«Human beings are using technological progress to benefit their greed, with the risk of destroying the very basis of their existence on earth. This is why technological progress is not truly progress. Of course it is really quite something to be able to send craft into space and to other planets. But at the end of the day, what is the purpose of all this? To exploit the resources and cause the same damage as here on earth? To fight in space? To go and cause havoc all over the universe? There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to explore the cosmos, but not before having found the right attitude to adopt here on earth. Human beings respect nothing. They think they are the masters of the universe. They are prepared to upset everything to satisfy their curiosity and their cupidity. Well, they have to be aware that one day they will have to pay dearly for this lack of respect and this violence. »

« People are led to believe that their happiness depends on scientific and technical progress and also on comfort. In whatever domain, they are continually bombarded with publicity; every effort is made to prevent them from making contact with other regions, other entities (the only ones that could bring them the light, love and peace they need). The spiritual world has been so rejected, scorned and held up to ridicule that very few beings feel the urge to search in this world for the necessary elements of their survival. Most people are dying of suffocation and intoxication. For their own good, they must search more and more for a contact with this subtle world so that their soul and spirit can breathe and find nourishment. When we meditate we do not touch anything material; it seems like "emptiness". But actually it is in this "emptiness" that the soul and spirit blossom and find fulfillment. »

« Technological progress has given humankind great possibilities. This is a good thing, but all these new facilities and opportunities lead them to expect everything from outside and to become heedless, thoughtless, and fickle. We can neglect our health: there are doctors, surgeons, dentists, chemists, etc. We can waste paper, ruin appliances, break objects, soil and tear our clothes, throw away food: there is plenty more of everything in the shops.
 
This is how care and attention, vigilance, and discernment gradually wane. Why develop these qualities when there are so many people and products available to repair the damage we have done? Scientists, researchers, technicians are all there to help people with their inventions. In reality, however, they help the manufacturers get richer, and make the people increasingly weak and dependent. I am not saying we should put a halt to technological progress, but we must also continue to work in the inner domain in order to cultivate care and attention, prudence, and selfcontrol. »

« How often do you meet people who, without being forced by circumstances, decide to work? It is an innate tendency of human beings to avoid effort and to unload their tasks onto others, be they human beings, animals, or machines. Today, of course, with our technical progress, they especially look to machines to do their work. As a result, some of their faculties become dulled, their will in particular. Those who want to become equal to every situation must make a habit of striving. Even if these days we can acquire many things without effort, we must resist succumbing to this climate of ease. Otherwise, what will be the result? We will be outwardly fulfilled, and that is all. Inwardly, we will have nothing; we will be lost. It is their efforts which keep human beings on their feet and full of life. »

« It does not take much to provide for one's material life, and yet human beings are so busy creating new needs for themselves that they no longer have any time to devote to their spiritual lives. As a result, their material comfort gradually improves, but their psychic and moral states deteriorate. Everywhere we see mental problems and criminal behaviour. Materially, we in the West have never been so well off, but in the deepest sense, this ease does not enhance peoples' serenity. After the first moments of satisfaction, a new washing machine, a new car, or a new house will not respond to the needs of their heart and soul. There is no doubt that people are conscious of this decline in society, because they spend their time in meetings talking about changing their lives. But all the changes they discuss concern only the material realm. Who considers holding meetings to help people live the divine life? That is why, even if business gets better and better, human beings are beginning to collapse. Is it reasonable to sacrifice people to business? »

« Everywhere in the world people complain that technical progress generates pollution: toxic products pollute everything (the earth, the water, the air) and plants, fish, birds and human beings are threatened more and more every day. Remedies are hard to find, and even if they were found, they would touch only the exterior side of things, the physical plane, and that is insufficient. For toxic products, exhaust gases, and smoke are everywhere in the psychic world as well, and they are asphyxiating mankind. Nowadays there are many sick people, but it is not only due to the pollution of air, water and food. No! If the psychic atmosphere were not so polluted, human beings would be able to neutralize all external poisons. Evil lives first within us. When human beings live in harmony, the forces they possess inside react and reject impurities, even those present in the physical world, and in this way the body manages to defend itself. We are vulnerable first on the psychic plane, and gradually this weakness spreads to the physical body. »

