I dont blame young people for taking the wrong road; I simply say that they are imbibing ideas and examples which are far from magnificient. We should not try to destroy all the old traditions; there's a great deal of good in traditions which are the outcome of thousands of years of experience. Men have spent their lives searching and suffering and groping their way and, thanks to their efforts, have discovered a certain number of rules on which they have built their culture and civilisation. Some of these forms need to be changed; that is true. But that does not mean that everything must be thrown overboard, especially when no one has any idea how to replace what exists with something better. Do I go around destroying traditions? Certainly not! I am in favour of tradition on condition that it be adapted to our own times. But young poeple, who have no proper perception of present-day reallity nor of what it should be, simply follow their impulses and rush into action blindly, changing this and destroying that without a thought for the consequences.

Let's take it, then, that young people want a revolution. They want to upset the existing order. but have they ever asked themselves whether there are not certain immutable laws which no creature has the right to transgress? Life has its laws, laws that are studied by chemists, physicists, biologists, etc. and, whether we like it or not, we cannot go against those laws without being destroyed by them. Believe me, there are such things as immutable principles and anyone who tries to deny them is condemning himself to darkness and death. Of course, I know that young people justify themselves by saying that they are dissatisfied with what adults offer them. This I understand, for I am equally dissatisfied! But I still cannot side with them, for the freedom they are demanding, the freedom to do whatever they please, isnot at all ideal or divine.

Freedom! Liberty! Well, however much you repeat the slogan, 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!' there is really no liberty and no equality; of the three, only fraternity exists. I assure you: there is no such thing as liberty, freedom. How can you talk of man being free when he is a slave to his own appetites and pleasures, his family, his physical circumstances and the constraints of time? God alone is free and man will be free only when he identifies with God, when he becomes one with God. Outside of God there is no such thing as liberty. Licence? Yes, there's plenty of that and, for many, this is what the notion of liberty has become: a total lack of respect for everyone and everything. But the danger of this is that others can do the same; you will not be the only one who thinks he has the right to be unjust and violent; others will retaliate in kind. But nobody bargains for that. You are in love with violence? Well, I can understand that. I may have a tendency i that direction myself – wouldn't I just love to set the whole world on fire! – but that is not sufficient reason for doing so.

Human beings think they have the right to be violent, and then they are pained and surprised when others react in the same way. You must realize that every act or gesture on your part triggers a similar act on the part of others. Be generous with someone and they will be generous with you. Something i them will whisper, 'Ah, I'll just show how kind, noble and generous I can be, too!' and then i becomes a battle of smiles and gifts; a Battle of Love. This is what is so wonderful, and it is something that people have never really understood: the law of echo, of rebound. They say, 'Just let me get my hands on that fellow: I'll break his jaw!' And I say, 'Go ahead! Hit him...you'll see where that gets you!' But they are astonished when they get some of their own medicine in return. Young people think that they are justified in doing what they please to others but they object when others do the same to them. But you must never forget that this law exists and that it makes others reflect your own behavior. They cannot do otherwise: if you start something they are obliged to retaliate.

If you think that everyone is going to let you ride roughshod over them without hitting back, you are very much mistaken. Sooner or later the law will strike back. If you have no respect for anyone, no one will have any respect for you. You need not expect to receive respect if you never give it. If you want others to respect you, you have to begin by respecting them. If there is one law I have proved to my satisfaction, it is this one. All my life I have shown respect for others and now I can see the law at work: others respect me. Sometimes, in fact, I wonder why. It is because, having spent my whole life respecting others, I have triggered a movement which is now bouncing back to me.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

It is perfectly true that we are living in a society in which a great many things need to be changed, but this must not be achieved by violence. In any case, violence never brings about true change; it only makes things worse. How, then, can we transform society? By our own way of life. If we begin by changing ourselves we shall end by changing the whole world. This is why, in the Brotherhood, we are working to become a tangible example of a better kind of society. We are endeavouring to become a solid core of highly conscious, resolute men and women who will prove that mankind is capable of becoming one family, one brotherhood. Our first task, therefore, is to transform ourselves into living examples and even, one could say, to impose this example on others, not by physical force, of course, but by the nobility, magnanimity, light an spiritual beauty emanating from us. The need to feel their own strength and power drives too many young people reckless actions. They don't realize that true strength is inner strength, the ability to control an master themselves, to show themselves to be noble, great-hearted, perfect. Initiates, too, want to become strong and powerful but they know what true greatness and true power are, whereas so many young people, by ginving way to their instincts and seeking power through violence and destruction, merely wearken themselves and become the slaves of their own base instincts and vices.

I am completely impartial: I love all these young people and I love their elders, but believe that both are at fault: the adults because they have not known how to educate the young and, especially, how to give them a good example, and the young, because they think they can settle all their problems through revolution and violence and by destroying everything that adults have done.

I readily admit that there are a few real revolutionaries such as Lenin, Mao Tse-tung and Fidel Castro. But people like that didn't destroy everything. Besides, can you say that things are really better since their revolutions? No; nothing is really different except, perhabs, that the man at the top has disappeared and someone else has taken his place. The rhetoric has changed a little, the slogans are not the same, the songs are new, but the vice and crime, the fear and corruption are still the same.

Anarchists are incapable of doing anything constructive. some revolutionaries can be constructive, perhabs, if they are very intelligent and generous and work to improve the situation rather than making it even more intolerable. History shows that tyrants come and go: they may rise to power and liquidate their enemies, but they cannot stay on top for long. For this, too, is a law of life: a tyrant, by his very tyranny, attracts others of the same kind who end by destroying him. You know the saying: 'They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind'.

The young have chosen anarchy? Very well; let them have it, but the laws are merciless: anarchy will take control of their beings and, later on in life, they will be subjected to identical reactions from their own children or the people around them. Then they will start moaning about injustice and declaring that they have done nothing to deserve such dreadful children. Not deserve them, indeed! Have they forgotten how they behaved when they were young? Let them remember that and then they will begin to understand. But it will be too late. The damage will have been done. The boomerang effect exists in the psychic as well as in the physical world, but it is only when the consequences of their acts rebound and hit them on the head that people begin to reflect.

If I had to give you a really exceptional example I would not choose any of the great Initiates of the past, but someone you all know: Socrates. After he had been condemned to death, some of his disciples tried to persuade him to let them organize his escape but he refused to leave his prison, saying that a good citizen should obey the laws of his city. One cannot help but refer constantly to the example of this great man who, although he never wrote anything, ahs continued to influence men's minds for the last twenty-four centuries. Of course, this is largely thanks to Plato, who was his disciple, and Plato and his own disciple, Aristotle, are still the twin peaks of philosophy; no philosopher since has ever surpassed them. But what an extraordinary man Socrates was! He had the face of a satyr and, in fact, he confessed that this was because he had, once, been very vicious, but that he had succeeded in conquering his vices; it was a thing of the past. So his merit was all the greater.

Im sure you all know the story of Socrates' life: how he married Xanthippe and how he strolled through the streets and public places of Athens, teaching his fellow citizens simply by talking to them and asking them awkward questions. Although he was very popular with the people, hsi integrity and outspokenness gained him some powerful enemies and, in a plot to get rid of him, they arrested him on trumpedup charges of corrupting the youth of Athens and he was condemned to drink the cup of hemlock. Socrates could certainly have escaped death if he had wanted to, but he refused and it was precisely because he was conscious of his innocence that he was able to accept his sentence so fearlessly. What calmness and courage he demonstrated in his last moments! You have probably read the account of his farewell to the gaoler who told him that the time had come for him to drink the poison, of how he asked the man who brought him the cup exactly what he should do and how he followed his instructions to the letter. Then there was that encounter with his disciples shortly before he died... After all these centuries, the death of Socrates still lives as something unique in the memory of men.

You may say, 'Surely, he must have had special guidance?' Yes, of course. All the sages are guided. How could the Invisible World abandon a sage who possesses truth and respects the laws of God? Socrates was constantly accompanied by an entity which he called his daemon (the meaning of this in Greek has nothing to do with the Christian notion of the Devil or of Hell). Socrates' daemon was a very exalted spirit who guided and counselled him. All sages have one – sometimes several – of these guides.

If young people would only accept to learn, they would discover within themselves all the same truths and laws that the sages have discovered over the ages by observing what went on in nature and comparing it with what they saw happening in themselves. All sages come to the conclusion that life is based on laws of harmony, disinterestedness and love and that, if one fails to respect these laws, everything falls apart. This is how moral laws were discovered. And what I find especially inspiring in Socrates is that he understood that what matters most is the way you live. In this he was very different from other philosophers and sophists of his day who claimed to know all that physics and metaphysics had to teach and be able to discourse about everything. Socrates concentrated on the study of man; he adopted as his personal motto the famous inscripition from the temple of Delphi, 'Know thyself'. All true Masters have the same philosophy. What is good and true for one is good and true for them all; they all teach the same ethic, the same philosophical system. Depending on time and place, there will be some minor differences, but the fundamental principles are always identical.

Initates refuse to have anything to do with anarchy because they know only too well that they would be the first to be affected by the ensuing illness, disorder and destruction; that anarchy would destroy them. As soon as you open your heart to the seeds of dissolution, invisible currents and forces begin to ravage your whole being. It won't happen all at once, of course; but, little by little, you will disintegrate. Even physical health depends on obedience to this universal order – call it what you will: synarchy, hierarchy or divine monarchy – and, once a man begins to establish that order within himself, every part of him finds its balance and he dwells in peace, harmony and beauty. He is illuminated and strengthened; he receives new life and begins to vibrate in unison with the whole cosmos, with the Heavenly regions above.

He becomes a gushing spring, an ever-flowing source of light; radiance streams from him. This is the higher man, the ideal man that we are all meant o be, instead of being a door flung wide to every destructive current that swirls round us in the form of anarchistic philosophies and ideologies. All those, be they individuals, families, social groups or whole countries... all who open themselves to these currents destroy themselves. The law is absolute and it is essential to give it an important place in one's life.

Blessed are they who understand this! They have the power to trigger unlimited forces within their own being and then to see how these eternal forces work within them to liberate and transform them. And those harum-scarum bunches of young rebels with their black flags must realize that they will not succeed in destroying society. Society needs to be improved and it will be, but only by good example, word and selflessness. Sooner or later, in the presence of these qualities, things are bound to change. The attempt to change things in any other way can only justify those who say, ' The more things change, the more the filth is the same!' Without light there will never be any real change. There is no need to invent new systems, revolutionary or otherwise. Nothing needs to be invented, all the solutions we need have already been invented by Nature. All we have to do is rediscover them.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Communism vs. Capitalism

No political system has ever proved to be wholly effective. Neither a monarchy nor an oligarchy, a democracy nor a republic has ever found definitive solution. And this is simply because the system of government is not everything. If individuals are not conscious of their duty as citizens, if they don't understand that they must live in harmony with each other, a country will always be in chaos whatever the political regime. There will always be excesses, disorders and tribulations.

Symbolically, democracy represents government by the stomach. Can the desires, appetites and instincts of the masses be relied on to have an accurate appreciation of what is good and what is bad? No. They have been given the freedom to make known their demands but have they ever been known to use that freedom to demand for the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness? No. Have they ever demanded light or love? No. again. The only thing the stomach and belly demand is more to eat and the freedom to vandalize everything and make everything dirty. The masses haven't got an exalted ideal because an exalted ideal requires a head and there is no head. Also, of course, the head must be enlightened, luminous and disinterested for, if the individual at the top has exactly the same instincts as the clamouring masses below, he will be worthless.

Initiates work for the kingdom of god and His Righteousness and the kingdom of god is a monarchy. This means that all the countries of the world should be organized on the pattern of the universe whose king is God. Now, I am not saying that, in our day, a monarchy would be preferable to a republic; no, I am speaking on the level of principles. I have no objection to government by the populace as long as the populace is enlightened. If it is not enlightened it should not govern. Similarly, if the head is unenlightened, ignorant and cruel, it should not govern, either. As a matter of fact, it is ofgen the head, not the stomach, that does the most damage. You must understand, therefore, that am speaking symbolically and that, in the realm of symbols, everything is perfectly clear and mathematically exact. If you try to understand the world of symbols – which is the world of principles – you will never go wrong. but human beings get everything mixed up; this is why the world is still the Tower of Babel and people cannot understand each other.

I want to talk to you about the distribution of wealth, and I know that it is a question that troubles most human beings. It should help you to understand the rightful order of things if we look at the human body. Why the human body? Because Cosmic Intelligence has conceived creation in such a way as to leave clues and pointers throughout nature so that men might find these clues and, by reflecting and meditating on them, be capable of reconstructing all that this sublime Intelligence thought and desired and planned. In this way, when we study plants, crystals, the stars, rivers and mountains, the sun and the planets and, above all, man an the pattern on which he is built, we can discover the intentions of Cosmic Intelligence and the splendour and subtlety of Its design.

One of the things we seen when we study a human being is that every part of him demands something: the stomach demands food; the ears demand sound; the eyes demand light, colours, the sun; the mouth and nose, yes, and the sexual organs, too, they all clamour for something. Our whole body, therefore, is constantly asking for something and this is perfectly natural, marvellous. The only thing is that there has to be a head to guide, control and organize all this, otherwise the results would be catastrophic, for a man would eat and drink too much or too little, he would neither hear nor see the dangers that threaten him. It is right and normal for the body to make its demands, therefore, but the head must judge which demands must be satisfied and which should be denied and exactly when, where and now how much to give. There is never any shortage of demands; they are always there, but what about the head? Where is the head that is supposed to distribute to each member what it needs in accordance with divine rules and in divine proportions?

I don't wish to criticize either monarchy or democracy; they both have their good and bad aspects. What interests me is the spiritual dimension of this question; this is why I say that for the members to clamour for what they want is normal and magnificent but that there must be a head capable of examining their demands and deciding whether they should be met or not. Whether it be inwardly, for an individual, or outwardly, for society as a whole, an enlightened head is needed to guide the members and correct any deviations. And the members must believe in that head and follow its lead.

The pattern on which the human organism was created by nature is our most reliable frame of reference. It reveals the roots of the distribution of wealth as we see it today and of all the contestations, jealousies and revolutions in the modern world. Actually, however far back you go in human history, you will find that this problem has always existed. Someone who was stronger or more skilful than his fellows would be a more successful hunter, for instance, and become richer by bringing back more game. The unequal distribution of wealth is considered unjust but, in fact, it is perfectly just. Nature abhors equality, uniformity, parity.

Since the Revolution of 1789, France's motto has been 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' but, in reality equality doesn't exist in the universe. It is inequality that reigns. On no level of creation is there equality. You will protest, 'But we have made equality a law!' Yes, but a law is something theoretical and abstract; a text to hang on the wall. The fact is that equality exists nowhere; nature asks for diversity and diversity engenders inequality. Look at minerals, plants and animals: what variety! And human beings? Although you will occasionally find a person who looks exactly like someone else, there are always some differences, for instance, in the colour of the skin or hair and, in any case, in their hands, since they can always be distinguished by their finger prints.

The result of this diversity is that the faculties, tastes and aspirations of individuals are different and, consequently, that each one has different intellectual, emotional and physical capabilities. Some will accomplish noble deeds and win all the prizes in competitions or in the struggle for life, while others will always trail along behind because they haven't got the same capabilities. It is because of this difference in capabilities. therefore, that some human beings have more than others. Is this normal? Absolutely! Should we be indignant about it? Absolutely not! But people never think things through; they allow themselves to be led on by others and start shouting and protesting like everybody else. But the important thing for us, at the moment, is to study and understand the question and be very clear about it. If, on examination, we find that there is something to protest and fight about, very well; but first let's get it all quite clear.

However much people possess, it is normal and just. You will object, 'But they have got all that by exploiting and assassinating others', Yes, that's true: man has a centuries-old tendency that drives him to gratify all his appetites. As time wore on, he saw that it was necessary to have a code of ethics – not that he had any real desire to be ethical, but it was to his advantage to have some rules for, if theft and murder were forbidden, he would be safer – but this moral code is still very far from perfect. Men still try to steal from others, to take what doesn't belong to them, if not on the physical plane (because on the physical plane one is always in danger of being found out and put in prison) on other, invisible, planes: people steal each other's thoughts and sentiments. The same old instincts are still manifesting themselves – more and more vigorously, in fact – but on other, subtler levels.

Everyone knows this today: you are all aware of the existence of industrial espionage, for example, by which companies try to obtain the secret plans or formulae of their business competitors. This is simply one manifestation of those age-old instincts of acquisitivness and domination. It is impossible to get rid of these instincts and, if you do not know how to transform and sublimate them, you may prevent them from manifesting themselves on the physical plane, but they will only seek an outlet on the mental and astral planes. In this case, the crimes are the same but the form is different because it is invisible. As long as Initiation is not there to give a spiritual orientation to these forces, they will keep trying to manifest themselves. What can you expect? Ambition, sensuality and anger are formidable forces which must find an outlet.

The urge to compete and to possess more and more is absolutely normal. At what point does it become abnormal? Our own bodies tell us this so clearly that no philosopher could object. If I gave you only my own opinion, everyone else could say, 'No, no; that's not it at all! In my opinion it is thus and so...' and the argument would be endless. I'm not giving you a personal opinion, therefore; I'm giving you the opinion of Nature herself - and this is something that you are obliged to accept – and you will see how she has solved the problem through us.

The question is this: 'Is it legitimate to amass wealth?' And the answer is: 'Of course it is!' What does the stomach do when you give it some food? It immediately takes possession of all that it needs and sends the rest on elsewhere; it doesn't keep what it doesn't need. In fact, even what it does take is not used only for itself; it processes it and distributes it to the rest of the body. The stomach only keeps what it needs for a few hours; after a few hours it feels the need for more food so it eats again. And this is what keeps a man healthy and enables him to talk and move about and work and sing, etc. But suppose that the stomach were to say, ' From now onI'm going what I have to those idiots? What do they matter? There could be a famine any day now; you never know what the future holds, and I have a big family to look after.' So it starts keeping everything for itself and, in no time at all, it is very ill, simply because it has broken the law of impersonal unselfishness and brotherhood. And then you have a tumour or a cancer or whatever else you like to call it. And the same thing applies to the lungs, the head and any other organ.

Human beings are all cells of a single body. In fact, the number of cells in our own bodies is far greater than the number of human beings on earth; the brain alone contains billions of cells. And if all these billions of cells in our bodies manage to live happily together as a family, how is it that human beings are too stupid to achieve the same harmony and unity and have never managed to do away with the barriers that seperate them? If only they could achieve this universal brotherhood, there would be such prosperity that neither countries nor individuals would ever feel the need to hoard their wealth and defend it against others; there would always be enough of everything for everyone.

Communism vs. Capitalism II

So, as you can see, I am in favour of wealth; it is necessary. The only thing is that I have never looked for wealth on the physical plane because, on this plane, it is a burden. You always have to think about it in order to keep it, and that means a life of suspicion and anxiety. Wealth is fine, but it never leaves you in peace for one minute. And not only that: if you are weak, sensual of vindictive, it can very quickly make a wreck of you, morally and even physically, because it makes it possible for you to indulge yourself to excess. Yes, wealth is good, but you have to be very strong if you are to put it to good use.

And what about poverty? Well, poverty is not so marvellous either, for the poor are always humilated and obliged to submit to others; they can never fulfill their noblest aspirations. Poverty is not really very wonderful. In fact, if St. Francis of Assisi came back today, he would get hardly anyone to follow him. Everything is very different now; times have changed. In St. Francis' day, men were capable of living in constant awareness of the divine world and of eternal life; today, they are so deeply plunged into the world of matter and so avid for comfort and ease that, no matter how much you talk to them about Heaven, no one is interested.

In the past, the poor were quite ready to accept that others were rich. In fact, the belief was deeply rooted in the soul of the people that, if God gave a man wealth, it was because he deserved it; no one found anything to quarrel with in that. Wealth, like intelligence and beauty, was considered a gift and no one questioned a person's right to it. But nowadays, as soon as someone has a little more than his neighbours, they are all there, saying, 'Why? Why him? Why not me?' Even if someone is a nonentity, a complete bungler, he still thinks he has every right. Yes, this is how it is today, and this is why we see wise men living in poverty while fools strut about in luxury.

And yet poverty is a blessing for those who are wise enough to understand it for it allows them to evolve, to advance on the path that leads to God. Those who are uninterested in approaching the Deity want everything they can get here and, because their ambition is for the things of the earth, for material possessions, thier life is a constant series of quarrels, turbulence and crime. A wise man will never start a revolution in order to become rich. on the contrary, he will say, 'If people only knew how rich I am! I'm rich as Croesus. Richer than Midas! Everything I touch turns gold.' And all the other poor wretches, who have no idea how to become spiritually rich, spend their time fighting each other for material possessions.

Now, one of this means that I think emloyers have the right to exploit workers. No, those who exploit others are not intelligent either. Look at the way the cells of our bodies behave: they don't try to exploit each other; on the contrary, they all try to help each other. When one organ is deficient, another one compensates in order to restore the balance. Some really extraordinary examples of this have been seen.

I realize, of course, that what I am saying may not be understood; it is not possible, in the space of an hour and a half, to say everything that needs to be said about problems that have never ceased to torment mankind. But I can try, at least, to get you to reflect on them.

From my point of view, true wealth is in the realm of the soul and the spirit; this is where i look for it. And I know that, if I have that wealth, I shall also have material wealth: it will come to me of its own accord. Of course, for the time being, this correspondence between inner and outer wealth cannot be seen here, on earth. And yet it is a cosmic law: external wealth must correspond to inner wealth and external poverty must correspond to inner poverty. In nature, this is so: the animals, plants and minerals that contain a wealth of chemical, nutritional and mediacal properties are also outwardly rich in matter, form and colour. But, because they have free will, human beings have diverted and distorted things and those who are inwardly richer than others in patience, love, intelligence, generosity and purity are often outwardly poorer. And those who are poorest in qualities and virtues are the richest in outward things.

Actually, as this law cannot lie, we can sometimes see its manifestation in people's faces or bodies. Every lofty, luminous thought and every harmonious sentiment creates corresponding geometrical forms. And every dark thought and unbridled passion creates chaotic forms. This is why those who possess intelligence, love and purity will always attract to themselves gold and precious stones and all that is best in creation. Believe me: this is a universal law. And the others, those who are inwardly poor, dirty and decrepit will always attract conditions that correspon to their inner state. This, too, is the law. you must say, ' Oh, that's a great conclusion!' but, in point of fact, you shouldn't even think about that; you should only think about working to acquire spiritual wealth so as to be in a position to help others and to heal, console and guide them. Every other kind of wealth is a burden.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Communism vs. Capitalism III

The whole of the modern world is divided into two camps with Capitalists on one side and Communists on the other. Actually, Capitalism and Communism are not simply two different attitudes concerning the ownership of the means of production and the distribution of material wealth; they are much more than that.

Take the example of a young girl: in the past – and even, to a certain extent, today – a young girl starts out as a capitalist. She gives no one the right to kiss or fondle her: her charms are her own private property. Her parents have always told her she should be a capitalist and, for a time at any rate, she follows their advice. But, as the notion of communism spreads, it infiltrates every domain and, eventually, works its way into the mind of this young girl who begins to want to share her beauty and all the charms of her body with others. She has become a communist. It is no different for a boy who wants to make love to every girl: he, too, is a communist and distributes his quintessence to others. Yes, indeed; all that is a form of communism. Of course, I know that no one else understands it like these things. This is why I say that Eskimos are more communistic than anyone, because, when a stranger visits them they lend him their wives.

Let's say, then, that a girl who gives away her capital to the first comer is a communist. Yes, but why does she give away her capital? So as to rob the boy of his. That kind of communism is not very honest. The girl becomes very sweet and generous, true, but only in order to get her hands on the boy's capital, because no one can survive without capital.

A young girl possesses considerable capital, therefore, and with it she can buy all kinds of things or, at the very least, get an invitation to a restaurant for a good meal - after which it is she who will be 'eaten'. But, let's say no more about that! As you can see, it is all quite complicated.

The truth is that Nature shows us that capitalism and communism are both necessary. What is a child? A capitalist. He screams to be given whatever takes his fancy and wants to keep it all for himself. But one day, when he marries and has children of his own, he will be obliged to become a communist; it will be his turn to start sharing out his wealth. It is Nature herself who obliges us to be both capitalists and communists at different periods of our lives. We begin by being capitalists, for we have to become rich. If you want to help others, you must be rich; how can you help anyone if you possess nothing? You can't: If you are too poor, you can't even help your own wife and children. You have to be rich in order to help others. Nature has given men all kinds of capital: their arms and legs, their eyes and ears, their genitals and their brains are all capital assets which they must put to work to earn riches which they can then share with others. Capitalism must be no more than a means, and the great mistake of Capitalists is to have made it an end in itself. In other words, Capitalists understand nothing about Capitalism - nor Communists about Communism, for that matter. You will soon see why.

Do Communists really and truly practise communism? The Lord alone knows! If they are so eloquent in their condemnation of Capitalists and so ready to combat them, it is often because they would like to be as rich and powerful as them. Personally, I believe in communism. Why? Because Jesus was a communist, but a white communist, not a red communist. Communists and Capitalists alike should be instructed in an Initiatic school, for neither group thinks nor acts correctly. When you make wealth your goal, your ideal, all kinds of unforeseen problems result. On the other hand, if you practise communism without discernment, it will lead to other, equally dire results. If Communists and Capitalists refuse to be instructed in the light of Initiatic Science, they will massacre each other and civil war will pave the way for other wars. Neither group possesses the light that we can give them and that would enable them to work for a high ideal. They are working only for themselves; even when they seem to be working for others, in reality it is only for themselves.

Communists and Capitalists must understand each other in order to help mankind. Both are necessary, for the two currents of capitalism and communism are at work simultaneously in the universe. Why do human beings make these two currents a cause for division as though the balance of the whole universe did not rest on them? Each side does its best to eliminate the other. They talk and talk, and the poor ignorant fools who know no better swallow all their stupid theories.

To keep everthing for oneself is one philosophy; to give everything to others is another philosophy. But neither philosophy is the right one: there is a third solution. Both Capitalists and Communists must give all that they possess, that is to say, their ideas and thoughts and all their work, to a third principle, a principle that is divine. Communistis are ready to give, to be sure, but they give to human beings, and that doesn't really settle anything, for human beings are weak, fickle and ungrateful. And now, if we come back to the example of the young girl that I mentioned earlier, what conclusion can we draw? The conclusion that, instead of keeping everything for herself and being a capitalist or of distributing everything and being a communist, she should begin by becoming rich and giving everything to the Lord. Because the Lord is the only one who can advise her and tell her how much capital to distribute and how, when and whom to give it to.

Nowadays, everybody is eager for instruction and education so as to earn money and be respected and admired, for all doors are open to the rich and educated, and this is just one more manifestation of man's everlasting partially for capitalism; that is to say, for possessions, property and positions of authority. To be sure, this urge takes different forms: some want wealth, others want knowledge. Knowledge belongs to a higher order, perhaps, but the tendency is always the same: to be rich so as to have a monopoly and dominate others. Yes, those who are very knowledgeable behave exactly like the rich, like capitalists: they are aloof and hostile. As for communists, they are the ignorant, disinherited paupers of the world. They huddle together to share their miserable lot, their crusts of bread, their bottles of cheap wine, their cigarette butts. Yes, it is an advantage for the poor to share with others but, if ever they become rich, look out! There will be no more sharing, no more communism; they will instantly cut themselves off from everyone else. When people capitalists are poor they are communists and when they are rich they are capitalists because, if they continued to communists, they would have to share their wealth and they have not the least desire to share any of it. If you want millions of people to flock round you, there is nothing easier: all you have to do is invite all the beggars and vagrants to eat and drink, and they will come. The rich will never come.

All those who are ignorant, weak and poor have communistic tendencies; they like to invite each other, to be together, to hug and kiss. They are very accessible, very warm and friendly, because they have nothing. Whereas it's impossible to get near the pundits of the intellectual world. If you want to see them you have to ask for an appointment months in advance and, even then, behave exactly like the rich. But this is all wrong: those who are rich in capacities and knowledge must not hold themselves aloof like haughty potentates, they must be friendly and brotherly and share their wealth. In this way they will be genuine communists. If they seek knowledge, they should do so as a means to help their fellow men and not simply for their own benefit.

When I listen to all the political orators who make speeches on television, I can see that, whether they are Communists or Capitalists, they all have a capitalistic attitude: they all feel secure they are all despots; they have no love, no humility, no gentleness.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

So, as you see, the true capitalist is an Initiate; he gets richer and richer every day. And he is also a true communist, for he spends his days and nights distributing his fruits. But he keeps his capital, for he could do nothing without it. Suppose someone comes to me and says, 'What a magnificient violin you have; do give it to me!' If I'm a true capitalist, I will say, 'No, I won't give you my violin; it's my private property. But you can come here every day and I'll play it for you.' But young people, girls and boys, give away their violin - their heart - and then, when they have lost it, they weep and wail, 'What given it away! A poor girl gives her heart to a boy who is so clumsy that the first thing he does is drop it. And then she cries because her heart is broken. If she had had any sense she would have known that the boy didn't need two hearts. In Bulgaria we say that you cannot carry two water melons under one arm. Keep your hearts, therefore - don't give them to anyone but the Lord - but distribute your sentiments to others. This is the best way to understand things.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Thank You but, No Thank You.

Capitalism vs. Communism

Communists are proud of their philosophy; they feel generous and altruistic. But, as they know nothing about the structure of human beings, they don't know that to improve their material conditions while rejecting all their spiritual aspirations can only result in disaster. In the long run, they become dishonest, deceitful and cruel – animals. A Communist who fails to cultivate his spiritual, mystical dimension, ends by becoming as bad as the worst Capitalist: unjust, violent, authoritarian and always ready to misuse his strenght and power. So many examples are there to show that, in spite of their magnificient philosophy, a great many Communists end by betraying their principles. Yes, because it is easy to adopt an ideal philosophy, but it is much more difficult to put it into practice in one's everyday life; and yet that is the one thing that is essential. Cosmic Intelligence has designed human beings in such a way that they cannot reach perfection unless they maintain ties with a higher world which alerts them to possible dangers and gives them light and strength. A man who relies exclusively on his own limited intellect can neither foresee nor fully understand events, with the result that he makes catastrophic mistakes in every area. All those for whom power lies in technology, industry and material progress and who imagine that, because they have all these things at their command, even God is going to obey them, are bound, sooner or later, to bite the dust. When their conduct is inspired exclusively by their desire to lord it over everyone else and ignores the intentions of Cosmic Intelligence, they stir up ceratin layers of the physical and psychic atmosphere and provoke the hostility of fearful powers and forces which unleash a terrible reaction.

There are some tremendous surprises in store for political thinkers and heads of State who deceide to solve problems without studying the underlying nature of man. For the need for spiritual nourishment will awaken in the breasts of the oppressed with such force that nothing, neither threats nor prisons nor death, will persuade them to give it up. And this will come about in the near future. This is why Russia faces the choice between being attacked by other powerful and well-armed powers of changing its attitude and replacing its form of communism by the true communism of Christ. When Russia does this it will be playing a truly glorious role because it will bring a new culture and a new spiritual civilisation to the whole world.

I know, of course, that, for several years, Russia has been conducting research into parapsychological phenomena. But what is the purpose of this research? They are trying to find out if these means can be used to detect the thoughts and plans of others and emit waves to influence them and act on their minds. In this way, they hope to be able to subject others to their own will and get them to serve their interests. Obviously, the people who do this have no knowledge of Initiatic Science. As long as their only aim is to dominate other countries - ecen to the point of trying to kill people by sending them objects impregnated with noxious emanations - it proves that they are only interested in gratifying their lower, destructive, demonic nature. And this is black magic. I have known people who dabbled in this dangerous field and they have all disappeared. Yes, because they were ignorant fools who aroused within themselves forces as dark as those they were trying to manipulate and these forces simply annihilated them. Several times in the course of history whole continents have disappeared with all their inhabitants for no other reason than that they refused to acknowledge that higher forces and intelligences existed and that man must live in harmony with them.

And now, the Aquarian age is going to bring tremendous upheavals which will oblige the survivors to understand that there are laws which must be respected. The beauty, splendour and harmony of the new life that is being prepared is beyond imagination. All the creatures throughout the world who are secretly at work to bring about the Kingdom of God will unite and work together with such grandiose means that the strongholds of ignorance, materialism and despotism will crumble. This I am telling you and it will be so. Nothing will be strong enough to stand in the way of the new era, the Golden Age that has been foretold by many prophets, particularly by Nostradamus. This is why I say to all those who are unaware of these great truths: 'All of you who run after wealth and world domination so frantically, I warn you that, even if you succeed, you will never be satisfied. You are squandering all your most precious energies in pursuit of things that cannot last, that will disappear without a trace or, if they do leave a trace in the minds of men, it will be one of horror that will arouse the indignation and abhorrence of future generations.' Did Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Attila, Nero, Hitler or Stalin leave traces fo glory? No, their triumph was short-lived and soon forgotten.

It is time, now, to guide young people in a different direction. If I said that I knew pedagogical methods that exist nowhere on earth because they consist in starting the education of children even before they are born, all the educators in the world would be up in arms to prevent me from doing anything about it. I could give you proof of the efficacy of my method but I am prevented from doing so. for years and years, my application for French citizenship has been refused and, in this way, I am deprived of the means of helping your country to become the torch-bearer of humanity. Thousands of foreigners have been naturalized, but I have been refused. Of course, I know why: apparently even the C.I.A suspected me of being a Soviet spy. Ywe, but they have never been able to prove thier suspicions.

And shall I tell you what I told an eminent jurist (a very nice, intelligent man) with whom I was discussing the situation? I said, 'It's true that I belong to the secret service of another country, but I know so many tricks that it is impossible to catch me out. In spite of all the inquiries and investigations that have been carried out, no one has ever been able to pin anything on me; that's because I'm much too wily, much too far-sighted and wary. I think we should tell those responsible for the security of France that they should come and take lessons from me and learn how I deal with cases of this kind.' He began to laugh because, of course, he understood that I was joking. Then I told him, 'But now I've started to write memoirs and I want to talk about all my exploits as a spy. The trouble is, though, that I have a problem: I can't for the life of me remember the names of the people I have met or of the countries and towns I have been to. I can't even remember the dates. What a disaster to lose one's memory to such degree!' 'I can tell already that your book is going to be a best-seller', he said, 'Everybody will read it'. And he began to laugh, too.

My dear brothers and sisters, Heaven has given me a philosophy that is capable of transforming every living creature on condition, of course, that they adopt it. And if there are people who want to do away with me - as, in the past, there have always been some who wanted to do away with those who brought something good, something just and divine to the world - they should remember that those who are massacred in this way always end by being glorified and sanctified. Even their ideas spread, for when they reincarnate, they have other powers and possibilities with which to continue the work that was interrupted. Whereas those who massacred them will also be eliminated... but they will be neither glorified nor sanctified. So, why do they persist in their ignorance of these sublime truths instead of working for a new order, for the one great family of the Universal White Brotherhood?

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Capitalism vs. Communism IV

If you study the Hebrew letter Aleph, you will see that it suggests a human figure with one arm raised to receive blessings from Heaven and the other reaching down to earth to distribute the gifts recreived. So, here again, we have a symbol which proves that we must be both capitalist and communist; a capitalist first, so as to be in a position, subsequently, to be a communist: first we must take and then we must give. As long as we continue to think of communism and capitalism as seperate and contradictory, we are in error. A capitalist who only accumulates and never distributes anything begins to rot like wheat that is stored for years in a granary instead of being sown: it ends by being eaten by mice or going mouldry. The desire to have property of one's own is perfectly normal; but to want to possess things without ever giving anything to others is a primitive instinct that needs to be educated. What we possess must also be used to do good.

There is nothing wrong in wanting possessions. The only thing is, of course, that you must not restrict your desire to material wealth because, in order to become materially rich you are always obliged to dislodge a competitor or even defraud someone every now and then. The earth is limited and space is limited and, when we enrich ourselves, it is almost inevitable that it should be at someone else's expense. But if your desire for enrichment is focused on the vastness, the immensity, the infinity of Heaven, however much you acquire you can never diminish that immensity, that inexhaustible ocean; you will never be doing anyone down. And, once you are rich, you can distribute your wealth to others. One hand takes, therefore, and the other gives. This is how, like Christ, you become Aleph, you become perfect. Only when the two notions of capitalism and communism are joined can they really be resolved.

The ideal of an Initiate is to resemble Christ: Alpha and Omega, Aleph and Tav, the beginning and the end, the cause and the consequences, the divine world and the physical world. Aleph sets in motion the forces of Heaven and Tav gives them concrete reality on earth. The same notion is seen in the Solve et Coagula of the alchemists: Solve is the process which dissolves matter and renders it etheric, and Coagula is the process that condenses matter. As a matter of fact, the name that I received in India, OMRAAM, corresponds to these two processes of Solve and Coagula. OM is that which dissolves and makes things subtler whereas RAAM materializes things and gives them concrete reality. The name OMRAAM, therefore, symbolizes a whole process of concretization: the invisible, intangible idea that has to become incarnate on earth so that all human beings may see and touch it. And we all have to work in this direction. So many people say, 'Oh, I have some fantastic ideas!' Yes, but what do they do to realize them? Nothing; they are content to have ideas.

When Jesus said, 'I am the Alpha and the Omega', he was saying, 'This is the tremendous philosophy that I am bringing you: to be linked to Heaven and draw down into oneself all Heaven's blessings so as to be able to project and materialize them here, on earth'. The same idea is expressed in another form in the Lord's Prayer: 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven'. The poor idealists who have nothing but their 'ideals' die of hunger; they are too sickly and weak. Their ideas may be excellent but they never achieve anything her, on earth. Whereas the rich are too often inwardly lifeless and rotten. Perfection demands both, therefore, and this is what we learn from the Teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood.

The solution to the problems of Capitalism and Communism depends on Capitalists and Communists agreeing to broaden their concepts and view things from a much higher level. Instead of fighting each other - which gets them nowhere they must find some COMMON GROUND, for they need each other. This is the solution I have found. There is no conflict in me between communists and capitalists, they both offer a friendly hand to the other, they embrace and are happy together. Night and day, the capitalists within me are busy getting rich; even the most ardent Capitalists on earth are limited and passive comparison and don't work nearly so hard to get rich.

