We are alive to know God - to know ourselves as aspects of the Great Being that ensouls all life. We struggle with this because we do not understand the challenge before us and we do not see the way to proceed toward our goal. To cast light on these problems is the purpose of the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, a body of ideas that have been available to at least some of humanity for all time.

Western audiences gained their first access to the Ageless Wisdom Teachings in 1875 when Helena Petrovna Blavatsky inaugurated the Theosophical Society in New York. Blavatsky was a woman of tremendous courage and good will. She persevered where others would certainly have faltered and succeeded in bringing to the world an understanding of life that had literally been missing for thousands of years.

Her work was the result of her life experience. From an early age she possessed both an unusually broad-minded view of life and somewhat developed psychic powers. Through the latter she occasionally experienced inwardly a very distinctive guide or teacher who seemed to be very much aware of her. When she was 21 she actually met that man in London's Hyde Park. He outlined a life-work to her which she was entirely free to either accept or reject. One aspect of this work would be to get herself into Tibet where she could study with him and his associates for a number of years. Blavatsky accepted the challenge and some years later did manage to enter Tibet where she was trained in the Ageless Wisdom Teachings and prepared to bring them to the West.

Her message was simple in some ways: Humanity had always existed for a single purpose - to realize the essential divinity that is at the core of being. She also pointed out that there were on the planet those great illumined minds who had gone ahead of average humanity in this quest and yet remained to give their love, teachings and guidance to all others. These great ones, known as the Masters of Wisdom or the Mahatmas, were living in remote desert and mountain retreats throughout the world serving humanity however they could. Though most of their efforts had to so with conditioning the Earth's energetic environment, they also worked with and through "disciples" in the world who were able to implement some of their ideas.

Today we live in a different world from the late 1800's. The ideas of the Masters are now widely available. This is due to two factors. First, Blavatsky was followed by another disciple, Alice A. Bailey, who published a long series of books that were given to her by one of the Masters. These books outline all the essential facts of the esoteric perspective on life. They have been widely read and their ideas have gradually found their way into the minds of many. At the same time, all spiritually inclined people have had ever-greater access to the traditional teachings of the world's great religions. This has produced a wide-spread understanding that there is one truth behind all the great paths and that the differences among them are only differences of emphasis. This has lead to a broad "spiritual" understanding of life divorced from any particular religion - a great step forward for humanity.

Now we are ready for a further revelation of the truth of being. Now we are ready for the advent of the Masters into everyday life. This is, in fact, a central theme of the Alice Bailey teachings: that the masters would return to the world sometime between 1975 and 2025. Of course we are in that window now and already a number of the masters have returned to outward roles in the world. They can be found working quietly with those who are drawn to them, spreading their ideas about the nature of humanity, the path before us, and the necessary steps in that path. One fact of their current work is that "spiritual realization" for the individual is not the be all and end all of the path. We are here as a species, together in our destiny, and vast changes to our global systems of economics, politics, war and competition are what are needed most at present. Realization will follow from systems that allow for survival and freedom from fear. First the foundation has to be built and then the temple can be constructed.

The most complete picture of the masters' return outer roles in the world has been provided by Benjamin Creme, a British artist who has been speaking on the theme since 1974. To explore the picture he presents go to Share International.

There are just a few fundamental ideas within the ageless teachings that all students encounter. The first is the law of karma. This law merely states that every act that we do comes back to us in some form. Most simply, if we are good to others, that energy comes aback to us, and if we are bad to others, that energy also comes back to us. The effects are not immediate. Indeed it can be lifetimes later before the effects of a given act are experienced. Nevertheless, the law holds. We reap what we sow. This simple law governs all life and only through living with awareness of it does one progress out of the endless cycle of action and reaction. The law is not some cosmic form of retribution, as it is often seen, but actually the primary educational principle that leads all toward enlightenment.

A second less important law is the law of rebirth. This simply states that all lives come into form time after time to learn life's lessons. We are part of a long cycle of incarnations through which we learn all there is to learn on this planet. We are born at approximately the same place in consciousness that we completed the previous existence. We go through life first recapitulating many prior lives and then coming up against the real challenges for this particular life. We all have a particular set of goals for a given life, and we find ourselves in circumstances that provide the opportunities to realize those goals. Foremost among all goals is that of establishing right relationship to those around us - our families and immediate contacts. It is perfectly clear that this is a monumental challenge for most people, yet we largely tend to ignore it. Further goals may be controlling the astral or desire life or coming into right relationship with particular aspects of life that have been troubling in the past. Many people are caught in cycles of addiction to particular behaviors and in each life those addictions manifest once again presenting the opportunity to break out of the pattern and find new freedom.

Another basic fact of life is that there are certain basic energies that govern all life and that we are gradually learning to work with each of these energies. The most fundamental energies are will, love and intelligence. It is obvious that some people embody greater proportions of one of these than the others, and eventually all will learn of express each of these divine qualities. For this purpose we come into incarnation time after time, always set up somewhat differently - allowing ourselves to experiment with the different qualities of creation. This process of "choosing" the various energetic qualities that one will work with in a given lifetime is a science about which little is presently known, but the fact is each of us is composed of differing energetic potentials in each life and we use those qualities more or less perfectly in that life. One may incarnate with a predominance of love in a given lifetime and be challenged to express that love clearly and balance it with intelligence and will. In another life will may predominate and then the challenge is the same: express the quality cleanly and develop the balancing qualities.

The progression of consciousness across many lives is essentially from selfish egocentricity to broadminded identification with all things. The difference between the archetypical "caveman" and the beauty of the Christ or the Buddha demonstrates the overall process clearly. We are all moving from the former to the latter. In life after life we take gradual steps toward our ultimate destiny as fully realized sons and daughters of the One. In between we progress from essentially instinct-driven physical beings to people with lives largely oriented around satisfying their emotion-centered desires. The next step is from a desire-centered life to one actually centered in the mind. The vast majority of humanity has completed the first and we are now collectively engaged in the second.

As a species we are learning the think. Of course most of us already can think but we don't actually use this capacity to direct our lives. We live from our desires and use our minds to help satisfy those desires. I may want a big house and a powerful car, so I use my mind to earn the money to satisfy my desires. Quite a different state of consciousness is reached when one truly lives in and from the mind. Then personal desires are no longer the central determining factor in one's life and one truly thinks about what would be best for all concerned before acting. This is the great difference between thought and emotion. Emotion is always self-centered whereas thought is aware of others and takes a detached, more or less objective perspective. When we actually think, our needs are no more or less important than anyone else's. In this, thought is the first great step toward Love, which is the quality of the soul. The soul knows no separation from all others. It is entirely group-conscious. It functions only for the good of the whole. This love, universal, impersonal love, is the quality most often associated with the soul and those great ones who have come to live permanently in that place. It is the goal of all evolution for humanity.

The teachings that we have been given from the masters come in various forms. Already I have mentioned the Alice Bailey books. They are incredibly wise and loving in the presentation of a very complex esoteric picture of life. Benjamin Creme's many books present essentially this same teaching with an emphasis on the Emergence of the World Teacher. Another set of books that present fundamental teachings quite differently are the works of Helena Roerich. These books, referred to as the "Agni Yoga Teachings," were given by different masters from the one who worked with Alice Bailey. They are not so explanatory but, rather, potent expressions of a master's consciousness. None of these books would be classified as "easy reading," and for that reason study groups are an ideal way to approach them. Working together a group can discern the actual meanings of various passages and discuss their application to daily life.

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