« Knowledge is growing in all fields and we meet an ever-increasing number of educated and cultivated people. This poses the question, however, as to why, despite all this progress, humankind is not improving. On the contrary even, the number of delinquents, criminals and mentally ill is growing. The answer is in fact very simple, because despite being educated, people continue to live in the same disorderly, dishonest and senseless way as the uneducated, or worse even because their learning has given them a greater capability to do so. The knowledge they accumulate remains theoretical since they do not think that they could draw lessons from it to improve their inner life. This is why the only faculty that human beings truly lack is that of using their knowledge to transform themselves, to spiritualize, enlighten their inner being. Educated people abound, all there is a shortage of is people who have decided to work on themselves. »

« Establish an ideal of perfection in your head. But make sure the sole aim of this desire to perfect yourself is not merely for your own evolution; it must also be useful, beneficial for the world as a whole. This is how things should progress from now on. Up until now all spiritual teachings have more or less led human beings along the path of individual salvation: knowledge, powers, revelations, spiritual people acquired these benefits solely for their own good. This is why they remained isolated, hidden in some cave or monastery in order to be left undisturbed by the goings-on of the outside world. This philosophy has since become outmoded.

The new philosophy teaches the quest for personal perfection, but without cutting yourself off from others. Quite to the contrary in fact: you should accept inconvenience, make sacrifices, suffer even, but be useful. To perfect yourself in order to be useful to the collectivity, this is true perfection. »

« In the physical realm, human beings have made gigantic achievements: we cannot help but see how scientific and technical progress has transformed life. But this is not enough, and humanity is now called upon to realise achievements that are still more important, more vital for them, by means of the faculties of the spirit. Through meditation and prayer, they must learn to make a relationship with the world of the spirit, so that the light, love, and power of the spirit descends upon the earth, within them, and upon those beings around them. Scientific and technical progress has limits, and even presents dangers. If all these discoveries are not made to serve a higher vision of things, humanity will be overwhelmed and crushed by them. Scientific and technical achievements are not sufficient to transform life. It is by means of the spirit that life will be truly transformed, because peace, freedom, and brotherhood are realisations of the spirit.. »

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Message to materialists

« I am very happy, my dear brothers and sisters, to be able to say a few words to you today in this beautiful region of France, with its sky always blue, its perfumed air, and the sun always radiant. What profound silence and what peace in this magnificent place!

I am sure that you already feel that a new day is rising in the world. The history of the earth and of humanity has its periods which replace one another. Each period adds something new in the life of living beings. Astrological science of ancient times was capable of foreseeing the unrolling of events in the life of human beings, in connection with the movement of the stars and planets.

Without entering into the details of the periods through which the earth has already passed, and with it the whole of humanity (which would lead us very far), I shall say to you only that an old age, like a long, painful and dark night, is going away. It is disappearing away, into the past of time to give way to a new age, a culture of the sun! One already hears the children of the sun and of light singing hymns of joy and of gratitude to the inexhaustible goodness of the Creator.

One sees the sun opening halfway and the angels, unflagging servants of God, coming down to put order and harmony into sensitive and affectionate souls. A new earth and a new heaven have been in preparation and formation for a long time in God's great studios, workshops. The children of the new life know a wonderful way: the path which leads towards the sun! They have tasted delicious fruits, ripened by the rays of this sun, fruits of joy, of hope and of divine love. They ask now this question to their brothers, a little dulled, numb in matter, deprived of faith and hope:

- "Do you believe that intelligent beings still exist on earth?"

- "Naturally!", answer these nice brothers, who based everything on matter, having, moreover, never well known what it really represents. "Naturally, we believe it! And these intelligent beings, we are they!"

- "Oh, how magnificent it is!", respond the children of the new life, "to be classed among intelligent and reasonable beings."

- "Do you believe that there are just and noble beings on the earth?"

- "By all means!", answer these brothers made heavy and dulled by matter. "Of course, we believe that! It is we who are these just and noble beings! All the others are in error and total ignorance!"

- "Oh how wonderful!", exclaim the children of the new life. "It is marvelous to be just and noble in this life that is so sad and colourless for the majority of human beings."
  "Do you believe in the existence of good, beautiful and powerful beings?" continue to ask the children of the new life.

- "Come on! Honestly! There is no doubt!", answer the brothers a little laggard and rebellious; some of them recognizing that they were beaten or desacrated by some in the struggle for existence, and the others enchanted, enticed or seduced by the charms and beauty of creatures specialized for that."

