The changing world, and lectures to theosophical students.: Fifteen lectures delivered in London during May, June, and July, 1909Besant, Annie
Religion
The changing world, and lectures to theosophical students.: Fifteen lectures delivered in London during May, June, and July, 1909
Besant, Annie
Theosophy; Theosophy -- Study and teaching
Some of you think, but you think mistakenly, that you would recognise,
say, a Master, or even a Christ, if He appeared. Are you so sure? They
never have been recognised by the people of their time save by a small
minority, and why should we be different? The Christ was not recognised
when He came last; His Messengers have not been recognised since, save
by a minority. They are so different from the people of their time that
there is much to get over before you can recognise them. And it is a
good practice sometimes to throw yourself back to those days in Judea
when the Son of Man trod the earth. Realise what He would have seemed to
you then, not what he seems to you now through the vista of centuries
of the adoration of millions of men. What would he have seemed as the
vagabond travelling about on foot, with a number of half-educated
people round Him, disturbing the peace of society, antagonistic to the
respectabilities of His day, looked down upon by the aristocracy of
the time? See Him as they saw Him, and ask yourself: “Should I have
recognised the Christ?” And that is where the test has been, right
through these last three years, and where it will be as the people I
have been speaking of gradually come amongst us again. If you would
recognise them when they come, try to cultivate the power which answers
to greatness without, by cultivating greatness within, remembering that
spiritual recognition is the recognition of all those who are kindred to
yourself. If you have the virtue in you of the spiritual man you will
know spiritual men when you meet them; but if you cannot answer to Him,
then He will pass you by unknown, and probably disliked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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