Humanity has faced many battles in the long course of its evolution. Physical warfare, from one perspective, has shaped the modern world. By force of arms, nation states, and the panoply of empires, have come and gone. Mighty civilisations have spanned continents, seas, and mountain ranges, and spawned cultures, rich in art, literature, science and philosophy. Civilisation has been the cradle, the matrix out of which human creativity has flourished.
But physical warfare, by and large, is giving way to a battle of distinctly different mindsets and of contrasting philosophies and values. The new theater of war is shifting to the subtler levels, to the realm of consciousness. “Ideas”, wrote Alice Bailey, an eminent spiritual philosopher of the last century, “are simply channels for new and desired divine energies.” And, although few as yet respond fully to these impulses, their numbers are growing. This marks an important turning point in human evolution. Not surprisingly, the boundaries between right and wrong, and between forward and backward looking worldviews are growing ever clearer. Ideas play out on the world stage and sway nations and continents. They come and go as the centuries pass, sweeping all onward for better or for worse. Philosophical, political and scientific theories, to name but a few, dominate human thinking and form the temporary structures, the shifting foundations and institutions of the world order.
The material and the spiritual, stand face to face, constantly pulling in one direction or another. The play of duality is relentless. It is the unalterable and inevitable consequence of life in form. At a human level, it plays out on the world stage in political thinking and debate, in economic reforms and in social policies that more adequately reflect the dignity and nobility of human life. Matter, the material, is ever fashioned to reflect the growing inner spiritual life. Duality is the engine of evolution that propels all onward to greater refinement and perfection.
Alice Bailey once commented that ‘the soul of humanity is awakening’. A hundred or so years later, we can only assume that the advances made in human welfare have contributed to a growing spiritual life of the human family. Though there have been and will continue to be setbacks, the direction of travel is nonetheless encouraging.
The battle for the soul of humanity is palpable, ever present, and not surprisingly, causing much disruption and distress. But of this chaos something better can emerge that meets the needs and aspirations of people everywhere. It is always darkest before the dawn and perhaps we are nearer to a new age of enlightenment than at any period in human history.