What can you do if you confine yourself to the earth? If you want to drive fast, you run the risk of colliding with all the houses and trees and people that get in your way. You often have to go at twenty miles an hour to avoid running over the chickens. Whereas, if you want to move about in the ether, even if you travel faster than the light, there is no danger of a collision. And this is where my inner capitalists are, up on that level; that is why there is nothing to hinder them in their work. Whereas the wretched Capitalists on earth will always be limited, even if they do everything in their power to swallow up the whole world. What can you expect? That's how it is on earth. I'm a greater Capitalist than any of them, and you cannot find fault with me for that. At the same time, since I realize that if I hoard my riches, they will go mouldly or be eaten by mice, I have also become a communist. When a young man falls in love with a girl, for instance, he becomes a communist. Yes, a family is the first community; that is where it all begins. The wisest way, therefore, is to let both your capitalistic and communistic tendencies blossom. You should be able to be both in turn in the course of the same day. To be only a capitalist is to live in one's own little corner and have no awareness of anyone else, and that is very bad. On the other hand, to be with other people because one is incapable of living alone, is a very dreary kind of communism. Personally, I have solved the problem by keeping half the day for myself. In that half I work and pray and meditate: I amass wealth. and the other half of the day is for others and I talk and receive people: I distribute my wealth. If you choose this way you will be happy because both aspects of your nature will be satisfied. If you are always alone and never give anything of yourself to others, you will feel unhappy and depressed; something will be lacking. If you are always with others, on the other hand, you will lose everything, your reservoirs will be drained dry and there will be nothing left for you. So you have to become a capitalist and spend a little less time with others and more time replenishing your wealth.

Both those who accumulate too much and those who distribute too much are unhappy. but I have found the third solution: half and half. This is the only solution that can make human beings happy. You think that all this is quite childish but, I assure you, it can have far-reaching repercussions. Take the case of married people, for instance.: if they exaggerate their communism, they inevitably end by separating and rejecting each other, because there is no poetry left in their relationship. It is too prosaic to be always together in the same bed. If they really want to solve the problem, they are going to have to be a little more capitalistic, to be apart from time to time. It would be better if they sometimes had twin beds. What a lot of things in life are still not understood! Only Initiates are genuine capitalists and genuine communists because they are fully conscious fo being both. They know that the two currents must circulate, that it is a law of life, the law of give and take. Yes, this is eternal life: to receive gifts from Heaven so that we may distribute what we have received and that it may all be returned to Heaven, once again, to be purified. Our circulatory system is both capitalistic and communistic: the venous system is capitalistic because the blood from every part of the body collects in the lungs to be purified. And the arterial system is communistic because it sends the blood to the heart to be distributed throughout the body.

The circulation of the blood is a reflection of a cosmic process. The energy that comes from God, from the centre, flows through the different kingdoms of nature (human, animal and vegetable) to vivify them and, as it flows, it collects all kinds of impurities. Then, by ways which are still unknowned to us, it returns to the lungs and heart of the universe to be purified and distributed, once again, to God's creatures. This, then, is the true meaning of capitalism and communism: this circulation. But the problem is that human beings are divided amongst themselves because they don't understand this meaning; that is why things are in such a sorry state. Communists must understand that Capitalists have a reason for existing and that they only need to be educated. they must tell them, 'You are truly magnificient, capable people! Heaven has given you great gifts, great will-power and great intuition. but you have become so submerged and over-burdened by your riches that you need to distribute them. Proof of this can be seen in the fact that no one is satisfied. The workers never stop complaining and making new demands and they will continue to be dissatisfied because they don't possess the light they need.

What is really behind this constant dissatisfaction? I'll tell you: it is that human beings, who have never understood that they must have a high ideal, a divine idea capable of renewing and purifying the atmosphere, end by being suffocated and poisoned. Whatever they do and wherever they go, even on holiday in the mountains or by the sea, they are always in a deplorable state of asphyxiation. Yes, even when they get away from their factories and workshops, they continue to suffer from a feeling of defeat because they have nothing to illuminate or purify them inwardly: they have lost contact with Heaven.

True communism is not a question of improving the material conditions of the workers. True communism is to in communion with Heaven; this is the only way to be happy. Even if your work load is too heavy and conditions are poor, you will be able to put up with these difficulties and rise above conditions; nothing can really wear you down if you have something inside you that heals, enlightens and strenghtens you.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

True Economics

People are more and more inclined, nowadays, to give priority to the economic dimension and it seems, at first sight, that they are right to do so. It is obvious that if you haven't got enough money to pay for food and lodging things can be very complicated. But, in reality, the economy is not everything, for it depends on factors of a higher order. You might say that the economic aspect is the dead aspect: it cannot move or do anything by itself; it decide to move it from here to there and, depending on whether the decision is inspired by wisdom or by folly, the results will be totally different. When the head that decides on a move is ill, it is the economy itself that is wrecked. And then you have discontent, strikes and revolutions.

It is a pity that human beings have let themselves become so deeply immersed in matter that they forget that it is not matter that is the most important but the factors that influence it. Suppose that you have an immense amount of money and weapons and you feel very strong and secure. The only trouble is that you are also very stupid and, when someone who is more intelligent than you comes along, he can wipe you out, because he has an element at his command that is superior to everything you have. Yes, intelligence often triumphs over material means. Every occurence on the physical plane depends on phenomena that occur on a much higher plane, on the plane of thoughts and sentiments. I remember talking, one day, to somebody who held a very high position in the political sphere in France, and he said that capital was the moving power behind society. But i replied, 'No. Just think for a moment: what moves capital from one place to another? Ideas. It is ideas that take precedence; it is ideas that control and displace capital, that fashion the world.' But human beings look no further than outward appearances. They see only the material aspects: capital, the lack or the abundance of raw materials, etc. They fail to see that all that is controlled and organized by human intelligence and will, which are spiritual elements. They seem to think that these are two seperate worlds. As long as men fail to see the invisible element that influences and acts on the material dimension, whether for good or for evil, they will never understand reality. The truth is that nothing of an economic, technical or industrial nature can function all by itself.

When you want to describe the human body, you use a series of plates illustrating its different system: the skeleton, the circulatory system, the muscles, the nervous system, etc. None of these plates represents the whole human being, only one aspect of the whole, and people do not realize that there are yet other systems still unknown to established science. For example, no one ever mentions the auric system with its currents of light and colour, and yet it is the auric system that controls the nervous system, just as the nervous system controls the circulatory, respiratory and other systems. Science has not yet studied every dimension of human beings.

Let's take an example from the field of medicine. One of the major landmarks in medical science was the discovery of the endocrine glands which secrete hormones. Nowadays, in fact, people believe that virtually everything depends on these glands, but this is not the case, for the fact that these glands sometimes secrete too much or too little means that they themselves are subject to other factors. Just as the endocrine glands influence the overall health of the organism, they in turn are influenced by other, subtler factors originating in a person's thoughts, emotions, soul or spirit. The day will come when medical science will study this question. It will also study the question of how the sun afflects these glands.

By attaching prime importance to the economic dimension (raw materials, capital, commercial outlets, imports and exports and so on), human beings demonstrate that they have confined their attention to the three most material systems: the skeleton, the muscles and the blood. They have not got as far as the nervous system yet - not to mention the auric system! It is understandable that, when they focus all their energies on economic growth and on getting rich, it is to the detriment of certain rules, laws and virtues which correspond to the higher systems. This is why political leaders, who are principally concerned with the economy, are leading the whole of humanity to a state of decadence. If you are determined to be stronger and richer than your neighbour you will be obliged to do things which are not always perfectly honest. It is inevitable.

Whilst opulence is on the increase, therefore, respect for the divine laws is diminishing, and it is this that will lead to disaster for humanity. I know that people cannot accept what I am saying because they cannot see it. They are blind to the fact that to succeed on the economic level one is obliged continually to commit dishonest, criminal acts. It is the same in politics and espionage: anything goes! The excuse is that it is for the sake of one's country. Yes, but what about the other countries? When men are led to destroy moral principles it is always because their economic interests are at stake, and when you give these interests priority, all your noblest qualities are wiped out and replaced by egoism, violence and deceit and the complete absence of scruples. The economic dimension of life is certainly indispensable, I have no argument with that; but it must be kept under control and made to obey other necessities; other, higher powers. Otherwise man's highest aspirations will be trampled underfoot for the sake of a few egoists who want to be rich.

It is time men began to think about this and to understand clearly that it is the Divine World that must be given priority, and that everything else must be at its service. The fact is that human beings have mistaken the means for the end. They know that there is always a goal to be aimed at, and that there are various means for reaching that goal. What they don't see is that they are using all the most glorious faculties and talents that Heaven has given them as means in the pursuit of a terribly mundane, inglorious goal. They are ready to use their noblest qualities in order to gratify their basest appetites! They even expect the Lord Himself to aid and abet their licentousness and their folly. And are they aware of all this? Not a bit of it! They never take the time to wonder what they are like or what they are looking for. No, it takes a spiritual Master to come and question them: 'Wait, my friend: look where you're going! Straight to Hell! And the means you are using? The Lord and His Angels, science, art and religion... Yes, you are using all these things to help you along the road to Hell!'

Material, economic life is the only thing that counts for most people and they are so ignorant and underdeveloped on the higher planes, that they are constantly anxious and ill without understanding the reason. Then, of course, they put the blame on others - the neighbours, society, the government and the Lord Himself. They don't understand that their problems come from a lack in themselves, that they haven't got the ability to see things clearly nor the strength and goodwill to remedy the situation. Oh, no; it is always other people who are to blame for not having given them this or that. The truth is that, even if they were given what they demand, nothing much would change because, when someone is too stupid and inwardly limited, he is incapable of taking advantage of what is given: instead of getting better, he gets worse.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

True Economics II

We have often seen that a man doesn't become nobler and more radiant or more divine when his desires are all satisfied; on the contrary, he becomes more and more of an animal because he has more possibilities for self-degradation. Poverty at least kept a rein on his appetites! But as soon as he succeeds in improving his material circumstances, the road to Hell lies open before him. I am not saying that men must be held down in a state of poverty; not at all. What I am saying is that it is dangerous to give material facilities to those who have never learned self-control and who attach more importance to the material than to the spiritual life, for this only encourages them in habits of sloth, weakness and crime.

An Initiate who already knows where the gratification of this or that desire would lead him, what it would arouse in him and the lengths to which it could drive him, refuses to indulge his desires if he sees that they would be an obstacle to his spiritual advancement. Let's take an example from everyday life: an ignorant, spineless young man falls in love and marries a girl who is ravishingly beautiful. At first sight this is magnificent, but as he has never worked to cultivate his powers of comprehension, self-control or nobility of character, all his baser instincts - suspicion, jealousy and cruelty - begin to get the upper hand and he never knows a minute's peace. He is forever watching his wife and anyone who comes near her; he is convinced that she is being unfaithful to him, and one day, in a fit of jealous rage, he murders her and the man he suspects of being her lover, and lands in prison. Socrates was much wiser: he looked for the ugliest and most disagreeable woman in Greece because he knew that he wouldn't have anything to worry about. From time to time, of course, he had to put up with some domestic storms, when she screamed at him or threw a bucket of dirty water on his head, but all that was purely external. Inwardly, he was at peace. But would any of you choose to marry a Xanthippe? Oh no; you'd rather marry a beauty queen and suffer torments all your life. So, once again, I repeat: if you don't understand human nature and are bent on giving people what they ask for, the Lord knows whether it will be for their good or whether you are not preparing coals of fire that will pour down on theirs heads! Why not educate human beings, instead, and teach them to analyse what they are seeking and demanding so as to see whether it is really what is best and most constructive for them? Time and again, things that seemed, at first, to constitute a step forward, an advantage or improvement, have turned out to be extremely damaging...all because everybody relied on first appearances.

It is true that material and industrial progress makes a positive contribution to life. It is amazing how many aööliances people have in thier homes: heating systems, vacuum cleaners, washing machines and dish washers, televisions, telephones, etc. But why, when they have got everything, are human beings more disconted, rebellious and unhealthy than ever? What is even more astonishing is that, in spite of this obvious faliure, people still continue to look for happiness in the same direction. They refuse to understand that, if they want to be happy, they must seek somthing quite different. They must seek love, wisdom and truth and be a little less sure that gadgets and comfort will give them all they want. The only things an easy, comfortable life can give you are sloth, selfishness and weakness; and the sad thing is that this is what people want: idleness and pleasure; to do nothing and have everything!

And what to advise? I advise you to have both: have all the material facilities you want and, at the same time, keep working, night and day, so as to avoid becoming stiff in mind and body. You will say that I have already talked to you about this. That is true; I have. But has it done any good? Have you made up your minds to act on my advice? No, not yet. You, too, are so preoccupied by material things and by your pleasures that you have no time to open your hearts to the divine world and ask for sublime entities to come and work within you. This is very serious, very regrettable: if you refuse to understand you will have to suffer, and no one will be able to save you. Only you can save yourself by means of light and love. Analyse the use you make of your time and energy, therefore, and ask yourself what occupies the bulk of your attention. You will see that the divine world does not take up much room in your life - although this is the only thing capable of purifying, enlightening and resuscitating you - and that you devote almost all your time and energy to the material world which can only give you a few moments of joy before becoming a burden, a prison, an instrument of destruction.

In a previous lecture I told you that human beings were inhabited by two forces, two contradictory tendencies which I represented to you as the two symbols, Erebus and Ionah. In Genesis, Erebus is the crow and Ionah the dove sent out by Noah to see if the waters of the Flood had subsided. These two forces - the forces of inertia and motion, of expansion and contraction, of life and death - are in constant conflict within man, and depending on which force gains the upper hand, man is either active, dynamic and strong, or weak, spineless and irresolute. Ionah manifests itself principally during the periods of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. When it begins to diminish, Erebus begins to manifest itself and man gradually weakens and dies. If men knew the law of love, wisdom and truth, if they kept in close contact with Heaven, they would be able to encourage and sustain Ionah even when its strength begins to be limited by opposing forces. But human beings are so estranged from spiritual realities that, even when its strenght begins to be limited by opposing forces. But human beings are so estranged from spiritual realities that, even from a very early age, they reinforce the influence of Erebus within them. At eighteen or twenty, they're already old and decrepit, their vigour undermined by the inferior thoughts and feelings that they continually entertain. Human beings want to stay young, they are always looking for ways to prolong their life, but they don't know how to set about it: they take pills or get injections of glandular extracts, but these methods are not effective.

The most effective methods are spiritual. I have seen this time and again. only the day before yesterday, a very old woman came and listened to my lecture: to start with, her face was sad and without light but, gradually, as she listened, a light began to glow and intensify within her until she was completely transformed. How can anyone fail to recognize that the spiritual life is capable of transforming human beings? I know that you have all seen such things, too. This means that you must try to give more and more encouragement to good thoughts and feelings and good impulses within yourself, because their effects are extremely beneficial not only for your psychic life but also on the physical plane. In other words, if man lives a truly spiritual life in light, love and peace, he can prolong the life of Ionah.

Of course, however great your knowledge and goodwill, you cannot expect to be totally transformed in this incarnation: the progress a human being can hope to accomplish in his lifetime is more or less determined before birth. So, although it is possible to improve to a certain extent in this life, any really substantial improvements will take effect only in this life, any really substantial improvements will take effect only in your next incarnation. In your next incarnation, Heaven will take into account all the good intentions and desires you have today and, overlooking what you were in the past, will grant you a magnificent destiny. Your present life reflects your past incarnations. Depending on the life you had led previously, the Twenty-Four Elders decreed the kind of body and the kind of physical and intellectual capacities you should have. Today, thanks to the purer and more harmonious life you are living in the Teaching, and thanks to your prayer and meditations, you can improve a certain number of things, but it is very difficult to remedy everything. You can do everything for the future, but not for the present.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

True Economics III

Take the example of someone who is very rich: if he doesn't use his money to do good, if he is content to enjoy the pleasures of mediocre way of life, in his next incarnation he will be penniless tramp and spend his days drinking with his fellow tramps. He will not even know that he was once very rich and is poor today because he didn't use his money to do anything for anyone else. So many human beings come into the world in a truly woeful state and never know why. Neither psychology nor medical science, neither psychoanalysis nor the science of education - nor even religion - has ever shed much light on this question. Only Initiatic Science is capable of shedding any light on the question.

It sometimes happens, therefore, that the emanations and radiations of our psychic life manifest their effects even on the physical plane and, if only for a few moments, a man can be truly transfigured. He soon resumes his normal appearance but, if he works consciously to renew and revive these marvellous states, he will be building a body of indescribable splendour for his next incarnation. Before you undertake anything, therefore, whatever it may be, begin by saying to yourself, 'I am looking for light; I' am looking for love and strength. Shall I find them if I do this?' and, thanks to this Initiatic Science, you will immediately be given the answer. Otherwise, you will plunge headlong into activities that will end by killing you. You will be like all those tycoons who want to be king of the oil or steel or any other industry: many of them fall ill or end by committing suicide. The weight of their responsibilities and the excessive amount of work they do in the attempt to satisfy their greed and their obsessive need to swallow up the whole world end by destroying them. Their nervous system cannot support the strain: they get insomnia, ruin their health and lose all their zest for life. Before setting out to possess the world, you must study every angle of the situation and see what the consequences will be.

I know very well that no one will accept or understand or be guided by what I say in this area, either. People know what they know! They cling to their pet ambitious and lusts, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Who will agree with me? All the paupers of this world; all those who are poor and idle. Yes, they will be on my side, but will they have understood what I am saying? Just try giving them some material advantages, try improving their lot and you will soon see whether they have understood or not! They will go to even greater lenghts of folly and wickedness than the others. If poor people are always cursing the rich, it is because they want to be rich too, and as they are not, all they can do is rail against those who are. But give them some money and you will see. Do I speak disparagingly of the rich? Never. I speak out against their lack of understanding, that's true; but I love the rich. I love the rich. I love them so much, in fact, that if they gave me all their millions for the embellishment of the Brotherhood, I would hug them with all my heart! Well, however that may be... never trust people who are always denigrating someone: it means that they would like to have what he has or to do what he does. Yes, my analysis is terrible. Never lay yourselves open to my analysis.

There is still much to say about this question of economy! When a society is too preoccupied by its economic interests, it leads to an imbalance in the life of the community and all kinds of difficulties which, with a little wisdom, might have been foreseen. Suppose a country wants to export as much as possible because it is extremely profitable to do so: one thing leads to another and, before long, they are selling arms and fighter planes to countries whose constant wars endanger the peace and safety of the entire planet. The people in some of these countries can barely read and write and yet they are allowed to buy the most sophisticated weaponry! Of course, that is one way to earn a lot of money, but the price to be paid in other ways will be exorbitant. In God's name, how can people be so blind? This is just one example of how economics can spell ruin for many countries.

Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, I fully agree that nothing is more important than the economy. But there is one thing that human beings have failed to understand, and that is that if they want to solve the problem they must study it in the world above and not below, for what is below is only a reflection of what is above.

Nature alone really understands economics; only she knows how things must be organized so that not a single atom is lost. Every speck of dust, every scrap of refuse is utilised. Look what happens to all the rubbish and detritus that is thrown away by human beings: the earth absorbs it and sends it down to its underground factories to be recycled and transformed into food for the vegetation on the surface. Nothing is wasted; nothing is discarded. But human beings, who are so out of touch with the intelligence of the earth, are constantly by the disposal of radioactive and other toxic wastes which cannot be destroyed! They have to be stored away underground but they constitute a terrible threat to mankind.

What understanding of economics can anyone have if he inwardly vandalizes everything, if he squanders and dissipates everything because of his passions and desires and his disordered thoughts and feelings? You will tell me that you don't see any connection. But of course there is a connection; these are not two separate, disconnected realms. And this is why those who are responsible for the economy of a country must not decide the issues on the physical plane before they have learned the essentials: how man is designed and put together; how he is linked to the universe; how the universe is hierarchically organized, and how all human organization must adhere to a divine model, a Heavenly idea. They won't find any of these things in books about economics, but once they understand them, all that they do and all the decisions they make will be perfect.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

True Economics IV

Human beings are so designed that they always count on the support of someone or something. A woman counts on her husband, a man counts on his wife, children count on their partents. Also, everybody counts on money, circumstances, the weather, and so on. In itself, this is not bad, but what is bad is that people have got into the habit of always counting on something external. Are you ill? There are plenty of doctors and pharmatists. Are you ignorant? You can always ask a professor - or a clairvoyant - to tell you the future. Have you damaged your car? There are plenty of repair shops. Are you bored? There are cinemas, bars, night clubs for your entertainment, etc., etc. Life is so well organized to provide human beings with whatever they need that they have become very negligent: they know that they can always find something or somebody to get them out of a fix. They can go skiing and risk their lives on the slopes: if they break a leg they can always go to hospital and get a plaster cast. If they are working at the top of a ladder, why bother to make sure that it can't slip: if they fall off, someone will pick them up and take care of them. Why be careful not to stain their clothes? There are so many cleaning fluids on the market these days! And, if they go for a walk in the forest and throw away a lighted cigarette, why get all upset if it starts a forest fire? The firemen will come and put it out!

Because of this attitude, people's power of attention and their perspicacity, dexterity, wisdom and intelligence are constantly diminishing. They see no reason to cultivate these qualities when society offers so many ways of remedying their mistakes. Technicians and researchers are all working to help humanity, but the fact of the matter is that they are not helping, for people are losing their personal initiative and becoming steadily lazier and less capable of doing things for themselves. They probably know more than they used to, but they are also much more careless and lackadaisical. I am not saying that we should put a stop to material progress; what I am saying is that we should also continue to work inwardly so as to grow in attentiveness, prudence and selfcontrol. Because, if you break or dent something, for instance, even through there are ways of repairing the damage, it will always bear the mark; it will never be perfect again. How much better it would be not to break it in the first place!

Then, too, we have to remember that there is always a possibility of events occuring that would deprive us of all our comforts and facilities. Look at what happened with world supplies of oil, for instance: only a few years ago it was produced and consumed and wasted without restraint because people thought that it would always be there for the asking. And now? Progress is wonderful; it makes life so much easier! Believe me, I am not against progress; on the contrary. In fact, I could mention several things that nobody has any suspicion of today and that science will discover in the future. But, for the time being, the most important thing for you is to know and accept the truths that are capable of transforming you and to improve your inner life before improving your external circumstances.

Initiatic Science tells us that, however great the benefits that come from outside ourselves, they will never fulfil us, for fulfilment can only be found in one's own efforts, in efforts of the will, the intelligence and the imagination. In any case, you all know this: you all know that you find real satisfaction only in what you achieve for yourselves; you can never get the same joy and happiness from externals that are acquired without effort, even money. Yes, everyone knows this and yet everyone continues to look outside themselves for what they need. This is why their problems are never solved. However much you possess, however much other people give you, you must never abandon your own inner work; keep working until the very last minute.

No, I'm not against progress, but material progress is not true progress. Material progress is certainly to be encouraged but you must never rely on it. See it as something magnificent, as something that opens up immense possibilities, but don't work. What work? The only true work: spiritual work.

So, as I say, it is fantastic to have so many tools and products to remedy our accidents and mistakes; nowadays, everything can be patched up, glued together, cleaned or mended. But the trouble is that nobody attaches any importance to the other aspect, to the care and attention that would lead to less breakages. No, nobody bothers about that; why should they? As I have said, the pharmacies, hospitals, garages, laundries and dry cleaners are there to remedy all the accidents and mistakes committed by human beings. Mankind continues to make progress in external things, therefore, but the situation on the inner level is deplorable. And then people talk about the economy!

True economy is to use things with care and reason; anything else is wasteful. Do young people know anything about economy? They squander all their strength and energy in mad schemes and the pursuit of sensations, and that is anything but economical. I am, perhaps, the only person in the world who understands economics correctly. People discuss the economy and study economic science and I know nothing of all that; but I do know that economy is not what people think it is. Do you want to practise true economics? Do you want to be very rich, to acquire a fortune in order to help others? In that case you must become more attentive, enlightened and reasonable; you must learn selfmastery. This is the only true economics. But no one expects to find economics in these things, and the most extravagant and ruinous spending is caused by economists because they have never studied true economics.

People are in the process of ruining themselves spiritually, morally, intellectually and even materially, because no one understands the true nature of economics. Let me give you an example: suppose you are talking to your boss or a business associate and, through carelessness, you say something that makes him very angry. All because of a lack of attention you are dismissed or your associate breaks off relations, and you find yourself with all kinds of legal and financial problems. You say that you can sort things out again; that may be true but, even then, it will involve a lot of trouble and expense. So, one day, you are going to have to understand that you must be very careful and very reasonable so as not to complicate things, at least within yourself. There will always be disorder and conflict on the external level and there's not much you can do about it. It is not so easy to restore order in the world. But you can make sure that harmony, order, peace and light prevail in all that you yourself do.

If you work in this way for years, you will see the results: all your problems will sort themselves out, even on the material plane, because everyone will like and respect you and be eager to render you service and help you. Yes, all your economic problems can be solved if you apply a little wisdom. If you really want to live a magnificent life you must make up your mind today and begin at once to be more attentive. Of course, it would be better for some of you if you had started sooner because it is when you are still young that what you do and say must be marvellous and harmonious and beneficial. That is true economics!

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

True Economics V

Human beings have invented all kinds of conveniences to give themselves the favourable conditions they need in order to cultivate their faculties and talents, but there is one point that they have consistently overlooked, and that is the question of attention. There are several different kinds of attention. The kind that is most familiar to us is the deep and sustained mental application we need in order to do our work properly, listen to a lecture or read a book. But there is another kind of attention, which we can call self-observation, consciousness or analysis, and which consists in being aware, at every moment of the day - and even of the night - of what is going on within oneself, of the influences and impulses that move one. It is this kind of attention that is still not sufficiently developed. It is easy to pay attention to one's physical gestures; anyone who works in a factory or a laboratory learns to do so, otherwise he might well lose a hand or a leg. But the kind of inner attention and vigilance advocated by the Initiates is almost unknown, and this lack is often at the origin of much suffering and many accidents and mishaps: people are unaware of what is going on within them.

The Gospels tell us, 'Be vigilant, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.' Don't worry! You will meet neither lion nor Devil on the physical plane; the danger is lying in wait for you in your inner life. That is where all kinds of lusts, desires, ambitions and passions prowl about and, if you are neither enlightened nor vigilant, they will devour you. Why do parents never think of fostering vigilance in their children? They should start to do so even when they are very young, for this lack of self-observation and analysis, this inattention to what goes on in one's inner sanctum is at the root of a great deal of suffering.

This is why I tell you that the beginning of true economics is somewhere where you have never thought to look for it: in attention. It is staggering to see the number of means and products that exist to mend or renovate things that have been damaged, broken or stained - and not only inanimate objects, but human beings as well. It's amazing: one half of the world population works at repairing the damage done by the other half. Well, this is something that economists should give more thoughts to, the fact that people rely too much on external means and tell themselves, 'Why bother to take care when there are so many technicians and workers capable of mending whatever I break, including myself?' The more conveniences people have the less they develop the faculty of attention, and this is what destroys an economy: too much has to be spent on repairs.

Of course, I know very well that this is not the economists' point of view. Not only have they never envisaged the problem in this way, but their philosophy is diametrically opposed. They say that we must produce more and more goods and, in order to keep stocks rolling, people must buy as much as possible. They urge people to consume, therefore, and not only to consume but to waste. The more goods they buy the better it will be. If they are careless and wreck their car or break a major appliance in their home, so much the better: they will have to buy new ones. If they live irresponsibly and ruin their health, that, too, is all to the good: they will be contributing to a thriving pharmaceutical industry. Naturally, in this way, the commercial and financial affairs of certain individuals and countries will prosper but, for mankind as a whole, for its physical and psychological health and well-being, this conception of economics is ruinous, catastrophic.

True economics, therefore, will not be found where most people look for it. True economics consists, in fact, in not wasting, in not wasting the forces, qualities and energies that Heaven hs given us. True economics begins with wisdom, moderation and attention. There are swarms of economists in the world today; impossible to get away from them! But mankind will never find happiness by following their philosophy because they see nothing but the material aspect of life an its problems.

First and foremost, economics must begin on a higher level, the level of intelligence, in the thoughts, words and looks of human beings, in the way they live an behave. For it is not enough to avoid falling and injuring oneself or breaking something; you must also avoid transgressing the laws of the invisible world. It often happens that, without in the least realizing it, a person triggers certain mechanics, disturbs certain entities or breaks certain laws on the psychic plane and, when this happens, he has to suffer the consequences and pay the penalty. One sometimes meets people who are always very attentative on the physical plane and yet they fall ill. This is because, through their thoughts, feelings or desires, they have triggered a reaction from hostile forces. And now they are in bed and are going to have to spend a lot of time and money to be cured. There are a lot of people who are considered to be first-rate economists. They may be first-rate in the theory of economics, yes; but just look at how they live! Look at all the excesses they indulge in, at all the waste in their lives. From the point of view of Initiatic Science, economics begins with the way we live. This is what I want to emphasize, therefore, the necessity for this inner attention, this constant awareness that allows you to see what is going on within yourself at every moment of the day or night and to recognize the currents and influence that pass through you. Personally, I have practised this wakefulness for so long that I know exactly what is going on within me at any given moment. I have trained myself to become fully conscious and, as I can recognize the origin and nature of every idea, thought or feeling, I am in a position to take the necessary precautions. You must learn to be attentive. I have often asked someone, 'What are you thinking about?' and heard the reply, 'I don't know'. He doen's know because he has never looked into himself, and that means that any currents, any filth, any mental images, however frightful, are free to come and go at leisure and he won't even notice. How can he hope to create a glorious future for himself in these conditions? It is possible to use your thoughts to create the future, but not if you are so utterly inattentative and unconscious. This is why children should begin their education by learning to be attentative. In every family, school and university, young people must be taught to be attentative.

As for you, the very first quality that you must acquire, now that you are in the Brotherhood, is the quality of attention. Why do you think I have tried to get you into the habit of eating in silence, without making noise with your knives and forks (seven hundred people eating together and not a sound to be heard!)? In order to help you to cultivate this faculty of vigilance; in order to teach you to control every single gesture, to use your knife and fork and cut up your food without making a sound.

If you want to acquire self-mastery, begin by practising at meals. If you can learn to move all the objects on the table without knocking them against each other, you will find that this harmony will be reflected in everything you do during the rest of the day. Yes, simply because you practised while you were eating! Then, not only will you make the effort not to make a noise, but you will begin to focus your attention on your food. From the first mouthful you will be filled with wonder: what strength, what energy and vitality God has put into that mouthful of food! If you can learn to eat in this state of attention and harmony, you will be capable of undertaking all kinds of activities, all day long, without getting tired.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

True Economics VI

Once again, this evening, we find ourselves in the presence of one of life's greatest mysteries: fire. Why do I say that it is one of the greatest mysteries? Fire shows us that, without sacrifice, life cannot go on. When you light a fire, all the black, twisted branches start to burn and are transformed into energy, light and heat. This is why you must make up your minds to light a fire within yourselves, so as to burn up all your refuse and transform it into light and warmth. As long as you think of sacrifice as a deprivation, an impoverishment, it means that you haven't understood the first thing about it. True sacrifice is a transformation of old, worn out, impure elements into light and heat, that is to say, into love and wisdom. For heat is simply divine love and light is divine wisdom.

This evening you must ask the Angel of Fire to come and burn up all the rubbish and all the old, ugly things accumulated within you, and transform them into love and wisdom. He is perfectly capable of doing it. Of all the four elements, fire is the most powerful. To be sure, earth, water and air are also powerful, but less so than fire: nothing can stand up to fire. And the divine fire, the sacred fire of God will soon burn up all the enemies of the Kingdom of God, all the enemies of light, the enemies of the Universal White Brotherhood. This has already been drecreed and, sooner or later, you will witness it: they will all be consumed by fire, exterminated, wiped out, because the Kingdom of God must be established on earth.

Actually, as we are told by Holy Scripture, the battle will not be between men but between spirits: the good spirits will wage war against the evil spirits. The enemies we have to fight are not men but the influences and entities that dwell in men and combat light. The instant a man is released form the hold he changes. It is not rival armies of human beings, therefore, that will combat each other, but influences, forces and currents. This is the war of the future and, as foretold in the Apocalypse, the Dragon, the collective symbol of all the disorders and hatreds of mankind, will be defeated.

As you watch this fire and see how beautyful and powerful it is, ask it to come and burn in your hearts and souls. It is not dangerous. It will not destroy you; on the contrary, it will vivify you. I have already talked to you about the different sorts of fire: subterranean fire, physical fire, the fire of Hell, etc. Also the fire of the stars and the sun's fire, the truest, purest and most vivifying fire of all; that which we try to attract and invite into us every morning at sunrise. The aura is also a fire, a fire which, if it is sufficiently powerful and bright, protects a person from evil spirits. Not all human beings have an aura capable of protecting them; it is often too weak and dull and, in this case, all kinds of noxious beings and elements can slip through it. The aura of the great Initiates, on the other hand, can be several miles wide and has the power to console, sooth encourage, enlighten and heal.

And now, let's concentrate on the fire and send it a great deal of love and a great deal of respect and veneration. The fire is alive. It knows us; it knows who we are and the degree of evolution we have reached. If you knew how to consult it, it could enlighten you about many things.

Before beginning their ceremonies, Magi and Initiates light candles or lamps. This tradition comes from a very ancient science which taught that fire was indispensable to realization. A remnant of the same tradition continues in the practice of lighting candles in church. This is why I asked you to write down your requests and give them to the Angel of Fire. All those little pieces of paper have been burned but your prayers have been transcribed and recorded on high by the servants of the Angel of Fire. If you are capable of working in accordance with the wishes expressed in your prayers, they will be granted for, when fire has a hand in anything, the results are always outstanding. When you are assailed by certain inner difficulties, it you have a sensation of sadness or distress, for instance, or if you are discouraged or sorely tempted, write down a prayer for strength and peace of mind, light a candle and ask the Angel of Fire to consume your distress in his fire, and he will do so. When you don't know about this sacred Science, you have to drag yourselves through life, unable to break out of the vicious circle of distress and tears. fire is there to help us but, apart from the Initiates, who ever thinks of using it in their spiritual life?

Now that it is time for you to go home you must take care to hold on to the warmth, the sacred fire, that you have received here. People are rarely conscious of these things: when you go home after spending several weeks here, you don't think about protecting all this warmth and light, this fire, which is basic to all true spiritual evolution and fulfilment. From now on, remember to preserve this heat, to keep it alive for a long time in your heart and soul. This is true economy: to preserve the heart's warmth, to economize it so that it not only stays within you for a long time, for the rest of your life, but so that it grows and is amplified. You know how to economize money, material objects or time, but you don't know how to economize the one thing that is vital, this warmth. No, I'm afraid you are still a long way off! Within a few days you will have dissipated all this warmth and will be shivering with cold again. If you know how to look at fire, if you know what thoughts and what love you should have as you look at it, it will reveal the greatest mysteries to you: how to preserve the warmth and light you have received.

Let's stay here for a few more minutes and meditate on true economics.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Wealth

Money is not, as many people believe, 'the root of all evil'. There is something within human beings that uses money as a means to express its greed. Do away with money and put anything else in its place and, as long as people continue to be possessed by their own weakness, base appetites and passions the probablem will be the same. So it is not money that is to blame, but man. Man is not sufficiently enlightened, he doesn't know what attitude to adopt with regard to money, how to use it properly, for what reasons and what purpose it should be used. In itself, money is neither good nor bad; it is neutral. At the same time, it is a tremendously powerful means in the hands of those who possess it and this is why it can be used either to destroy or to save. The whole question, therefore, is one of attitude. Money is powerful simply because human beings attribute great value to it. If they decided, tomorrow, to divest money of its value and attribute it to something else, the same pattern would repeat itself all over again, with the same tragedies, the same seductions, the same splendours and the same degradations.
Keep your money in your safe or in your pocket, but never in your head. If you keep it in your head it will be an opaque screen that will cloud your vision. If you keep it before your eyes as an ideal to be reached at all costs, less ready to see people's good points; you will be less considerate, generous and tolerant. You will become severe, intransigent and cruel. To have no money at all, on the other hand, is not desirable either. People have sometimes wanted to live in stark poverty, thinking that it would enhance their spiritual life, and have ended by becoming a useless burden to society. That is not the ideal solution! As long as we are on earth and things are organized as they are today, we need money.

Perhaps, in the future, there will be no more money: our currency will be love. Yes, why not? Love is a far more valuable currency than gold! But it is still too soon for mankind to achieve this conception of things and, as we may be sure that money will be with us for some time to come, it is important to have the right ideas about it so as to avoid becoming a prey to its seductive wiles. That is all we need: the right attitude. It is not wrong to have money. How could you help others if you had no money? It is all very well to have a heart full of love but, if you have nothing else, you still cannot help people materially. I seem to be talking to you as though I had to persuade you - as though you needed to be persuaded that money was necessary! I know that I don't have to worry about that: you all agree that we need money. The only question is how to behave where money is concerned, how to use it.

If you give money to someone who has not achieved the mastery of his thoughts, feelings and desires, he will hasten to use it and abuse it for his own debasement. His new wealth will enable him to ruin his enemies, have all the women he wants, etc. You cannot pin the blame on the money: if the desires of his heart are evil, it is not the fault of money. You can say the same for anything else: oil, gas, coal etc.: you can use them all for constructive or destructive purpose and, if you choose to use them for an evil purpose, it is not their fault. The fault lies with you who harbour evil in your heart.

The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that you must first transform yourself so as to be capable of using money and all your other possessions for no other purpose than your own elevation and the good of humanity. Once you achieve this, you can possess billions and still not fall a prey to it, still resist its lures; you will be in a position, then, to realize the sublime things that you have dreamed of for so long.