"In such cases, how can one not believe in the existence of powerful and beautiful beings?"
After that, the children of hope and of the new life affirm solemnly this:

- "Oh, you have supplied us with the means to prove to you and to convince you that beauty, intelligence, force, justice, gentleness, charity, love, patience and all other sublime virtues are qualities and attributes, or grains come from an unique Source, transmitted to us by intermediate centers. This Holy Source nourrishes all the worlds and their creatures in infinite space. If all these qualities and virtues came from yourselves, who are matter and nothing else according in your opinion, why then can you not become at will all powerful, omniscient or beautiful as you wish it yourselves? These qualities which human beings possess come logically, therefore, from a Source which is outside of us, or of our current possibilities. Reunite now by your imagination all these qualities and virtues, amplify them to infinity in one single being. It is that being precisely whom we call the Divinity, from whom come to us all talents and all possibilities, unique Being, unquestiontable, more real than reality itself. To doubt His existence, is to doubt your intelligence, your goodness, your force and the glorious future that you can have. It is the greatest error which slipped itself into the intellect of our brothers, slaves of the material world, who bear pretentious names of atheists, materialists, realists, of rationalists, anarchists and of "abracadabrists".

Can we increase our qualities and virtues?

Yes. by uniting ourselves:

- by correct and luminous thoughts of true intelligence,

- by the warm and vivifying feelings or sentiments of selfless love,

- by straightforward, upright and noble deeds of an ordered and harmonized activity.

By uniting ourselves with this inexhaustible Source of goodness, joy and bless which represents the spiritual Sun, we are walking towards perfection. All true thinkers, all non nebulous true mystics of all ages, the prophets, masters or initiates, acknowledged this great and sublime Truth, beyong all truths. They bowed down with love, humility and adoration before The Supreme Being, who is the true distributor of all good, all interior and exterior riches. All drew force from Him for their inspiration, their revelations, and the actions which ensued them.

Do you not feel that there is something changed in life, in human nature and in the surrounding countryside? that even the sun and the most faraway stars are sending us the most moving messages? Do you not feel that underground or subterranean forces, in the oceans, in the air and in cosmic ether, all are in feverish activity? Do you not feel that entities, in countless number, descend from heavenly regions with the plan to awaken us to spiritual truths? And that these beings direct myriad other beings, who work on stones, plants, animals and humans beings? Are you waiting to begin to work with these workers of the new time until the greatest disasters and the largest cataclysms burst out on humanity? That subterranean forces begin to shake the earth's fragile crust? That the oceans flow out onto the continents? That storms and hurricanes show their strength and power in sweeping out everything in front of them? And that the most devastating wars are launched between several nations and tear down the earth?

It is said in the Holy Scriptures, that "the sun will be obscured", that "the moon will no longer give light", that "the stars will fall from heaven", and that "the powers of heaven will be set in motion. And then the sign of the Son of man shall appear in heaven."

All this is purely symbolic. According to the ancient science of symbols, which revealed and summarized all esoteric science, "the sun will be obscured" signifies that the human intellect, their point of view, will not give any more clarity. The works of numerous scholars, writers and philosophers will present only aberrations, deviations and obscureness. Their point of view, based on an egocentric philosophy will crumble. Here is a striking example: the conclusion drawn by certain researchers sincere, honest, and nevertheless misled; that the law of life is battle, war, and merciless, pitiless fight among creatures for their existence. This conclusion has been drawn thanks to their observation of the inferior regions of life: in the oceans, where everything are eating and devouring each other; in forests, jungles, where animals and wild beasts are devouring each another, in swamps, in families and societies, where, everywhere they report egotism, ferocious fight, slaughter. They believed they were right to draw a conclusion which did not contain the whole truth, but only fifty percent.

All that is true if one sees only the lower regions.

All that is true if one sees the egoistical, selfish and personal child, who only asks to take without thinking of anybody else. It is selfishness, egotism which absorbs, cries, claims, subjects and enslaves the others.
 
But one forgets to see that beside the child exist the mother and the father, or the grandparents,... this mother who is all love and abnegation, who exerts herself to bring up the child. She is the incarnation of devotion and sacrifice.
 
Can we not conclude that another law exists in life, the law of Love and Sacrifice?

Let us take the example of the earth, which is still an egotistical child, and of the mother, the visible sun, because the Father, He, is hidden: it is the invisible Sun. Both of them bend over this child continually, warning him, enlightening him. The earth never stops taking forces and energies from the sun. And the sun gives itself continually with love and patience until the maturation of the earth. The earth will become a sun one day in its turn, contrary to that the astronomers and scholars expect according to their calculations and scientific forecasts, which are based on their point of view purely mechanical, that is, on the dead side of nature. If scholars pay attention only toward the earth and toward what happens in the inferior regions, seeing only purely selfish and destructive phenomenas, it is that they have not raised their eyes towards the regions of spirit and love, where reign other laws, those of kindness, love, charity, sacrifice, patience and impersonality. Due to maturing under the sun beams of goodness and love, a tough, bitter and acid fruit, becomes sweet, delicious and fragrant.

