Goodwill is not just a nice, pleasant sentiment. It’s a definite energy that can and must be used to build relationships, and that’s probably the biggest impetus behind the Plan.
Robert: Welcome to Inner Sight. Inner sight is simply seeing that which is always present but not yet fully recognized. You have within you the ability to see yourself and the world around you in a new way with new eyes, so stay with us and together we’ll look at the world and ourselves with inner sight. Our topic for today is serving with goodwill. We’ll begin with an idea that is an underlying theme of a lot of Alice Bailey’s work. She wrote twenty-four volumes of literature—spiritual philosophy, I guess, would be the best way to characterize her literature—and this idea is from her literature as is all of the dialogue on this show: “Goodwill is the expression of the will-to-good in daily service.” I’ve read enough of Alice Bailey’s material to explore that idea, and I like to think goodwill is more or less that no creature should experience emotional or physical pain and that every living creature only experiences the joy of existence. But goodwill takes many forms. What is the difference between goodwill and the will-to-good?
Sarah: It’s a subtle difference, and it’s not easy to explain, but I’ll take a shot at it. In the writings of Alice Bailey, goodwill, you could say, is the lower rung or the lower tier of the will-to-good. The will-to-good is a term which names a kind of divine quality, a quality of divinity. Its name, I think, implies that the basic motivating intention of divinity, of God, is utterly good and the-will-to-good is the dynamic positive driving energy of pure divinity, which leads toward the good. I once had a kind of a realization of that many years ago, in a way that stayed in my mind. It was at a time when there were problems of some sort that I was pondering on, and the lack of goodwill seemed so evident and overwhelming. I remember having an impression of this energy that was like a wall, a protective wall between our planet and humanity and evil, that’s an overwhelmingly dynamic, protective, powerful, positive energy: the will-to-good. Its reflection in man is goodwill. The writings of Alice Bailey said that, in a sense, the will-to-good represents the stable, immovable aspect of reality, but goodwill is its expression in our daily life and service. She also said that the achievement of goodwill by human beings is expressed in right human relations among peoples, among groups, between nations, and that this achievement of right human relations signifies humanity’s responsiveness to the divine energy of the will-to-good. That goal is what lies behind the Great Invocation, which is said at the end of this program. When we say, “from the centre where the Will of God is known, let purpose guide all little human wills” we’re invoking the will-to-good of God to guide and transform and motivate the human wills of men and women to express as goodwill. What else could we say about this? The expression of the Will of God has to work out through humanity in our daily lives and relationships and activities. This is why goodwill is not just a nice idea, but a fundamental qualifying energy.
Dale: Right. The will-to-good and goodwill are related: they are opposite ends of the same pole and the lower expression. It’s said that goodwill is just about all that humanity can express at the present time, given its present state of consciousness—that goodwill is about as far as we can go, but we have to realize that it is a lower expression of a much higher impulse. If you think back, goodwill has been an idea that’s been in human consciousness, planted here, for two thousand years. It was proclaimed by the Angels when Christ was born: “peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” So, we’ve had two thousand years for this whole idea to gestate in human consciousness, and now it’s just beginning in this century and in the past century, to percolate down and to become an active principle in human affairs and human relationships. We’re finally getting it right, where we are beginning to work it out and use this energy in a constructive way.
Sarah: You see it more and more in the many international conferences, for example, the one that just concluded in South Africa on sustainable development. You see it in the work of international agencies like the United Nations and in charities and nonprofit groups that do such good work. You see it in philanthropy. You see it in conflict resolution. People are engaged in mediating activity in the field of labour and management. You see it in all kinds of human activities today. The motivation is goodwill, even if they don’t call it that. It’s the sense that objectives have to be accomplished, but with a modicum of decency and fairness and not by just riding roughshod over somebody and overcoming their little will.
Dale: One of the expressions in the Bailey writings is: “goodwill is love in action,” and in fact that is the motto for World Goodwill, one of our activities. Goodwill is love in action but certainly at the level of international relationships you couldn’t come out and say that love is being expressed here. In the relationship among nations, goodwill is really the expression that is being expressed.