Those who are still weak, still subject to their passions should not be given money; that is clear, but if you give money to Masters and Initiates, they will never use it for anything but good. So it is human beings who need to be changed for the better and money can be left to fulfil the purpose for which it was meant; it is not at fault. I have so often heard people saying, 'Money is the cause of all our misfortunes'. Well, they say that as long as they haven't got any, but as soon as they get some we hear a different tune. In the first place, therefore, they are being stupid in failing to recognize the true cause of their misfortunes and, in the second place, they are being dishonest. Two terrible failings! What they should say is, 'Money is very, very necessary. In fact, it's wonderful; but Heaven forbid that I should ever become a slave to it!' If you think that money is the only thing that matters, you will have effectively destroyed the very qualities that would have enabled you to savour the pleasures and delights that wealth can buy. This is the danger: you will have everthing you have ever desired and still be unhappy because you will have everything you have ever desired and still be unhappy because you will have destroyed the element that enabled you to find such exquisite, subtle flavour in every experience. This is the greatest misfortune: to be in a position to have everything you want, to indulge all your desires and to be incapable of enjoying or getting any pleasure out of any of it.

Of course, it is also terrible to be destitute and penniless. But if you had the choice between possessing everything and being incapable of enjoying it on the one hand and, on the other, of possessing nothing but of preserving your powers of enjoyment, you would be better off with the second alternative for, when you have a sense of taste, you can delight in whatever comes to keep this power of enjoyment for it is also linked to health. To be sure, the best of all is to have both: money and the ability to enjoy it. If I see someone hurrying to give me money, I'm not going to fly into a rage and refuse it, but I have not devoted my life to trying to get a lot of money. If it comes, as I say, I'm not going to refuse it or drive it away, but I would never abandon my work to go in search of it: never!

To retain your ability for enjoyment, that si what counts. But only light can give you this sense of taste, this capacity to enjoy everything. Once you have found the light, whatever your activities, whether you are eating, working or going for a walk, everything has the most delicious flavour.

If you don't work with light, if you don't understand what light is, it means that you have not understood the first thing about life. Light is all: light created the world; light is the cause of the universe. Light is a spirit, a spirit that comes from the sun. Each ray is a tremendous force which travels througout the universe to penetrate matter and accomplish its work in it. If ever there were a subject that needed to be studied in depth it is the subject of light: the nature of light, how it works and how we can use it and work with it. He who abandons light and focuses exclusively on money and his business interests is on the wrong track for the gold he is pursuing is, in fact, simply a condensed form of light. Yes, gold is a condensation of the sun's rays which have been collected and fashioned by creatures living underground. What happens when you put gold and silver on a pedestal and neglect light? It means that you are forgetting the father, the cause of all things. Or, if you prefer, you are neglecting the lady of the manor and paying court to her servant. Naturally enough, when her mistress sees this, she will close her door to you and tell you, ?It is I who am entitled to the place of honour; I see your courting my cook or my chambermaid whereas you should be giving first place in your love and respect to me. Very well, all doors will be close to you!'

When you have money it opens all doors in the physical world, that is true. But the other doors, the doors of peace, happiness, joy and inspiration, the doors of all the qualities and virtues remain closed to you. What good will it do you to find all other doors open if the doors of the sanctuary remain closed to you? Are you incapable of feeling joy or of taking pleasure in anything you do? It is a sure sign that the spiritual doors are closed to you and this means that you have a wrong understanding of life and the values of life.

You must give your love and homage to the lady of the house, the princess; in this way her servants will also serve you. The princess will tell them, 'Give him food and drink; give him clothes and a room', and her servants will hasten to obey: 'Yes, my lady; yes, Your Highness.' Gold is the servant whom we cherish so dearly that we never think about whose service she is in. Gold is dependent on the light of the sun; it is formed by light. So it is light that you must love first and foremost, and the gold will follow; it will come to you. When you walk out with the princess, all her attendants will follow you, ready to serve you. Whereas, if your head is full of gold, it will dazzle and blind you to everything else. Once the idea of money fills your head, you will have eyes for nothing else, not even for the beauty, splendour and intelligence of creation.

You will object, 'What are you talking about? We have to have money.' Believe me, I know better than you how necessary money is. But I still say that you must not fill your head with it; you must not make it your master, your ideal; you must not think that thath is what life is all about. money is a means, a tool, an agent, yes; but not an ideal, not a goal. Your ideal must be something quite different: your ideal must be light; your goal must be light. Never let money become your master; it is a very good servant but a very bad master; as your master it will give you disastrous advice and lead you away from the Kingdom of God. Keep your mind fixed on light, therefore, because, if you possess the light you will be capable of healing yourself, of achieving the mastery of yourself, of understanding the whole of life... and even gold will come your way. But if you don't possess the light, there will always be others more intelligent than you who will rob you of what you have. What else can you expect if you're so stupid?

The trouble is that people are stupid: they have found their attitudes at a commonplace stall in a commonplace market and now they spend their time clamouring for cash, cash and still more cash because, they say, 'If I had lots fo cash I could get everything else I wanted!' Yes, everybody knows that particular stall but almost nobody knows what I know. For I also have a stall in the market and you would do better to come to my stall. You will soon see what you can buy there.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Wealth II

There was once a king who enjoyed strolling through the market (Nowadays, kings are so restricted, they can no longer wander through the markets by themselves but, in the old days, that was possible. A king could walk about in the town and his subjects would come and present their petitions to him). So, this king was strolling through the market and looking at the stalls when, all of a sudden, he heard a merchant shouting, 'Wisdom for sale; come and buy some wisdom!' Greatly intrigued, the king went up to the man and asked him, 'Do you really have wisdom for sale? How much is it?' 'It comes in three sizes', said the merchant, ' One hundred crowns, a thousand crowns or ten thousand crowns.' 'I'll take ten thousand crowns-worth!' said the king. 'Very well! Here you are: ' Do what you have to do , but think of the consequences.' 'Is that all?' 'Yes, that's all.' The king laughed, paid the merchant his ten thousand crowns and walked off, chuckling and murmuring, 'Do what you have to do, but think of the consequences'.

By the time he got back to the palace he had forgotten the incident until, suddenly, the phrase came back into his mind: 'Do what you have to do, but think of the consequences', and he laughed again, thinking of that strange philosopher. The next morning, the king was being shaved before going to an important meeting with his ministers. His chin was already covered with shaving cream and his barber was approaching him with the razor in his hand, when he suddenly thought of the wisdom he had bought in the market and, looking at his barber, he said, jokingly, 'Do what you have to do, but think of the consequences.' To his astonishment, his barber went as white as chalk and fell at his feet, sobbing, 'Mercy, Lord; have mercy on me! I didn't want to do it; it was the ministers who forced me.' The king quickly recovered form his amazement and, realizing that some dreadful plot had been hatched against him, pretended to know about it. 'I know all that', he said, 'But tell me exactly...' 'Sire, I was meant to slit your throat while I was shaving you. I have a wife and children, sire, and they threatened me. I had to do it.' 'Yes, but who?' 'I'll tell you, sire; but promise me you won't kill me.' Well, you can imagine the rest of the story for yourselves, but this is how the king was saved, thanks to the wisdom he had bought in the market.

And I, too, have a stall in the market, but my wisdom is free. And this is what I am telling you today: 'Cherish light above everything else; cling to light and you will be saved.' And now, just a world or two more to complete what we were saying about the servant. What does a servant - or the housewife, if she hasn't got a servant. What does a servant - or the housewife, if she hasn't got a servant - have to do every day? She has to sweep, dust, wash and tidy her house and adorn it with some flowers here and there. But human beings have never understood the meaning of what they do every day. For me, this is a language. It is the book of Nature that I love to read and interpret. Since we are all obliged to look after the cleanliness, order and harmony of our houses, shouldn't we show the same patient care, regularity and tenacity in keeping our inner life clean and tidy? It is this understanding that is so lacking in ordinary human beings: they focus only on the physical dimension and fail to see that cleanliness and order must also exist in their mental life; that it is on this level that they must get into the habit of making everything tidy and harmonious every day, without fail. It is this that is beautyful and useful: unfailingly, every day, to look into oneself, saying 'Let's see: what needs to be tidied up?' And then, to clean and tidy up anything that is out of place, untidy or bizarre and to get rid of any rubbish or dust that has gathered. If the disorder is not tidied up every day, it will end by becoming unmanageable. Every day, therefore, several times a day, you must try to restore peace, order and harmony within yourself. Those who fail to do so will never be in command of the situation. People hasten to repair the destruction caused by a storm, an air raid or an earthquake as soon as it is over. Why don't you do the same, every day, in your inner life? There are always some little storms going on, some rain or some bombs falling, a few holes through which mice can get in ...so there is always a little patching and cleaning and tidying to be done. You must look into yourself every day, and if you see that your thoughts and sentiments are not what they should be, you must set things straight immediatly.

But people do none of this. They do nothing because they have never been taught the truths of Initiatic Science or, if they have learned these truths, they scoff at their precepts. And yet, by practising these methods a human being can achieve complete control of all his cells. Yes, because he will have understood, he will have been faithful and constant and, one day, everything will fall into place and work exactly as he wants it to. When the bombs were falling we saw how the soldiers and firemen put out the fires and repaired the bridges and so on, without delay, and we think that that is normal; we take it for granted. But when it is our own inner life that is concerned, we don't know what to do. So, now you see why we try to concentrate three, four, five, ten times a day, so as to remedy the situation. If you hear a voice setting up a great hubbub within you, tell it to keep quiet and go and sit down and listen. And preserve until you succeed in making it obey you. You will be proud of yourself when you gain the upper hand. But if you let everything go and expect the situation to sort itself out alone, peace and tranquility will not be restored for years... if ever.

There; now you see what interesting conclusions we can draw from this image of the lady of the house and her maid.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Wealth III

'The poor don't know how to use their poverty as the most effective means of evolution; they constantly rebel against it. Why? Because they want the money that the rich have. They would like others to think that they find wealth offensive but, in fact, they long for it with all their might. If the rich had a clearer understanding of the question, they would distribute all their wealth to the poor, and the poor would refuse it and say, ''No, no; we don't want anything; we're very well off just as we are!'' If they were truly enlightened, the rich would want to strip themselves of their wealth and the poor would want nothing more than they have. For the sake of their own salvation, therefore, the rich should turn to the poor and beg them to accept their riches, and the poor should refuse adamantly. You will say that I'm turning everything upside down. Exactly! Because this is how we can get everything right side up again!'

how people would scoff at the idea that the rich should offer their wealth to the poor and the poor should refuse it! So why do I talk about it? Is it for your amusement and my own? No. Be patient and you will hear some very interesting explanations. Can the rich or the poor explain the reason for their circumstances? Do they know why some people are rich and others poor? If you ask a priest he will tell you that it is the will of God. What have the rich rich done to deserve their fortune and the poor to deserve their poverty? Nobody can answer this because they have rejected the notion of reincarnation which explains every individual situation. Those who are rich today have earned their wealth, in one way or another, in previous incarnations. Initiatic Science tells us that, sooner or later, we always get what we ask for. Whether what you ask for be good or bad, you will get it. The Lord gives every creature what they ask Him for, and if it turns out to be bad for them, it is not His fault. If you ask for a burden and then find yourself crushed beneath its weight, you cannot blame the Lord. It is a terrible thing not to foresee the long-term consequences of what you ask for. If you knew in advance how things would turn out, if you foresaw that the satisfaction of your desires would lead to unhappiness or illness, you wouldn't ask for them. This is why, in Initiatic Science, the disciples begin by learning that some things should be asked for and others should not.

In any case, one thing is certain, and that is that the rich are rich because they have cultivated certain qualities and worked for their wealth. The law is always faithful and true. You will say, 'But they cheated and lied. They got rich by fraud and violence'. That may well be, but, even if they did use such means, the law says that they must be given wealth because they have done everything in their power to get it. Of course, what the law does not say is whether they will keep their wealth for long nor whether it will satisfy them and give them peace and joy. But they will get what they asked for. They may have succeeded by using illicit means, but they have succeeded. What they don't know, of course, is what the consequences of their success will be. To be sure, not all the rich have used deceit and dishonesty to achieve wealth. some have become rich through their own hard work or thanks to an inheritance, by chance or thanks to a discovery. It is not possible to enumerate each particular case.

Take the case of the Jews, for instance: most of the major businesses are in their hands today. And who made this situation possible? Christians. In their ignorance and hatred, Christians persecuted the Jews and this persecution led to their developing some exceptional qualities that enabled them to survive even in the worst conditions. It is true that a practice such as circumcision (which is based on an age-old science), through the modifications it produces in the functioning of the endocrine glands, has contributed to a particular trend in the evolution of Jews. But it is Christians who, without realizing it, drove the Jews to develop their financial skills and, today, it is they who rule the world. To be sure, there are also Christians and Muslims who have become immensly rich through the oil industry but none of them has the abilities and that special intelligence that Jews have. In one way or another, therefore, the rich have earned their wealth.

And now, let's talk about Initiates. Initiates have no desire to be rich because their aim is not to settle down in the world nor to rule over it. An Initiate wants, above all, to become a luminous beacon, a shining light and, cosequently, he has no wish to encumber himself with things that would prevent him from devoting himself to this divine task. An Initiate wants to be free and detached in order to work on himself and others; it is because he refuses to burden himself that he is able to make continual progress and go from strength to strength until he becomes truly formidable. He doesn't need to worry about protecting his money from thieves, falling prices on the stock exchange or the devaluation of the franc of the dollar. This is why I say that those who are always in hot pursuit of wealth are fools: they don't understand that, because of this, their soul will never know anything but emptiness. What good wil it do them to swallow up the whole world? I would be different if they used some of their wealth to help very gifted young people to become outstanding artists or scientists, for instance. But, no; they keep it all for themselves and never help anyone; they are only interested in opening more and more branch offices or shops and ruining their competitors. And, as they know nothing of the laws, they don't know that, when they come back to earth in their next incarnation, they will be beggars.

Believe me, many beggars we see everywhere today are the reincarnation of people who were very rich in a previous incarnation but who were also very selfish and tight-fisted. It is good to be rich. Yes, but it is only good to be rich if it allows you to be useful to others, not if it means that you despoil them and give a free rein to your craving for destruction. So many people use the power their money gives them to pull strings behind the scenes and do all kinds fo despicable things. If they only knew what they were storing up for themselves! But they don't care one jot about that: they have other irons in the fire: And this is why, one day, the Invisible World will decide to pull the floor out from under their feet and let them all collapse. And they will collapse - all of them. The time is drawing near. The Invisible World gives each human being the chance to manifest himself, and all that he does is recorded until, having given a free rein to his basest inclinations for long enough, the time comes for him to be judged. And the laws are terrible! This is what human beings don't realize. They live in darkness and, even when great Masters come to enlighten them, they reject them and refuse to believe what they say.

Of course, anyone can see that: all those great Masters, all those Initiates who have dedicated their lives to discovering truth, who made such great sacrifices and proved their absolute disinterestedness, kindness and greatness of soul - they are all misguided. It is the idiots, brutes and criminals of this world that are on the right track. No, no; believe me, nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, I will show you that you don't know how to read the book of living nature; you have never learned to read the language of plants, mountains, lakes and animals - or of mankind. Let me give you just one example ot of thousands: when the sun rises who sees it first? Those who are at the bottom of a canyon or those who are on top of a mountain? Those at the top of the mountain, of course. In other words, it is those who are purest, most noble and most elevated who are the first to see and grasp the great truths. Goodness knows how many hundreds of years it will be before the common run of benightend fools begins to grasp few smatterings as well. This image of the mountain tops lit by the first rays of the rising sun is a lesson. The great book of Nature is laid out before us and we have to decipher and interpret it; we shall never be misled if we do this. Most human beings trample this book underfoot, that is why they are so deeply plunged into error and illusion.

Go and look at all those who set out to swallow up the whole world and see what a state they are in a few years later: they are preparing to end their days in clinics or asylums because their nervous system cannot stand the strain. They believed that wealth would give them security, pleasure and power, and it does give them these things; that's true. Unfortunetly, it is also gives them something else. They are constantly harassed and have nothing solid to hold on to inwardly. But Initiates, whose only desire is for light, love and purity, live in a state of total fulfilment. Their only concern - apart from the barest necessities in the way of food, clothing and shelter - is how to help others. No one is happier than they and yet, instead of imitating them, the poor spend their time moaning and envying the rich. They fail to understand that their poverty gives them spiritual conditions that could help them to discover another world and to dedicate themselves to a sublime ideal. They are free but, as they don't know how to use their freedom, they are no better than the rich and are just as much to be pitied.

I know, of course, that the rich will never beg the poor to relieve them of their riches. Nor will the poor refuse the invitation. The idea is ludicrous. But I simply wanted to make the point that a rich man is so weighed down by his burden of wealth that he needs to be relieved of some of that weight. Look at how he walks: shoulders bowed and hands behind his back, his fingers constantly moving as though they were autmatically counting. And, as he never looks where he's going, he stumbles against a branch and falls down. And a poor man who is an idealist is no better off: walking along with his head in the clouds and not looking where he is going, he ends by tumbling into a ditch. You have to be sensible and learn to look both up and down while you're walking. A whole philosophy is contained in the way one walks.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Wealth IV

Actually, if the rich really wanted to live a sensible and more balanced life, they would make their minds to get rid of part of their burden. Yes, but as the poor would be perfectly content as they are, they would not want to saddle themselves with any extra weight. And I find myself in the same situation: even if a multi-millionaire offered me several millions, I would tell him, 'No, I don't need it. Give it to the Brotherhood if you like but, personally, I prefer to be free and to go on with my work. 'I feel myself to be the richest of men; why should I impoverish myself? But people just don't understand: true wealth lies in being at peace and seeing things as they really are. What value is there in the possession of wealth if it is to the detriment of all that is most precious in yourself? True wealth is the wealth of your thoughts and feelings, for you can share them with others without impoverishing yourself.

It is good to possess material wealth but only on condition that it does not rob you of your freedom. I have already explained this question in a previous lecture. When the Pharisees and Sadducees were looking for a pretext to condemn Jesus, they asked him, 'Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?' But Jesus asked for a coin and said, 'Whose image and inscription is this?' 'Caesar's ' And Jesus said, 'Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.'

For two thousand years Christians have been quoting this saying and yet they have never discovered how much they should render to Caesar and how much to God. And then I come on the scene with my warped mentality and, setting fire to a log of wood I say, 'Look how it burns: first it produces masses of flames; then it produces gasses, in lesser quantities; then a little water vapour, even less, and finally, all that disappears and we are left with nothing but a handful of ashes. Well, the ashes are for Caesar because they are all that is left on the ground.' That is what Caesar is: the ground. Caesar is here, on earth. The flames, gasses and steam that go up into the sky belong to Heaven. So, there you are: we must consecrate three quarters of all our possessions, activities, thoughts and sentiments to the Lord and one quarter to Caesar; nothing could be more clear. But, instead of that, people give all they have got to Caesar and keep nothing for the Lord. This is why the rich will be punished, if not in their present incarnation, then in the next. And if you say, 'I don't give a hoot about being punished in my next incarnation, I want to have as much as I can in this one!' all I can say is that you are very stupid to take that attitude.

For my part, I have always maintained that, it I were offered the earth itself on condition that I gave up my work, I would refuse. Yes, because, if I were deprived of these spiritual activities, I would be dead; I would have no taste for life any more. So, my answer is, 'Keep all your money an leave me alone'. Believe me, I say this before Heaven, and Heaven knows that it is the truth. So many people allow themselves to be bought without hesitation. This is why the rich are convinced of only one thing: that everything can be bought. And, in fact, it is all too true: they buy men's convictions, feelings and consciences. If you only knew what went on in the world, you would realize how powerful money was. Money is all-powerful on earth. Yes, but it has no value at all in the world above. There are other things that are all-powerful in the world above, not money. And this is why, if your ideal is to become exceptional beings, you must be more and more ready to refuse certain commitments, certain responsibilities, knowing that, if you don't refuse them, it will mean losing your liberty.

True wisdom lies in being capable of giving up certain things. But it is as though people's one desire was to allow themselves to be enslaved on every level. Not long ago a woman came and asked for my advice about remarrying: she had already divorced six husbands and was contemplating getting married for the seventh time. I was dumbfounded! I said to her, 'Dear lady, don't you attach any importance to your freedom?' No; it seems that freedom bored her; she felt that she should always be married, always unhappy and ready to divorce again. Why couldn't she take advantage of her freedom to undertake some new spiritual activities? People always seem to feel the need to tie themselves down. In fact, nine tenths of you are in the same situation: you have the mentality of the rich. Instead of freeing yourselves so as to devote yourselves to making fantastic discoveries, you go in search of situations or occupations that will effectively bury you and prevent you from learning anything about true wealth.

Onraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Wealth IV

Half of my life has been spent in poverty and privations of all kinds and it is thanks to these conditions that I have been able to practise and make so man experiments. Everybody thinks that, if only they had a little laboratory somewhere, they could do all kinds of experiments. They don't realize that they have the best and most perfectly equipped laboratory in themselves; their whole being. And they take this laboratory with them wherever they go. When I understood that I possessed this laboratory, I started to do thousands of experiments - and I still do so. Whereas, if I had been rich, I might well have led a life of ostentatious pleasure and profligacy. Why not? That is what wealth leads to. At least, if you are not rich, you are not in the same danger. Wealth is a great temptation; you have to be very strong to live in opulence and have a spiritual life as intense as it would be if you were poor. Why do you think hermits went to live in the desert? Why are monks required to take the vow of poverty? Because an authentic spiritual life requires a great deal of self-renunciation and inner effort and wealth is not the condition most conductive to this.

I make no secret of my ambition to become the richest man on earth - spiritually speaking, that is. You will say that this is excessive. Not at all; I am only exercising the right that the Lord has given to each one of us, to become richer, more intelligent and more powerful than anyone else. He tells us, even commands us, to do so, for Jesus said, 'Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.' The Lord is the richest, the wisest and the most beautiful of all; He is the noblest and the purest, and we have not only the right but the duty to resemble Him. So, there you are: my ambition is to become perfect. This is my God-given right. It is only narrow-minded, ignorant human beings who wax indignant and declare that it is insufferable pride on my part. No, to want to be perfect is not pride; it is something quite different. As you see, as the days go by, more and more notions get straightened out in your minds.

My dear brothers and sisters, so many errors are possible without this Initiatic knowledge. Nowhere else will you hear that the reason for poverty and wealth can often be traced back to previous incarnations and that many of today's beggars and down-and-outs are people who once used their wealth for evil purposes. Faced with this problem of inequality in men's fortune, a Christian will say, 'It's God's will'. Yes, that is how they envisage the will of God: as an injustice, a purely arbitrary decision.

One day, Mullah Nashrudin (The name of a popular figure of fun in Turkish folklore) came into the village pub with a sackful of walnuts. He had several walnut trees in his garden and was in a generous mood - a rare occurence in his life - so he had decided to share his nuts with his friends. Some of them were probably inedible already, but no matter! Anyway, he comes in at the door, dumps his sack on the floor and shouts, 'Ho, there, my friends, I have some nuts for you. How shall I distribute theirs?' Naturally, everybody was convinced that the Lord showed greater justice than men, so they told him to do as the Lord does. 'Right!' says Mullah Nashrudin and, picking up his sack, he goes to the first man and giving them anything, he stops and empties the entire contents in front of the last man. 'Hey, Nashrudin', they all shout, 'That's not fair! It's unjust!' 'Buzt that is exactly how the Lord distributes things' says Mullah Nashrudin, 'He gives nothing to some and everything to others!' And this is how the Church understands the question.

The truth is that God has given everything to all of us: water, air, warmth, light and even the prâna and all kinds of beneficial elements that exist on the subtle planes. And, that being so, why are we still so poor and indigent? Because we don't know how to capture and absorb those elements. Only Initiates know how to do this. Everyone else thinks that life is poor, that the Lord has not given them anything. But He has, He has given them everything: everything is theirs for the taking. It is just that they are too spineless and lazy, too stupid and too blind to see it, so they remain poor. It is human beings themselves that restrict themselves so severely. They are content to eat, drink and breathe, that is to say to feed on the solid, liquid and gaseous elements, but they ignore the fiery elements, fire and light. This is why mankind is degenerating: because it is not properly nourished. To be properly nourished we need all four elements and this means that it is very important to be present as the sun rises, so as to see and absorb the fire and light that pours from it in such abundance every day. Fire is the most essential of the four elements. It is possible to go without food for several days: prisoners who went on a hunger-strike have held out for as long as sixty days. To go without drinking is more difficult; you cannot do without water for more than a few days. To go without air is even more difficult; you can't stop breathing for more than three or four minutes at most. And fire? 'That's easy', you might say, 'I've survived a whole winter without a fire!' Yes, you can get along without heating in winter, perhaps, but I'm not talking about external warmth; I'm talking about the warmth of the heart. The instant a man's heart loses its warmth, he dies. Of all the four elements, the one that is most important for life is fire. But human beings are bent on dissipating this sacred fire, this warmth, in their pleasures and follies and, in this way, they are shortening their lives. If they knew how to preserve this fire, they would live for centuries.

A human being can be compared to a multi-stage rocket. When all the fuel in the first stage has been used, the burners in the second stage are lit and, when the second lot of fuel is exhausted, the third stage fires and so on; in this way, the rocket can continue in flight for a long time. When a man dies, therefore, it means that he has failed to fire the burners in the next stage. He could have lived longer, for he still has some fuel left.

Everything is at our disposal: God has filled the atmosphere and the rivers, lakes and mountains of the world, even the stars, with everything we need. He has kept nothing back for Himself. But, as human beings are incapable of reaching out to grasp all this wealth, they remain poor and miserable. Try, henceforth, through meditation and contemplation, to reach up to the highest planes so as to garner some of these elements. They are there, waiting for you; there are no'Keep out' signs up there. the 'Keepout' signs are in you, because you are not strong, pure and intelligent enough. Believe me, everything you need is there, ready and waiting for you if you are capable of reaching out for it. Light, warmth, space, the stars - they are all at our disposal. It is we who fail to use them. The Lord distributes everything; no one is more generous than Him.

Take life, for example: life is present all around us in water, in rocks and trees and, above all, in the air and the sun, but we die because our bodies are unable to draw on that life. God is just and supremely generous; He has never said that His riches were for some and not for others. If we have never done anything to enable us to benefit from them, it is not His fault. This is why we have to study and train ourselves, otherwise we shall go through one incarnation after another in the same condition of poverty and misery and the same attitude of recrimination against the Lord. The thing that really amazes me is that Christians can continue to believe in a God as monstrous as they conceive Him to be. They pray to Him and love Him but, in their ignorance, they have invented a monster. No other Teaching glorifies God as much as ours does. Look around you and you will see the strange notions other Teachings try to give you.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Aristocracy and Democracy

'A human being is inhabited by a whole population of cells which are directly dependent on him and, consequently, strongly influenced by him. This is why they imitate him in everything. If a person habitually transgress the law, his population notices this and becomes exactly like its master, and it is on his head that any repercussions fall. He feels that something is not quite right and complains: 'What's wrong with me? There's a revolution going on inside me!' The truth is that it is he who has taught his cells to behave in this way. All your ailments are the result of the bad upbringing you have given your cells. You do nothing but grumble as you sweep your room; you knock the chairs about, kick your doors shut, bump into the furniture - and your cells imitate you. When they have to move something they kick it, and you cry out in pain and wonder what is going on. Well, it is simply some of your cells kicking the furniture about in imitation of your own behavior.'

What and where is that furniture? What a strange text that is; all about our cells kicking things about! Of course, those who don't know what a human being is or how he is constructed and who don't know that he is inhabited by millions of microscopic creatures will find the whole idea absurd. They don't realize that our cells are tiny intelligent souls; they are a population, a people with whom we are in constant contact. They are our children, our pupils, and we have to teach and guide them. But the trouble is that we don't know them and never bother about them, with the result that they don't obey us. However much we plead or threaten, they refuse to budge. Take the question of sexuality, for instance: a man can be a pastor, a bishop or anything else you like to imagine, but his sexual organs function as they please, they don't listen to him. An Initiate, on the other hand, who is aware of certain truths and certain rules, knows how to command the cells of his organs so that they obey him. Yes, because he is fully conscious and has learned to communicate with them.

In the passage I read a moment ago, I used the example of people who slam doors and kick the furniture. If human beings were more sensitive and if they analysed themselves, they would notice that all this banging about, all the noise and commotion they cause outwardly, is reflected in their inner being. Admittedly, your tables and chairs have neither souls nor consciousness, but human beings have; they have souls and a psychic life and all this tumult, all those chaotic gestures are reflected in their psychic life. If they were sensitive they would feel the effects of this confusion, disruption and disharmony, for our gestures reverberate not only in our brain but in our whole being. The significance of our gestures, in fact, constitutes a science in itself. Every gesture is an eloquent expression not only of a person's inner attitude, decisions and intentions but also of his level of evolution.

A human being is home to a whole population, therefore, but, as he doesn't know it, he never does anything to care for them or improve their lot. He is more concerned with the world around him and never gives a thought to the world he carries within him and of which he is the educator and master. And yet the events that go on inside a human being are a replica of what goes on in society. We see the same unrest and upheavals, the same revolutions. Human history tells of many kings who proved to be unfit to rule and were overthrown by their subjects. Knowing nothing about the terrible laws of karma, they reigned over their people with cruelty and injustice and, all the while, secretly and silently, others plotted their downfall an, eventually, toppled them from their thrones. There are any number of examples of this: kings who were dethroned and thrown into dungeons where they lived miserably for years on a diet of bread and water, constantly hoping to be freed, while those who had seized power ruled in their stead. Everybody has heard of such happenings but how many understand that the same things go on in their own inner life? The king within us slips into slothful or licentious habits, leaving the way open to hostile forces which seize him, throw him into prison and start to rule in his place.

Human beings must regain their place at the head of their kingdom, therefore, otherwise they will end by being completely supplanted by thieves and bandits from amongst their own citizens. If a person is unjust and dishonest, if he fails to respect certain laws, the inevitable result is an inner revolution that topples him from power and puts, the reins of government into the hands of monsters. And his friends and neighbours are so blind that they don't even notice that it is not the same person who is in command. Of course, there are extreme cases in which no one can help seeing it: if someone begins to say, 'I'm Genghis Khan, or Jesus christ, or Napoleon Bonaparte', it becomes obvious that he has been replaced. It is certainly neither Genghis Khan nor Napoleon nor, above all, Jesus Christ who has usurped his place! But he himself, poor fellow, has no idea where he is. The phenomenon of the dual personality is widely recognized today; no one doubts that it exists. But what people don't know is that this dual - or rather this multiple - personality exists in every one of us. Yes, because man is inhabited by millions of different spirits and entities which can all manifest themselves in their different ways depending on circumstances.

Believe me, there are rules in the inner world just as there are in the outer world, and it is important to know them. Why do people think that they can use injustice, violence and cruelty in order to dominate others indefinitly without their realiating? Even terror will not keep people down or force them to submit to atrocities for ever. All those who thought otherwise have learned a terrible lesson. In fact, this is why the aristocracy was brought down and replaced by democracy. Not that this means that democracy is better. It would have been far better if the aristocracy had been capable of remaining in charge by reason of its qualities of intelligence and nobility of character for, symbolically speaking, the aristocracy is the brain, that which is at the top, which sees and foresees and rules, whereas democracy is the common people, the stomach, belly and sexual organs.

I have often given you the example of a ship with its captain on the bridge and its stokers in the engine rooms. The stokers are the common people and they have the ability to drive the ship, but they cannot see where they are going; if they were allowed to steer, their mistakes could be disastrous. But, altough it would be a grave mistake to underestimate their importance - they represent the means, the conditions, the energy that is so necessary - they cannot be entrusted with functions that belong only to the captain, to the aristocracy. The masses are incapable of making intelligent decisions and steering events in the right direction. Forgive me for saying so, but that is the truth. The cells of the stomach have not been given the capacity to instruct and guide the others. When the stomach or the sexual organs clamour for something, the brain must not hasten to give in to them and satisfy their demands without a second thought. Human beings must be guided and enlightened by wisdom, and the strength and energy of the masses is there to realize the splendours that are the fruits of wisdom.

You will say, 'But all that is very dangerous! It's dangerous to condemn democracy and speak in favour of the aristocracy.' Well, there is danger in everything we do. When you eat and drink you are in danger of being poisonned of of choking to death. When you go out into the streets you are in danger of being hit on the head by a tile falling from a roof. We are surrounded by dangers of every kind, but we have to speak the truth. And the truth is that it would be better to restore an enlightened aristocracy than to be ruled by the judgement and appetites of an ignorant populace. Naturally, I am well aware that there are some genuine aristocrats amongst the masses, people with the highest ideals and aspirations. I have met any number of them: they have neither titles nor mansions nor insignia of any kind, but the extraordinary generosity and selflessness of their lives set them apart as the best type of aristocrat. I believe that you are beginning to understand me now, aren't you?

When the world begins to listen to this aristocracy of elite beings, it will mean the transformation of everything. It will be the masses themselves that will clamour for a government of the aristocracy, for they will recognize that, left to their own resources, without the light they need, they can only lose their way.

But a hiearchical order must exist within each human being: every human being should have the aristocracy here, in his head, and the masses here, in his stomach. Both are necessary, but if you get them mixed up and allow them to exchange places, sooner or later it will lead to disaster. The solution is for every human being to implore Heaven to send an aristocracy of luminous beings into his head to guide and instruct him. This won't prevent the democracy from carrying out its duties; on the contrary, it must go on working even at night, for if the masses stop working, if the work of digestion, circulation and elimination ceases, the whole body, including the aristocracy, will be doomed.

What harm is there, therefore, in telling you that you must get back your throne and be a king again; that you must achieve self-mastery and learn to renounce certain weaknesses in order to escape the clutches of the wild beasts within you? There is no more important work than this: to become king of your own inner realm and gain the love, respect and obedience of your citizens. If they see that you are a good ruler, they will make an effort to do whatever you ask. If some of them start to lose their temper, you only have to say, 'No, no; calm down!' and they will obey you. Otherwise if you are not in command, you will have to wait for days; they will calm down when they feel like it and there will be nothing you can do about it. The same is true for your sexual energy: if you have learned self-discipline, your cells will become disciplined, too. But if you have learned nothing, you will be obliged to satisfy their demands, otherwise they will overpower you. This is what happens when you are not in command: you are ruled by others that you know nothing about.

You have never envisaged the question in these terms before, have you? You live like everybody else: unconsciously. But that won't do! From now on, you must be conscious of what goes on inside you, because you have a duty towards your inhabitants. They have been entrusted to your care so that you can employ them in a work of great importance, and all you do is set them a bad example! When you have to meet other people socially you take care to be impeccable: your words, gestures, expressions and clothes are all perfect. But when you are alone and no one can see you it is quite another matter; you let yourself go and never think about the inner population that is watching you. Seeing this, they say to themselves, 'Very well, if that's the example he gives us, we'll do the same. He'll soon see what it's like!' and, before you know what has happened, power has been wrested from you. Whereas if you behave well in front of your citizens, they are capable of doing wonders for you.

If you realized what an immense population dwelt in you, you would take great pride in it. There are billions and billions of them - more than the total population of the world. And let me tell you that some Initiates have been so successful in educating the entities that dwell in them and have helped them to become st strong and so highly evolved, that they are now capable of working by themselves: they go and help, console and heal their master's friends and disciples. Sometimes, indeed, when they go to help others, they take on the appearance of the Initiate, and this is why people think that it was he who visited them whereas, in fact, he is often the last to learn that he has helped someone.

Yes, if a human being works intelligently and consciously, he can strengthen some of his inner entities to such a degree and give them such powers that, although he himself cannot go absolutely everywhere, thanks to these entities, he can travel throughout the world to enlighten all creatures and prepare the coming of the Kingdom of God. Believe me, this is the absolute truth, but it is a truth that orthodox science has never even suspected - still less accepted. Even the Russians, who have done a lot of work on parapsychological phenomena such as clairvoyance, the aura and the etheric body, still do not know this. The truth is that man's possibilites are unimaginable, indescribable and virtually unlimited, but they depend, of course, on his degree of evolution. If someone decides to study, to achieve self-mastery and to overcome certain failings, all those possibilities are there before him, ready and waiting. I am not the first to tell you this. What I am saying has been said before by all Initiates and all Masters since the world began. I am not inventing anything. I am here simply to transmit the secret of their learning and their power and to lead you, little by little, towards all that splendour.

If a disciple makes up his mind to work in this direction, therefore, Heaven takes him under Its wing and his own inhabitants give him more and more help and support. There are even doctors and healers amongst them who take care of his health. The fact that certain people can reach a very great age without falling ill shows that some of their inner entities look after their health, for health does not depend only on our organs; it depends on the entities that live in them and animate them. And, if these entities are weak or become paralysed, it only remains for us to put ourselves in the hands of the pharmacists, doctors and surgeons. And there is no telling whether or not they will be capable of healing us or prolonging our life!

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Aristocracy and Democracy II

...This is exactly what goes on at night when, without our being aware of it, thousands of entities work to help our organism to rid itself of its toxins and replenish its forces. If these entities are absent or if they are hindered in their work, you will not be refreshed, even after a night's sleep. If you always rely on external means instead of turning to these intelligent entities, if you never aks them to help you or show them the appreciation they need to do their work properly, you can spend your life in pursuit of healing but, as you don't understand what it really means nor who it is that heals, you will never achieve it. Let me give you an example: you have a machine of some kind that has broken down and, as it can't mend itself, you call a mechanic to come and mend it. But human beings, who constantly experience problems of this nature in their daily lives, have never understood that the situation is exactly the same in themselves.

Believe me, as long as you continue to reject this philosophy, you will never find the solution to your problems, whether they be medical, economic or educational. You must respect and appreciate all these intelligent workers who live within you, for when they see that you treat them with love and gratitude, they will do their work magnificently and you will always feel healthy and even-tempered; nothing will be lacking.