It is so with the earth, and with human beings. One day, all of humanity will evolve, will progress, and people will leave the planet, leaving the earth to their small brothers, the animals, those who have also become more evolved and intelligent in their turn. Nothing will be able to resist the all powerful influence of divine heat and divine light. It is a question of time.

Still, what is the most extraordinary and astonishing, incredible for the moment, is that unbelieving and atheistic scholars, like bitter, acid and tough fruits, will become sugar and honey, speaking only of love.

This example shows us that there exists another point of view, known by the Initiates, which makes us see things correctly.

It has been said that "the moon will no longer give any more light". That means that the human heart is filled with religious prejudices and with continually changing and unstable sentiments; and that these prejudices and sentiments will be reduced to nothing.

"Stars will fall from heaven", that means that many scientific, political, economic, as well as military authorities, because of a turnover of things in the life, will no longer be able to remedy by their old methods various conditions, circumstances and factors which shall start, so that they shall fall from their base.

"Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in the heavens." That means that a new light will appear, that new ideas will come to prepare the new culture which is coming. Scholars will no longer any more search for purely destructive means. Philosophers will no longer invent any more purely human philosophies and which are far from the truth, but they will accept the unique and only Philosophy which exists since the Creation of the world, which the greatest Masters of humanity knew and professed. Neither Hermes, nor Zoroastre, nor Ram, nor Buddha, nor Krishna, nor Orpheus, nor Moses, nor Plato, nor Pythagoras, nor Fo-Hi, nor Lao-Tseu have ever invented and fabricated anything by themselves as philosophy as such. But they all studied the one and only true Philosophy, which has been well guarded and passed on to our time. Writers will no longer write any more works which destroy faith, joy and hope, and so introducing in this way anarchy and chaos into human souls, without having the least idea of their moral responsibility toward their readers.

Poets will not write poetry where sadness, laziness and desolation, as well as a crepuscular and morbid sentimentality weaken human beings.

Painters will no longer paint any more paintings which are the reflection of their continual nightmares, lived in their swampy subconscious, or in subterranians, undergrounds or caves full of mildew.

Authors of theater pieces will not present plays where one sees exclusively unchained human passions, where human beings are in prey to conflicts with no way out, and walk on inextricable paths, with neither solution, nor salvation.

Musicians will no longer compose any songs or music which unchain hell slumbering in each human nature to manifest itself in madness, folies. New musicians will create a new music, which will correspond to the highest and most divine aspirations of the soul, its desire to live again the life which it lived before it left Paradise. This new music will nourish all that is pure and divine in the soul. This new music will save the world. It will possess the magic power to call the sacred Fire down from Heaven and with it a whole hierarchy of beings of order, of harmony and of beauty as well.

Dance, sculpture, architecture, everything will change and will improve thanks to the intelligent and luminous beings who know the structure and formation of human being, and of all his subtle bodies.

"This present generation", say the great Masters, "is darkened, materialized, chaotic, unruly, disorderly, and crystallized in inoperative and null forms. This generation cannot vibrate in harmony with the powerful and irresistible impulses of this spouting out Source, the visible sun, representative of the invisible Sun which is the Christ. A new generation is coming with new hearts and new minds, carriers of new seeds. New life approaches like the spiritual Spring, of which all the true poets dreamed, which the true clairvoyants contemplated, which the true prophets predicted."

The new Teaching of the Great Universal White Brotherhood contains all the methods, all the rules, and all the principles, as well as the discipline and the prescriptions necessary to prepare beings to receive the new impulses and the new streams which flow from the heart of our solar system. This heart already sends us its Heat and its Light to animate us and to resuscitate us.

Everything must be renewed, needs to vibrate and shine new plentiful, intense life, which will cleanse everything, purify all, armed with Love, with Hope, with ardent, immovable and powerful Faith in the existence of the Being of all beings, the Ancient of ancients, the Mysterious of mysterious, gentle Father of the Heavens, clement, merciful and misericordious Father. May His name be louded and sanctified for eternity! Oh, may this blessed day come as soon as possible, Lord, in order that the whole world quivers with joy and with gratitude, to be in order to sense Your presence, inexpressible through human words, but who is the resurrection and the eternal life, in joy, in Love, and in Peace.

So be it! »

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov