PDF version - Geae

The teachers of humanity have, then, an immediate duty to fill: it is to put scientific spiritual research
at the base of education, and thus to remake the interior man and his moral health. The soul of man, sleeping
under a funereal rhetoric, must be awakened, and its hidden powers developed into full consciousness until
they recognize their glorious destiny. Modern science analyses the exterior world; its discoveries in the
objective universe are profound, and this is to its honor and glory.
But it knows nothing of the universe invisible, and the world interior. It is a limitless empire, which
remains to be conquered. To learn by what ties man is attached to the Whole; to descend into the mysteries of
Being, where light and shadow are mixed as in Plato’s cavern; to search the labyrinths and bring forth their
secrets; to separate the ME normal from the ME divine, the conscious from the subconscious, there is no study
more important.
Because the schools and the academies have not introduced this form of education into their programs,
they have in reality done nothing definite for the education of humanity. But already there is surging a new and
marvelous psychology, from which is being evolved a new conception of Being, and knowledge of One Law
supreme, which explains all the problems of evolution and of the future. An era is finishing, a new era is
dawning. We are like infants, crying in the night; the human spirit is in travail. Everywhere we see the
apparent decomposition of old ideas and principles, in science, in art, in philosophy, and in religion.
But the attentive observer realizes that out of all this decay a new harvest will grow; science is
scattering seeds rich, which promise. The coming century will be one of wonderful flowering. The forms and
conceptions of the past do not suffice us. However respectable is the heritage, and in spite of the pious
sentiment with which we consider the teachings of our parents, there is a growing consciousness that this
teaching does not suffice to dissipate the agonizing mystery of the ‘why’ of life.
The state of the human mind today clamors for a science, an art, and a religion of light and of liberty
to guide it toward the radiant horizon where it feels it is drawn by its own nature and by irresistible forces. We
speak often of progress, but what progress? It is but a sonorous and empty word upon the lips of orators, more
frequently materialists than otherwise, or has it a determined sense? Twenty civilizations have passed over the
earth, lighting the path of humanity. Their flames shone in the nights of the centuries, and then became
extinguished. And still man does not discern behind the limited horizons of his thoughts the Beyond without
limit, which is the goal of his destiny. Powerless to dissipate the mystery, which surrounds him, he uses his
forces in material labors, and neglects the splendors of the spiritual task, which would bring him true grandeur.
The faith of progress must mean a faith in the future of all the races. Not until we possess that faith, and march
with confidence toward that ideal, can true progress come.
Progress does not mean the creation of material things - of machines, and industrial growth. Nor does
it consist in finding new methods in art, literature, and eloquence. The high objective of progress is to seize
and attain the mother idea, which impregnates all human life, the pure source from which flows at once the
truths, the principles, the sentiments, which inspire great works and noble actions. It is time we comprehended
this fact; civilization cannot grow, society cannot better itself, save through the acquiring of thoughts that are
more and more elevated, and the increase of light touching and renovating human hearts. The power to realize
the fullness of being can alone lead the soul toward the mountain summits where every human endeavor will
find its regeneration. Everything says to us - ‘The universe is regulated by the law of evolution; it is there we
find the word progress.’ In ourselves and our principles of life, we are always subject to this law. But only by
our own efforts do we learn that this same sovereign law carries the soul and its works across infinite time and
space, toward a goal still more elevated. To make our work useful, to cooperate with evolution in general, and
to reap its fruits, we must first lean to discern, to seize the reason, the cause, and the aim of this evolution, to
know where it leads, in order to participate in the plenitude of the forces and faculties which sleep in us on this
glorious path of ascension. Let us press on, then, toward the future, through the life always being renewed, and
through paths of immensity, which open to us a regenerated spirituality.
Faiths of the past, sciences, philosophies, religions, illuminate yourselves with a new flame! Shake off
your shrouds and the ashes, which cover you. Listen to the revealing voices of the tomb; they will bring you a
renewal of thought, with secrets of the Beyond, which man has need to know, that he live better, better act, and
better die.
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