Yes, the external world in which we live contains all kinds of lessons that we must learn to decipher. The example of the machine that breaks down is so clear: it takes a mechanic to get it working again. In the same way, our organs have to be repaired and kept in working order by living entities. A man's organs can be in good shape but, if those who animate them have been ordered to leave, he dies. The machine stops working, even though its organs are infact - and this can be seen in the fact that the organs of his dead body can be grafted onto someone else's body. It is simply that those who kept the machine running have left, so it has stopped. But suppose it had been dedreed that a man was to live for two or three hundred years, his organs would continue to function because they would constantly be fuelled and kept alive by new particles and new entities.

Actually, the human physical body is capable of living for thousands of years. Of course, this is only possible in exceptional circumstances and by a special decree of Providence; generally speaking, owing to the inevitable flaws in their heredity, human beings cannot live much more than a hundred years, it is always possible to work to be stronger and healthier. And the only way to do this is to rely on what is alive and not on what is dead, because only living elements have the power to heal. What happens, for instance, if you have an abcess or an open sore? Where are the entities that know how to heal the sore or clean all the impurities from the abcess? If they have been chloroformed and driven away by your chaotic way of life, the infection in your sore or abscess will get worse and turn into tetanus or gangrene and then you will have to have your leg cut off. All because you have banished the specialized workers who could have healed you. Even though you do everything possible externally, with disinfectants, salves and dressings, the sore will still get infected.

You must understand that the most effective remedies come from within and that, if your inner entities are not allowed to do their work properly, external remedies are powerless to compensate. Conversely, if your inner entities are in good shape, your organism will heal itself, even if there is no outside help available. So, you see, it is all very simple, very clear: you must change your mentality and give first place to the psychic, spiritual dimension; and, above all, you must work to achieve complete control and mastery of yourself so as to reign over your inner population and do good to all around you. Is this possible? Yes, it is. And you will take pride in having fulfilled the mission with which you were sent down to earth: to become a model of integrity, honesty and purity.

You now understand, I am sure, that when I talk about the aristocracy, I am referring to that inner aristocracy that we all possess but which has been toppled from power because it was not equal to its task. This aristocracy has continued to rule in a few, very exceptional cases, in the great philosophers, sages and Initiates. In them, because it is the head that rules, their populace, the cells of the stomach, belly and sexual organs, etc., obey them and work magnificently.

To be sure, all this is beyond the reach of most human beings. They are filled with every imaginable purpose except that of becoming exemplary human beings, true servants of God, conductors of light. And yet, how easy it would be to give them the means to achieve this! The difficulty lies in getting them to aspire to such an ideal. Even the Lord is incapable of giving men this desire; they have to acquire it for themselves. Just as no one can eat in another person's place, no one can aspire to something in their place, either. I give you food, but it is you who have to eat it. If I ate it for you, I would get fatter and you would get thinner. But disciples are an extraordinary breed: they think that their Master should do everything and they themselves nothing. They even want their Master to provide them with love, will-power and perseverance. Unfortunetly, for them, nothing of the kind exists in Iniatic Science.

A Master gives his disciples the means, the methods and the conditions he needs, but it is up to him to do the work, otherwise he will end up in the same situation as the lazy man in the story. It happened, one day, in Turkey: a peasant was digging a ditch and, as it was very hard work, each time he thrust his spade into the ground, he grunted, 'Oof! oof!' A lazy good-for-nothing happened to pass by and, seeing the man digging and I'll do the 'Oof-ing', and then we'll share the wages, too.' 'Agreed!' said the peasant. So there they were, one digging and the other going 'Oof! Oof!'. Of course, when the peasant received his money and kept it all for himself, the other man was furious and brought him up before the cadi (the village magistrate). When the magistrate had heard the story, he said, 'You're right; it's only fair to share.' Turning to the peasant, he said, 'Bring me the coins that you received as wages.' When these were handed to him, the magistrate took them and dropped them on the floor, one by one, then, giving them back to the peasant, he said to the lazy man, 'Since it was you who did the''Oof-ing'', the clink of the coins is for you; but he did the digging, so the coins themselves are for him.' There; that is what will happen to those who expect to receive everything without working for it.

I can give you knowledge, but the good-will must come from you and the two combined will produce unheard-of results. Every day, the luminous spirits of nature will come to you to help you; every day, you will enter deeper and deeper into this extraordinary philosophy; every day, you will become freer and freer and freer.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Aristocracy and Democracy III

A great number of today's books, films, magazines and shows lead people in the direction of disorder, anarchy and chaos. And they are tremendously popular! It is astonishing to see to what extent human nature needs to feed on such diabolical stuff. So much so that you cannot really blame artists and writers for giving the public this kind of food; they are simply trying to provide what it demands so avidly. It is not entirely their fault therefore, but even so, if they had been taught by Initiates, they would know that they must not stoop to satisfy the baser appetites and lusts of men's lower nature. They would stay on a higher level and, in this way, the public would be forced to rise in order to reach them and to reach the higher intelligence and beauty that they possess. Instead of this, in trying to satisfy the masses, the demos, the stomach, they have helped to supplant the aristocracy of the brain, with the result that it is now men's lower nature that has the upper hand and flaunts itself, lays down the law and imposes its will.

Oh yes; we are all very 'democratic' nowadays; the masses rule; ignorance holds sway, and intelligence, the aristocracy, has been defeated because it was incapable of retaining its superiority. The time has come to form, once again, an intellectual, moral and spiritual aristocracy so that the masses may evolve. Those who are in control - the demos, the stomach, the belly and the sexual organs - must allow the head to rule, for it is not for the head to gratify the desires of the belly and the sexual organs.

To be sure, if democracy has taken power, it is because the aristocracy has degenerated, just as the social and political aristocracy degenerated. To be an aristocrat does not mean to possess a name, a title, a prominent position or great estates; it means to have high personal standards of morality, generosity and strength of character.

People wanted to get rid of the monarchy and the aristocracy, to do away with tsars and nobles... Yes, but those who are now in power, even in Communist countries, perpetrate the same crimes as the overlords of old, and, once again, popular uprisings will liquidate them in their turn, because they, too, are unworthy: they have forgotten that they overthrew the monarchy and the nobility in order to establish the reign of brotherhood and justice. With the passing of the years they have forgotten their ideal and become materialized and corrupt, just as the Church, in the course of the centuries, has forgotten the principles of love taught by Jesus and become materialized.

It is time, now, to restore the aristocracy of the heart and soul, the aristocracy of the Initiates and great Masters, of all those truly enlightened beings who have proved their worth. Words are not enough. Everybody is capable of making wonderful speeches, but how many are capable of putting their words into practice? As long as those who rule and are in command are not enlightened by Initiatic Science, what good can come of their decisions? They may not actually spark bloody confrontations but nor will they produce a veritable transformation of mentalities. You only have to open your eyes and see this for yourself: do the majority of human beings demand spiritual, divine riches? No; all they ask for is money, pleasure and the freedom to indulge themselves like animals. All their demands are for their belly and stomach, never for light. In these conditions, how can you expect the masses to change the world and bring about the Kingdom of God? When they begin to ask for something more, yes, perhaps; but it is not by making some minor changes on the economic, material, financial or political level that they will bring about any great transformations. It will always be the same old story; always the same filth. The trouble is that no one has yet understood what it is that has to be changed.

True, talk of change is on everyone's lips, but all I see are the tireless endeavours of a handful of ambitious man who are bent on getting to the top so as to have more power and more money. They don't prepare themselves, they don't work to become purer and nobler or to achieve self-mastery, to become examples for others. That is not what interests them. What use would it be to them to be better human beings? That is not what they need. They need a position of power, the opportunity to gratify their passions and their thirst for conquests and revenge. This si why the world will never know peace.

The truth is that present-day society is so unenlightened that it encourages all the baser tendencies of its members. Parents are so ignorant that they think that their duty as educators is to bring up their children to look for favours and privileges in life. Instead of teaching their children to prepare themselves for their future responsibilities, so that they will be worthy of them and fulfil them with integrity, they force the most pernicious advice on them and are elated when they meet with outward success, even if it is not deserved. People's amtitious are always confined to the material plane and since, in order to succeed, one has to use cunning, deceit and violence, they end by destroying all that is best in their character.

Human beings have no difficulty in understanding that wealth makes it possible for them to influence events and reverse certain situations but, as it is rarely through honesty and generosity that they become rich - rather the contrary - they are ready to transgress every law to obtain that wealth. You will say, 'That's all very well, but if we followed your advice and spent all our time preparing and strengthening ourselves and becoming examples, conditions in the world are such that we would always be unknown and stuck away in some obscure job at the bottom of the ladder.' What makes you so sure? If you are capable and truly exceptional, if you are truly a model, a sun, whether you like it or not, others will come and fetch you, by force if necessary, and place you at their head to rule and guide them. If this has not yet happened, it is because you have not earned it; you are not yet sufficiently perfect.

Human beings are in need of true light, true science and true power. They need these things and are constantly in search of them, but, as those they frequent are not always shining examples, they get along as best they can, using dishonesty and violence in order to succeed at all costs. Inwardly, they all need something sublime but, as they never meet that something, they become discouraged and begin to imitate the brigands and vultures that surround them, telling themselves - like so many others -'Virtue is never rewarded', 'An honest man dies of hunger' and 'Man is a wild beast for his fellow men'. In this way, each individual descends to the level of those around him and conforms to the lowest common denominator.

But if, in the future, some human beings embrace this Teaching, struggle against the general trend and sacrifice everything else for the sake of this sublime ideal, you would soon see that others would love and appreciate them and seek them out. And this is how the Kingdom of God will be established on earth. If it has not already come, it is because the majority of those in power are not motivated by a high ideal. Naturally, they would never be so stupid, so insane as to have such a sublime goal! They are only interested in what they can get out of the situation. But if some of them do decide to achieve this ideal come what may, then, believe me, they will find true power, true light and true beauty.

The sad thing is that a great many adolescents do have this desire to work for an ideal, to make great sacrifices, to conduct themselves as true, valiant knights. But then, after a time, when they come up against hard facts and are urged by those around them to be 'sensible' and 'realistic', they abandon their dreams and try to adapt and become like others. Obviously, even if a person's aspirations and impulses are excellent, he needs support; he needs someone to advise him and help him not to go back on the choices he has made, otherwise he will be worn down by a multitude of little difficulties and the jokes and jeers of his companions until he becomes exactly like the wild beasts all round him.

When I talk about the aristocracy, therefore, I am talking about the true inner aristocracy. When this aristocracy succeeds in maintaining its pre-eminent position in a human being, harmony reigns amongst the whole population of cells but, if it is unequal to its taks, it is overthrown and its opponents - his instincts, lusts, vices and failings - take power into their own hands. And then, as the revolutionary song has it, all the aristocrats will be strung up! This always happens when the inner nobility is unworthy: the aristocrats are sent to the guillotine and the rabble takes power into its own hands.

And, very often, this is what happens to you, too. Of course, the blind won't see it but, if you meet an Initiate, he will understand the situation immediatly and will say, 'My poor fellow, why on earth have you let things degenerate to such an extent? You're no better than a slave! And you don't even know how it happened! Well, it is for one of three reasons: either you lacked light, or you had no love for the divine world, or you didn't have the will-power to keep working.' There are only three possible explanations, not four or five or ten or more. People always see the causes of their misfortune outside themselves: their parents, society, their education, a shortage of money, the ill-will of neighbours, competitors, etc. No, it is simply a lack of intelligence, love or will-power. This is how an Initiate envisages things. He knows that it is no good looking for causes in the external world; they must be sought in a person's inner life. Human beings are going to have to adopt entirely new criteria if they are to see the true causes of what happens to them.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science

I said that evolution was accompanied by a simplification of forms and an amplification of the intensity of life, whereas involution was accompanied by a multiplication of forms and a diminution in the intensity of life, a loss of expressiveness, subtlety and refinement. This is why, when man debases himself, he sinks more deeply into diversity and becomes a world teeming with savage, snarling beasts - snakes, crocodiles, tigers and jackals. This is because man's inner life is simply the reflection of his outer life; when he moves further from the Source, he reproduces within himself the conditions of the jungle and is torn by inner conflict and strife. The only way he can put an end to this unhappy situation is to turn back to unity.

This unity must also be established amongst the countries of the world. Study your history books and you will see that, not so very long ago, many of the existing countries were split up into seperate, warring States. Eventually, these small States realized that it would be to their advantage to unite and, in doing so, they have become world powers. But this is only one stage in the process; it is not enough. Each of these powers feels threatened by - and is a threat to - its neighbours, and the final outcome of the war they are preparing can only be their mutual destruction. Human beings must realize that the time has come to achieve a much broader, more all-embracing unity: every country in the world must unite, and that unification will produce in the body of the world exactly what it produces in our own bodies: health, strength and well-being. Mankind has not yet reached a satisfactiory state of health; it is ill, suffering from cancer, because of the all-pervading philosophy of separativeness. Each individual wants to work only for his own country or his own family. But this tendency can only create an everlasting series of complications and wars because, in such divisive conditions, there will always be some whose interests are overlooked. It is time, now, to simplify things, to convince all the countries of the world that, if they agree to unite, they will be much better off: everyone will share in the new abundance and be free to travel, get to know other people and rejoice together.

In the past, of course, these notions of separativeness were perfectly normal; they had a role to play for man was not capable of broadening the scope of his consciousness to any great extent. Even the great Initiates such as Moses, for example, encouraged their people in the idea that they had to combat foreign nations; in fact, Moses himself participated in such wars. At that period in fact it was impossible to get human beings to understand brotherly love and the need for a universal family. They were too much like animals; the thing was unthinkable. But the situation is no longer the same and, thanks to the speed of communications, the world has suddenly grown so small that the time has come for human beings to understand that they must do away with the barriers between countries and unite so that the whole world may be one immense family. Human beings are still fighting, but what are they defending? They are defending a state of affairs which is destined to disappear and, one day, they will realize how stupid they were to work so hard to preserve it.

In the meantime, however, they cling to their old political and religious conceptions. Christians, for example, continue to take pride in belonging to the true religion, in being the true children lf God; they consider that all others are pagans, infidels, unbelievers. But this is grotesque, ridiculous, absolutely monstrous! True children of God cannot be so narrow-minded. As long as this is their attitude, they are on a very low level - and it is not I who put them on that level, it is they themselves. Every creature decides his own level and his own orientation by entertaining thoughts, feelings and acts which put him in contact with specific substances, regions and forces in the universe. Every day, at each instant of the day, we ally ourselves with good or with evil, with the light or with darkness.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science II

It is visible that a tremendous work is going on, today, and it will be carried on with increasing intensity, if not by adults, then by the young. For it is the young who will find it impossible to endorse the obsolete conceptions that are the cause of all wars and who will force adults to see things from a broader perspective. Young people are coming to the fore; they are going to turn the world upside down in Russia as well as in America; they will bring about a tremendous revolution. Political leaders too often imagine that the destiny of a country is in their hands. They may be able to comfort themselves with this illusion for a time, but not for long. All those who have believed that everything depended on them, have come to a bad end. Tyrants always come to a bad end; they cut off a few heads but, in the end, others come along and then it is their turn to lose their heads. In reality, the destiny of mankind is not ruled by human beings, however mighty, but by very exalted Entities who watch over the world and control the course of events.

Think of all those mighty empires that once subjugated the world: they have all disappeared and been replaced by others. Yes, there are other intelligences, other forces working towards a goal that is unknown to us. Human beings should be much humbler, therefore, otherwise they are bound, sooner or later, to bite the dust. None of the innumerable secret societies that once believed they were going to rule the world has ever succeeded, and most of them have ceased to exist. Whereas the great Initiates, those who serve God's design, although they have often been scorned and massacred, have kept their ideal intact. For God's design is always the salvation, liberation and happiness of mankind.

My dear brothers and sisters, the Universal White Brotherhood exists to remind human beings that they are children of the same Father and the same Mother. Why should they slaughter each other? Why should they work against each other? It is monstrous, insane! You are obliged to agree with this conclusion: once you accept this truth you cannot continue to be seperate and to detest each other, it's illogical. You must either live according to this truth or you should reject it - it would be more honest. Perhaps, if people had neither the same father nor the same mother, it would be permissible to massacre each other, but to behave like the Christians, who profess to believe that we are all children of the same Father and Mother, and who continue, in spite of that, to massacre Christians and non-Christians alike. Such a thing simply should not be. It is a terrible contradiction!

Human beings seek happiness, success and wealth for themselves and are always ready to spring to the defence of these things, believing that, if they don't, they will lose them. Only thirty years ago, the Frenchman who dared to suggest that his people should seek reconciliation with the Germans would have been shot. And now that the idea is accepted, neither the French nor the Germans are in danger of being shot for making friends, visiting each other - and even bringing a few little France-Germans into the world! Why shouldn't it be the same with all the other nations? The fact that the French and Germans are friends has not really changed things very much; they still have other enemies who are just waiting for the chance to devour them. If we are really to be out of danger, therefore, the unity we need must be much broader in scope. Otherwise, neither arms nor diplomacy will be capable of saving poor, suffering humanity. But the day will come when the dangers that threaten men will be so great that they will be forced to be friends. Yes, even the United States and Vietnam, even Israel and the Arab countries.

The only way for human beings to solve their problems is to live a brotherly life, and this is the life that I am offering them, a life which will give them an expanded consciousness and greater intelligence, happiness and joy. But the poor things cannot see this. The Brotherhood opens vast horizons to them; it offers them a family and immense wealth, but they refuse to leave their own little burrow, their egoism and darkness, their lower nature. They say, 'I don't need a Brotherhood; I don't need to learn any of that; all I want is to live my life freely and independently.' In reality, what they are defending in this way is their sloth and egoism, a wanton, undisciplined way of life, because that is what suits them.

The trouble is that human beings have no real touchstone by which to guide themselves; they are still babies. If they were adult - spiritually adult - they would recognize that it is their predilection for comfort and facility, their desire to 'enjoy' life that is the source of all misfortunes. But, as they have never analysed themselves, they still prefer this attitude, because it dispenses them from making an effort or trying to improve. Well, I must warn them that, as long as they have this attitude, they will never make any progress because they are behaving like children. Children always prefer something agreeable, pleasant, sweet; their intelligence is not sufficiently developed for them to understand that the sweet things of life won't help them to evolve. Sometimes, in order to develop and become strong and intelligent, we have to accept something bitter, some quinine. Some people have even sought martyrdom deliberately, because they knew that human beings evolved more rapidly in difficult conditions. To be sure, I am not going to ask you to go to such lenghts, but I do ask you to understand that you must break with this philosophy of separativeness that so many people adopt in order to be, as they think, free and independent. You will never be free that way; on the contrary, you will be slaves, slaves to your own whims and weakness.

True development can only take place in a collectivity. When you are always alone there is nothing to make you control yourself or help others. You can sleep all day, go unwashed and live in squalor and disorder. Some people prefer to live in sordid conditions; they fell comfortable that way, but in a collectivity it would be frightful! You have to be clean and presentable so as not to be offensive to others; you have to be friendly, patient and tolerant. Some people tell me that they need to be alone because they have so much work to do. Come on now! Don't think you can fool me so easily: I can see the reflection of that 'work' in their faces, and it is nothing but laziness, pleasure, the life of the astral plane or of even lower, subterranean regions in which they spend their time raising the dust and stirring up the mud and the tadpoles. But one fine day they are going to wake up to the fact that they are completely enslaved, that they have been working for their enemies, for entities of darkness they don't even know. It is these entities that order them about: 'Get me this or that to eat. No, I don't like that; go and get me the other thing, etc.' And they are forever running about, trying to satisfy what they take to be their own desires. Yes, and this state of affairs will continue until they finally realize that they have compromised their future and their own happiness by feeding and pandering to their worst enemies.

You must be aware that every human being is inhabited by two types of entity, and if they don't know which ones to nourish, they end by being completely dominated by the entities of darkness. In order to milk them to the last drop, to get the last scrap of meat off them, these entities tell them, 'You're free! You can do what you please', and the poor fools are convinced that they have been 'liberated' as they would say. They don't realize that, on the contrary, they thave been enslaved. Man can be free, but not by surrendering to all his desires. As long as people understand freedom in the manner of children, they will never know liberty, only slavery.

Do as you please, therefore, but, sooner or later, you will be obliged to arrive at the same truths that I am giving you today. And the sooner you get there the better! You have already had so many costly experiences, is there any point in going on in the same way? Couldn't you find a better kind of experience? I am continually astonished by people's mentality: they say, 'But its important to sample all kinds of experiences'. I agree. Absolutely. But why do you experiment only with dark, negative things? You must at least be honest about it, and if you insist on sampling everything, then you must also sample luminous, spiritual things. If you really feel that you must try everything, why limit yourself to only one aspect?

Man, unfortunetly, always concentrates on one side of things - usually the worst side - and neglects the other. When a philosopher - a self-styled philosopher - declares that there is nothing in life for man but emptiness and despair, that God does not exist or that, if He does, man has no way of communicating with Him, the masses rush to follow him. And yet, even if there is an element of truth in that point of view, wouldn't it be equally true to say the exact opposite? Why do human beings confine themselves to one aspect - and always the worst? There are always two sides to everything and you must look at both. A human being has two natures, one that is celestial and the other that is infernal, and you must study both of them. Yes, but you must give first place to his celestial nature.

Now, have you really understood what I have been saying? Have you understood that the Universal White Brotherhood is a truly terrible place, as unpleasantm, indigestible and tough as can be? If you have understood this, then you will come here to practise and get into training, to develop to the full every aspect of your being - will, heart, intellect, soul and spirit - and, one day, you will become true sons and daughters of God.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science III

God is above all considerations of race or nationality. He has not created human beings to be Jews, Arabs, Christians or Buddhists: He has created them; that's all. It is they who, because of the conditions in which they evolved, were obliged to form clans, families, societies and nations. One day these distinctions which lead to so much hostility will disappear and men will feel themselves to be citizens of the world. Isn't this the healthiest and most desirable thing we could possibly wish for? Where is the political leader who would contradict me? I can demonstrate to you, mathematically, scientifically and historically, that certain points of view are obsolete.

Now that we are living in an age in which man has reached the moon, isn't it about time we decided to change certain things? One fine day we shall meet the inhabitants of the moon. You will tell me that science has discovered that there are no inhabitants on the moon. But there are! In fact, they are more scientifically and technologically advanced than man. Why did the astronauts find no sign of them? Because, knowing in advance that they were going to have visitors, they hid away in their underground homes. Yes, because, if human beings are capable of reaching the moon, they are also perfectly capable, sooner or later, of doing to its inhabitants what the Spanish did to the Aztecs and Mayas. They still do it, wherever they go; there's not much difference, in fact, between cannibals and so-called civilized people. If they don't actually eat their fellow men, they devour them in other ways. Ah, I know that you like cannibals...shall I tell you a story about them?

One day a delegation of cannibals turned up at the United Nations, saying, 'We demand a hearing; we have some complaints to make. We have learned from the newspapers and television (as you see, cannibals are very civilized and up-to-date) that you help people who are starving. You send them supplies of wheat, rice and coffee, etc. but you have sent us only a dozen missionaries. That's not enough; we ate the last of them a long time ago and now we're hungry. Why can't you apply a little Christian generosity to our case, too!' How logical! You will say, of course, 'But human beings learned not to eat each other a long time ago!' Oh, you know, there are many cases to prove that the twentieth century is not really so far removed from cannibalism. Put human beings in certain situations and you will see how highly evolved they are. Besides, to eat someone is no worse than all the other things people do. No one has yet studied all the various forms of cannibalism such as the different ways in which men and women 'eat' each other.

Let people do as they please; let them swindle and destroy, if they want to, but they must never forget that it is not they who control the situation. There are other entities, above us, who watch over mankind and guide it in its evolution. Some men and women have devoted sixty, seventy, even eighty years to studying the will of their superior - the boss, the general or the minister - but these are purely human wills and they have wasted their time. I have devoted my whole life to studying the will of God and now I know it. And you, too, can know it.

And now, my dear brothers and sisters, remember all this and think about what I said in the beginning about simplicity and complication. By moving away from simplicity and unity and towards diversity, men's spirits sank into the realm of the roots, and roots live in the darkness and cold of the subterranean world. It is time, now, to climb back up into warmth and ligth, into the realm of the flowers. And in flowers, too, they will find quantities of different forms, colours and scents.

When you move away from the sun, everything is cold and dark and life diminishes. When you get closer to the sun, there is more light, more warmth and more life. In the same way, those who move away from God have no more warmth, no love, no light, no wisdom and no life: they become crystallized. This is why they are incapable of understanding or feeling, incapable, even, of doing anything. Or, if they do succeed in doing something, it si always destructive. But those who, like the Initiates, have turned back towards the Deity, are again blessed with light, warmth and life and they accomplish marvels, even to the point of raising the dead. It is so simple; even children can understand. So why can't the philosophers? If they understood they would not stray so far from the Source. Do you imagine that what people read in books nowadays helps them to get closer to the Source? No, there is too much that is negative in books, too many elements that are destructive of faith, love and morals, that demolish all sense of the sacred and the divine. You must read other boooks or, rather, you must read the only book that is really worthwile: the book of nature. And you must get ever closer to the spiritual sun so as to be warmed, illuminated and vivified.

Unfortunetly, human beings do just the opposite: they do all they can to get further away and nothing to get closer. And then you hear them say, 'I don't understand what's happening; I don't know where I stand any more'. Certainly, to say this does not speak well for anyone and yet I have heard it or read it in the letters of quantities of people. I have always answered these people kindly so as not to offend them but, if I had given them my true diagnosis, I would have said, 'I'm not surprised that you don't understand what's happening to you. In fact, you will understand less and less, because you are going in the wrong direction!' Then there are those who complain that they can't bear other people; they just don't love others. And my diagnosis of what ails them is no better: it is as though they handed me their identity card on which I read, 'I'm and idiot, an imbecile, a monster!' The printing on the card actually reads, 'Doctor So-and-so, Professor Such-and-such, Minister of this-or-that' but what I see is quite different: it says, 'Imbecile'. Why? Because they are incapable of loving others. Can you imagine! And whom do they love? Themselves, of course, and even then they do it very badly. Then, again, there are those who say, 'I don't seem to be able to make an effort any more; I'm weak, paralysed'. What has brought them to such a state of weakness? The fact that they have surrendered to the inferior beings who inhabit them and who have bound them hand and foot so that, now, they are helpless. This, too, is a terrible thing to have on one's identity card. There, this is how I understand things and, if you wish, you can come to understand them in the same way. If you do, it will be all the better for you, for no one will ever be able to mislead you again; no one! I shall give you the yardsticks, the criteria you need and you will be able to look at someone and say, 'My friend, you can't fool me any longer; it's too late. I see through you!' But begin by using these yardsticks and criteria for yourself, first of all. There is no hurry about applying them to others; we can see about that later.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science IV

I know that when people who keep abreast of what is going on in the world listen to my lectures they find that the things I talk about have no connection with current events. They say, 'What on earth is he talking about? If he knew what was going on in Spain or Portugal or the Lebanon - even in France - he wouldn't waste his time talking about such insignificant things.' Well, this remark only shows how little they understand, for what I am giving you is, on the contrary, the foundation of all the rest. What I give you are the methods, means and keys you need to solve all of life's problems.

What good would it do if I talked to you about world events? There are already so many people who do that, but they never have any solutions to offer. All they do is reel off statistics and make statements and reports which are no use to anyone. Besides, the Lord alone knows if they are accurate! So, for my part, I leave all those questions to others and concern myself with essentials, with things that will be valid for all eternity. Human beings have a physical body, a will, a heart, an intellect, a soul and a spirit, and the great question is to see how he must work with these elements which will always be part of him. Yes, for the rest of eternity, whatever else may occur in the world, every human being is going to be faced with the same problems: how to think, feel, act, love and create.

The subject I choose to talk about, therefore, is the one most important subject there is: human beings. Other people don't see the importance of this; they waste their time and energy on things that will soon be forgotten. I am always amazed to see how human beings have this tendency to be fascinated by trivialities. A new government, for instance, gets them all worked up, but how long is that government going to last? A few months later it will be changed and they will have to switch their attention to the next one! As for political parties, they come and go and change their names, and if you don't know their names or who their leaders are, everybody looks down on you! No one minds if you know nothing about the divine world, that is unimportant, but not to know the names of party leaders, not to know what their latest squabbles are about, what they said to each other on television, etc., that is disgraceful! How petty and pathetic it all is! What can any of that contribute to the real future of human beings, that is to say, to their peace, light and immortality?

You will say, 'But people are interested in politics because they want to help the country'. I know, but that is not the way to help it; no one has ever helped humanity in that way. They are deluding themselves if they think that all these political discussions and dissensions are capable of helping humanity, because they are not. They have never produced anything but discontent, anger, strikes and revolutions. What has ever been improved by politics? Hospitals are overflowing, criminal cases flood the courts and we shall soon need one policeman for every inhabitant. I shall show you, one day, through the power of our Teaching, that there are other means that we can use to solve all these problems.

You will find thousands of people in the world who think that politics takes priority over everything else. But, although they think of nothing else, day and night, what solutions have they ever found? None, except to belong to a party. Ah, that is important; it is a great feather in your cap to belong to a political party! But does that party hold the solutions to the world's problems? Does it have the right philosophy, the right outlook? Nobody asks themselves that. Once they are members of a party, tehy feel strong and secure and self-complacent. Yes, but their complacency may not last long; if their party is beaten at the polls they are going to be completely deflated. Their glory was nothing but a soap bubble!

Do you agree with me? No, I don't think you do! Well, have it your own way, but let me tell you that as long as the synarchy is not established, it is no good counting on any of the myriad forms of anarchy. Believe me, all the different tendencies manifesting themselves today are, to a greater or a lesser degree, tendencies towards anarchy. Of course, I know that the French will not approve of me if I say this; if only they could realize how far they are from the truth! The fact is that they like having something to do even if it serves no useful purpose. At least they keep busy; they're not idle; they're doing something to kill time. True, it is good to be active, but they could, at least choose the best kind of activity.

If you start talking about politics in public, in the street or in the train, for instance, you will find that everybody, young and old alike, is ready to voice brilliant political ideas. But, Heavens above, their lives are so restricted and so bound up in their personality, what ideas can they possibly have? And if you listen to the leaders of the political parties, you will hear each of them in turn accusing the others of working for the ruin of the nation and the grief of its citizen, whereas he, of course, is selflessly devoted to his country! Is all this sincere? Are they really talking about the interests of the country and their fellow citizens or are they seeking their own interest, hoping to be elected for their own sakes? Once they are elected, of course, the truth will out! And, unfortunetly, that truth will simply be 'more of the same'. It is because people cannot agree about what constitutes 'the good of the country' that there are so many political parties: new parties crop up every day. We need to seek an overall view, a view of the unique, ultimate goal; this is something that has never been found or even envisaged. Instead of fixing our sights on a unique and final goal, each individual focuses on one particular aspect and is ready to do battle in defence of a partial, temporary ideal which will soon be replaced by something else. For great upheavals are on the way and human beings will be obliged to understand that their vision of reality was distorted. The invisible World, of course, knows this; that is why these upheavals will be permitted: for the good of mankind.

I am not saying that everybody is completely wrong; no, each one sees things correctly from his own point of view. But they are all mistaken in respect to the whole. An egoist, who pays no attention to other people's interests, arranges things in such a way as to satisfy his own appetites and desires. Inevitably, others rebuke him for this but he cannot understand their criticism because, from his own point of view, what he is doing is perfectly reasonable, logical and legitimate. And this is exactly what happens with political parties. What they say is all perfectly true and logical from their point of view, but when seen from a universal point of view, from the point of view of the whole, it is not quite so true!

When a child wants to do something he is convinced that it is only normal and right and he gets a nasty shock when his parents forbid it or punish him for doing it. From his point of view, with the degree of understanding that is his, what he wants seems to be logical and legitimate, so he is furious with anyone who stands in his way and refuses to let him do what he wants; he thinks that they are both wicked and stupid. And this is exactly what happens in the world. Everybody tries to impose his will on others: 'To my mind it's like this' and 'to my mind it's like that'. Yes, but 'your mind' is terribly limited! What we need is to broaden the scope of our minds and become capable of seeing things not onyl from our own personal point of view and according to our own needs and wishes, but from other people's point of view too, and of using their point of view to modify or complete our own.

Only when we do this shall we discover the truth and realize that everybody is both right and wrong: that is to say that they are all right from their own point of view, but not from the point of view of the cosmic collectivity.

As long as man is not sufficiently broad-minded, impersonal and highly evolved, he can only see things from his own point of view and his 'personal truth' will be only a fragment of the whole truth. Political parties are neccessarily in error, therefore, for they all see things only from their own point of view. When they begin to see reality as it truly is they will be less proud of their original ideology. For my part, I try to see things not only from my own point of view but from the point of view of those who are more advanced, and this explains why my view of things is true. Those who make no effort to cultivate this higher point of view are bound to get things wrong and, sooner or later, life itself will prove it to them.

I am not opposed to politics, but I understand it differently. If power is in the hands of someone who knows nothing about the structure of man or his links with all the different powers of the cosmos, how can you expect him to do anything really good for his country? If he has not done so for himself, how can he do so for a whole nation? How can a fool instruct others? How can a weakling bear other people's burdens? How can someone who is impure purify others? It's impossible! And it is also impossible for politicians to bring happiness to their people if they have never been instructed in an Initiatic school, for only in such a school can they learn that, before anyone can be a true political leader, he must have a profound knowledge of man and nature an d a profound respect for divine law. Also, he must be free from all ambition, all personal passions.

Everyone talks about serving his country but that is often nothing but words; they are mainly interested in their pocketbooks, their prestige and their power, and are ready to fight their way to the top with hoof and claw and nail. The rare few who are more enlightened but who are not prepared to fight tooth and nail to get to the top are ignored. As I say, I am not against politics, but for me the only valid form of politics is that of the Initiates who have studied human nature and know all its strenghts and weaknesses, who know what it needs and what spiritual, emotional, moral and economic conditions are most conducive to its fulfilment. As long as this knowledge is lacking, politics can only lead to conflict.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science V

Even Karl Marx, who is so revered and appreciated, who has so many faithful followers - even he will lose all prestige before long, and all his acolytes with him! Yes, because the problems of humanity cannot all be resolved by class warfare and the colective ownership of the means of production, etc. I am not saying that Marx was not a genius; he was. You can't deny it. But he did not live a divine life and that he was not an Initiate. I realize, of course, that we need people who are qualified in every aspect of social and economic life, but most important of all, we need the leadership of Initiates who may know nothing about these specific problems but who understand the essentials.

Does this astonish you? Take my case, for instance. No one on earth is as ignorant as I am about political organization, economics of finance. I know nothing about any of that! But one thing I do know, only one: how to keep the water flowing! That's all. And water can be relied on to find its own channels and to make it possible for a whole culture to spring up and develop: plants, animals and men. The important thing is to keep the water coming and not to bother about the rest. And that is what I do: my work is to keep the water flowing and then you - like the plants, birds, trees and animals that form a community at the site of a spring - each one of you can find your own niche. It is not up to me to find a place for you; that is not my job. In fact, that is why I have absolutely no talent for organization. My only care is to ensure that there is plenty of water, for where there is water, the rest takes care of itself. And water is love: love and life!

As long as economists and politicians forget about the need for water and think that all they have to do to improve the situation is set up a good organization, create new institutions and new structures or new administrative posts, the process of death and disintegration will continue. Whatever is done on the purely external, organizational level will be ineffectual if nothing is done to ensure the flow of water. This is why it is essential that there should be someone at the top who is rich in light, knowledge and love, for then every branch and every department will know how to contribute to the success of the whole.

You can see this phenomen so clearly in your own life. Perhaps you don't know exactly how to set about whatever it is you have to do, but you love it, you love your work, and in this case you will succeed and do it very well, because love always finds a way. But if you don't love it, you will never be any good at it, however hard you try. Some women, for instance, read all kinds of cookbooks and use all the best ingredients, but the meals they turn out are inedible. Why? Because they hate cooking! And then there are others who never read a cookbook and who manage, no one quite knows how, to turn out delicious meals with the most ordinary ingredients. The answer is simple: they love doing it. It's a question of love. Of course, I am not a child: I know that the organization involved in running a country is extremely complex. Yes, but if everything is to run smoothly ther must be light, there must be love, there must be water. When the flow of water is assured everyone receives the inspiration he needs to find his own special role.

Look what happens when a group of people meet to discuss a joint project. If the members of the group love each other it will be much easier for them to understand each other, and by the end of the meeting, everything will have been settled and their plans will meet with success. But if they come to the meeting without love, in order to contradict, criticize and oppose the ideas of others, they will never find any solutions. This is what happens in many committees, simply because there is no love between the members. And here, in the Brotherhood, if some of you have never managed to settle certain problems satisfactorily, it is because you simply haven't understood the Teaching; I want to make this quite clear to you. For, when you are really inspired by love, it often takes just five minutes to resolve problems which, without love, will stay unresolved for years.

Why are human beings still so blind? And to think that they have such a high opinion of themselves! Believe me, if you are incapable of solving you problems, you have no cause to be so pleased with yourselves. If you are capable of solving them, alright; but, if not, you would do better to find a quiet spot in which to reflect on what it is in you that makes it impossible: your lack of love. The trouble is that people don't believe in the power of love. They only believe in the power of the intellect, in the power of a critical mind. For my part I have no faith in the effectiveness of such things; in fact, they are dangerous. Bring a little more love to the situation and your problems will be solved immediately and everyone will go their separate ways, happy and astonished that it was all so simple.

You must have seen two people discussing something: have you noticed how they both talk at the same time? No wonder they end by coming to blows! Yes, because they don't listen to each other. They are both so full of themselves that they are incapable of listening to anyone else, they get more and more irritated and impatient and lose their self-control to such an extent that they actually start to fight. Really, people have on psychology or pedagogical sense! If they had any intelligence at all they would know in advance what the outcome was liable to be and avoid reaching that point. An intelligent man begins by manifesting love and good-will and listens to what someone is saying to him; in this way he calls out the best in the other person and their problems can be resolved.

But, to get back to the question of politics: I assure you that, as long as political leaders are ignorant of Initiatic Science, they are bound to make mistakes. Of course, as the public has no yardstick by which to judge, they are full of admiration. They say, 'Did you hear how So-and-so put the other fellow down? Wasn't it splendid? He really blasted him; it was magnificent!' And all the ignorant fools are thrilled. Yes, but an Initiate who saw that would not be thrilled at all. With the blind, anything goes; they will swallow anything, but an Initiate will not be taken in. Whom do adolescents choose as heroes? Those who are violent and destructive, those who are quickest on the draw! And the masses are exactly like adolescents.

You must not expect much from politics, therefore, until political leaders have studied Initiatic Science; there will be more and more difficulties, conflicts and misunderstandings and they will be unable to find solutions. They think that they don't need the light of this science. Well, they will see whether they need it or not; there are some surprises in store for them that will force them to be more mature in their attitudes and then they will understand that this science is not to be scoffed at.

Yes, I have to tell you the truth even if some people don't like to hear it. As long as the truth about mankind, the universe and the Creator is unknown, any solutions that may be found will be only partial, makeshift and temporary; they cannot be perfect, they will always involve certain inconveniences. If Râma instituted a Golden Age during which mankind enjoyed centuries of peace and prosperity, it was because he had been instructed in Initiatic Science by a mysterious being who guided and advised him. Eventually, the light of that Science was lost and, once again, anarchy and violence took over and has reigned, now, for many thousands of years.

Today, it is neither moral qualities nor intelligence that has the upper hand, but force. Everybody wants power because everybody is persuaded that power, the use of force, is the surest way to achieve success. But let me tell you that it is the very worst way. Power must never be first; it must always be last. A synarchic form of government puts love, wisdom and truth in first place, and power and economic interests are seen as secondary in importance. But, in today's world, this order is reversed: power and economics are given priority, and this is why the situation is going from bad to worse and, whatever people may think, it will not right itself because this order is contrary ot the laws of the cosmos, to the universal order.

The only type of organization that reflects the structure of the univers is a synarchy. All other systems of government are expressions of anarchy and this is why the world is in such disarray. Men will never succeed in establishing peace and order in society if they continue to act in contradiction to the divine laws, in contradiction to the principles that govern the structure of the universe. It is impossible! I want to uproot these false notions from your minds. The master Peter Deunov said to me one day, 'You are the great demolisher'. And what do I demolish? Your old, antiquated notions. And if there are still some who hope to succeed without the light and through the use of violence, let me demolish that hope once and for all: if they continue to cling to it, it will be their downfall. In fact, you will see this; everyone, beginning with themselves, will see it.

This is a lecture that could revolutionize men's consciousness. Yes, because light is the most powerful revolutionary force that exists. No force is more revolutionary than the light. Many highly evolved beings have avoided speaking about these things because they knew how narrow-minded and limited human beings were and how dangerous it would be to reveal truths that were so far beyond their grasp, so they refused to enlighten the masses. But the time has come, now, for the whole of mankind to know these truths.

So, let's concentrate on the heart of the matter. If a man refuses the Teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood, which reveals the existence of a higher but absolutely real world, he can never be a good head of State, because he will always be subject to impulses and ambitions dictated by self-interests, vanity, a desire for revenge, etc., and, in these conditions he can never make his people happy. To be sure, anybody can pull the wool over people's eyes and prevent them from detecting their true motives with well chosen words and gestures, noble phrases and speeches about the safety of the fatherland, the happiness of its citizens, true justice, etc., etc. But the reality? Well, the reality is not for public consumption: as you can well imagine, if they showed themselves as they really were and made no secret of their lust, their will for power and so on, no one would accept their leadership. They know that. That is why they bluff and lie and pretend to be what they are not.

In the past, men such as Genghis Khan, Attila and Tamerlane could get what they wanted even tough they showed themselves exactly as they were. But, in those days, the mentality was not the same and the more unjust, cruel and pitiless a leader showed himself to be, the better his chance of success. Whereas, nowadays, you cannot do that; you have to show that your goals are acceptable, reasonable, generous even, otherwise you will be defeated. That is why people take great care to conceal their fangs behind a show of good manners so as to attract their victims and then... 'all the better to eat you with, my dear!' Yes, because their victims are without intuition, without intelligence, without knowledge. With a little perseverance, you can win over almost anyone, even by dishonest means, as long as you don't show yourself as you really are.

If you want to find people who are absolutely disinterested, you must turn to the great Initiates who have proved themselves, who have purified themselves and endured great suffering, but who have conquered and emerged victorious. No one else is worthy of your trust. You can trust a man only if his higher nature has triumphed over his lower nature, not otherwise. Otherwise, whatever he may tell you, be on your guard! I don't ask you to trust and believe me or to follow me. All I ask is that you come and live with me for a while and see for yourself. If, when you have spent months or years with me and seen how I live, you conclude that you can trust me, then you are free to follow me. But I have never told anyone to follow me from the very first day.

If you accept the Universal White Brotherhood, you need look no further; this is where you will find happiness. Surrounded by so many brothers and sisters, bombarded by so many loving looks and friendly smiles, how could you be anything but happy? But, if you prefer to be alone in your own little hole and to cling to your philosophy of universal isolation, you will never be happy. People think they will find happiness by isolating themselves, but happiness is impossible in isolation. Happiness is to be part of a collectivity; only when you are part of this universal brotherhood, of this immensity, can happiness slip into you... and it will never slip away from you again. All those poor wretches who continue to believe that they will find happiness by isolating themselves from others, by being selfish and personal... the only thing in store for them is death and disintegration.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science V

Even Karl Marx, who is so revered and appreciated, who has so many faithful followers - even he will lose all prestige before long, and all his acolytes with him! Yes, because the problems of humanity cannot all be resolved by class warfare and the colective ownership of the means of production, etc. I am not saying that Marx was not a genius; he was. You can't deny it. But he did not live a divine life and that he was not an Initiate. I realize, of course, that we need people who are qualified in every aspect of social and economic life, but most important of all, we need the leadership of Initiates who may know nothing about these specific problems but who understand the essentials.

Does this astonish you? Take my case, for instance. No one on earth is as ignorant as I am about political organization, economics of finance. I know nothing about any of that! But one thing I do know, only one: how to keep the water flowing! That's all. And water can be relied on to find its own channels and to make it possible for a whole culture to spring up and develop: plants, animals and men. The important thing is to keep the water coming and not to bother about the rest. And that is what I do: my work is to keep the water flowing and then you - like the plants, birds, trees and animals that form a community at the site of a spring - each one of you can find your own niche. It is not up to me to find a place for you; that is not my job. In fact, that is why I have absolutely no talent for organization. My only care is to ensure that there is plenty of water, for where there is water, the rest takes care of itself. And water is love: love and life!

As long as economists and politicians forget about the need for water and think that all they have to do to improve the situation is set up a good organization, create new institutions and new structures or new administrative posts, the process of death and disintegration will continue. Whatever is done on the purely external, organizational level will be ineffectual if nothing is done to ensure the flow of water. This is why it is essential that there should be someone at the top who is rich in light, knowledge and love, for then every branch and every department will know how to contribute to the success of the whole.

You can see this phenomen so clearly in your own life. Perhaps you don't know exactly how to set about whatever it is you have to do, but you love it, you love your work, and in this case you will succeed and do it very well, because love always finds a way. But if you don't love it, you will never be any good at it, however hard you try. Some women, for instance, read all kinds of cookbooks and use all the best ingredients, but the meals they turn out are inedible. Why? Because they hate cooking! And then there are others who never read a cookbook and who manage, no one quite knows how, to turn out delicious meals with the most ordinary ingredients. The answer is simple: they love doing it. It's a question of love. Of course, I am not a child: I know that the organization involved in running a country is extremely complex. Yes, but if everything is to run smoothly ther must be light, there must be love, there must be water. When the flow of water is assured everyone receives the inspiration he needs to find his own special role.

Look what happens when a group of people meet to discuss a joint project. If the members of the group love each other it will be much easier for them to understand each other, and by the end of the meeting, everything will have been settled and their plans will meet with success. But if they come to the meeting without love, in order to contradict, criticize and oppose the ideas of others, they will never find any solutions. This is what happens in many committees, simply because there is no love between the members. And here, in the Brotherhood, if some of you have never managed to settle certain problems satisfactorily, it is because you simply haven't understood the Teaching; I want to make this quite clear to you. For, when you are really inspired by love, it often takes just five minutes to resolve problems which, without love, will stay unresolved for years.

Why are human beings still so blind? And to think that they have such a high opinion of themselves! Believe me, if you are incapable of solving you problems, you have no cause to be so pleased with yourselves. If you are capable of solving them, alright; but, if not, you would do better to find a quiet spot in which to reflect on what it is in you that makes it impossible: your lack of love. The trouble is that people don't believe in the power of love. They only believe in the power of the intellect, in the power of a critical mind. For my part I have no faith in the effectiveness of such things; in fact, they are dangerous. Bring a little more love to the situation and your problems will be solved immediately and everyone will go their separate ways, happy and astonished that it was all so simple.

You must have seen two people discussing something: have you noticed how they both talk at the same time? No wonder they end by coming to blows! Yes, because they don't listen to each other. They are both so full of themselves that they are incapable of listening to anyone else, they get more and more irritated and impatient and lose their self-control to such an extent that they actually start to fight. Really, people have on psychology or pedagogical sense! If they had any intelligence at all they would know in advance what the outcome was liable to be and avoid reaching that point. An intelligent man begins by manifesting love and good-will and listens to what someone is saying to him; in this way he calls out the best in the other person and their problems can be resolved.

But, to get back to the question of politics: I assure you that, as long as political leaders are ignorant of Initiatic Science, they are bound to make mistakes. Of course, as the public has no yardstick by which to judge, they are full of admiration. They say, 'Did you hear how So-and-so put the other fellow down? Wasn't it splendid? He really blasted him; it was magnificent!' And all the ignorant fools are thrilled. Yes, but an Initiate who saw that would not be thrilled at all. With the blind, anything goes; they will swallow anything, but an Initiate will not be taken in. Whom do adolescents choose as heroes? Those who are violent and destructive, those who are quickest on the draw! And the masses are exactly like adolescents.

You must not expect much from politics, therefore, until political leaders have studied Initiatic Science; there will be more and more difficulties, conflicts and misunderstandings and they will be unable to find solutions. They think that they don't need the light of this science. Well, they will see whether they need it or not; there are some surprises in store for them that will force them to be more mature in their attitudes and then they will understand that this science is not to be scoffed at.

Yes, I have to tell you the truth even if some people don't like to hear it. As long as the truth about mankind, the universe and the Creator is unknown, any solutions that may be found will be only partial, makeshift and temporary; they cannot be perfect, they will always involve certain inconveniences. If Râma instituted a Golden Age during which mankind enjoyed centuries of peace and prosperity, it was because he had been instructed in Initiatic Science by a mysterious being who guided and advised him. Eventually, the light of that Science was lost and, once again, anarchy and violence took over and has reigned, now, for many thousands of years.

Today, it is neither moral qualities nor intelligence that has the upper hand, but force. Everybody wants power because everybody is persuaded that power, the use of force, is the surest way to achieve success. But let me tell you that it is the very worst way. Power must never be first; it must always be last. A synarchic form of government puts love, wisdom and truth in first place, and power and economic interests are seen as secondary in importance. But, in today's world, this order is reversed: power and economics are given priority, and this is why the situation is going from bad to worse and, whatever people may think, it will not right itself because this order is contrary ot the laws of the cosmos, to the universal order.

The only type of organization that reflects the structure of the univers is a synarchy. All other systems of government are expressions of anarchy and this is why the world is in such disarray. Men will never succeed in establishing peace and order in society if they continue to act in contradiction to the divine laws, in contradiction to the principles that govern the structure of the universe. It is impossible! I want to uproot these false notions from your minds. The master Peter Deunov said to me one day, 'You are the great demolisher'. And what do I demolish? Your old, antiquated notions. And if there are still some who hope to succeed without the light and through the use of violence, let me demolish that hope once and for all: if they continue to cling to it, it will be their downfall. In fact, you will see this; everyone, beginning with themselves, will see it.

This is a lecture that could revolutionize men's consciousness. Yes, because light is the most powerful revolutionary force that exists. No force is more revolutionary than the light. Many highly evolved beings have avoided speaking about these things because they knew how narrow-minded and limited human beings were and how dangerous it would be to reveal truths that were so far beyond their grasp, so they refused to enlighten the masses. But the time has come, now, for the whole of mankind to know these truths.

So, let's concentrate on the heart of the matter. If a man refuses the Teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood, which reveals the existence of a higher but absolutely real world, he can never be a good head of State, because he will always be subject to impulses and ambitions dictated by self-interests, vanity, a desire for revenge, etc., and, in these conditions he can never make his people happy. To be sure, anybody can pull the wool over people's eyes and prevent them from detecting their true motives with well chosen words and gestures, noble phrases and speeches about the safety of the fatherland, the happiness of its citizens, true justice, etc., etc. But the reality? Well, the reality is not for public consumption: as you can well imagine, if they showed themselves as they really were and made no secret of their lust, their will for power and so on, no one would accept their leadership. They know that. That is why they bluff and lie and pretend to be what they are not.

In the past, men such as Genghis Khan, Attila and Tamerlane could get what they wanted even tough they showed themselves exactly as they were. But, in those days, the mentality was not the same and the more unjust, cruel and pitiless a leader showed himself to be, the better his chance of success. Whereas, nowadays, you cannot do that; you have to show that your goals are acceptable, reasonable, generous even, otherwise you will be defeated. That is why people take great care to conceal their fangs behind a show of good manners so as to attract their victims and then... 'all the better to eat you with, my dear!' Yes, because their victims are without intuition, without intelligence, without knowledge. With a little perseverance, you can win over almost anyone, even by dishonest means, as long as you don't show yourself as you really are.

If you want to find people who are absolutely disinterested, you must turn to the great Initiates who have proved themselves, who have purified themselves and endured great suffering, but who have conquered and emerged victorious. No one else is worthy of your trust. You can trust a man only if his higher nature has triumphed over his lower nature, not otherwise. Otherwise, whatever he may tell you, be on your guard! I don't ask you to trust and believe me or to follow me. All I ask is that you come and live with me for a while and see for yourself. If, when you have spent months or years with me and seen how I live, you conclude that you can trust me, then you are free to follow me. But I have never told anyone to follow me from the very first day.

If you accept the Universal White Brotherhood, you need look no further; this is where you will find happiness. Surrounded by so many brothers and sisters, bombarded by so many loving looks and friendly smiles, how could you be anything but happy? But, if you prefer to be alone in your own little hole and to cling to your philosophy of universal isolation, you will never be happy. People think they will find happiness by isolating themselves, but happiness is impossible in isolation. Happiness is to be part of a collectivity; only when you are part of this universal brotherhood, of this immensity, can happiness slip into you... and it will never slip away from you again. All those poor wretches who continue to believe that they will find happiness by isolating themselves from others, by being selfish and personal... the only thing in store for them is death and disintegration.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science VI

Human beings don't really know what it is they are looking for and, when they have tried everything and still feel inwardly dissatisfied, they plunge headlong into all kinds of dangerous experiences hoping to escape from their stifling conditions of life. What they are really looking for is space, infinity, eternity, that nourishement for the soul and spirit that a materialistic philosophy has never allowed for. And this is why materialism is going to be defeated. Yes, certain events are going to take place and materialism will be no more.

There are some who try to make human beings believe that their happiness depends on technical progress and material comfort, and in doing so, they make it impossible for them to breathe, to be in contact with other regions and other entities which, alone, could give them the peace, love and fulfilment they need. The spiritual, mystical world has been so fiercely rejected, scorned and ridiculed that hardly anyone is tempted to turn to it for the elements he needs for survival. This is why mankind is dying of asphyxiation, of poisoning. Here, in the Brotherhood, it is just the opposite: you are given the best possible conditions to help you to be in communication with the subtle world and breathe, eat and drink of it to your heart's content. And yet, you don't actually receive anything material. When you are meditating you are not being given any food or drink or perfume - nothing. And in this nothingness your soul finds fulfilment.

If human beings don't make up their minds to take the path of spirituality they will inevitably deteriorate, for no one can survive by absorbing only what is contrary to his nature. As I have always said, man does not know himself; even science doesn't know him; it knows nothing about where man comes from, where he is going, what he should do or his need to be in communication with with the spiritual world. And this is why human beings are constantly assaulted, despoiled and ill-treated: because their true nature is never taken into consideration. And this has always gone on, in every area of life.

You only have to think of how marriages were decided in the old days: parents obliged their daughter to marry the man of their choice, even if she had absolutely no feeling of affinity with him. She was obliged to sacrifice herself almost to the point of death in order to please them. This situation lasted for centuries until, one fine day, the pendulum swung back and, today, it has reached the opposite extreme: not only have young people stopped listening to their parents' advice, but parents are often the last to learn that their children are married and already have children of their own. In the past it was parents who exaggerated and, now, it is the children who exaggerate in the opposite direction.

For centuries, the Church tried to impose puritanical rules of behavior on the faithful, and now, in recent years, we have begun to see the reaction: people are plunging impetuously and without inhibition into every cesspool they can find. And the same reaction is at work on the level of needs: adults have tried to force a purely material way of life on the young and to convince them that the only things that mattered were profits, production and consumption, with the result that they now feel impelled to escape from this materialism and find something different. And their need for diversion and escape often leads to drugs.

How many, many changes, even revolutions, human beings have experienced! But the situation has never really improved. Why not? Because, in spite of their revolutions, people have never been able to break out of the vicious circle of their lower desires and ambitions. Until there is a real improvement in mentalities, conditions will never be any better. You must break free from these lower regions of appetites and lusts; only then will the changes you introduce be an improvement. If you don't change the materials, the elements, the ingredients you work with, however many different ways you find to combine them, you will still be working in the lower regions where all is dark, cold and lifeless. You must rise to a higher level where all is light, space and purity.

The Roman populace clamoured for bread and games, and this well-known incident in Roman history is often mentioned as though no other people in the world had ever made similar demands. The fact is that human beings still clamour for the same things even if the form they take is different. Their demands have been modernized, that's all; but people still want the same things: food and entertainment. Isn't this what strikes and revolutions are about: higher wages, shorter working hours, more leisure time? Of course, nobody asks for the Roman circus any more but, today, the circus has been replaced by the cinema, television, variety shows, night clubs, football, wrestling, etc. There is no lack of entertainment! Man's nature is still the same; it still hungers to be entertained, and a great variety of 'foods' has been found to satisfy its hunger. But how many people hunger for the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness? Does anyone demand light, purity, truth or kindness? No, the centre of interest is always money, food and pleasure.

The only thing of a spiritual nature for which human beings clamour is freedom, and freedom as they understand it boils down to having more opportunities to waste their time, amuse themselves and degrade themselves and others by indulging all their most insane whims. How many want to be free in order to devote their time to sublime activities? All political and social conflict turns on men's bellies and sexual appetites and their lust for money and pleasure. And this means that, if you give people what they clamour for, they will only become more deeply mired in their follies and passions.

Human beings have two natures, a lower nature, that we call the personality, and a higher nature, that we call the individuality. When a man's higher nature is in command, he is a divinity and is capable of doing immense good throughout the world. Whereas, if his personality is in command, it is far too self-centered and grasping to do anything good; it tries to turn everything to its own advantage; everybody has to subordinate their own interests and bow to its will, for it takes itself for the centre of the universe. Unfortunetly, it is the personality that is in command everywhere and in everyone: in families, where we see husband and wife both trying to dominate the other; in society, where everyone tries to get ahead at the expense of others. Wherever you look, you see only personalities vociferating, threatening, giving orders... but human beings don't possess the criteria that would enable them to analyse themselves and understand why they fell the need to clamour for certain things or where this need comes from.

Only the sages, Initiates and great Masters, who trained their personality to be their servant, have been capable of manifesting their divine nature and leaving behind them an unforgettable, eternal, imperishable achievement. Such beings have always existed - history has preserved their memory - but they are very few compared to all the rampant personalities which people the earth, giving free rein to their lowest instincts of greed, hostility and revenge. Is there any wonder that the population suffers when people like this hold responsible positions in the political organization of a country? This is why there will never an end to war: because of this philosophy of the personality. As long as a politician works to achieve his own ambitions or that of his party or even that of his country, he will inevitably commit many injustices. As long as everybody continues to practise the politics of the personality, the situation will never really improve: there will always be war and misery somewhere in the world. One day, someone must come and, at least, inaugurate the politics of the individuality.

A purely human practise of politics based on selfishness, guile and injustice is not true politics. But who is capable of governing according to true politics? How can someone who is ignorant work for the politics of enlightenment? He will let himself be led astray by those who are ready to fight tooth and nail for their privileges, and will not even see where they are leading him. There are millions of blind, gullible people ready and waiting to be hoodwinked and, as you can well imagine, there are always plenty of people willing to oblige them!

A great deal of knowledge is necessary in order to work in the political arena, knowledge that even politicians don't possess. In order to be elected, they promise voters everything imagineable, but, once they have won their seat, there is not really much they can do; their powers are very limited and they learn that it is not so easy as they thought. For my part, I think that it is the seat that is the cause of all their difficulties; they should never occupy the same seat as their predecessors, for each seat has a memory. Each seat is impregnated by the influences and emanations of all those who have occupied it and who have never fulfilled their promises and, in this way, each new occupant is necessarily affected by these influences. Yes, it is obviously the seat that is at fault. Don't laugh! As you see, I can find an explanation for everything.

If the Kingdom of God has not yet been established on earth it is because people work only for political goals dictated by their personality. When I analyse the aims of politicians, I find that they are uniformly mediocre. Oh, of course, they are dressed up and painted in bright colours to dazzle the public, but a closer look shows you that they all boil down to the same thing: 'Move over and make room for me!' They are all the same! But, little by little, people will realize that you cannot make a violin with a bit of old lumber; you have to find the right kind of wood.

Yes, politicians must be prepared and instructed in Initiatic schools, otherwise they will continue to lead the nations to disaster.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science VII

Does anyone ever think to scratch the surface and try to discover the secret ambitions that motivate those who wave flags and make high-flown speeches? No, they dash off to listen to them and are swept off their feet and follow them with enthusiasm. If only they could see what wolves, what wild boars are behind that smooth facade! But they see none of that; they have no judgement, no intuitive sense. It is a case of the blind leading the blind, and you know what the Gospel says: 'If the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.' Unfortunetly, it is only years later that people realize that their blindness has led to catastrophe. Look at Hitler and Stalin and a host of others: they were monsters, murderers - and yet people acclaimed them and flocked to them!

I too am working for a political goal, but for one that is not inspired by my personality. It is sad that there are still so few people ready to understand these ideas. Try talking to them about a policy inspired by the individuality, a policy of generosity, disinterestedness and light: no one would take you seriously. But talk to them about destruction and arson, and thousands of people will enthusiastically agree. This is why - forgive me for saying this - but this is why human beings still need to suffer. No other explanation is possible: they will need to suffer and, one day, through suffering, they will find the way. You think that I am being cruel in saying this but, I assure you, although it gives me great pain to say it, it is true: human beings still need to suffer before they are ready to understand. If you need proof of this, just look at how they behave when a messenger from Heaven comes to instruct and help them: do they listen to him? Not a bit of it! Not only do they refuse to listen to him, but they imprison or crucify him or send him to the stake. But when a monster who is bound to bring them suffering comes along, they welcome him with open arms, acclaim him as their saviour and give him all the powers he needs to destroy them. Isn't it obvious that human beings need to suffer? They go looking for suffering.

But let's get back to this question of the personality and the individuality. The annals of Initiatic Science tell us that many human civilizations have already been wiped out and that the culture and technical skills of some of these civilizations - the Atlanteans, for instance - were far more advanced than ours. If they disappeared it was because of this perpetual tendency of the personality that drives people to try to dominate and subjugate others by force.

Unfortunetly, this tendency is becoming more and more evident in the modern world and this bodes ill for the future of humanity. Wherever you look you see nations or political factions intent on dominating and crushing others, and increasingly lethal arms are being manufactured in ever greater quantities. If there is one type of industry which is never short of work it is the arms industry. Every country manufactures arms for themselves and for sale to others and, today, Africa is stocked with arms bought from other countries who, apparently, have never paused to consider that it will be they who suffer the consequences. This is what the human personality leads to. And this is why human beings must be instructed in the Teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood and shown how to use the tendencies of their personality in the service of their individuality. Yes, if mankind is to be saved, this light needs to be propagated throughout the world. Otherwise you may be sure that Cosmic Intelligence, who dwells in eternity, is not likely to be unduly concerned about the disappearance of one more human race. So many others have already disappeared that if this one goes the same way through its own fault it will not trouble Cosmic Intelligence at all; It will simply use the few surviving individuals to start all over again. It is up to us not to destroy ourselves. If we persist in doing everything we can to bring destruction upon ourselves, Cosmic Intelligence will be quite undisturbed; It will let us go our own way without interference.

Humanity has reached a very high degree of development, that is obvious, and it owes this development to the powers of the intellect. Of itself the intellect is neutral, neither inherently good nor evil, but when the personality controls it - and this is usually the case - it becomes a very effective tool for the accomplishment of its most villainous schemes. Thanks to the extraordinary development of men's intellectual faculties, the personality is more and more successful in manifesting its most evil tendencies: the will to monopolize everything for itself and wipe out whoever and whatever stands in its way.

When I listen to some of the speeches by the leaders of political parties or trades unions, I can hardly help laughing. Whatever they do, it won't do any good. Why not? Because they themselves are not an example for anyone to follow, they are motivated simply by their own ambitions, their own prefudices; they are ruled by their personality. You will say that they are very intelligent people and very good speakers. Yes, I know; but that is not enough. They know all about politics, history and economics, but they are subjugated by their personality. When their individuality takes command, yes; then they will accomplish something useful. But do they even suspect that they have an individuality, a higher nature, and that it must be allowed to take control?

The present state of things will go on for years and years: there will be republics, democracies, wars, devastation and revolution. There are even some who are preparing for a third world war. But when human beings are almost at their last gasp, when they are so exhausted and worn out that they begin to long for a new order, then, perhaps, the great Masters and Initiates will come and assume the leadership and, in the presence of such splendour and justice, everyone will be ready to submit and obey. For mankind loves justice and order; if it has always been incapable of establishing a just, ordered society it is because, instead of choosing a ruler of a higher order, it has always chosen someone from the rank and file. If you choose your leader from the common or garden ant population he will never be anything but an ant. Human beings have never understood that they should choose a being of another species. They always choose leaders from their own ranks and those leaders are, of course, capable of making speeches, arguing and biting, but nothing more, because they know nothing about Initiatic Science. In fact, not only do they know nothing about this Science, but they do everything possible to preserve and deepen their ignorance.

Everything could be magnificent and marvellous, but you have to understand the reality of things. It is true that, in the past, when there were kings, the population was the victim of much injustice and cruelty and endured great tribulations. But is the situation any better today? Can you prove that it is better? In some cases, I admit, it certainly seems to be better. But behind this apparent progress it si actually worse, for human beings don't realize what they are missing. They are free to rub along in life, to eat and drink and amuse themselves, but this freedom is not really progress; it is still a form of servitude. Young people, especially, want to be free but only in order to do all the wild things that come into their heads. They fail to see that this makes them the slaves of their baser inclinations and that they will be obliged to keep feeding them. They are outwardly free, yes; but they are inwardly bound. This is how human beings understand freedom. But that is not enough, it is not enough to win external freedom by means of war and revolution. It is inner freedom that has to be won, freedom from one's own weaknesses, one's own greed, one's own vices.

I have often compared this situation to that of a ship with its captain and its stokers. The stokers, who work below decks, are not in command; they are not able to see where the ship is going or to keep it on course; they haven't been given the necessary faculties. But they are fully able to keep the ship moving; everything depends on them. In the same way, a country depends on the masses for, if they were not there to do the work, everybody would starve to death, including the aristocracy. But it is no good expecting the common people to be clairvoyant and omniscient; that is impossible. Their job is to sow and reap, without them, the result would be famine. But without the aristocracy, without the captain at the helm, the result would also be disastrous. In creating men's bodies, Cosmic Intelligence has designed them in such a way that they are living examples of the pattern that should be followed in all social organization. As a matter of fact, human beings have succeeded in groping their way towards a pattern that bears some resemblance to this ideal, but it is still very far from perfect. There are always those who rule and those who are ruled but they are not always where they should be.

The element that is lacking is a true respect for the right order of things in man himself and in society. I don't combat my inner populace; on the contrary, I take good care of them and keep them clean and tidy. Yes, my people are well looked after but they know that there is an aristocracy above them and that they have to obey it. No revolutionary songs about chopping off the heads of aristocrats for them! Quite the contrary, they respect and obey them.

Actually, I am in favour neither of an aristocracy nor of a democracy, but of an order that exists throughout the universe and is reflected in our own bodies. Why didn't Cosmic Intelligence put our belly on our shoulders and our head between our legs? It put the head above and the belly below and now people want the belly to be on top and the head anywhere except in its rightful place. No, you must understand that a universal order exists which is not exactly the same as that which human beings would like to establish. The crime of human beings is to want their own order, their own system, their own point of view to take precedence over that of Cosmic Intelligence. Their personality is so avid to have the upper hand and impose its will that it is ready to topple the Lord Himself from His throne. It is man's personality that is the cause of all misfortunes; it has already led to the destruction of several civilizations.

The question is very serious, my dear brothers and sisters. You must study this question of the personality and the individuality.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science VIII

The book of Genesis tells us that one night, while Jacob was asleep with his head on a stone, he had a vision of a ladder pitched between earth and heaven, and going up and down the ladder was a host of Angels. This is how Jacob received the revelation of the celestial hierarchy that links earth to Heaven. The earth is linked to Heaven and an uninterrupted flow of exchange takes place between them which is rarely mentioned, even by Initiatic Science. For example, when Moses wrote, 'In the beginnning God created the heavens and the earth', he did not mention any exchange or intercourse between them. One might conclude from this that heaven and earth were quite separate. In fact, this is what human beings have often thought: that heaven and earth were two distinct, even alien, realities. The truth is, on the contrary, that they are in constant communication, without this communication nothing would make sense.

Heaven and earth, or if you prefer, sun and earth. Between the two there is an ongoing exchange and it is this that produces life. At the moment, we cannot see very much of this exchange. All we see are the sun's rays that reach us, on earth, we see nothing of what rises from earth to the sun. Only clairvoyants are able to see the multitude of beings who descend from higher regions to do their work with the plants and stones of earth and who, once their work is done, rise again to the heavens. Actually, there is a quite a lot of extraordinarily beautiful and poetic literature on this subject and, one day, the whole of mankind will be capable of seeing these creatures who come and go between earth and the sun - and even more distant regions. When this day comes we shall enjoy perfumes and quintessences as yet unknown and hear the music that resounds throughout space, for everything in the universe sings. Everything in the universe is music.

But let's get back to this idea of hierarchy, for it is extremely useful for our inner life. If we know that everything - from the stones of the earth to God Himself - is linked hierarchically, and if we keep this structure constantly in mind, we are bound to act accordingly and do what is right, for we see that everything fits in to that order, that organization, that system. Hierarchy is a state of perfect harmony in which each element is in place. This applies in every domain and, if most human beings are so unhappy, it is because they do not respect this hierarchy. Their belly is where their head or their heart should be and vice versa. There is no order.

Suppose you go to a village and look for the school. Even if you don't know where it is, you won't need to ask your way: you can go straight towards the shouts and screams you hear coming from the children and there will be the school. But then, all of a sudden, the noise ceases and silence reigns. What has happened? The school master has arrived, that's all, and all the little ragamuffins that had been climbing on the desks and benches and making so much noise, are sitting in their places looking like little plaster saints. Isn't this a manifestation of hierarchy? Hierarchy means everything and everyone in his place. And, as I say, this is true in every domain: in our bodies (in which water must not get into the lungs, for instance, nor air into the stomach), in towns and cities, in government departments, in the army, in an orchestra, etc., etc.

Every human being has a place that is his by right. Unfortunetly, this right is not respected in present-day society in which the worthiest and most intelligent people are unknown, whilst those who are violent, corrupt and unscrupulous are in command. Even in men's inner lives this hierarchy is rarely respected: the entities and forces that should be in command are absent and others have usurped their posts. I assure you, this is so. Look at anyone you like. who rules him? Do you imagine that he is king of his own realm? Not a bit of it; he is languishing in a prison cell where he receives barely enough bread and water to keep him alive, while others - dark, chaotic, unknown forces - rule in his stead. Naturally, he suffers from their tyranny and is constantly ill-treated, but he is obliged to obey them. Actually, he is not sufficiently conscious to understand that he is no longer the captain; although his ship is drifting out of control he believes that he is still at the helm.

Until man once again accepts this notion of a heavenly hierarchy, he will continue to drift towards anarchy. This is what is so serious: external anarchy does not matter so much, but inner anarchy is very serious. It is because of this inner anarchy that hospitals, mental homes and prisons are always full of patients and criminals.

Listen well to what I am saying. you can travel throughout the world, you can explore all the regions of space, you can enrol in all the schools of Heaven, and everywhere and always you will find this notion of hierarchy with God in command at the summit and all His creatures standing ready to carry out His commands. And, when you achieve this hierachy in your own inner life, everything within you will sing. Your very cells will sing and you will feel yourself cradled, born up by an extraordinary state of harmony and music.

But this harmony will not be restored until everyone and everything is where they should be and, to achieve this, we have to begin at the beginning and put the heart and the intellect back where they belong. Most human beings are ruled by their emotions and passions, their intellect can do no more than say 'Amen' and hasten to obey. But this is anarchy! And people don't even know it; in fact, if you tell them that they are living in anarchy, they take it as an insult. But I repeat: as long as the heart and intellect are not in their respective places, it is the reign of anarchy. Have you ever wondered why Cosmic Intelligence placed our heads above our hearts? As I have already told you, it is exactly the situation of the ship in which the captain is up on the bridge and the engines below decks. Our engines drive us forward but it is the captain who decides what course to steer. Our engines are our heart, our feelings; it is they that move the ship, but they don't know what direction to take unless they are enlightened by someone else, and that someone is the captain, our head, which is on a higher level and can see where it is going. If you reverse their positions and put the engines up on the bridge and the captain down in the bowels of the ship, that will be the end of it, for the ordinary seamen have not been trained to do the captain's work.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science IX

Everything is hierarchical. Even in the constellations of the Zodiac: some stars correspond to the head of Aquarious and others to the feet; in Aries, some correspond to the horns and some to the hoofs. Or, take a river: from its source to its mouth a river is hierarchical. Even in a tree, from its roots to its flowers, everything is hierarchically organized.

You will ask, 'But how do we know where things belong? It is a very complicated science.' Let me illustrate it for you: what is the first thing you must do if you want to transform a desert into a fertile plain? Find water. Bring in water and allow it to flow, and everything else, plants, animals and men, will find their place. The flowing water is the stream of life. Allow water to flow, allow life and love to flow and don't worry about what kind of trees will grow where or what birds will come and sing in their branches. Some may say, 'Yes, but I want to know in advance exactly where that clump of grass will grow and on which branch the bird will perch to sing its song'. For goodness sake! If you wait to find out all these details before making up your mind to open the sluice gates, the centuries will go by and there will still be no flowers growing and no birds singing. Let the water flow, therefore; the water of life, the living water of love, and you will see how the hierarchical order begins to take root in you and everything slips into place; everything will start singing and blossoming and it will be the Kingdom of God.

From now on, therefore, work at this notion of the hierarchy that reaches all the way to the throne of God and try to see how you can achieve it within yourselves. You will have to pray and implore and struggle but, at least, the Spirit of God that you have been begging and praying for will begin to dwell in you and transform everything within you. When He comes, even if it is only for a second, everything will start to vibrate joyously, in harmony. But this cannot happen in the absence of your head. Without the head, there can be no hierarchy; only if the head is where it should be can it be achieved. It is possible for you to transform everything within you, all the impulses, currents and forces within you, but only by putting the head where it belongs, by putting the Lord at the summit of that hierarchy.

The idea of hierarchy is deeply rooted in human nature; even animals recognize it: they choose the strongest, most intelligent or most handsome of their number to be their leader and then obey him completely. Even animals know that worth must be recognized and respected. It is only human beings who have lost their sense of worth; they are too proud. Humility, you see, is a recognition of a hierarchical order. A person is humble when he recognizes superiority in another.

Of course, if I insist so much on this notion of hierarchy, it is because I always have in mind the inner hierarchy. A person can be at the top in external things and at the bottom inwardly. You can be at the top in society simply because you are rich or learned, but to be at the top in the eyes of the divine world you have to see this: you cannot make the spirits and forces that dwells in you obey you if you are not superior to them. They immediatly know exactly who and what you are and, if you are no better than they are, nothing you can do will make them obey you. Even if you try to give them orders in the name of Jesus, they will scoff at you:'We know who Jesus is, but they will give you a good trashing.

When one knows about this hierarchical order one is obliged to work honestly instead of being full of recriminations. To be angry and indignant about not getting what you want will get you nowhere if you never work on yourself in order to earn it. The hiearchy that exists in the spiritual domain will not be moved by anger and revolt. In human society, you may be able to get to the top by striking out at others and making a lot of commotion: you can see this in revolutions, wars and insurrections. But that kind of behavior won't get you anywhere with the spiritual world; the only way is hard, persevering, tireless work. In this way, yes; it is possible to rise to a level where you can command your own inner forces as well as the forces of nature and, one day, you can be a divinity. In the physical world, to be sure, human beings push and shove and pull other people down in order to take their place because they do not know the laws of hierarchy; on this level there is neither humility nor hard work nor understanding, only violence and darkness but this is not conducive to the evolution of those concerned.

This is a law: human beings my receive only what they deserve and must receive all that they deserve. This is a universal law, a law promulated by the Twenty-Four Elders. The forces of nature know exactly what you do, what you are capable of and what you deserve and they organize things so that, sooner or later, you receive exactly what you deserve. But most human beings know nothing about this law; they don't believe in the existence of just, clairvoyant beings of a higher intelligence who honour the law, so they resort to evil, violent, treacherous means to get what they want and, eventually, of course, the forces of nature have to reach them a hard lesson. Ininitiates know this. That is why they never waver from their path; they know that the difficulties and misfortunes they meet on the way are only temporary, that these difficulties are useful, sometimes even necessary and that, in the long run, they will be rewarded as they deserve.

