Past and future are here and now

Book excerpt: Our century is a boastful age, as proud as it is hypocritical; as cruel as it is dissembling. Happy the optimist in whose heart the nightingale of hope can still sing, with all the iniquity and cold selfishness of the present age before his eyes! There are more hypocrites in a square yard of our “civilized soil” than antiquity has bred of them on all its idolatrous lands. It takes a brave man to speak the truth fearlessly, and even that at personal risk and cost. For the law forbids one speaking the truth, except under compulsion, in its courts and under threat of perjury. Instead of truth and sincerity, we have cold politeness and falsification on every plane; falsification of moral food, and the same falsification of eatable food. Be religious or irreligious as much as you like but do not be offensive, and dare not outrage and pain other people. In law, that which is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander. Thou shalt not revile the gods. Blasphemy with the modern criminal sense attached to it, existed with the Greeks, the Romans, and with the older Egyptians, ages before our era. Reverence is now replaced by emotionalism and holy mediocrities. The emanations of modern civilization kill all goodness and truth. When the “inferior races” have all been wiped out by the “civilized man,” what shall replace them in the cycle that is to mirror our own? True charity opens her purse strings with an invisible hand and, finishing its act, exists no more; it shuns fame and is never ostentatious. Pride is the first enemy to itself: unwilling to hear anyone praised in its presence, it falls foul of every rival and does not always come out victorious. The most beautiful serpents are the most venomous. As the external excellence of a thing does not reflect the moral beauty of its workman, so some of the most eminent poets and philosophers were historically immoral. We will not be moved by either hysterical emotion or a holy fear of the masses and propriety. Whether the new cycle will bring new horrors or herald days of pure sunlight and happiness for all, will depend on those who fight the battle of Truth against the powers of Darkness. Theosophy is brotherly love, mutual help, altruism in action, and unswerving devotion to Truth. Once men realize that in these alone can true happiness be found, and never in wealth, possessions, or any selfish gratification, then the dark clouds will roll away, and a new humanity will be born upon earth. Then, the Golden Age will be there.