In the aftermath of the ravages of the Second World War, a new international order was established to bring order out of chaos, and freedom out of tyranny. At that time the civilised world looked on in horror at the cruelty perpetrated by the axis nations and vowed never again to allow such wanton acts of universal carnage sully the human race. In the words of Antony Blinken, former US Secretary of State, the international rules based order is a “system of laws, agreements, principles and institutions … to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict, [and] to uphold the rights of all people”. And, whilst not perfect, it has, in the last eighty years, brought relative peace, economic stability, and international cooperation on many levels. But, in the last few weeks, what has happened in the world, in the blink of an eye, can only be described as ‘earth-shattering’. The world order is changing not incrementally, but it seems at break-neck speed. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to suggest that we’re moving into uncharted waters.
It is worrying not least because there is nothing credible to take its place. As one commentator put it, we are moving away from Helsinki-style agreements, where consensus among the family of nations was the norm, but rather to a Yalta-style approach, where two or three big players on the world stage carve up their booty for their own selfish ends. But, not only in geo-politics, but also in global economics, the shifting sands of regional and global alliances, and the movement towards isolationism and tariffs lend themselves inevitably to instability.
Many people of goodwill will consider the recent announcement by the new Administration in Washington to the Russia-Ukraine war, and the unpleasant spectacle of the US President and Vice-President publicly berating the Ukrainian Head of State in the White House, as an act of betrayal, and appeasement to a regime that wilfully flouts international law, suppresses freedom of speech and the press, ruthlessly imprisons and kills political opponents, and cynically interferes in democratic processes.
Interestingly, Russia, Alice Bailey wrote, acts as a symbol of the world Arjuna, of the struggle between the material and the spiritual, between darkness and light. It has faced great suffering and hardship on its journey in consciousness. Its destiny, like other nations, is embodied in its spiritual motto: “I link two ways”, the East and the West. Out of this troubled nation will emerge, she wrote: “a true and living religion and culture”. In time, the Light which ever shines from the East will irradiate the West, and Russia will fulfil its rightful place in the spiritual family of nations.
To say we live in peculiar times is an understatement. We’ve seen over the last few decades how the fragility of complex systems, societal and economic, can become overloaded with simmering crises, which at some point spiral out of control. The recent developments in the world will do nothing but further erode global stability. George Monbiot, a respected UK Guardian Newspaper journalist, recently wrote: “Though we might find it hard to imagine, we cannot now rule it out: the possibility of systemic collapse in the United States. The degradation of federal government by Donald Trump and Elon Musk could trigger a series of converging and compounding crises, leading to social, financial and industrial failure.” What the future holds is impossible to predict at this stage but one thing is certain it will be different to the flawed yet regulated and ordered system that has been the bedrock of intergovernmental, legal and diplomatic activity for nearly a century.
Great conditioning energies emanating from the subtler realms shape the myriad of lives on our planet. Like individuals, nations too, are influenced by two energies, or rays, the soul and the personality. These rays beat upon human and national psyches to unfold inherent characteristics and develop spiritual patterns. The US is no exception. Its sixth ray personality of Idealism has a tendency to court a material philosophy, the accumulation of wealth, and the extravagances of physical luxury, at the expense of a higher idealism of spiritual values. Isolationism and selfish self-interest, Alice Bailey observed, will hold it back from “assuming responsibilities and her rightful place in world affairs”. At the moment, a rampant personality is running roughshod over finer values, of a broader humanitarian perspective, at home and abroad. When its second ray soul of love-wisdom illumines its path then it will unleash its considerable resources of wealth, expertise and above all goodwill in its quest to stand with other nations in building a better world.
The US, the spiritual sciences observe, is a “fusing centre wherein all nationalities are represented and are being slowly blended into a miniature One Humanity”. The melting pot of the US, is a “great experiment in right relationships”. Attempts towards isolationism and veiled racial and religious undertones run counter to its unique spiritual destiny to blend and fuse the many strands of races, religions, and nationalities, and stand as “one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”.
In its history, America has made many great sacrifices in the pursuit of freedom. We can only hope that sooner rather than later the day will come when the US will stand shoulder to shoulder with its friends, neighbours, allies, and all nations in a spirit of goodwill, work to forge a just and lasting peace in the world, uphold the solemn mantle of liberty and freedom, become the standard bearer of the leader of the free world, and so ‘Light the Way’, for the present and future generations. This is its responsibility and privilege, and embodied in the lives of its great Presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A new dawn will arise when the US will firmly echo in word and deed the sentiment of Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address from the East Portico of the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. in March 1865, shortly after the guns fell silent at the end of the US Civil War: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Will personality selfishness or soul purpose govern this great country?
Eventually, out of the chaos and instability, a safer passage will be steered, out of uncharted waters, to clearer and calmer climes.