The Teachings of the Christ

The problem of the Hierarchy has been (and still is) how much exact truth humanity can comprehend, and to [103] what extent absolute truth can be presented to their awakening minds; They have to decide which aspect of universal truth will enable man to emerge out of his difficulties and thus move forward on the Path of Return to God; They have to know, therefore, at what point on the ladder of evolution humanity stands at any given period. This in itself presents a field of research to Them.

The first such Teacher is of such ancient date that it is not possible to say when He truly lived; even His name is a modernized one, given to an ancient hero-teacher. His name is Hercules. He presented to the world, through [104] the form of a pictorial and world drama (symbolic in nature) the concept of a great objective, only to be reached as the result of struggle and difficulty. He pointed to a goal toward which men must make their way, no matter what the obstacles; these obstacles He portrayed in the Twelve Labors of Hercules which were dramas and not factual occurrences. He thus pictured for those who had eyes to see and hearts to understand the nature of the problem to be solved upon the Path of Return to God; He depicted the Prodigal Son's journey back to the Father's house, and the tests and trials which all disciples, aspirants and initiates have to face and which all Those Who today compose the spiritual Hierarchy have already faced. When this statement is considered, it must include also the Christ Who, we are told, "was in all points tempted like as we are" (Heb. IV, 15.), but also passed triumphantly the tests and trials.

At some also unknown date Hermes came and, so the records say, was the first to proclaim, Himself as "the Light of the World." Later the great Teacher, Vyasa, appeared. He gave one simple and needed message that death is not the end. From His time, the thinking of humanity about the possible immortality of the soul can be seen to stem. Vaguely and instinctively, men had hoped and sensed that the discarding of the physical vehicle was not the final consummation to all human struggle, loving and aspiration; in those early days, feeling dominated and instinct led; thought was not found among the masses of men as it is today. In this period of culmination in which we now live, the work of the spiritualistic movement, in its many forms, is in reality the emergence of that stream of thought-energy and of the idea which Vyasa, thousands of years ago, implanted in the human consciousness. The effort of the intellectuals [105] to prove the scientific possibility of immortality is part also of this great stream, carried onto intellectual levels, thus salvaging Vyasa's work from the mists and glamors and the psychic dishonesty with which it is now surrounded. The fact of immortality is today on the verge of scientific proof; the fact of the survival of some factor has already been proved, though what has been demonstrated as surviving is apparently not in itself intrinsically immortal. The factual nature of the soul, and the fact of soul survival and of its eternal livingness, go hand in hand and have not yet been scientifically proven; they are, however, known and recognized as truths today by such countless millions and by so many intellectuals that - unless mass hysteria and mass deception is posited - their existence is already correctly surmised.