Robert: I suppose goodwill has something to do also with genuinely celebrating another person’s good fortune and is probably an evolution concerned with goodwill. Also, that we feel goodwill towards our enemies, that’s probably another step in evolution. But can you tell us something about serving with goodwill? Is that a high level of goodwill as well?
Sarah: It’s the only motivation for service that really counts. It has to be done out of goodwill and not out of a sense of duty or taking responsibility for another. It has to come out of a basic intention to create a line of lighted relationship between oneself and another. That’s the basis of service. There’s an interesting passage from Alice Bailey that I think defines what serving with goodwill is. She said that, first of all, we have to realize that the errors and mistakes of past centuries that have led up to all the human conflict that we’ve seen in the last hundred years represent the errors and mistakes of humanity as a whole. That none of us have been free of this, that we’ve all had a part in creating the conflicts and the warfare and the ill will. A second recognition has to do with the fact that there are no problems and conditions in the world that can’t be solved by the will-to-good on the part of everyone involved. She said that goodwill nourishes the spirit of understanding and it fosters or makes possible the principle of cooperation. I found that true in a discussion I once listened to about conflict between two parties where there was a disagreement on how to achieve understanding. The one party believed that first you had to have an understanding of the other party’s point of view; then there could be harmony and goodwill. The conflict resolution experts said no, first there has to be goodwill, then understanding inevitably comes, and that strikes me as right. You have to begin with a spirit of goodwill, not wait for it to be earned or achieved if everybody behaves themselves. You have to begin with the spirit of goodwill and then understanding will inevitably come as a result. Then Alice Bailey concluded with the idea that there’s a relationship between all people, a fundamental oneness that I think is sensed more and more today, and that when that is recognized, it dissolves and overcomes all barriers and cleavages and hatred. It means that the peace and well-being of everyone is the responsibility of us all. She said this lays the foundation for taking responsibility and building a foundation of right action. Well, these principles that I’ve just described are the fundamentals of goodwill, and I think they create a kind of a platform for serving with goodwill.
Dale: Right, serving with goodwill doesn’t mean that you have to go out and do big acts of service and get involved in all kinds of very difficult ways of serving. You can serve just by being what you are, being the soul and allowing that soul nature to come through you. In fact, that’s where it should start. It starts right with you in the home with your family and your friends and your coworkers. You start serving by expressing goodwill in everything you think and do and say. This is where you see these principles begin to work out because as you express goodwill with your family, they in turn are influenced by your goodwill, and it comes back to you and it builds an atmosphere of goodwill in the family. So, you see this energy, this principle of goodwill working out, and it’s a real, tangible thing almost.
Sarah: I think it’s something that you can experiment with. Think of a particular relationship or a particular circumstance where you have a sense of inharmony and of a kind of a chafing within you, and imagine approaching that circumstance or relationship with goodwill, meaning with the intention, the motivation to achieve an end that will be satisfactory to all parties, which will leave everyone coming away feeling that their expectations have been met. If you begin, if you enter into that situation or circumstance with that motivation in mind, you might find that that really sets the stage for a new approach that might not have revealed itself otherwise; it might open up the door to a new way. Try it!
Robert: What is the theme of the current World Goodwill Newsletter?
Sarah: The theme of this newsletter is gifts of youth, gifts of age, and it opens with a lead article on the two spectrums of human development, youth and old age, and their particular concerns and needs. Because they generally are not the people who are involved in the decision making and the economic aspect that so drives Western society, their needs sometimes are overlooked or marginalized so it’s an extensive exploration of their needs. There’s also an article in the newsletter on corruption which is very interesting, addressing some of the spiritual implications of the recent corruption scandals that have been in the news so much, in the field of accounting, in the church, and so on. Not just in this nation, but worldwide, and it mentions two or three groups that are involved in working for more transparency in human affairs to make it not so possible for corruption to become so endemic in the future. The World Goodwill newsletter always tries to provide a positive approach to whatever problems or issues are being focused on because it tries to highlight the work of groups that are in fact, doing an enormous amount of good and constructive work, and so those groups are mentioned in this newsletter.