No one can take the place of another. God has given every single creature a particular vibration and a particular place in the universe. On the physical plane, of course, someone who is unscrupulous and dishonest can eject a rival and take his place but, on the spiritual plane, that it is impossible. The place thath God gives to each one is exactly the place he deserves. In this respect, justice is always absolute; there can be no unfairness. No creature can ever take the place of another, therefore, but each one must grow and develop so as to reach the perfection that God has envisaged for him and, when he reaches the fulfilment intended by God, he will be unique and irreplaceable for all eternity. No other creature in the whole universe will be the same. Even if others are more important, each one is king in his own domain, because it was God who gave him that domain. Through his life, each creature secretes a particular quintessence which belongs to no one else. Other individuals may be greater but their quintessence is of another nature, so so one can replace or substitute for another. Every single creature is irreplaceable.

The best people often appear to be treated unjustly by life but, if they really are 'better' and if they are undeterred by their difficulties, Heaven and earth have sworn to give them their due. This has always been so for everyone, and it will always continue to be so. What have we got to worry about, then? There is no need to worry about is whether these forces are intelligent or whether they have gone to sleep and forgotten about us. The only thing we need worry about is whether we are doing our work as we should, for these entities are perfectly capable of doing theirs and, when the time comes, they will give us the kingship that is our due.

Picture a young prince who, from his earliest years, has been entrusted to a family of peasants to be brought up in a simple, rigorous way of life. He doesn't know that he is heir to the throne and he goes to work every day dressed in rags and with just enough food to keep body and soul together. One day, after years of hard work, his apprenticeship is over and a procession of courtiers comes to fetch him away in a gorgeous coach, He can't understand what is happening; he thinks it is all a mistake; he doesn't realize that he had only been sent there so that he would learn to work hard, get up early and live soberly (Because, of course, you know how young princes behave if they are brought up in luxury: they grow up to be lazy, capricious and cruel!). When the prince gets to the palace and the courtiers want to know what he would like for lunch, he asks for some bread and cheese, an onion and some water. Naturally, they are in despair at this because the royal chef had already prepared a banquet of lobsters and turkey with the best wines. And suppose I were to tell you that you are all princes and princesses, sons and daughters of God, that God has entrusted you to a family of peasants - symbolically speaking - and that, one day, He will send an official delegation to fetch you. Yes, but on condition that you have worked well; otherwise your apprenticeship could last for centuries.

So there you are, there is nothing for it but to change the head and comply with that new head, and then everything else will change, too. We see this so often, even in everyday life. If a new President is elected, for instance, he immediately forms a new government with new ministers and a whole new administration. Why does he do this? Why doesn't he leave the same men in charge? Because he knows that it is impossible: the law of affinity, of magnetic attraction makes it necessary to inaugurate a new hierarchy, a new order. If the new leader is a gangster, he will give all the important posts to his own men, and a period of disorder and gangsterism will ensue. This is a universal rule: as soon as someone new takes command, he dismisses the old staff and gives their jobs to his own cronies, his own family and friends. How can you object that it is useless to change the head, that things will always be the same? Not at all, once the head is changed, everything else changes; every post is taken over by someone who is in agreement with the head. If the new head is a crook, therefore, all the other crooks will come out of hiding and give him their support and, if he is a saint, all the other saints will rally round him and fit into his administration as though they were old friends.

You can see, now, why the very best thing for a disciple to do, is to place the best and most magnificent Head of all - that great White Head whose beard and hair are described in detail in the Cabbalah - at the summit of his being. If a disciple succeed in giving the Lord the very highest place within him, Angels and Archangels will also come and dwell in him to keep the Lord company. The Almighty cannot bear to be in the company of demons, so they are immediately dismissed and His Heavenly hosts come and sing round Him. It is impossible that it should be otherwise!

The only true transformation, the only true alchemy, the only true magic is this: to change one's head. And, in order to change his head, a disciple must, at the very least, be ready to say, 'I don't wish to be in command. I want to be a servant; I want to work and to obey. I want the Lord to come and dwell in me.' And then he must work as hard as he can for this to come about. In the end, when He sees that conditions are right, the Lord will come and, when He comes, all the spirits of light will come with Him and fill all the available space. You see how simple it is? You only have to change the head and all the rest changes, too; It cannot be otherwise. How could the Lord, once He had decided to dwell somewhere, find Himself all alone or in the company of demons? Unthinkable! Wherever He goes He is accompanied by a retine of extraordinarily beautyful entities. If you take the trouble to understand the meaning and value of the hierarchy, you will be capable of fantastic realizations.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science X

I have already spoken to you, many years ago, about the underground kingdom of Agartha and the fantastic civilization that has flourished there for thousands of years. This hidden kingdom in in communication with the surface of the earth; there are openings in many different countries in the world: at the Poles, in South America, Mongolia and Tibet, and even in France, in the Pyrenees. From time immemorial, especially in the countries of the north, there have been legends that tell of a land beyond the icy wastes of the Pole in which it is always springtime. And, according to a tradition known to Initiatic Science, the aurora borealis is produced by very highly evolved beings who dwell in that kingdom with the light from the centre of the earth.

There have been people who were aware of the existence of Agartha. There was even a film, LOST HORIZONS, which was about Shangri-La, the land of perpetual youth. In every country teh tradition has existed and, whether in Greece, India, Egypt or elsewhere, this mysterious subterranean kingdom has given rise to belief in a land of eternal youth and happiness which has been known, sometimes, as Agartha and sometimes as the Land of the Holy Grail, Thule or the Garden of the Hesperides.

Today, more is being said and written about Agartha but, not so many years ago, it was virtually unknown. A Russian writer, Ossendowski, published a book called Beasts, Men and Gods in which he recounts what he learned about Agartha in the monasteries of Tibet. But it was the Marquis Saint-Yves d'Alveydre who made the most striking revelations in his book, The Mission of India in Europe. Saint-Yves d'Alveydre was writer, a scholar and an Initiate; he was capable of out-of-body travel and, in his book, he tells of how he visited and saw Agartha for himself. He gives many extraordinary details about this subterranean kingdom, about how it is lit by a kind of internal sun, about the trees and flowers growing there and about the animals and men who live there, just as on earth. He describes the libraries and archives which stretch for miles and which contain the whole history of the human race. Yes, there are some amazing books there, books written by great Initiates and containing great secrets. These books were taken away from human beings but they are still there, in Agartha, and only those who are sufficiently evolved have the right to go and read them.

Everything that has happened in the world since its beginning is recorded and preserved in these archives. All that has disappeared from the face of the earth and that we believe to be lost to us for ever, is there, in those archives. If you wonder what some historical figure was like, this is where you will find the answer. And you, too, are there, in miniature. For there is a copy of every one of us and it is kept there so that we can be studied. Every single thing that happens here is reflected in miniature in Agartha, in fact, at this very moment, the Agarthans know that I am talking about them.

Some people, who have done some research in this connection, think that the first Gypsies (or Romanies) were banished from Agartha and that it is from there that they draw their special knowledge of the Tarot, for example, which they hand on from generation to generation. It is also believed that the Aghartans first came from Atlantis and Lemuria. Before the continent began to submerge - some researchers put this at fifteen thousand years ago - they are said to have fled in their extraordinary machines and taken refuge in the bowels of the earth, where they built cities and settled down.

To be sure, there are all kinds of extravagant theories about Agharta, but I am not interested in knowing whether they are true or false. What does interest me is the underlying philosophy, the priniciples on which this kingdom is founded and how to propagate this philosophy amongst human beings to understand that if they continue to follow their false philosophies, they will soon come to a bad end.

The kingdom of Agharta is organized and ruled with immense wisdom and its millions of inhabitants live in prosperity, peace and happiness, free from disease and old age. Saint-Yves d'Alveydre describes this organization in detail. At the top, he says, is a trinity of beings: the Brahâtma, the Mahâtma and the Mahanga (whom Ossendowski calls the Brahytma, the Mahytma and the Mahynga). Authority belongs to the Brahâtma, power belongs to the Mahâtma and the Mahanga is in charge of organization. And, as the government of Agharta is patterned on that of the universe, below this supreme trinity is a group of twelve persons that reflect the twelve signs of the Zodiac; under them is a group of twenty-two, reflecting the twenty-two principles of the Logos with which God created the world and, finally, there is a group of three hundred and sixty-five, reflecting the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, etc.

I have reflected and meditated for years and years about Agartha and worked constantly to make contact with this invisible kingdom and, although you may not believe this, the time has come to tell you that I am bringing you the same pattern of organization that prevails there and which is known as synarchy. It is high time that human beings realized that they have never yet found the best type of government and that only a synarchy, a government of Initiates, can solve all their political, social and economic problems.

I am offering you the same culture as that which exists in Agartha. I have never been in a position to reveal it fully because I know that if I divulged it, it would seem so remote, so unthinkable, that I would be in danger of being locked up. I assure you, if I were to say all that I know I would soon find myself in an asylum. This is why I dare not reveal certain things to you. But it is all here, in my head and, little by little, I am leading you into this world of Initiatic truths. In any case, if you are honest, you cannot help but admit that everything I have revealed to you so far has been true. I leave you free, therefore, to do as you wish.

But one thing is absolutely true, and that is that I am bringing you an entirely new culture. The Teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood has the mission to introduce the philosophy of Agharta into the world. There is a tradition that after Râma had established the Golden Age on earth, he went to live in Agharta. Many other great spirits such as Buddha, St John, even the famous alchemist, Nicholas Flamel, also went to Agharta when they left this world. But one thing that people don't know is that there are Aghartans who have reincarnated on earth in our day in order to bring us their science, their organization and their form of government: government by Initiates.

I can tell you about how the Aghartans live, how they are born and how they understand love. They know how precious sexual energy is, for instance, so , instead of squandering it, they use it to rise to greater heights of perfection and become divinities. As a matter of fact, the true doctrine of Tantra-yoga, which is so widely known in Tibet and India, comes from Agartha. Very few Westerners understand - still less practise - this form of yoga correctly. Many of those who have tried it, in fact, have only succeeded in making themselves ill and destroying their emotional balance. Be careful, therefore: I don't advise you to embark on experiences in this area. Study well, prepare yourselves, purify yourselves and, when you are ready, the extraordinary science that these beings possess will be revealed to you.

The Science of the Aghartans also includes the most advanced discoveries of physics. They are capable of seeing and controlling all that happens on earth. In fact, if they wanted to, they could unleash the power of the four elements and wipe out the whole of humanity. Fortunetly, they are too peace-loving and much too highly evolved to do so. It is also very likely that flying saucers, whose existence is no longer in doubt, come not from other planets but from the centre of the earth via the North or Sout Pole. Many observers in the Arctic and Antarctic regions have seen flying saucers coming or going in the direction of the Poles.

In any case, the Aghartans have some extraordinary means of transport and it is particularly interesting to note that it was in 1945, after the atomic bomb that wiped out Hiroshima, that they began to manifest themselves more frequently. They come to keep an eye on us; they are concerned because they know that human beings are quite capable, in their folly, of wiping out humanity and, of course, if this happened it would also affect them. It is possible that, within the next few years, they decide to show themselves and give human beings some messages, some warnings. And it is also quite possible that they will take some of you back with them so that you can see the splendour of their land for yourselves before coming back to earth. So far, none of those who have visited Agharta have ever come back. But the Aghartans are very, very kind and generous: you need have absolutely no fear of them. They have overcome all human weakness.

To be sure, quite a number of pilots have tried to pursue their flying saucers but they are surrounded by a magnetic field that makes them invulnerable: if they are pursued by a plane, they can throw out rays that make its engines cut out. They always work with light. Their source of power is light, and it is with this that they neutralize all hostile forces. They apply the Initiatic rule that it is light that must be our protection against harmful elements. Before very long, human beings will begin to discover many of their secrets.

I have been telling you this for years: the only thing you must study is light, for light is all-powerful. Science has recently discovered the power of the laser, but there are many more discoveries to be made. One day, all the revelations I have made to you will be recognized and published at large. So far, they have not been taken seriously because they have not been confirmed by orthodox science. Instead of sensing their authenticity inwardly, instead of touching them, as it were, with their soul and spirit, human beings are so over-intellectual that they prefer to wait for the verdict of science before believing even the greatest truths. But, I repeat: sooner or later, all that I reveal to you in my lectures will be scientifically proved. This is already beginning, in fact, with experiments that are being made in Russia; the other countries are behind Russia in this but they, too, will come to accept the reality of the aura, clairvoyance and the power of thought. Technicians have perfected instruments that can now measure some so-called 'para-psychic' phenomena and this means that people will be obliged to accept the results recorded by them. Human beings don't trust the instruments placed in them by the Creator: they ignore them completely, preferring to wait for the verdict of an external instrument, whereas it should be just the other way round.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Politics in the Light of Initiatic Science XI

As I have said, I am interested in Agharta from a philosophical point of view, because of the pattern of organization, government and collective life it presents. We, too, should work for the collectivity with the same disinterestedness and the same tireless love as the Aghartans so as to form a single family on earth, so that there shall be no more boundaries, no more war, no more poverty. When this is achieved, the interests of individuals will be protected. In a prosperous, healthy collectivity, each individual member also thrives, whereas, if only a handful of individuals prosper within a collectivity riddled by poverty and dissension, they will always be at risk, for their prosperity is not built on anything firm and lasting. This is why, when we see that every individual is interested only in his own well-being and cares nothing for that of others, we can be sure, in advance, that it is an unstable situation. If human beings would only make the effort to forget about themselves a little more and devote themselves to the good of the collectivity, the interests of every individual would be protected. For the good of the individual is in the good of the whole. This is why I keep telling you that you don't know where your own best interests lies; your behaviour proves this and, sooner or later, it will be your downfall.

The life of the collectivity surrounds, dominates and rules us. We can never be free and independent of it. This means that you must stop trying to find a comfortable little niche for yourself because it can never be anything more than a stop-gap. Unfortunetly, human beings are still a long way from this expanded consciousness. They are like insects: as soon as something goes wrong they scuttle off into their little hiding places thinking that they will be safe there. Well, that is fine, it is something that we have inherited from the insects, but surely we are capable of changing just a little. To be sure, human beings have already made progress where the collectivity is concerned, but not enough: they continue to massacre each other. Their consciousness has expanded slightly, that is true, but the situation has not really changed much. In the past, one man would be killed where, today, millions are killed at one stroke. That is progress for you! Ah, yes; human beings have made great progress. They have built much bigger towns, for instance, but their inner nature is unchanged: each person remains isolated in his own little hole. They are still 'troglodytes' just as they have always been: isolated, divided and hostile.

The solutions men need must be sought on a higher level, in the spirit, in light. As long as they keep trying to solve their problems without that light, even the most far-reaching political and social transformations will never be truly effective for they will always contain the germ of a personal interest which runs contrary to the collective interest and which will end by contaminating all the rest. Men must consult that eternal wisdom that the Aghartans consult and that I myself always consult, and it will show them what to do. As it is, even the Church doesn't consult this higher wisdom; it has substituted its own interests for the interests of the Lord. This is why the prophecies of Fatima are so terrible for the Church. But people no longer believe in anything; self-interest and money have priority over everything else.

I know very well that, because of this, the system that I bring you has no chance of being either understood or applied. In fact, if certain authorities realized that our Teaching was based on the synarchy, they would be quite capable of trying to close us down. They hate the synarchy! The Age of Aquarius is coming closer and bringing with it its Teaching of the collectivity.

The synarchic order will be established and will probe itself. Every system has to prove itself and, when it turns out to be ineffective, is replaced by another and then another, and so on. This is how men grope their way forward until, eventually, they find the right solutions. In reality, instead of continuing with an endless succession of painful and very costly experiments, it would be possible for men immediatly to adopt a system that has been in existence for thousands of years. Unfortuneatly, at the moment, everyone wants to experiment and discover the great truths for himself. True, this is one way of doing it. Eventually, everyone will reach his goal this way, but it will take a very long time - hundreds if not thousands of years. The Creator has given all human beings the same ability to arrive at the truth, but the time that this takes is not the same for all. Those who accept to be instructed and guided by a Master save themselves a great deal of time, expense and suffering, whereas those who refuse this rapid and effective means will arrive at the same truths but thousands of years later. They prefer to tread a lone path; they want to be free and refuse to submit to or follow anyone else and, although they will eventually reach their goal, it will take them a very long time.

This attitude is particularly prevalent amongst intellectuals. Every now and then, one finds an exception to the general rule, but they are rare. I myself am one of those exceptions. Fortunately for me, Providence saved me by depriving me of all kinds of intellectual faculties that others have received in abundance. This is why I have been so ready to accept the wisdom of others who were more advanced, whereas those who have great intellectual gifts believe themselves to be capable of doing things by themselves. It seems to me that Providence has not been quite so kind to them: they refuse every authority and rely exclusively on their own resources, with the result that it will be thousands of years before they discover the truth.

In a few years from now some very important discoveries will be made. The only question is whether there will be enough human beings capable of understanding and feeling them and putting them into effect in their lives. It says in the Bible that everything will be revealed at the end of time. And this time is near. Of course, when it says 'the end of time', we must not imagine that it means the end of the world. The end of the world has already been announced time and again - even the date has been specified - and people have been struck with terror and prepared to die. And then the fateful day arrived and passed... and the world went on as usual. Occasionally some minor upheaval occured, but the world continued to go round. Mankind will never completely disappear. Human beings are tough, don't worry! They can survive anything. But there is no doubt that there will soon be all kinds of upheavals and changes and that it will be the end of an era. In his book, Beasts, Men and Gods, Ossendowski tells of how, one evening, he was with a caravan of camels, crossing a great plain in Mongolia when, all of a sudden, everything fell silent (Saint-Yves d'Alveydre mentions the same phenomenon): men and beasts stood still, even the birds did not fly. His guide explained that this awed silence fell over the sanctuary in his subterranean palace in Agharta to pray. Very few human beings have ever seen the King of the World but, every now and then, he has appeared on the occasion of a religious holiday and his appearance is always accompanied by great prodigies. He has also made certain prophecies, some of which have already been realized and others of which are still to come. Yes, the King of the World does exist and he is waiting for the right moment to manifest himself. Also, as I have already told you, some beings from Agharta have incarnated in the world today in order to carry out the plans of the invisible World. Many of them are working, even now, for a world government.

Try to understand what I am telling you: above is the New Jerusalem, the Ierouschalaïm Hadascha of which St John speaks, and below is Agharta whilst we, human beings, are between the two. When the New Jerusalem descends and Agharta rises from below, the Kingdom of God will be established amongst men. Agharta, like the New Jerusalem, denotes the inner life. It was to Agharta that the alchemists referred when they used the word VITRIOLUM, each letter of which is the initial letter of a word in the Latin sentence: 'Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem Veram Medicinam', which means, 'Visit the bowels of the earth; rectifying you will find the hidden stone, the true medicine.' Agharta is also this inner earth into which we must penetrate, for man is made in the inner image of the universe and all that exists outside him exists, also, inside him.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Principles and Forms

The important thing in life is to put the same heart and soul, the same tireless love into everything you do and never to give up, for it is the things that endure that must have priority. If something is to last, however, its particles must continually be renewed, and this means that if you are unwilling to clean out and discard the dusty remnants of your old ways of thinking and feeling, you will never create anything durable. Of course I know that it is going to be difficult for you to appreciate the importance of this truth, because the person who says it is a nobody. You think that only those who are learned or famous can reveal the truth. But that is not so; you should be able to recognize and appreciate a truth whoever may say it, be it a child or a beggar.

If something is to endure, it must constantly renew itself. And if the Church is disintegrating today, it is because it fails to renew itself; it continues to cling to old conceptions which are no longer valid and which need to be replaced. Of course I am not talking about the basic principles on which Christianity is built; no one will ever find principles more perfect than those of the Gospels. But why does the Church still burden itself with obsolete practices which no longer serve their purpose? Many people abandon the Christian religion because they think that science contradicts and nullifies the truth of the Gospels. This simply shows they have not understood the first thing about it, for it is just the opposite: the discoveries of science actually corrobate and emphasize the truths of the Gospels.

I can show you - in fact I have often done so - that the discoveries of science prove the truth of initiatic science, but this is something that neither scientists nor religious people have ever understood. For me there is no contradiction between science and religion; they go hand in hand. In fact they go hand in hand with art too, for the three are intimately related. From science mankind receives light, from religion warmth, and from art activity. Why have human beings separated these three realms that were created to coexist and work together in nature and in human beings? Initiates have never separated science, religion and art, but today there is a gulf between them, and the result is that religion no longer has a hold on scientists; they reject it out of hand. They reject it, of course, because they do not possess the one true science. Their science focuses only on the physical, material world. They know nothing of the true science on which all religions are based. As for art, it fluctuates uncertainly between the two, in conflict first with one and then with the other.

The true religion is initiatic science. In nature, I repeat, religion, science, and art are one. If they are not one today it is because human beings have separated them, and as long as they continue to separate them, they will never understand anything. Science, religion, and art form a unified whole, thanks to which everything can be understood and explained. Science corresponds to a need of the intellect, religion to a need of the heart, and art to a need of the will, which seeks to express something, to create and build. These three needs are closely related, for we begin by thinking something, but we have to feel it before we can make it a concrete reality.

As a matter of fact, many initiates of the past have reincarnated today as scientists. Yes, many contemporary scientists were once high priests of the ancient Mysteries. Those who discovered radio and television, for instance, were once initiates in ancient Egypt, and they have simply applied the knowledge they acquired in the distant past to the material world. Our era is connected in many ways to Egyptian civilization, and the science of ancient Egypt will soon be known and will manifest itself in many technical applications.

But let us get back to this idea that the Church should change some of its ideas and attitudes. Take just one example: the other day somebody sent me an article about a recent speech by the Pope in which he deplored the activity of the Devil who, he said, was poisoning the work of the Church by sowing doubt in the minds of the faithful. Yes, for centuries the devil has been blamed for everything that was wrong. Even now in the 20th century the faults and errors of human beings are still said to be the work of the devil. It is still the devil who moves human beings to act. Do you hear me talking constantly about the devil? Certainly not. Why is he still so conspicuously present in the discourses of religion leaders? In the Middle Ages the devil was present day and night in people's lives. Everything began and ended with him. Nothing else mattered. Even God took second place to Satan. It was he who was responsible for all miracles and prodigies. It was he who was said to heal the sick and utter prophecies. When a man or woman manifested exceptional gifts or talents they were always said that it was God who was omniscent and all-powerful. No, the all-powerful one was Satan. And the extraordinary thing is that even today, if someone works a miracle or achieves something truly unique, the Church is never very eager to acknowledge it as the work of God or of his angels; it is always suspicious, always ready to see the hand of the devil in everything. But believe me, the more you talk about the devil, the more you nourish and strengthen him and make it possible for him to act.

It seems that people need to fear something, so the devil is held up as the great 'bogeyman'. But this is ridiculous, for the only result is that people get so used to him that they no longer fear him (just as birds get accustomed to an old scarecrow and no longer fear it). Now I am not saying that the devil does not exist; he does. But the less we talk about him the better. If you tell people you have done something really astounding they will often exclaim, 'The devil you did!' Why? What has the devil got to do with it? To invoke the name of the devil - and even the fact of being afraid of him - are forms of black magic by which you attract his attention.

It is time the Church had a more intelligent grasp of esoteric science and stopped seeing the hand of the devil in everything. As it is, instead of acknowledging that people are abandoning religion because its representatives are unworthy of their calling, it blames the devil, saying that the devil has infiltrated the Church. How often I have explained to you that if you refuse to entertain the elements that attract the devil and keep your doors resolutely closed to him, he is powerless. This law is absolute. But instead of explaining this, the Church allows the faithful to think that he has the power to enter their inner being and that there is nothing they can do to stop him. We are asked to believe that human beings are so shoddily made (the Lord obviously did not do a very good job.) that, however pure and saintly they may be, the devil can always get into them. Well, this is simply not true. It is the knowledge contained in initiatic science that is lacking in the Church.

Christianity is in need of major transformations, for it is still living in antiquated traditions that are no longer suited to our day and age. Mankind would be much better off today if religion as the Church understands it were really enough, but since it is little more than a series of empty forms, is there any wonder that most people cannot take it seriously any longer?

In any case, people are more and more inclined to think things out for themselves and question what others tell them.

In the past they were ready to swallow whatever the Church said because for them the Church was the authority; it was the Church that thought for them, that made decisions for them. But today nobody wants others to do their thinking for them, so they leave the Church. This shows that Christianity will be forced to accept the new forms that are being suggested to it by the invisible world. And the day will come when these new forms will wear out in their turn and will have to be replaced by others. Only principles endure, not forms. Cosmic intelligence has decreed that physical forms should not be permanent. The only function of a form is to keep the contents intact; it is a container, a boundary, a limitation. It is also a prison; and if the contents within a form are not to congreal and become rigid, that form must be broken open and the contents poured into a new, subtler, more flexible, more transparent form. This is why nothing that exists on the physical plane can be eternal. One day everything, even the great pyramids, even the sphinx, will disappear.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Principles and Forms II

Time cannot affect principles, but it does affect forms. To say that all things are corroded and destroyed by time is true only in regard to forms, and Christians have not yet understood that the foms in which their religion was given to them centuries ago cannot last for ever; they are going to have to change them. But Christians are stubborn; they are unwilling to change anything. The Teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood offers no new principles, only new forms; that is to say, new methods, methods that allow the content, the spirit, to express and manifest itself more perfectly. The Universal White Brotherhood has no desire to introduce new principles, for principles are eternal; it wishes to renew only the forms, because forms are subject to the wear and tear of time. Remember this one thing therefore: only principles are eternal.

When people are happy about something, they say, 'Long may it last!' Lovers for instance always want their love to last for ever, but unfortunetly this is impossible. Why? Because they cast it in fragile, perishable forms. If you want to express your love eternally you are going to have to change its form. Let me give you an example: if you express your love through your lower nature, your personality, even your eyes will reflect the desire to indulge your appetites without a thought for the good of the other person or the effect your actions will have on them. The only thing you want is to satisfy your own hunger and thirst. This is a coarse, cruel, selfish form of love, and the eyes of one who loves in this way become bloodshot and swollen with lust; they express something slimy, impure, and violent.

But when human beings express their love through their individuality, their higher nature, beauty, light and transparency shine from their eyes because such love is selfless. It asks for nothing in return: it wants only to give and to help and enlighten others. This is the most beautiful form of love... and yet most women prefer to see the flame of desire in a man's eyes. When they see this, the poor things are pleased because they imagine that such a love is so intense, potent, and expressive that it will last for ever. The one thing that women long for is a love that will endure - and of course they are right to do so. The only trouble is that they are blind; they do not realize that a sensual look speaks of a love that cannot last. The fire they see is a flash in the pan that will die down as suddenly as it flared up. Why do women have so little discernment?

It is up to you now to cultivate a broader outlook and, above all, to intensify your desire to evolve. For what is evolution? It is simply a change of form. The natural sciences have always had a keen interest in the question of evolution: some say that it is forms that evolve, while others say that forms are predetermined from all eternity and that beings migrate from one form to another. It is this second theory that is correct; forms do not evolve. All forms - whether of animals, insects, or plants - pre exist in the world of archetypes, and individual creatures assume these forms for a time and then discard them and move on to others, exactly as actors put on a new mask for each new play. So the form in which the spirit is clothed is always different, but forms themselves do not evolve. They were created from all eternity, and the future froms of plants and animals that are still unknown to us already exist as archetypes.

New forms have been prepared and are ready and waiting for human beings as well. As our evolution progresses we shall assume these new forms, for we must constantly cast off the old forms and assume new ones that are, purer, more flexible, and more luminous. When we assume a new form we also acquire new and better means of action and manifestation. To remain tied to our old forms would be to limit our progress; we would never get any further. This si what Christians fail to understand. They try to perpetuate the form, but that is not possible. Their attitude is diametrically opposed to the decrees of cosmic intelligence.

Cosmic Intelligence has no need to perpetuate forms on the physical plane; they are already eternal. Yes, but they are eternal only in the higher realms, in the world of archetypes. On that level all forms are eternal because they are there to serve cosmic intelligence. It is when men try to perpetuate them on earth, when they cling obstinately to one particular form, that the invisible world is obliged to set them free by taking its sledge-hammers and smashing that form. Human beings are scandalized by what they take to be cruelty on the part of cosmic intelligence, but how could they be free if they were permanently bound to the same form? Are you still not convinced? Very well, but think about what happens to human beings from one incarnation to the next. More often than not they change their sex. If you were a woman in a previous life, it was in order to learn to manifest the qualities of the feminine principle, and now that you are a man you must learn to manifest other qualities.

This apparent cruelty on the part of the invisible world, which shatters old forms in order to create new ones, is not yet understood by the Church. But whether it understands or not I guarantee that its old forms will be destroyed. However hard Christians try to save their old forms, the invisible world is going to move on. Human beings always have a tendency to cling to their old ways, and this is precisely what they should not do. What is a materialist? A materialist is someone who clings to material forms. This is why materialists will also be broken, smashed, and wiped out - so that they may be freed.

One day an angel, wishing to study the ways of animals and humans at first hand, decided to come down to earth in the form of a pig. He adapted himself so well to his new state that life in a pigsty seemed to him to be all that was most desireable. He stuffed himself with acorns and pigswill, he took a wife and was soon surrounded by innumerable offspring, and his happiness was complete. Nothing could induce him to abandon such bliss. In the meantime his brother angels were getting very worried about him and tried to decide how to get him back to heaven, for he was enjoying his life as a pig so much that he ignored all their messages. Finally, as a last resort, they decided that there was only one solution, and that was to send him to the slaughterhouse. Well, when the angel was released from his animal form and saw the carass being roasted for a banquet, he was astounded that he could have forgotten his own identity so completely and was full of gratitude ot his fellow angels for rescuing him. Unfortunetly a great many human beings are like that angel; they too have become 'pigs', and they too are destined to be butchered. All the philosophies, be shattered; only the principles will remain, and they will assume new forms.

The Universal White Brotherhood is a new form of the religion of the Christ. Oh, I know, Christians are going to exclaim in horror and take up arms against us to show that they are faithful to the traditions they have inherited. But this is a battle they will not win, for the invisible world will intervene to show them that they are wrong. A new form is going to appear, and it will last for a certain time before it too makes way for yet another more perfect form. As you see, I am being perfectly fair and honest with you, I have no wish to deceive you by telling you that the forms introduced by our teaching are eternal. There will always be new expressions; expressions that will become more and more perfect and luminous.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Principles and forms III

When people tell me that as Catholics they cannot accept the teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood, I say, 'Very well, if you feel more at home in the Church, stay there. But as for us, we are going to move on.' I ask you, what can you learn from all those sermons that explain nothing at all? Who is to blame if people listen to them and then go on doing all the things they should not do? They leave the Church because it has no answers to their questions, no words with which to allay their anguish. Their sermons are very poetic and also highly moral. Yes indeed, very pretty and very pathetic. I entirely approve of what they say, but you cannot learn much from their words because they contain no real understanding of the meaning and goal of human existence, the laws that govern it, or how to behave in harmony with those laws. It is all words, words; no mention of how to put those words into practice. Do you really believe that Christendom has ever put the Gospels into practice? No, the facts speak for themselves. For my part, I am in favour of radical changes; and such changes are coming. You will see them for yourselves.

All those who decide to work with eternal, unchanging principles of Christ belong to the Universal White Brotherhood. They are not destroying anything; they are not working against Christ; they are not trying to promote new forms. And those who cling to the old forms show that they have not understood the principles. They rely on forms to save them, and they sleep soundly at night in the security of their protection. Yes, those who rely on forms fall asleep; whereas evolve very rapidly. Is this not a far better, far more benficial ideal? Jesus himself tells us how magnificent it is, for we read and that is exactly what I have been trying to explain. I am constantly urging you to turn toward the spirit that gives life.

So, as I say, all those who give the priority to principles belong to the Great Universal White Brotherhood; not to the Brotherhood here on earth, but to that glorious Brotherhood that embraces all the most luminous creatures in the universe. Our role in the world is simply to provide these perfect beings with means and possibilities for action so that the kingdom of God may be established on earth. It is in this sense that the Universal White Brotherhood can be seen as a new form of the religion of Christ, and this is why I say that those who work with the principles of Christ belong to that great Brotherhood. They may not even know of our existence, but that does not matter; they are still members of the Universal White Brotherhood.

Onmraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Principles and Forms IV

Why do human beings cling so stubbornly to forms? The answer is that they are lazy. All their spiritual activity is dead; all that is left to them is to wave the banner of form. Take the case of all those people who wear a cross, for instance: their cross will not save them if they wear it only externally without any participation of the spirit. But if they cling to the principle behind the material cross and try to understand what it means and apply it to their lives, then it can help and protect them. Keep certain forms if you wish, but never lose sight of the spirit behind them, otherwise you too will be lost. Wear a cross if you like, but attach yourself to the spirit, for behind that form is the spirit. For me the cross is a fantastic symbol (a three-dimensional cross is composed of twenty-two planes, corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Cabbalah with which God created the world). But the Christians of today are really to be pitied; they have no desire to learn. They oppose change in the belief that they are being faithful to human beings, to idiots, to people who are sick.

We must be faithful to God, not to men. If you insist on being faithful to men, very well, that is your own business. I have no objection, but you will end up as dust. What was so special about all those people who ruled the Church for so many hundreds of years? What did they stand for? As often as not they were no different from all the other poor wretches on earth. In fact if any of them manifested a higher degree of understanding they were immediatly banished, excommunicated. Look at the historical record and you will see for yourselves: all those who really wanted to reform things were cast out and rejected. Yes, for the sake of forms. But form is not very productive; all it can do is imprison human beings. Form is a perfect prison. If you are a prisoner of form you can never escape.

A form should be preserved only as long as necessary, as long as it is indispensable or simply useful. As soon as it becomes obsolete it means that a new phase has begun and we must either replace it or reach a much more profound understanding of it. There are a certain number of rites, such as Baptism, Marriage, the Mass, and Communion, that are founded on eternal laws and a knowledge of magic. This is particularly true of the Mass, which is pure magic. In fact it would be true to say that it is thanks to the Mass that the Church has endured until today. The sad thing is that a great many priests do not realize the profound significance of what they are doing when they celebrate the Mass. If they understood it, the power of the Mass would be even greater.

Then there is the custom of lighting candles and votive lights in church. Take the example of the Easter ceremony in Orthodox churches: everyone in church holds a candle and the celebrant begins by lighting his own candle. He passes on the flame to the candle of the priest or deacon standing next to him, who passes it in turn to the person beside him. And so it goes on, each one receiving light from one neighbour and handing it on to another until the whole church is ablaze with light. Symbolically speaking, this means that there must be someone who begins by lighting his candle, that is to say, his intelligence, his mind. Once he holds a lighted candle others will come and light their candles, their intelligence, from his, until all the men and women in the world form a multitude of lighted candles. The symbolism of the votive light is identical to that of the candle except that a candle is a masculine symbol whereas a vigil light is feminine. But this is such a profound and sacred question that I dare not tell you any more than that.

Man has a candle and woman has a votive light, but neither of them knows that they have something that needs to be set alight. Christians automatically light candles and votive lights, but I have never seen one who knew anything about the mystery involved in this act, who knew how and why they should be lit. And yet what great transformations they could work in themselves if only they knew. This is why I say that Christians have not yet begun their real work. Even if they go to church, light candles, bless themselves with holy water and receive Communion, they have still not begun, because they have not yet done these things inwardly. They hang a little icon of the Virgin Mary in their homes and imagine that whatever they do the Virgin will always be there to protect them, but this is nothing but superstition. They count on this and believe in that, but belief and faith are two quite different things.

Most people who think they have faith actually have nothing but a collection of beliefs. Yes, because they are too attached to forms. They do not realize that even prayers can be no more than forms. There is a story about a monk who was in the habit of paying secret visits to the wine-cellar every evening. It was his péché mignon, his favourite weakness, and he was incapable of giving it up. Every night he would say his prayers and ask God to forgive him and then sleep soundly with a clear conscience - as though by mumbling an act of contrition he could put everything right. One night he was rudely awakened from sleep by someone shaking him and saying: 'Wake up, wake up! You forgot to say your prayers.' And whom did he see beside his bed but the devil himself. All of a sudden he understood that the devil had taken the trouble to come and remind him to say his prayers, because it was the devil who benefited from them, not he. If he continued to say his prayers in the belief that he was automatically forgiven, then he could go on drinking. It was certainly not the Lord who had come to wake him up. The Lord does not hear a drunkard's prayers. So you see, often enough it is the devil who hides behind forms and urges you to go to church, light a candle, say your prayers, or receive Communion. In this way he helps you to become more and more deeply entrenched in these old forms.

I have nothing against Communion. The only thing is that I see so many Christians who receive Communion all their lives long, who have already swallowed wagonfuls of hosts and drunk barrels of wine, and who are still as vicious, aggressive, slanderous, and unjust as ever. Whereas if you communicate with the perfect, living host of the sun as it rises every morning and with the wine of life that flows from it, it will not be long before you find that you are obliged to transform yourself. Yes, because the sun is alive. This is what Jesus meant when he said, 'Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternyl life.' At the time Jesus said this people were incapable of understanding such advanced ideas; this is why they had to be given bread and wine. But that era belongs to the past; today we must go much further. The fact that a man can be a regular communicant and still continue to beat his wife or slander his neighbour is surely proof that this kind of Communion is not very effective. Communion can help, of course; if you have faith, it can help. However, in spite of your faith, in spite of the strength of your convictions, and in spite of the priest's blessing, the sun is more potent than any number of hosts.

The blessing given by a priest is very important, that is true; but the quality of his blessing depends on his own elevation, purity, and faith. I am afraid that many priests are so sick of repeating the same gestures over and over again every day that they mumble the words of consecration without putting their soul or spirit into what they are saying. So the bread and wine are blessed, but with a blessing that is not very potent. Besides, even if a priest puts his whole heart and soul into the blessing I feel like asking: 'If you believe that the words of consecration are so powerful, could you not just as well consecrate some wood shavings or scraps of metal and distribute them to the faithful?' The truth is that in blessing bread a priest is blessing something that has already been blessed by the Creator. The wheat from which the host is made is alive, and this means that it has already been blessed by God. The blessing it contains is life itself.

