, must be learned, studied and applied in all our relations with our fellowmen; this must be done by each of us, no one can do it for us. This implies that our predilections and prejudices acquired from an adoption of the ordinary views of life must be given up, and the basis of thought and action that the Philosophy indicates must take their place. The Devotional books, such as the Gita and the Voice, should be constantly read and meditated upon, for they tend to arouse spiritual perceptions. With the means supplied, and an effort to act for and as the Self of all, channels will be opened up within ourselves that will lead to Inner knowledge. As the Master said, "All Nature is before you; take what you can."

—Robert Crosbie