Dale: There’s also an interesting little article in this newsletter about the plight of children, particularly children in Third World nations. So many children have to work, as it says in this newsletter. There are two hundred and fifty million children between the ages of five and fourteen that are working worldwide, and the plight of many of these children is tragic because they’re exploited and they’re abused, so there is a short article in here that goes into that. I like one of the features that is in the newsletter, which is definitions of goodwill, and in this newsletter it says, “Goodwill is a bridge of understanding between generations.” So, there are a lot of little interesting features in this newsletter.
Sarah: There’s a counterpart to World Goodwill which also works with the energy of goodwill, but on a more subjective level, and that is Triangles. World goodwill and Triangles are what we call the two service activities, meaning they’re methods or opportunities for service to anyone who is interested. World Goodwill tends to focus on an outer level, with a concern for human affairs and activities, whereas Triangles is work on more of an energy level, we could say. It’s a meditation service done by groups of three people, that’s why it’s called Triangles. They constitute three points of a relationship, and in meditation they invoke light and goodwill to radiate into human consciousness through the network of triangles that is created by all of the people who cooperate in this activity. I think people are familiar with the idea of a network today, and certainly the Internet has given us an image of a network of communication. Well, on a more subjective level, there’s the network of all people of goodwill who cooperate together in meditation to bring light and goodwill into human consciousness. This is an activity that you could say substands or shores up the work of the people of goodwill through the belief that energy follows thought and that prayer and meditation have a power, a vital power. That’s the purpose behind Triangles.
Robert: The concept of Triangles is interesting. Is Triangles open to anyone or do you have to be specially trained for Triangles?
Sarah: No, it’s really quite simple and it is open to anyone who is interested. Alice Bailey said an interesting thing about this network of Triangles. She said that the network which Triangles are creating enables light or illumination to radiate into the daily work and attitude of the Triangle members so that light and love and goodwill can indeed descend on Earth. In other words, be anchored on Earth, in human relationships, and this energy of light and goodwill is essentially a divine quality that we human beings can cooperate in bringing into human affairs—bringing it into the world. This is, I think, an aspect of the new age understanding of God and man’s relationship to God: that we are needed and not just passive recipients of his beneficence, but we are needed in the fulfillment of his plan for our world. That’s why goodwill is so important. That’s setting the stage for more correct relationships among all peoples and between the human kingdom and the rest of the planet.
Dale: Yes, I think that’s what we have to get across if we can, that goodwill is not just a nice, pleasant sentiment. It’s a definite energy that can be used and must be used to build relationships, and that’s probably the biggest impetus behind the Plan that is working out through humanity right now, is building right relationships, because everything else depends on that. If you don’t have right relationships, then you’ve got a world divided, and we know what can happen as long as the world remains divided. I’m reminded of the other quote, that “goodwill is the touchstone that will transform the world,” and that’s literally true.
Sarah: We’ve talked before about the tremendous stimulation that our world seems to be undergoing at the present time. That has two sides to it. The one is destructive in the sense that it’s having a stimulation on people and groups and nations that are prone to misusing power. It’s bringing out a kind of aggression in certain people who are prone to that. On the other side, this stimulation that’s underway is stimulating people who are responsive to the idea of goodwill and spiritual values. So, to use a cliche, it’s a time to stand up and be counted to determine which side you belong to: those who misuse power or those who stand for goodwill.
Robert: That’s about all the time we have for our discussion today. You’ve been listening to Inner Sight. Now we would like to close with a world prayer called the Great Invocation. It’s a call for light and love and goodwill to flow into the world and into our hearts. Let’s listen for a moment to these powerful words.
Sarah: Closes the program by reciting the adapted version of the Great Invocation.
(This is an edited transcript of a recorded radio program called “Inner Sight.” This conversation was recorded between the host, Robert Anderson, and the then President and Vice-President of Lucis Trust, Sarah and Dale McKechnie.)
(Transcribed and edited by Carla McLeod)
(#118)