To conclude, let me repeat that it is time to do away with the old forms that you still stand up for and try to defend. You think I am exaggering, but I know that once you see the question more clearly you will not only agree with me, but you too will find these old forms irksome and intolerable and be anxious to free yourselves from them.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Principles and Forms V

I want to add a few words today to what I have already told you about forms and principles, for it is important that the question should be clear to you. You must not think that I am against all forms - certainly not. Forms are useful and necessary but they must not be expected to last for ever. After a time they need to be changed.

As I have said, a form is simply a receptacle, a container. This is easy to understand. Take the example of the clothes we wear: does a man wear the same clothes, the same trousers, shoes, or shirts, from the age of two to the age of ninety? Of course not. He always needs trousers, shoes, and shirts, but at intervals, as his size and shape changes, he grows out of his old clothes and needs new ones. And just as each human individual grows and changes, so the world itself evolves and needs new forms that corresponds to that evolution. Centuries ago mankind was like a new-born baby, but today that baby has begun to grow out of its swaddling clothes; it needs to exercise its arms and legs - and in doing so it claws and bites and kicks out in all directions.

The only real question is which forms to retain and which to change. As long as you are on earth you have to preserve and even protect the form of your physical body. You have to keep it healthy, well-groomed and expressive; but for how long? Only until the day you depart for the next world. There always comes a moment when this form has to be cast off like a threadbare garment. Perhaps you are wondering why the ancient Egyptians tried to preserve the physical forms of the pharaohs, and why our museums are still full of their mummies. In reality, the ancient Egyptians knew very well that forms cannot be preserved. They mummified the bodies of their pharaohs for purposes of magic, for they were very advanced in the knowledge and practice of magic.

It would take far too long to mention all the different instances in which forms change, but the example of dress is very significant. Only a few years ago the well-dressed man wore a carefully pressed suit, carried a walking stick and wore a hat, gloves, and even spats. And today? Today there are no more walking sticks, no more gloves, and men's trousers are all crumpled. These are the new forms. And women are in even more of a hurry than men to abandon old forms. Every year, several times a year in fact, fashion obliges them to change forms. This is why I must address myself particularly to women, because women are the first - the only ones - to take this question of changing forms seriously. Ah, woman, the marvellous creatures! How they love to change their hats, their shoes, their dresses. Just wait and see how many new forms there will be next year. Nobody ever criticizes the leaders of fashion for bringing in new fashions every few months, and yet when I speak about changing forms everyone is up in arms against me. I ask you, is that fair? Dress designers are applauded when they change forms, but when I suggest that some forms should be changed everyone is against me. How unjust people are!

Of course, many of the forms that still exist served a useful purpose in the past, because when they were first developed, human beings could not understand anything more advanced. But they must not be allowed to last for ever. We have to see how nature deals with this question; it is nature that leads animals and men to adopt certain patterns of behaviour and then, after a while, it is again nature that urges them to change their ways and behave differently because times have changed. Take the example of fear: nature has cultivated the reflex of fear in animals for their own protection. Fear is a healthy reaction in an animal because it warns it to flee when it is in danger. But if human beings are to attain a higher degree of evolution they need to rid themselves of fear, and replace it with other, nobler sentiments. There always comes a time, therefore, when nature recognizes the need to change patterns that she herself defined hundreds and thousands of years before. There are many different kinds of fear: the fear of public opinion, the fear of falling ill, the fear of financial ruin, and so on. But we must no longer be ruled by fear. It was necessary for our own self-preservation at an earlier stage of evolution but today it is a serious obstacle to spirituals progress.

Fear is a very striking example of something that was necessary or useful in the past and that may no longer be useful today. It is nature herself that has taught me this, fo I continue to study in her school. Unfortunetly, Christians never turn to nature to learn how she envisages things and how long she intends them to last. They think that something that was decreed by human beings in the past must remain valid for all eternity. The trouble is that human beings are not qualified to foresee everything; they do not know what life will be like a few centuries from now. Scientists are always making predictions about the future and telling us what is going to happen, but the only way to be sure is to go and find out from cosmic intelligence; for it is cosmic intelligence that planned things a very long time ago.

For centuries, the Church taught that a life of poverty and destitution was a spiritual ideal. It is true that poverty can be a good exercice; it can help you to become stronger. In other words it can be good for a period of training, but cosmic intelligence has not designed us for a life of perpetual deprivation. Our heavenly Father is not poor and destitute, and there is no reason why we should be. So poverty can be a good exercise for a time (in fact, when the sages first taught the practice of poverty it was as an exercise to counteract certain excesses), but it should not be seen as an ideal in life. The Lord wants us to be as rich, as beautyful, and as powerful as he is. If he has created us in his image, it is not so that we might eat rotten, mouldy fruit and live in the midst of filth and disease, wear hair shirts and flagellate ourselves. Human beings can no longer be expected to abide by such rules of life. A life of poverty can no longer be held up as an ideal, and people are less and less ready to believe that it is a good thing.

Heaven has a curriculum, an itinerary mapped out for us, but it is a course, a route to be followed, not a permanent abode. The plans of the invisible world are not what human beings imagine. Many saints and prophets acted on orders from heaven and carried out their assigned tasks faithfully and well, but special missions of this kind were only valid for a certain period; they were designed to encourage people to develop certain faculties which they still needed. Once those faculties were acquired, the next phase of the curriculum was waiting for them. As far as poverty is concerned, therefore, there is no reason why it should not be practised for a limited period as an exercise. For my part, almost half my life has been a life of poverty - of destitution, in fact. But does this necessarily have to go on for ever? No. On the other hand there is no necessity for me to go to the opposite extreme, for in doing so I would lose all that I had gained by the practise of poverty. Well, there is a great deal more that could be said about this question, but it will have to wait.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Principles and Forms VI

Even if you possess all the gold in the world, you still need light. You also need to know what to take for yourself and how much to take, where to stop. There was once a Turk, a member of the Sufi sect of Whirling Dervishes, who lived in Bulgaria. The Dervishes lead very frugal lives, and when they ask for something people are happy to give it to them immediately, for they are much loved and well known for their integrity. One day, when this Dervish asked a rich man for alms, the man offered him his purse full of money, but the Dervish took just one coin, enough to cover his basic needs for that day. This is what you should do, too. Even if you possess great wealth you should only take very little, the strict minimum, for yourself.

And now let me tell you frankly that the reason why so many religious orders and spiritual movements are in error is simply that they fail to understand the Lord's plans for mankind; they cannot see things from this point of view. The tragedy is that human beings always see and judge things with their own limited intellects, and in this way they distort reality and hinder the Lord's plans. The truth is that they are not concerned about what the Lord has in mind for us, but only about precepts which were formulated by human beings centuries ago and which were now obsolete. God manifested himself through Jesus, true, but he had already manifested himself through Moses. If Moses accomplished so much that was extraordinary, it was because god was with him. But by the time Jesus came, the intransigence of the Law of Moses was no longer appropriate to the plans of cosmic intelligence for the development of mankind.

Human beings find it so difficult to discard old forms. The different religious still treat those who are not of their flock with hostility and intransigence; they still think of them as pagans, infidels, sinners. Why should these old forms, which are an impediment to the coming of the kingdom of God, not be replaced with new ones? I tell you, it is the Churches that stand in the way of the kingdom of God. Fortunately, young people are getting rid of many of the old forms. They are eager to travel to other countries, to love all human beings, to understand and help everyone. However, new forms have yet to be found for these manifestations, for they often degenerate and slip back into the old forms. If new impulses are forced into old forms, the old forms split open. Jesus said: 'No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed.' And this is exactly what happens with young people: they have a new wine that is foaming and fermenting, but they put it in old wineskins. Young people want to love freely, and this is magnificent, but why do they think that they can only do so by sleeping together and wallowing in sensual pleasure? New and better forms must be found.

How can we find these better forms? Well, they will certainly not be found by the blind groping of ignorant human beings. Or rather, they could be found in this way, but the process would take hundreds and thousands of years and involve a great many mishaps on the way. The best way is for an initiate to explain things, for only an initiate knows how mankind is destined to mature and blossom in new, innocent forms. The trouble is that human beings are not willing to accept the opinions of the initiates; they want to find their own solutions, and the results are always disastrous. Even when they do find a solution, they are incapable of putting it into effect because it is always too late; they find it only when they have already wasted their energy in futilities. They are already old, worn out, human wrecks. And if they try to tell other people what they have learned from their painful experience, nobody listens to them: 'How can you imagine that you have anything to teach us? Just look at yourself in the mirror.'

Cosmic intelligence has other plans for mankind today. There was a time when disciples had to swear that they would never divulge the secrets revealed to them by their initiator. But then the Marquis of Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, a well-known French spiritual writer, published his book 'The Mission of India' in which he tells of how one of the leaders of Agharta saw in his meditation that the pyramid of light that shone over Agharta was split in two. When he asked cosmic intelligence what this meant he was told that although the mysteries had traditionally been hidden form non-initiates, the time was coming when they would be revealed to all those who were capable of understanding them. Incidentally, the Bible also says that the time will come when all that was hidden will be revealed; and that time is now upon us, so there is no cause to be astonished if you see that many great secrets are revealed in the Universal White Brotherhood.

In the past, the truths of initiation were revealed very sparingly and only at the price of terrible trials. This is why those who received them could use them to become extraordinarily powerful. But now that people receive them without having to make any effort of their own, they are incapable of using them to become powerful. They are like those who have a lot of money without having earned it: they waste it; they have no true appreciation of its value. Whereas those who have to earn their living by the sweat of their brow are fully aware of the value of money. How true this is. However, in spite of all this, the great mysteries must gradually be revealed, for that is the will of heaven. Actually, you yourselves already know far more than even the sadhus and yogis in India. Their knowledge is not very extensive, but they use the little they know to acquire great powers; whereas you who know a great deal are not capable of achieving very much.

In our time also, initiation will take a different form. In the old days it was given in the temples, and candidates had to endure trials by fire, air, water and earth. Nowadays, it occurs in the course of everyday life: an initiate places his disciples in certain situations, confronts them with certain problems, and observes their reactions without their even being aware that he is doing so. All your trials occur in the ordinary course of life; the four elements are present in your lives. It is in your everyday lives that you have to show that you have overcome fear, concupiscence, egoism, sensuality, and so on. Yes, there are many trials in everyday life, and this is particularly true for those who want to advance towards initiation. They can be sure in advance that their desire will be granted, but they can also be sure that they will be put to the test. When they are least expecting it, in the ordinary course of their lives, they will be tested. The trials of initiation are part of life; every minor event of our lives can be a testing. In fact it is precisely because people underestimate the importance of these little things and expect their trials to take the shape of a major event that they often fail.

When you have advance warning that you are going to have to confront great difficulties you are better armed, better prepared; you can plan for what lies ahead. But when you are taken unawares it is much more difficult, so it is up to you to be awake and on your guard. You must constantly remind yourselves that every little event or circumstance can be an initiatic test. And your response will be judged by beings in the world above - and perhaps also in this world if you have a master on earth. If you pass the test you will be awarded a diploma, but not the kind of diploma that you get at a university and that can fade or be torn, burned, or stolen. The diplomas of the invisible world adhere to your face and your whole body; nobody can ever take them away from you. And the spirits of nature, who know how to read these diplomas, will welcome and appreciate you if you have one. Otherwise, wherever you go throughout the whole of space, if they see that you have not earned your diploma they will have no respect for you. They will even persecute you because they will consider you to be a weak, ignorant, useless creature.

I could point out thousands of examples of forms in which human beings have become bogged down. Take the case of medicine. It is reduced to nothing but forms: pills, capsules, drops, surgical operations, all these are forms. What has happened to the spirit? There is no life in these things, nothing to trigger or evoke something spiritual, something divine.

No it is all forms. This is why people never get any healthier, why they are always weak and sickly.

Those who cling stubbornly to the same old forms become fossilized and lifeless because they dam up their inner spring. One often sees people like that, people who always have the same blank, wooden expression. It is dangerous to cling always to the same form. In fact this is one of the reasons why so many marriages break up. The man and wife are sick of seeing always the same gestures and expressions, of hearing the same words every day. They never see anything new or expressive in each other. In the long run they cannot bear it any longer, and they both go off and look for new forms. Many couples have never thought about this, and yet it is often the reason why they separate. If you are always the same, other people will get bored with you and begin to dislike you. Always try to renew yourselves therefore, be alive and expressive and no one will ever want to leave you, because you will always be sparkling with new life, always expressive.

But women have never understood this - neither have men for that matter. A woman faithfully does her duty by her husband: she takes care of him, washes his clothes, irons his shirts, cooks his meals - and even keeps him supplied with the little confections he loves - and then one fine day he leaves her for another woman. She cannot understand it at all. What has happened? Everything she did was for him. Yes, but she was always the same and her husband got bored with her.

One day a woman came and complained to me that her husband had deserted her. 'And yet,' she moaned, 'I always did everything I could to make him happy. I was always so devoted, so loving.'

'Ah, yes, and what is the other woman like?'
'Oh she's cold. She's a block of ice.'
'Well, there you are; you were always too warm and he has gone off with that other woman because he needs to cool off.'
So you see, it is not good always to be too warm, otherwise your partner will have to go and find someone cooler.

You must know how to have variety in your life, but variety in the forms, not in the principles. You must always adhere to the same principles, always be animated by the same love, the same light, the same nobility, the same ideal; but you must not always manifest them in the same way. What an extraordinary thing the Universal White Brotherhood is. What extraordinary power it has to vivify and exalt us, to fill us with awe, wonder and enthusiasm. The great clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner saw this. He said, 'When I have gone, someone else will appear whose work will be marked by enthusiasm.' The keynote of Steiner's work was not enthusiasm: it was philosophy, science. I know nothing about either philosophy or science - or anything else for that matter - but I am capable of firing you with enthusiasm.

And now, in conclusion, always remember that everything in life is the product, the result of the relation between the two opposite poles: spirit and matter, principles and forms. Human beings are not capable of living only with principles; they need the support of forms. The spirit incarnates in the form of a body in order to manifest on the physical plane. When it returns to the higher regions it no longer needs this form, but here on earth it does need it. We have to remember, however, that the form cannot last long. God has not given eternal life to forms. This is why heaven sends an initiate or a great master every now and then to change forms. Yes, but forms only; never the principles. The principles are unchangeable because they are the spirit, the soul, the virtues; they are love, wisdom, truth, and sacrifice. These principles are immutable, they will be valid for all eternity.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

The true Religion of Christ

When I say that the teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood is bringing a new religion to the world, it is not that I think that this teaching is an improvement on the religion that jesus gave us. That is impossible. Jesus truly represents the summit, nothing can be more perfect than the law of love and sacrifice that he came to teach. It is only in the methods, applications and interpretations of that law that we can go further. The Gospels do not say it all; there are still so many things that are obscure and unexplained. And this is what the teaching of the Universal White Brotherhood can bring us: the explanations we still need.

Also, when I say that it is time for a universal religion, it is because Catholicism is not fully universal. Of course, the word 'catholic' means universal, but the fact remains that the Catholic religion is not universal. In the first place it is far from being practised by all human beings, and, above all, by rejecting many essential truths such as reincarnation, the laws of karma, and the primordial role of the sun in man's spiritual life, the Church has cut itself off from universal truth and become a sect. for a religion to be truly universal it must accept the whole truth and it must reach all men.

As it is, no religion in the world is founded on principles that are accepted by all human beings. Only a solar religion can be the universal religion, because all human beings accept the sun. We all seek the sun and understand what it is. Everything else interests some but not others, suits some but not others. In fact, if there are so many different religions, it is because each one is adapted to a particular mentality. If the claim of the Catholic Church to be universal is true, if it embraces every aspect of truth, why do I never see Catholics who are truly fulfilled spiritually? A great many Buddhists are far more advanced. They have such faith in the immortality of the soul that they are capable of throwing themselves into the flames. They have no fear of death. Whereas Christians are so timid, so lacking in courage, that they tremble at the slightest threat and scream in terror if they are in danger of death.

As I have said, a universal religion must embrace all the knowledge and all the practical methods human beings need in order to reach the Lord. When Christianity refuses to teach reincarnation it makes it impossible for people to understand God's justice. Is there any wonder that nothing makes sense to them any more? They cannot see the underlying reason for what happens to them; everything seems illogical and unfair. In the face of evil or suffering, Christians can only say, 'It is the will of God.' The amazing thing is that they consider themselves to be blameless, above reproach. They have done nothing to bring misfortune on themselves; it is entirely the Lord's doing. But this means that God behaves without rhyme or reason, his decisions are completely arbitrary.

For centuries their refusal to believe in reincarnation has barred Christians from advancing. The doctrine of reincarnation explains everything: from one existence to the next, every cause triggers a corresponding consequence. When we know this we know that it is no longer the Lord who is to blame for what happens to us, but we ourselves. By choosing to follow a certain path, to manifest ourselves in a certain way, it is we who are responsible for our destiny, not God. God's sublime greatness, his splendour, perfection, and justice are untouched, unsullied. Whereas if you reject reincarnation you have to put all the blame on God. It seems to me that if Christians were really concerned about the glory and perfection of God, the least they could do would be to accept reincarnation. They are so stupid that they do not even recognize the consequences of their attitude; they do not realize that the image of God they hold up to the world is a monstrous caricature. God gave human beings free will. He tells them, 'Do whatever you like, but remember that if you break the law you will suffer. But that does not matter, you have all eternity ahead of you. You will have plenty of time in which to repent and make reparation. I am patient.'

Take a man who is miserable because he is married to a shrew, a veritable Xanthippe, and he has no idea why he has such a wife. He thinks she must be a punishment from heaven. Not at all. It was he himself who sought her out, who chose a shrew without knowing what he was doing, and now he regrets it bitterly. Socrates never complained, he put up with everything patiently. One day, while he was talking to a friend, Xanthippe was muttering and scolding in an upstairs room and ended by pouring a pail of slops over him. The friend was very indignant, but Socrates only remarked, 'Oh well, after the thunder comes the rain.' He was not so easily put out. He had chosen to marry Xanthippe, and thanks to her he developed great patience and indifference in the face of criticism and insults. So my advice to you is to find a Xanthippe for yourself. Why do you want your wife to be perfect? You would only go to sleep and stop evolving if she were; but think of what progress you would make with a Xanthippe by your side. You see what excellent advice I always give you!

By refusing the reality of reincarnation the Church is portraying the Lord as a monster and a tyrant. In any case, quite apart from this, there is much to object to in the image the Church presents of God, for it has inerited the Old Testament notion of a jealous, vengeful, terrifying God, always ready to punish and chastise human beings. And I say that this view is false. God is not like that at all. Why did the Old Testament present him in this way? The answer is that the human beings of those days were at a stage of their evolution where they needed the discipline of fear. They needed to envisage a stern, ruthless God with whom Moses could intercede to soothe his wrath and turn him away from the destruction of his people. The truth is that God never punishes anyone; he is not concerned with punishment. He spends his time up there in the midst of song and music, banqueting in the company of his angels and archangels while divine nectar and ambrosia flow in abundance. Do you imagine that the Lord has nothing better to do than to follow human beings around day and night, writing down in his little notebook all the filthy, revolting things they do, whether openly or in secret? Poor Lord, what a job. Think how disgusted he would be.

No, I do not believe a word of it. I think that if human beings have invented machines to record and do their calculations for them, it is because such machines already existed in nature and therefore within us also. It is these machines that record our thoughts, feelings and actions, and as soon as we overstep the mark, in whatever area, the machine cracks down on us. But it is God who punishes us. On the contrary, God is always ready to welcome us to his banquet.

Let us suppose that you are being pursued by enemies (you may remember that I spoke to you about this one day), and in order to get away from them you run and run as fast as you can until you get to heaven. And there, breathless, covered with dust, your clothes all tattered and torn, you suddently find yourself in the midst of a magnificent assembly of angels and archangels. Dumbfounded, you gaze at these beautiful creatures as they sing and rejoice with the Lord, who is seated in their midst. Nobody says, 'What are you doing here, you dirty ruffian? Away with you. This is no place for you.' On the contrary, as soon as he sees you the Lord says to his servants, 'Give him water to wash with, dress him in fine clothes, and let him come and share in our banquet.' But the enemies that were pursuing you will not be allowed in. They are made to wait outside, and as the banquet lasts a long time they finally lose patience and go home. Yes, this is how it works. Have you never realized that? You have all known days when you were overwhelmed and besieged by your inner enemies, and then you started to pray and pray and pray... and within a few minutes you had a wonderful feeling of happiness and release; your enemies had left you. You must try to understand what this image means.

Do not think that I have come to destroy the Church, not at all. It is just that I possess a light that the Church does not possess at the moment, but I am very willing to collaborate with it. In fact I have already tried to do so. I have often met priests, Dominicans and Franciscans, and others and have tried to talk to them, but I have never had much success. Oh, perhaps I succeeded with two or three of them, but not with the others. The trouble is that their minds have been so deformed by their seminary training that there is nothing anyone can do now to persuade them to accept the light of these great truths. This is why I prefer to deal with atheists, unbelievers, and anarchists; I am much more successful with them. But with the religious? My word, how rigid, bigoted, and narrow-minded they can be! I have every confidence that this will change one day, but not before they have had to endure all kinds of tribulations and been forced to reflect.

If the Lord is in the process of creating a new heaven and a new earth (and this is what the Bible tells us), why should there not also be a new religion? New in exactly the same way as heaven and earth can be new. Of course the expression is symbolic; I have already explained to you that you must not take it literally. If you did, you would have a very bad impression of the Lord and would mean that he had used second-rate materials when he built heaven and earth, and now they are rusting and wearing out. This is why he has to start all over again... and while he is rebuilding, all the inhabitants of heaven and earth are going to be out in the rain without a roof over their heads. No, that is just nonsense. The truth is that the new heaven and new earth refer to us; it is within us that God is creating them. The new heaven is a new mentality, a new philosophy, a new point of view, a new understanding of things; This is how you should interpret this image of the new heaven and the new earth. To understand it any other way would be to slight the Lord. It would mean that he did not know the properties of the elements that he himself created and now he finds that they are rotting and wearing out. Whereas if you interpret this image as I have shown you, the Lord's greatness, immensity, and infinite wisdom remain intact.

Of course, I know that you will not accept what I tell you, but you must at least try not to cling rigidly to your own opinions until you have made quite sure that they really correspond to the truth. There are still a great many of you who hold obstinately to your own point of view. Instead of trying to understand what I tell you, you think to yourselves, 'Oh no, that is not true. It cannot be. It is monstrous. I know how it should be.' But there comes a time in life when you simply have to ask yourself whether your own point of view is really correct, really flawless. Unfortuneatly, so many men and women prefer to cling to their point of view, to defend it all their life long, without ever trying to find out to what extent it is realistic and true. And that is very dangerous. Many people's lives end in disaster simply because they insist on defending their mistaken philosophy at any price. Yet those same people find it normal to go for a physical check-up from time to time. They get a doctor to examine their heart, stomach, liver, spleen, or intestines and tell them what is wrong with them, but they would never go and ask a spiritual master to tell them what was wrong with the way they felt and understood things. They consider that in these areas they are in perfect health: their thinking is all right, they see things clearly, their judgement is impeccable, they reason perfect? The proof of their misfortunes, sorrows, and failures. Yes, and yet they continue to believe that they are impeccable.

The whole world will one day come to the Universal White Brotherhood. At the moment you do not believe me when I say this, because there are more and more new teachings and new sects - not to mention all the ancient practices that had died away and are now being revived. Every one of those groups and philosophies has some good in it, but they all lack one essential element: none of them gives priority to the necessity of living for the collectivity, for brotherhood, for universality. Their members work for themselves, for their own advancement. And does mankind benefit from all that knowledge and power? It does not. Indeed, they themselves are often very unhappy people. So you must leave all those things alone and work only to bring peace, happiness, joy, and light to the whole world. True power and true knowledge are given to those who work unselfishly for the whole world. You will not know exactly how these gifts come, but they will come to you and dwell within you. It is when one stops thinking so much about oneself that one becomes truly formidable, because in this way one widens the circle. This is the new teaching that we are bringing to the world.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

The true Religion of Christ II

All religions set aside one day of the week as a holy day, a day of prayer, but they have not all chosen the same day: for the Christians it is Sunday, for Jews, Saturday, for Muslims, Friday, and so on. But is there any real difference between teh days of the week? No, none at all. Every day is sacred; every day is divine. Friday is the day for doing good; Saturday is the day for doing good. In the Universal White Brotherhood every day must be sacred. Otherwise just look what happens: for six days in a row men and women break the law, and on the seventh they go to church and wash away the crimes committed during the week. But you cannot purify yourself in just one day; you need the whole week for that. You believe that it is enough if you think of God one day in the week; the rest of the week you have no time to remember him because you are too busy fighting and swindling others and sleeping with their husbands or wives. But that is grotesque. It is hypocrisy, a living lie. What is important is how you live those six days of the week.

When the new religion comes the idea of devoting a few hours or a single day of the week to praying and going to church will be thought very inadequate. We must be in God's church all day and every day, for God's church is the whole of creation. Of course, I realize that we cannot ask too much of human beings; they are still too uncouth and intrctable - many think that even one day is too much. But in the new religion people will want to be mystical seven days a week; they will want to pray and think good thoughts seven days a week; they will want to pray and think good thoughts seven days a week, and then seven more days, and so on, for the rest of their lives. What do you do when you are here at the Bonfin? Here, every day is Sunday - or Saturday, or Friday if you prefer - and you spend every day in 'church'. 'What church?' you ask, 'I see no church.' The church can be the open-air, out of doors, for the whole of nature is a church. But first and foremost the church is an inner reality; it is within yourselves.

Remember what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well. She had said, 'Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.' And Jesus replied, 'Women, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.' But as the time was not yet ripe for the masses to understand these things, Jesus prepared St John and instructed him in the basic philosophical, cabbalistic, esoteric knowledge, the symbolic foundation of these new concepts. This he did in secret, without the knowledge of the other disciples, and when the others found out about it they were inclined to be envious of St John; in fact, St Peter reproached Jesus for it one day. But Jesus wanted to be sure that before he left at least one of his disciples would be in possession of those parts of his teaching that had not been revealed to all. This is why he gave St John this special instruction. And St John founded a Church which was never really accepted or understood by the Church of St Peter.

Remember also what Jesus said at the very end when Peter, referring to St John, asked, 'Lord, what about him?' Jesus replied, 'If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?' And the Gospel adds, 'So the rumour spread in the community that this disciple would not die.' What if St John were living even today in some unknown place. The Church of St John has formed an elite, an elite that has always worked in secret and been the depositary of this esoteric science throughout the ages. The religion os St John is the new religion that is to come, and however fiercely the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Churches fight it - as they have always fought and tried to wipe out the Church of St John - they will be no more successful now than they have been in the past.

All the purest and most knowledgeable initiates of the past have been disciples of St John, and those who belonged to the established Churches have always rejected and persecuted them and refused to acknowledge their superiority. But even though the Church of John has always been forced to live and work in secret, it has never ceased preparing the sons and daughters of God. The time is coming nor for it to manifest itself, and when it does so, its riches and its superiority will visible to the whole world. When that day comes, the Church of Peter will be forced, whether it likes it or not, to transform itself and introduce many reforms. Of course, there are some elite beings in the Church of Peter too, but as for the majority... well, it does not bear thinking of. Instead of applying themselves to learning and trying to become better they have always been content to persecute those who were more advanced.

Do you imagine that over the centuries priests and bishops took Holy Orders for the love of God; because they had a true vocation? Not at all. They did so because it gave them a lucrative and highly respected position (an ideal position for the lazy). They did not have much to do after all - a few Masses and a few prayers to say, an occasional baptism, wedding, or funeral - and the rest of their time was their own. To be sure there were always some who had a genuine vocation and who felt called to dedicate themselves completely to the Lord, and the faithful flocked to such as these in the thousands because of the light that radicated from their souls and lit up their words, their eyes, their very presence. They were true temples of God. But for most of the clergy it was simply a very convenient profession. As a matter of fact, we see the same thing today in the medical profession. In the days of the ancient initiations, only those who had received the gift of healing from God could be doctors. They healed the sick simply by their presence, by speaking a few words or by the laying on of hands. But today people enter the medical profession because it is very lucrative and gives them considerable prestige and influence. The result is that many crooks who are interested only in mankind a lot of money are steadily poisoning the whole of mankind. No matter, they still pass themselves off as doctors. It is greed, the lust for money, that guides human beings. For many people the choice of a profession depends entirely on the rewards it offers in the way of money or glory. I have no desire to disparage doctors and priests or to interfere with them; I am simply telling you the truth.

The Church of St Peter has always been appallingly intolerant, chopping off heads or burning at the stake all those who refused to think or behave exactly according to the rules it laid down. The members of the Church of St John, on the other hand, have never cut off anyone's head; they have never thrown people into prison; they have always left men and women free to follow their bent while, for their part, they concentrated on trying to be closer to the Lord and to resemble God. And yet did Jesus not say, 'Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect?' This is the supreme ideal; and if some people choose a different ideal, that is their business.

The Catholic religion can boast of being universal if it likes. This may be how it sees itself, but it is not how initiates see it. The universal religion will be the religion of the sun, for only the sun is universal. You will say, 'But what about the Lord? Is God not universal?' Yes, of course he is. But God is so sublime, so inaccessible. People refuse to accept the religion of the sun on the pretext that only God must be adored and worshipped; but God is so far away that they are incapable of getting anywhere near him, and the result is that they are left with nothing. On the pretext that it is forbidden to adore anyone or anything but God, they have no feeling or understanding for anything at all. Is that intelligent? Why do they refuse to admit that only the sun is capable of bringing us closer to God, for only the sun can give us some idea of God's immensity, of his light, his love, and his power? By rejecting the sun, people condemn themselves to remain forever weak, forever immured in cold and darkness.

How peculiar human beings are. Theologians spend their time inventing abstract theories about the Deity. They argue and quarrel fiercely about essence, substance, transcendence, and so on, while the masses have not the least idea what any of these theories mean. But if you suggest that the sun can be an image that has the power to propel them all the way to the Deity... Oh no, that is just too much for them. Well, whether they like it or not, the religion of the future will be the religion of the sun, because it is the sun that most accurately represents the Blessed Trinity.

There is already one whole volume of my lectures about the sun (Vol. 10), and yet I have still not told you much. What horizons would be revealed to men if only they understood more about the sun. Take Jesus' command to love our enemies for example. How difficult it is to accept such an idea; to love one's friends, perhaps, but to love one's enemies? You will rarely find anyone - even a Christian - who has made up his mind to love his enemies. You cannot even be sure that he loves his friends, so how can he possibly love his enemies? Believe me, if you analyse yourselves sincerely, you will see that nothing is more difficult than to love one's enemies. One wonders where Jesus got this precept from. I will tell you: he got it from the sun. For whether you love the sun is the only being who has solved the problem; he even loves, nourishes, and vivifies unbelievers and criminals. Even if you forget all about the important role of the sun in the universe and look only at the moral aspect, the example he gives us is truly noble, truly sublime. Such a peerless example of limitless love is found only very rarely among human beings, even among those who are the most highly evolved. Jesus was one such example, of course. We know that he possessed all powers, authority over all things, for he said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, 'but he did not use that authority against his enemies. In fact, in the most bitter moments of his agony he thought of them and prayed for them, saying, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.'

If you want to know what true morality is, you must learn from the sun; no one else can teach it. Human beings are always eager to tell you what you should do, but they are incapable of putting their own advice into practice; whereas the sun says nothing, his deeds speak for him. He never says, 'You must love your enemies.' He never even says, 'I love you.' No, but he goes on loving everyone all the time. Only the sun can teach us how to discover and respect the moral laws of the cosmos. Human beings make the great mistake of seeking the principles of morality in libraries, in books written by corrupt human beings. They should go and seek instruction from the sun.

Of course we cannot force our teaching or our way of life on anyone. Only very few are ready and anxious to transform themselves and their way of life, and if they have achieved this frame of mind it is because they have already suffered a great deal and have come to realize that if they do not change they will be struck off the roll of the living. The others cannot be forced, they are still too young. They still have many lessons to learn, and they need more experience. What can I do if they do not understand the importance of our spiritual activities: our meals together, the singing, the breathing exercices, the prayers, meditations, and fasting? If they neglect all these means that are put at their disposal and fail to understand how powerful they are, what do you expect me to do about it? I cannot force them; they have to be left to go their own way and learn through suffering. But a vast field of extraordinary activities is lying open before all those who are sincerely interested in making progress. The activities of a disciple are represented symbolically by the twelve labours of Hercules, which are related to the twelve signs of the Zodiac. These are the twelve activities which enable human beings to open their twelve gates and become the New Jerusalem, the city of light, where illness, death, and darkness are no more. The New Jerusalem is the human being who has attained perfection, one who possesses the twelve gates of pearl and whose ramparts are built on the foundations of twelve precious stones.

Believe me, it is the teaching of Christ that I am giving you. There is nothing, absolutely nothing in what I say that contradicts Christ's teaching. What I reveal to you may contradict some of the opinions expressed by certain writers. It may even contradict certain dogmas of the Church which are pure invention and have nothing to do with Christ's teaching, but it contains nothing that is incomatible with Christ's true philosophy. The great question now is whether you prefer the Scriptures, and particularly the Gospels, in which everything is so simple, or whether you prefer other sources in which that simplicity has been distorted. Until the fourth century Christians, followed the true philosophy of Christ. It was only later that all kinds of deviations appeared.

As was foretold by the Prophet Ezekiel, the changes that will take place in the future will be so great, the light and love of God will be so powerfully and so widely diffused throughout the world, that human beings will learn directly form God himself; they will understand the Scriptures and live a life of perfection; they will prophesy and see visions. When this day comes, mankind will no longer need priests or pastors - or even me. All men will be guided and enlightened directly by the divine spirit. This has been foretold, and it will come about. And all those bigots who hawk their holy medals and relics of the true cross of Jesus (after two thousand years, there must be enough of them to constitute a whole forest.)... all those bigots will be obliged to close shop because people will go directly to the source.

This was that Jesus had in mind when he told the Samaritan woman that men would worship God in spirit and in truth. In spirit and in truth: that is to say, free from matter and free from falsehood. When human beings live in spirit and truth they will no longer need all these crutches; they will be able to walk on their own strong legs. The reality that Jesus visualized was immense, grandiose. The people he saw around him were still very frail, vulnerable, and defenceless, and still dependent on material, external props, but the mankind he envisaged was strong enough to rely only on the inner power of the spirit.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

The true Religion of Christ III

Through prayer and meditation a disciple purifies his own temple and calls on the Lord to come and dwell in it. Nothing can be compared to a human body that has been purified and sanctified so that it can become a temple of the Almighty. It is when man is a temple, when he prays in his own temple, that god hears and answers his prayer.

Most human beings are extremely negligent about the purification of their physical bodies. It never occurs to them that their bodies were designed to be temples of the living God and that they should look after them and strengthen and purify them. They continually abuse their bodies by eating and drinking things that are harmful to their health, or by smoking or indulging in various other forms of foolishness. Yes, man's physical body was destined to be a temple, but there is nothing sacred about it any longer, and obviously, in these circumstances, it is not the Lord who will come to dwell in it, but entities of a lower order, all those undesireables that covet filth and feed on impurities.

As I have often said, I have learned a great deal from the world of insects, from ants and bedbugs, for instance. These little creatures possess extraordinary antennae which science has not yet studied. For example, there are not normally any ants in my cottage, but I only have to leave some crumbs of food lying about, and within a few minutes there they are. What special flair, what powers of divination tell them that there are some scraps of food waiting for them, sometimes a long way away? Then, as soon as I sweep up the crumbs, they disappear again. The same is true of flies, fleas and mice. In fact in the cheap, dirty hotels or doss-houses in the East, for instance, swarms of bedbugs appear all over the ceiling as soon as people are asleep. But the remarkable thing is that they do not attack every sleeper in the dormitory. A bedbug will calculate its position with extraordinary accuracy and drop exactly on to the one person whose blood contains the impurities it needs to feed on. How does it know which target to choose? It examines them all and says, 'No, not that one. Not that one. Ah, there is one that has what I need, 'and presto. It drops straight on to its target.

Yes, bedbugs are really very clever. It is thanks to them that I have learned the supreme laws of purity, for the laws are the same on the psychic plane. On every plane there are creatures that sense impurities from afar and flock to feed on them. In every area and on every plane there is food for one or other kind of being. All creatures, both the malignant, evil creatures of darkness and the creatures of good and of light need to eat. In fact the Christians among you were horrified one day when I explained that even God ate. 'What? God needs to eat?' 'Yes, of course, but he does not eat sausages.' 'Then what does he eat?' they ask. Ah, these Christians, when will they ever understand? Genesis tells us that man was created in the image of God, and since man eats, why should god not eat? Yes, God eats. And it is the Seraphim who nourish him with their radiance and their emanations, with substances so subtle, pure, and precious that we can barely imagine them.

As I was saying, most human beings fail to look after their temple properly. But the Scriptures tell us, 'You are the temple of the living God,' and this means that we should take great care of our temple and keep it clean. We must not do what the Jews did with the temple in Jerusalem and allow all kinds of dirt to accumulate in it (the Jews used to take their cattle, goats and chickens and sell them in the Temple, so it was in a state of indescribable filth). Jesus was the only one who expressed his indignation at this; everybody else took it for granted. But what is a temple? Certainly not, as some people think, a place in which to entertain all kinds of animals. Taking some rope, Jesus made a whip and drove out all those who bought and sold in the Temple, saying, 'Get rid of all this filth. Stop using my Father's house for your trafficking.'

When a clairvoyant looks at people, he can see that the physical bodies of the majority, instead of being temples of the Most High, have become the dens of wild animals. Like the Jews, human beings have forgotten what their temple is supposed to be. We need the Lord to come back to warn us, to tell us, 'Keep my temple clean, otherwise I shall be obliged to go away and abandon you. I cannot stay in such a dirty place.'

