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
States and warring interests have reached unity as a nation; and how was
it done? It was done by the holding up of the ideal in both cases, the
ideal of national unity. Not until German poets had sung of the German
Fatherland for many and many a long year, not until that ideal of the
Fatherland rose strongly and clearly in the minds of the young, not until
the poet had made the ideal was it possible for the soldier to come
forward with the statesman and build those States into one. And so also
with Italy. Long before there was any talk of revolution or war, long
before there was any idea of appealing to the sword, Italian thinkers
had spoken of Italian unity, Italian patriots had held up the ideal of
a united Italy; and it was only when the ideal had fired the hearts of
the young that there was strength enough for the self-sacrifice that
followed the sword of Garibaldi, and made it possible for Italy to become
a united people. For it is out of the ideal that enthusiasm grows, out of
the ideal and the longing to realise it that the power of self-sacrifice
is generated. What we need to do, then, to change human nature, is to
hold up great ideals before the young of our time, and those ideals
shall fire their hearts to passionate enthusiasm, until self-sacrifice
shall be a joy and not a sacrifice at all, in order that the ideal they
worship may become realised upon earth. Along those lines human nature
will change; for, never forget that Human Nature is divine, not devilish;
that a God is at the heart of every man, unfolding the power of divinity;
hence the power of the ideal to fire and the power of thought to mould
the lines of character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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