Throughout the ages, many have questioned where we have come from, who we are, and what is our destiny. The mystery of human existence has been the focus of philosophers down the ages, yet none have come close to the simple truths of the Buddha and the Christ in offering glimpses of the human condition.
Perhaps, like Hamlet, we may concur: “What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!”
To find a way through the labyrinth of human life, and elicit a meaning, is to say the least daunting. But through the teachings of the Buddha and the Christ, and the spiritual sciences, a sliver of light is offered to the seeker of truth.
Our past is lost in the mists of time, obscured by myth and legend. Only in the last few million years, so the esoteric sciences inform us, has animal-man (little more than ‘domesticated’ animals in consciousness) become more strictly human. The spark of mind, embryonic in infant humanity, is the catalyst which leads us from a primeval state to eventually return to the origin of our system – the Monad or Spirit.
Evolution proceeds slowly and incrementally. As the millennia slipped by, clusters of people, here and there, became tribes, and tribes larger communities. Out of these movements and amalgamations, kingdoms arose, and eventually nations were born. This marked a significant turning point in the history of the world and of human evolution. Nation states, living organisms of people drawn together by karma, defined culture and language, and embodied a national identity. When the national psyche takes form, then the soul of a nation can begin to exert its influence.
In the last few thousand years, but especially in the last 500 years or so, remarkable strides in human development have been possible. The writings of Shakespeare, the music of Beethoven, the art of Leonardo da Vinci, the sculpture of Michelangelo, the scientific theories of Einstein, and the philosophy of Plato, to name but a few of the outstanding examples of human genius. Over the centuries, the world has stood in awe, at these treasures of supreme creativity. All of them have achieved a pinnacle of achievement that has yet to be surpassed. In each case, the efflorescence of the soul shone through in different hues and colours, displaying the wonderful array of spiritual creativity deep within the heart of each of us.
What we might fail to recognise or overlook, is that every human being will eventually transcend the world of the personality, and stand in the Presence of the Soul. Then the true genius and creativity of our own spiritual nature will make its presence felt in the outer world. Did not the Christ say: “greater things shall ye do, because I go unto the Father”. Does this not reinforce the idea of the hidden potential in each of us. Yet, here and there, down the ages, seekers of truth have surmounted the human experience and passed into the Kingdom of God. The whole gamut of the human condition lies bounded between the stages of individualisation and initiation, between primitive man and those initiated into the Mysteries of Life. A vast series of lives spans one from the other.
Humanity, Alice Bailey wrote, is “the treasure-house of God… for only in the human kingdom … are the three divine qualities found in full flower and together.” Life, consciousness, and form is the structure, the essence of every human being. For most of us, as yet, consciousness and form constitute our limited field of awareness. What lies beyond consciousness is a mystery save to those exalted Intelligences who have or are in the process of surmounting the human condition. Many lifetimes are spent refining consciousness. First of all in developing the personality, and experiencing the physical and emotional states, an existence held together by the rudiments of mind. But there comes a time when the personality rapidly becomes an integrated whole. Mind, emotions, and the physical form act in relative harmony and alignment. At this stage of development, there is a clearer and conscious direction of travel, not altruistic but not completely selfish either. Beyond, lies home, the formless worlds of spiritual consciousness. A destination each of us will eventually discover and reach.
The human condition is the indispensable and definitive link between the spiritual and the material. Through human involvement and cooperation with the Plan of Hierarchy, the hierarchies of lives below the human kingdom, can awake to greater realisations, to arouse from their slumber and eventually fulfil their planetary destiny as it exists in the Mind of God. Then, will it be possible, for “the weight of the Will of God to progress unimpeded from point to point, from sphere to sphere and from glory to glory” (adapted), Alice Bailey wrote.
“To man”, it is said, “is given the privilege of revealing the nature of the divine consciousness and of portraying… what has lain hidden in the Mind of God.” But, until then, “the whole of creation, groaneth and travaileth in pain, waiting for the manifestation of the Sons of God”.