The human beings we see around us are always anxious, troubled and unhappy, and this is a sign that they have not managed to secure the presence of the Lord in their temple; if they had, that presence would light up their lives. It is high time they asked themselves why they are in such a sorry state. It is time they understood that by feeding their bodies on all kinds of impurities they have opened their doors to the creatures of hell, and that is why God has not blessed them with his presence. Neither can they enjoy the presence of his angels, for although the Lord himself will not dwell within his creatures until they have achieved absolute purity, he may send one or more angels or great spirits to represent him. If you have forgotten about purifying your body and now find yourself in the cold and dark, you must draw the right conclusion and tell yourself, 'It is true, I have done everything I could to get myself into this state. I have opened my doors to all kinds of vile entities, and now heaven has abandoned me.' This is what you must tell yourselves, for this is the truth.

I have already given you several different methods of purification. It is not enough to be dipped into a bowl of water or immersed in a river to be pure, and yet many sects that do not possess the light of initiatic science consider this to be sufficient baptism. No, you can be immersed in physical water as often as you like without becoming any purer, because the power of purification does not belong to physical water but to another kind of water. True baptism is something that concerns all the planes of our being, not only the physical plane. True purification touches the four regions known in the Cabbalah as Assiah, Yetzirah, Brian and Atziluth, which correspond to the four elements -earth, water,air and fire. The elements are represented in the higher world by four angels belonging to the highest ranks of the angelic hierarchy, the Seraphim - or, as the Cabbalah calls them, the Hayoth ha-Kadosh. You can work at your own purification with the help of these four angels: ask the angel of earth to cleanse your physical body, the angel of water to wash your astral body, the angel of air to purify your mental body, and the angel of fire to sanctify your spirit. A marvellous work of purification can be done in this way if you combine this practise with your breathing exercises. But I have already explained this to you at length (vol. 7), so I shall not enlarge on it today.

If you think about your temple every day in this way, light, warmth, life and purity will come to dwell in you, and many things will be revealed to you. It is all very simple and clear. But those who continue to soil their temple have no alternative but to find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into corruption and depravity. Look at all the contemporary artists whose paintings represent the new style that they call 'abstract art'. Why are they so attached to a notion of art that no one else can understand? If the meaning of their work is a secret known only to themselves - and I am by no means sure that they themselves know it - it will never serve to elevate and ennoble others or help them to find God. Would it do you any good if I began to speak a language that was incomprehensible to you? There are certain sects in which, apparently, people speak 'in tongues', but as no one understands a word, no one benefits from what they say - not even themselves. The whole thing is quite senseless. You must speak a language that can be clearly understood by all.

Suppose that you are an artist and that you have a masterpiece - a painting or sculpture - on exhibition: everyone who looks at it should be able to understand what it means. If you created it exclusively for your own satisfaction, then you should not exhibit it. To exhibit a work of art that is incomprehensible to everyone but its author is pointless. Here, too, mankind has gone astray. It has adopted means of expression that have no rhyme or reason and has reached the point where nobody dares to say that contemporary art is, in most cases, an aberration. Everybody applauds and says, 'Amen'. A few years ago in England, a painter exhibited a certain number of abstract paintings that were widely acclaimed by the critics, but when his exhibition was at the height of its success he revealed that those abstracts had been painted by his cat. He had gone out and left his cat in the studio one day, and when he returned he found that it had had great fun getting its paws and tail coated with paint which it had then smeared onto some canvases and produced these abstract 'paintings'. Of course the critics were furious. They had made fools of themselves by going into raptures over paintings produced by a cat. Can you imagine anything more idiotic? If that is art, then any fool, even a babe in arms, can produce whatever they please and exhibit it.

The truth is that if you are an artist you should accomplish something that no one else can accomplish; something so beautyful and edifying that it propels hearts and souls upwards towards perfection, towards the Lord. This is how initiates understand the mission of art: to lead human beings to heaven, not to hell, discord, and disorder. Anyone is free to present horrors to the public in the form of music, drawings, or films, but to do so is a crime against humanity, because in the long run these so-called works of art influence people's minds. If so many people are mentally and emotionally disturbed today, it is because they are imbibing more and more disorder and ugliness from their environment. Whatever one sees and hears influences the nervous system, and when one sees nothing but disorder, that disorder necessarily enter's one's being, whereas when one contemplates beauty and harmony, one becomes beautyful and harmonious. This is a law of magic.

How is it possible that artists have never discovered this law? Why have they gone out of their way to find these fads and fashions, while all the time so many splendid things were waiting to be found? The reason is that they have neglected the temple we talked about a few moments ago. They have allowed it to get so dirty that it is now full of all kinds of demonic creatures, and it is these creatures that inspire them and dictate what they do. And the results are hideous. If they had always taken care to cleanse and purify and sanctify themselves and to dedicate themselves to heaven, their ideas, intuitions, and inspirations would be of a different kind. Artists need to be informed; they need to understand that the psychic world is ruled by implacable laws, and if they live a stupid, discordant life they will attract entities of a lower order that will inspire them in evil ways and end by corrupting them completely.

Be sure to purify yourselves every day, therefore (for what you did yesterday was for yesterday, and today you must begin all over again), until your whole being is renewed. The work of purification is something that continues the whole of one's life. The fact that a baby has been immersed in water on the day of its baptism is no guarantee that it will be protected from invasion by evil spirits for the rest of its life. That kind of baptism is not going to frighten the devil away. Christians have to work every day to enhance and amplify what they received on the day of their baptism. If they make no effort in this direction, the effects of their baptism will eventually be destroyed. But try to get them to understand this! They think that the sacrifice of Jesus has saved all human beings once and for all; that they can sin as much as they like and commit every possible crime and still be saved because the Lord has shed his blood for them. But I ask them, 'If it is true that you have been redeemed, if it is true that all your depts have already been paid, how do you explain the fact that your lives are still plagued by disease, disorder and tragedy?' And they have no answer. The answer is that it is not enough to have been saved and baptized once. You have to strive all your life long and with all your heart and soul to continue the work of salvation and purification begun at baptism. I have seen some deplorable specimens of proud, self-satisfied Christians who considered that they had been purified once and for all and had no need to do any more. The fact that they had been baptized as Catholics was enough to keep them safe for all eternity. And yet when you see these peoples in their daily lives you see that they are just as bad - somtimes worse - than everybody else. This is why I am obliged to tell them that they have neither learned nor understood, nor achieved anything. Will they understand us one day? I wonder. It almost looks as though everybody except Christians will understand.

I had a letter recently from some brothers and sisters in Turkey. They told me that they had been invited to a meal with some friends, and that among the guests was an old and very learned Turkish scholar who told them, 'Islam is a marvellous religion, and we are extremely fortunate to be Muslims, but how much better it would be if there were one universal religion.' Obviously this learned old man realized that Islam was not the one universal religion, and he is certainly not alone in this. There must be many people throughout the world who are tuned in to the same idea and who realize that it is no longer enough to have so many different religions, each of which is suited to only one race, nation, or tribe, that it is time we found a universal religion.

Well, for my part, I have found that one religion; I belong to the universal religion. In time, when the whole of mankind discovers it, its language will be understood by all, for it is based on the essential needs of all human beings. The central symbol of this religion is the sun, for all mankind needs, understands, and loves the sun. The only universal religion is the solar religion, because behind the sun is the One who is the God of all humanity. The fact that all human beings need the sun proves this. Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and Jews all have different, seemingly incompatible, notions of God, and in these conditions dissension, hatred, and war will never end. Do you really believe that the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, who are continually killing each other, have found God?

There are too many religions in the world. This is the cause of all the greatest misfortunes of mankind. One religion is enough, the religion of light, warmth, and life and this is the religion of the sun. Does the sun strike people dead if they believe in another God? No. He is far too tolerant, far too indulgent. He simply says, 'Believe what you like, but for my part I shall continue to scatter my wealth abroad, 'whereas human beings are ready to exterminate anyone who refuses to accept their conception of a God that none of them has ever seen.

But I can say that I have seen the Lord. Yes, I have seen him in the sun, for it is the sun that best expresses divine perfection, that gives us the best image of the most sublime ideal. And we should be like the sun, who never stops pouring out light, warmth, and life and no questions asked. Whether we are Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist, the sun sees us all as children of God. I assure you, in the long run nobody will be able to ignore these great truths; the whole world will come to the one true religion of Christ. It is the spirit of the sun that is Christ. Of course, it is not a question of seeing Christ in the disc that we see shining in the sky, but of sensing that God himself, with all his love, is there behind that sun, behind that symbol. This is why my one desire is to sweep away all the narrow, limited notions that mankind has accumulated over the centuries and show what I know, what has been revealed to me: the light of this universal religion, thsi religion of Christ that will be the only religion of the future.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

The True Religion of Christ IV

The religion taught by Jesus was perfect; I am not denying that. But it has been so distorted in the course of the centuries that it has become a rich culture medium in which every kind of noxious germ ferments and proliferates. This is why it is time to abandon all these false ideas and rediscover the one universal religion, the religion that has existed since the beginning of the universe and that will continue to exist until the end. The sun existed long before human beings appeared on the earth, but they have never really understood the message he sends them every day: 'Be like me, shine, radiate, give love, and pour out warmth and life.' Human beings are so wrapped up in their own prosaic, insignificant concerns that they never think of looking at the sun and trying to resemble him. They say, 'What is the use of the sun? It has not managed to make mankind any better or kinder, it has not taught or enlightened human beings.' That is true, but it is because mankind has never been allowed to see the true importance of the sun. The Church is like Mullah Nashrudin, who, in response to a student's question as to which was the more important, the sun or the moon, replied, 'The moon, of course. The sun only comes out in daylight, and what use is that? t least the moon makes the night less dark.' And the Church reasons in the same way: it says that the Mass is more important than the sun, and in saying this it teaches people to ignore the one being capable of ripening the wheat and grapes, without which there could be no Mass. Henceforth the Church must point to the sun and tell Christians: 'Behold the symbol of Christ; we must all learn to be like that.'

I beg you to take what I am saying seriously; it is very important. Also, my friends in the invisible world are watching you and sending you a word of warning: 'Your instructor has just given you a very precious key; if you fail to make good use of it you will have to answer for your neglect.' Yes, for these heavenly beings are displeased when they see that someone is unworthy of their gifts... an they will be displeased with me too. They will say, 'Why did you give these pearls to such idlers? You should have kept them to yourself.' Please have some consideration for me and do not cause heaven to punish me because of you. The trouble is that you know so little about all these laws, about the links between people and things. You think that there is no reason why I should be punished because of your transgressions. But there is a reason: we are all interconnected, all linked to each other, and if I reveal truths to you that I should have kept to myself, it is I who will be held responsible. It is I who will be blamed. Heaven chides me and tells me, 'You are far too generous. Why not let them pull themselves up? You should leave them to struggle and exhaust themselves. Why not make them work their way up the mountain and wear their own fingers to the bone instead of carrying them to the top yourself? They need to know how difficult it is to reach the peak.'

Anyone who wants to find a truly universal religion can do so. It has existed form all eternity. Men have still not recognized it, but it has always been there. Thousands of religions have come and gone in the world - it would be impossible to count them all - and they have all disintegrated and disappeared in the end. But there is one true religion, and that religion will never disappear. The new religion must embrace the whole universe. Look at the sun: it illuminates and warms all creatures, all plants and animals, whereas the Christian religion lights and warms barely a few million people in the world. And who can tell just how much light and warmth those millions actually get from it, or how many millions more have never even heard of it and (sad though this may be from a Christian point of view) who are better off without it.

But now the Aquarian age is coming and bringing the universal religion into the world. Aquarius is the water, the stream of life and love from which all creatures drink, and it brings with it the new religion. Any religion that is incapable of giving mankind this water is not universal. Water is universal; there is not a single creature that does not need water. Water is universal just as air is universal, just as light is universal. The new religion will be founded on universal elements capable of satisfying the hunger and thirst of all human beings. At the moment we still see Christians becoming Buddhists or Muslims; Jews and Muslims becoming Christians, and so on. This means that there is no one religion that is universal. When the universal religion comes, no one will feel the need to wander in search of something else; all will belong to the one religion.

The passage that I read to you earlier says that it is when man prays in his own temple that God hears and answers his prayer. Why does God not answer your prayers if you do not pray from within your temple? You can always go into a church to pray, of course, but a church is a temple that is foreign to you, and its vibrations will be less conducive to the kind of prayer that carries you up to the very throne of God. The fabric of a church or cathedral may be saturated with prayers and good intentions, but if your own body is not purified it will constitute an obstacle to those influences. It is useless to enter a pure and magnificent building to pray if you yourself are impure. On the other hand, if your own temple is pure there is no need for you to go into a church; wherever you are, up in the mountains or elsewhere, your prayer will immediately be heard. It is very important to know these things. Many people go to church, and that is excellent, but they forget their own inner sanctuary.

Leave churches and temples to others, and be content to work for years and years with the angels of the four elements, asking them to cleanse, wash, purify and sanctuary containing a stream of living water. Let this water flow into every nook and cranny of your being; let it wash and vivify all your cells. What is to prevent you from using exercises of this kind to transform your bodies into temples of great beauty? Great inner beauty, or course. I am not suggesting that you imitate those people - mostly woman - who scent their baths and smother themselves in perfumes and lotions every day but whose inner beings smell foul because they never 'wash' themselves inwardly; their inner temple is always dirty. There have been saints who never washed their bodies but who had extraordinary inner purity. This does not mean that I do not recommend this either... I am simply saying that you must neglect neither aspect; neither the inner nor the outer dimension. Even though you give the priority to the inner dimension, you still have to maintain a balance between the two.

Perhaps you have the impression that I want to destroy religion. Well, if that were my intention I could safely leave it to others, for plenty of people have been trying for centuries to do just that. No, true religion is eternal; it cannot be destroyed. Even though the Bible contains elements that are no longer appropriate for our era, it still contains thousands of essential truths that will endure for all eternity. No one can destroy these, for all those great beings, all those prophets who were sent to bring these truths into the world were inspired, guided, and inhabited by the Lord. It was only later, after they had left this world, that certain distortions developed; either because they had not had time to explain everything fully or because others had misunderstood them. The further you advance, the more clearly you will see that the religion of Christ is far greater than Christians think. If Christianity were really the one, universal religion, mankind would be better off than it is today.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

The true Religion of Christ V

Yes, my dear brothers and sisters, you belong to this teaching, you live in the midst of spiritual truths, and in spite of that you sometimes feel as though you were in a terrible state of abandonment, as though God had deserted you. This is a state that many saints and mystics have experienced before you, and today I would like to try and throw a little light on the question. However, the first thing I must tell you before going any further is that everything depends on your perception of God.

When one studies the history of religion, one sees that in proclaiming Yahveh to be the one true God, Moses was introducing a truly revolutionary idea. But the God of Moses was a God to be feared: a consuming fire, the vengeful, implacable Lord of the universe. And his creatures, trembling, fearful human beings, owed that God only one duty: obedience. Later, when Jesus came, he spoke of the Lord as a father and said that human beings were his children. The distance between humanity and God was greatly reduced: human beings were now 'related' to God, members of the same family; everything had changed. Yes, but where had the change actually occurred? In the minds and hearts of human beings, in their inner consciousness. They now felt closer to God. Until then God had been a remote, awesome tyrant whom they had been taught to fear ('The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'); but Jesus taught that this fear could be replaced by love. Instead of being afraid of this terrible God, human beings could love him, take refuge in his arms, feel that he was their loving father or mother. This was an entirely new development in religion.

Today it is time to go even further. As long as you think of God as existing in a cloud of glory in some remote region of the universe called heaven, where he partakes of sumptous banquets surrounded by his angels and archangels, your notion of God is an objective, external one; God is outside you. Even if you think of him as your father and feel that you are his child, he is still outside you. And this is the tragedy: you project God outside yourself. God may well exist outside man, but when men conceive of him as being external to themselves they become acutely aware of their own limitations and of all that separates them from him. So many worlds, so many stars, such infinite reaches of space lie between them and God that they cannot possibly hope to reach him. But as soon as you sense that God is present within you, that he is there as light, life and intelligence, as a unique force, you can never again be separated from him. You find God within yourself.

Human beings have never rally been taught to understand God in this way. From time to time they may come across a book in which a mystic, poet, or philosopher suggests some such notion, 'Hhow poetic. What a profound idea.' but it does not occur to them to ponder that idea or apply it to their own lives. They continue to think of God as existing themselves. If you think of God as being apart from and outside yourself, it necessarily means that you think of yourself as being apart from and outside God. And what will become of those who are apart from God? They will be nothing more than an object.

What is an object? Every craftsman, labourer, or farmer, for example, uses certain tools for his work. These tools are objects that are not a part of himself. When he needs them he picks them up, uses them, and then puts them aside until he needs them again - the next day or next month or next year. In the same way, if we think that we exist apart from God, it will seem to us that God picks us up or puts us aside like objects. If the pots that come from a potter's wheel or the saucepans in a housewife's kitchen were consicious, can you imagine what they would feel like when they were left unused on the shelf? They would complain bitterly that their mistress had forgotten them. 'and when she scraped out our insides the spoon made a noise that was music to our ears. In those days we were happy. But now she has forgotten all about us. How cruel and wicked of her.'

What can you expect? If we behave like pots and pans it is only normal that the Lord should forget about us from time to time. Can you blame him? It is because we are like objects that we sometimes feel abandoned. At times the Lord picks us up and uses us, at other times he puts us aside, but we have no right to reproach him for it. Would one of your saucepans dare to complain because you did not use it every day? No, you are master - or mistress - in your own house, and it is normal to do as you please. So it is unfair and illogical to rebel against the Lord when you feel abandoned. When you are really within him, in his head and in his members, then you will always be with him and in him. The very worst philosophy you can have is to conceive of yourself as being apart from God, outside him.

Believe me, it will not be long before men's philosphical and religious concepts change very considerably. At the moment people think that it si normal to believe that there is a great distance between man and God. They think that this is only right and proper. But in that case, why do they complain so bitterly when they suffer the consequences of that attitude?

I have already told you that in the future there will be a third Testament that will complete the first two, and in it this truth - that man must learn to get much closer to God, must learn to sense that God is within him - will be strongly emphasized. In fact it will be presented as an absolute essential. When man makes this truth his own he will no longer have the impression of being abandoned by God.

If we feel abandoned by God today it si because we have abandoned him. Can we say that we are always with him? Perhaps we made our first Communion and prayed to him for a few minutes fifty or sixty years ago, but have we ever thought of him since? No. We have deserted him, so why should he not have the right to do the same to us? Why should he be obliged to think of us all the time? Who are we to complain? What makes us think that we are so important that the Lord should constantly be concerned about us?

The truth is, of course, that the Lord takes care of us ceaselessly but in ways that are completely different from those we imagine. Let me explain this. When a child is born, cosmic intelligence gives it everything it needs for its life on earth. It is fully equipped with boots, a helmet, a gun, ammunition, and so on. After that it is up to him to look after himself. You are greatly mistaken if you believe that God spends his time thinking aobut each one of us. He has already given us health, strength, and vitality and everything else we need. Or perhaps I should say that it is not God who takes care exactly what they have to do, while he is concerned with things of far greater importance.

Yes, the third Testament will give men the ultimate solution. They will live constantly in the presence of the Lord. They will no longer be able to tear themselves away from him, and as they will no longer abandon God, God will no longer abandon them. Whereas at the moment we think of God only from time to time - and from time to time God thinks of us. Even some great saints have grieved because they felt that God had abandoned them, and this shows that they did not know these truths. Does that astonish you? It simply means that a saint may have a great deal of love and great qualities and virtues but that his knowledge and understanding may not have evolved to the same degree. Then there are others for whom the situation can be quite the reverse: they understand many things but they are lacking in virtues and qualities.

You will perhaps feel like saying, 'But it seems more respectful, more fitting, to think of God as being outside ourselves. This is what we have always been taught.' Yes, but there are thousands upon thousands of degrees of truth, and the time has come to take a step forward. We must begin to thin of God as being close to us, within us. At the same time, we must think of ourselves as being minute, infinitesimal particles of God. God is the Whole and each one of us is a minute particle of the Whole. If you pray to the Lord thinking that he is far, far away beyond the stars, how can you expect your prayers to reach him? Oh, of course, I once told you that prayer reaches every corner of the universe. That is true, it does, but it takes such a long time to travel through infinite space. If the communication is direct and immediate; he can hear you, listen to your prayer, and answer you immediately.

Distance is important. Suppose you want to scatter and dissolve some clouds. You cannot make them disappear immediately; they are very slow and it all takes time. Well, if it takes so much time when the distance is barely a few hundred yards, just imagine how long it will to reach the Lord (especially if he is asleep and you have to wake him up). But if he is right there inside you, you can simply say, 'Hello, hello'. and you get through to him immediately. Does this strie you as disrespectful? No, I am speaking figuratively. Try to understand what I am saying.

From now on, when you are meditatin, try to cultivate a sense of the Lord's presence within you and you will see how effective this can be. The impression of being abandoned will come to you less and less frequently. At the moment you fluctuate between a few good days during which you are full of joy, inspiration, and ecstasy, followed by days of terrible drought, days in which you feel as though you were dying of thirst in the desert, and it is then that you say, 'God has abandoned me.'

Let me illustrate this: you are here on earth, many millions of miles away from the sun, so far away that mountains of black clouds have slipped between you and the sun and now you are at the mercy of those clouds. You long to receive the light and warmth of the sun but it is impossible; the clouds are in the way. What can you do about it? There is nothing for it but to wait, and while you are waiting you think, 'The sun has abandoned me.' No, the sun has not abandoned you; it is just that you are too far away, below the clouds. But suppose you take an aeroplane or a balloon and fly up above the clouds? Once you are up there nothing can come between you and the sun. It is still there, still shining; it has never abandoned by God i simply means that you have slipped down below the permanent screen of cloud that prevents the sun's rays from reaching you. On the other hand, if you feel full of joy and inspiration, it means that you have risen above the clouds where the sun is always shining and where you can contemplate its light and feel its warmth seeping into you. As you see, the explanation is simple.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

an of-topic question: - he russian?

He was Bulgarian.

Lwwb
Roger

The true Religion of Christ VI

Now, since this sensation of being abandoned depends on our attitude, what is to prevent us from changin that attitude? Why should we be content to remain on so low a level that every minute of every day this screen cuts us off from the light and prevents the joy and revelations of the sun from reaching us? This is why initiation exists. Initiation helps us to find our 'place in the sun', as the saying goes, a very elevated, very high place, well above the clouds, a place in which we no longer depend on anyone or anything, a place in which we are unassailable, invulnerable, invincible, immortal. Believe me, you must constantly rise higher, always higher. You must get closer to him; so close that you succeed in finding him within you; so closely, so intimately within you that you are constantly steeped in his presence. Then you will never again be tempted to say, in the words of St Thérèse of Lisieux, 'Lord, why do you play with me as though I were a ball, as an extraneous object in relation to the Lord, then of course you will not escape the feeling of being abandoned. In spite of all their goodness, love and selflessness, not even the greatest saints or prophets have been spared this sensation.

Now, as I very well know, this is something that happens to you too, so let me say a few more words about it. When you feel that you have been cast aside, that you have nothing to hold on to, that all your ties with the Lord are broken and the spring has dried up, then I advise you to have a conversation with the Lord. Tell him, 'Lord, you have cast me off, you have rejected and abandoned me. As you can see, I am in revolt because you have discarded me. What do you want me to do? I am stuck. I have chosen the path of light, and I cannot turn round and go back. Sometimes I wish I could; sometimes I think I should switch to another path and go and join the unbelievers, but I cannot do it. However badly you treat me I know that this path is the best. So do what you like, but I cannot change. Even if I am wounded, miserable, and ill, I must go on. Even if I am furious and in revolt, I cannot go any other way. For me there is no other way. However much it hurts, I shall just have to continue.' If you talk to the Lord in this way he will hear you - words of this kind are the only ones he hears - and he will instruct his servants to come and help you. Whenever some poor wretch on earth utters such a prayer the message reaches God's ears immediately. He always has time for messages of this nature. He declares, 'Make a note of this man's name, for he is the most intelligent of creatures. He is disgruntled and unhappy, and yet he refuses to try a different path. We must take care of him.'

Yes, you must talk like that to the Lord. Why have you never prayed like that? You prefer to threaten him instead. You say, 'If you treat me so badly I shall refuse to believe in you any longer. This is the end. I refuse to do anything more for you - not even light a candle.' The Lord is going to be inconsolable. He will be in the dark because there will be one less candle in church.

There is nothing worse than to think or say to the Lord, 'I have had enough.' Believe me, the best remedy is to go and talk to him, to weep and gnash your teeth and tell him how unkind he is and how unhappy you are. Tell him that you had relied on him and now he has let you down. Yes, tell him all that; but when you have had your say do not forget to add, 'The only thing is that there is no other way, I know that. I cannot go back. So whatever happens, I shall continue to believe in you and to serve you.' Speak to God with great familiarity if you like; he will not take offence. But be sure to conclude your prayer in this way, for, I repeat, this is the best, the only solution.

I know, of course, that it is not easy for human beings to conceive of the Lord as being inseparable from themselves, but as long as they continue to think of him as an extraneous being, a being who is absolutely remote and inaccessible, they will continue to be subject to extremely painful states of mind. This means, therefore, that further progress has to be made. Evolution is necessary in every area, even in religion. But in religion - more perhaps than in other areas - people tend to believe that the precepts laid down thousands of years ago must hold good for all eternity. No, this is not so. Everything evolves, everything makes progress. Look at how science evolves. Only religion fails to evolve. Why does science evolve? Why do scientists continually make new discoveries? Because instead of believing, they doubt, and their doubt seems to drive them on. Whereas faith, a faith that is not alive, makes human beings stagnate. Actually in this case it is no longer faith, it is credulity.

I have often spoken to you about Jnana-yoga, the practice of self-knowledge. The purpose of a disciple who practises Jnana-yoga is to make it possible for his consciousness to break out of the narrow circle of his own personality and attain the limitless consciousness of the cosmic being dwelling within him, of whom he is still not fully aware. This being, this particle of the Godhead, dwells within each one of us, and a disciple's goal is to become one with it. There are two poles therefore: the pole of your self, the consciousness of your own being, of your own lower self; and the pole of your higher, sublime self, that being of whom you have no real awareness, but who lives, works, and manifests through you. You are not yet capable of knowing how this sublime being manifests in the higher sphere, but from where you are down below you can visualize it dwelling within you and know that it seeks to manifest through you. For as it knows itself on high, it wants also to know itself in you, in the density of your physical matter. If you work with your imagination in this way, your efforts will eventually be rewarded, and as you draw closer to your higher self you will experience an illumination so intense that your consciousness will know no bounds. You will be suffused with light and radiance, and you will sense that you have become one with that sublime being, your higher self.

This is very difficult, of course, but it is one of the most powerful and effective exercises that exists. If you persevere with it you will obtain significant results. And once you have created this link with your higher consciousness, it will always be there, whatever your activities, always ready to take part in all you do. This then is the meaning of Jnana-yoga: the realization that 'I am He', that nothing else exists, that the Lord is the only Being. You are simply a reflection, an illusion formed by him, but your desire is to work your way back through this illusion of self until you reach that sublime consciousness and become one with it, lose yourself in it, and live for ever in its fullness. As long as you remain outside God you are depriving yourself of his riches. He cannot let you share in them, because you and he belong to two entirely different being, that God manifests himself within you. This is death in the initiatic sense of the world: you exist no longer as an independent entity face to face with God; God dwells within you. This is what Jesus meant when he said, 'Except you die you shall not live, 'and 'The Father and I are one.'

Of course, it is not given to everyone to reach this level, but all human beings can free themselves form certain limitations if they make the effort. The trouble is that they do not know how to use the means that God has put at their disposal. God has given us the power to become like him. All human beings have this power but, because of what they are at the moment, they are unable to make use of it. Most of them remain on too low a level and have no knowledge, no sense of it. Yet no one is totally bound; even the most limited people have the means to reach beyond their limitations. If only they would raise their eyes and their thoughts to the regions in which God dwells they would discover their innate possibilities. But how many people are willing to try to change anything in themselves? Of course, as I have always said, the reason is very simple: it all depends on what counts most for them. If money or pleasure is so important to them that there is no room in their minds for anything spiritual, how can we expect them to advance? But show me someone who gives precedence to light, love, beauty and the spirit, someone who does not worry about whether he will be rich or poor, whether he will always have enough to eat or not, whether he will dressed or in rags, honoured or ridiculed, and I will tell you that to such a being everything is possible.

It is the importance you attach to things that determines all the rest. I know that the vast majority of human beings are not attached exclusively to material possessions, but their interest in the spiritual life is incidental, no more than an ornament to their lives. Every now and then, when they have a little spare time or when they are bored, they will read a few pages of a good book, go and listen to something vaguely elevating, meditate or pray a little, but what they really consider to be essential are the material things: physical comfort and a peaceful, untroubled life. This is why they will never bring down the blessings of the divine world on themselves. They will continue to live and take advantage of all the things of earth but they will never be blessed with spiritual riches; they will never feel or experience the riches of the divine world in their lives. Only when they depart for the next world will they realize that they have made absolutely no progress, that they have been wasting their time.

If you sincerely want to evolve you must give first place to the impulse of your spirit, to light. But you cannot do this unless you have the desire, the need for yourselves. You either have it or not when you come into the world; it depends on the kind of life you led in other incarnations.

For those who come into the world with a taste for spirituality, it takes very little - a book or a few spoken words - to light a fire within them and launch them on a path from which nothing can make them deviate. Whereas others can listen to the sermons of every preacher on earth and remain entirely unchanged. The recommendations and advice of all the saints and all the prophets would fall on deaf ears, because their innate tendencies lead them in a different direction. But if you want to come to earth in your next incarnation with the desire to transform youself, you must begin now, immediately, even if you do not feel the need to do so, because the efforts you make today lay the groundwork for your next incarnation. Next time you come to earth you will already have a taste for this work because you will have sown the seeds in a previous incarnation. Now you can see how useful the work we do in the Brotherhood is. It is perfectly true that some temperaments have absolutely no use for spirituality. And yet all those who unwittingly infected with germs that will manifest themselves at some future date.

But let us get back to the exercise of identification that I was speaking about earlier. You will see, if you do it, that it is extremely effective. However I must warn you that it can also be dangerous, because you can begin to believe that you are already God and allow pride to take over, and pride always leads to disaster. Even if you attain divine superconsciousness you must still be humble; in fact you must become even more humble and upretentious, and be even more careful not to offend others or use your superiority as a weapon against them. There are people who, having learned the formula, 'I am He,' start quarrelling with their family and friends and become absolutely intolerable. Their lives are one long series of conflicts and disputes because tehy want the whole world to acknowledge them as divinities. But if you want to become more and more like God you must have more and more love and generosity. Because God is love. If you have to massacre and ride roughshod over others in order to prove that you are a divinty, it shows that you have not understood the first thing about it.

I warn you, therefore, that from a psychological point of view this exercise of identification can be dangerous. You must be very vigilant, and in order to avoid any possibility of pride rearing its head, you must begin by recognizing that you are not unique, that other people are also part of God. Yes, if you want to practise this exercise as perfectly as possible you must begin by thinking and feeling that not only the Lord but all human beings are also within you, that they are you. This whole collectivity, the whole of mankind is you; it lives in you and you in it. You are apart and separate from others only in appearance. In this way, instead of opposing and tormenting others, you will sense their needs, their cares, and their sufferings and be obliged to help them. This is how you can truly become a divinity and not a monster for whom others are vermin to be crushed underfoot. Remember that if you fail to take appropriate precautions, methods such as this can be detrimental to you. And then of course it will be my fault once again.

Always remember that all the creatures that you see around you are really part of you. Yes, when you tread the path of true initiatic philosophy you begin to realize that all creatures are one. In reality there is only one being: the Creator. All creatures are simply the cells of his immense body, cells that are one in everything but their consciousness. Imagine what it would be like if every cell in your body had an individual consciousness. Naturally, the cells of the feet, the liver, the spleen, and so on would feel different and apart from each other because their functions are different (the heart has one function, the liver another, and so on), and they would either collaborate or conflict with each other. Yes, but if they reached a higher degree of consciousness they would realize that they are all an integral part of one person, of one being who embraces and nourishes them all.

Well, we must follow the same reasoning. We must remind ourselves that all the individuals on earth - be they Japanese, Chinese, Turkish, Russian, French, or German - are the cells of a single collective being. If their attitude and behaviour do not seem to conform to this reality it is because their consciousness has sunk so low that they are not capable of seeing themselves as the cells of a whole. But once one becomes conscious of being a single cell and feels oneself bound to all the other cells that go to make up the supreme being - God himself - once sees that the whole of humanity is one single being. Once you reach this point you will feel so much love, pity and consideration for others that you will really and truly fulfil the formula, 'I am That.' As long as human beings have not reached this degree of consciousness they will always want to annihilate others; there can be no real change, only a constant inflation of their personality.

I assure you, true change will only come about through this consciousness of unity. We do not exist as seperate individuals; each one of us is a cell in an immense organism, and our consciousness must melt into the universal consciousness that embraces the totality of man, cosmic man, This alone represents true progress, true evolution.

Tangible proof of this bond between individuals can be seen in the fact that, however ignorant and illiterate mediums may be, when they are in a state of trance they can feel within themselves the suffering of the person beside them. And initiates, whose sensitivity is even more highly developed than that of mediums, can also feel the physical and psychic state of others. If they do not usually show it, it is because they have achieved true mastery and to do so would hinder their work. If they were in a continental state of pain or anxiety, how could they help others? It is precisely because they have gone beyond this stage that they are masters and are capable of helping others. I have often experienced this myself: I suddenly feel a pain in one part of my body, and knowing that it comes from someone else. I concentrate on helping that person. Then a few days later I hear from someone who tells me that they had had a terrible pain in that same part of their body, so then they thought of me and now they feel well again. Yes, but it was I who had to bear that pain. It is true that I am capable of overcoming it, but it still involves a great deal of work. This is why it is said that Jesus bore the sufferings of mankind - I can well believe it.

Some people might think that in these conditions it would be better not to be a master or an initiate. Yes, but then they would be deprived of all the rest, too. The suffering that you bear for other people is only temporary, after all; and it is so wonderful to be useful. An initiate is happy to be able to help others and alleviate their suffering. At other moments he feels inspired and elevated because he is in constant communion with a very different order of creatures, creatures that dwell in a permanent state of happiness and bliss. There are so many creatures, both visible and invisible, who live in peace and joy, and you too can experience this marvellous state. So there is nothing to worry about.

Yes, life on earth is an illusion, a dream; reality is something quite different. What is the point of losing eternal life for the sake of an illusion that will soon disappear without a trace? True, you have to eat, clothe yourself, ahve a roof over your head, and so on, but the intelligent way to behave is to do no more than necessary in this area and leave yourself free to acquire the riches that will be yours for all eternity. Otherwise everything will be taken from you, and you will end by being naked and destitute. Even the books you have read and the knowledge you acquired at the university will be taken away and wiped from your mind. Next time you come to earth you will have to begin to read and study all over again, because the wealth you possess today is not really yours; it has been given to you by others. If something does not rightfully belong to you, you are going to have to give it back. You will be allowed to keep and bring back with you in your next incarnation only the gifts and qualities that you have explored, experienced, and absorbed for yourself. All talents, all gifts of genius can be explained in this way. A philosopher or musician of genius is someone who comes into the world with knowledge acquired through porfound personal experience in a previous incarnation.

Each human being is in this world in order to proclaim the glory of God and help others. But instead of doing this, the great majority bury themselves away and become like brute beasts, because they are always afraid of what the neighbours or their family might think. Of course if everyone is always ruled by fear, nothing new will ever happen in the world. Where will you find anybody who says, 'That is not important; I have everything I need within myself. My inner life is os intense and rich that I need nothing else'?

Are you beginning to understand me? Perhaps you think that those who are not very rich or comfortable in life will certainly understand me. Not a bit of it. On the contrary, they are in a continual state of fury at not being rich or as socially prominent as others; they think of nothing else day and night. Their thoughts are so occupied by envy of others that they fail to take advantage of the good situation in which heaven has placed them, they consider it an injustice. Do you really believe that the poor see the tremendous advantages of their poverty and know how to use it as a stepping stone to perfection? No, they are constantly in revolt against it. Why? Because they want to be like the rich. Outwardly they profess to be scandalized by wealth, but deep in their hearts they long for it with their might. If the rich had a better understanding of their own situation, they would be distressed to be rich and would distribute all their wealth to the poor. And the poor would refuse that wealth, saying, 'No, no we do not want any of it. We are very well off as we are.' If the rich were enlightened, they would be anxious to rid themselves of their wealth, and the poor would want no more than they have. Is this not the most monstrous, incredible nonsense you have ever heard? Yes, and yet it is absolutely true. The only salvation for the rich is to go to the poor and beg them to take their wealth. And the poor should refuse categorically. Of course, you will say that I am turning everything upside down. Yes, because this is the only way to set everything straight.

One day when I was talking to you about the sun. I described an exercise that you could do when you are up on the Rock for the sunrise (The Rock is a platform at the top of a hill near the Bonfin where Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov gathered with his disciples every morning in spring and summer to meditate and watch the sunrise). It is very similar to the one I gave you a few moments ago: you can try to picture your higher self up there in the sun, and imagine that it is looking down at your puny, imperfect little self sitting here meditating. In this way you create a current between your higher and your lower selves, and this current is the beginning of a new life. Of course you may not feel the effect at once, because it takes time for the current to become stronger and more intense, but before long you will have no more doubts, for you will sense that something extraordinary is beginning to take place within you, bringing you a sense of absolute certainty. There is nothing more marvellous than this certainty. It is only when you are certain of what you say, of what you have experienced, that you can be strong and powerful, capable of convincing others. As long as you are not quite sure of things you will never convince others, because they will always sense your hesitancy. Of course, you cannot know certainty until you have experienced certain manifestations. Certainty cannot be manufactured. Those who possess it possess unequalled powers of persuasion.

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov