To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

viii / TO LIGHT A THOUSAND LAMPS
place, where thousands of men and women of varying interests
and backgrounds, knowingly or unknowingly, are on
the same wavelength: they are fired with the urgency to do
all in their power to help turn humanity from senseless selfdestruction
to thoughtful self-regeneration. They labor for
the safeguarding of human dignity and self-worth, for the
protection of our planet, and for the building of a new type
of civilization founded on the brotherhood of all life and the
joyous collaboration of peoples and races for the benefit of
the whole of humanity.
At the same time, this is a period of great uncertainty,
when all that human beings most value is being weighed in
the balance. Will we individually and collectively have the
insight and courage to make the transformation from egocentricity
to a perspective of planetary and solar dimension?
In fact, this is already happening in the quiet, like the seed
germinating under the snows of winter. So, rather than
concentrate on the ugly and poisonous in human relationships,
let us celebrate the joy of life. From the wonder of
birth to the still beauty of death — both phases of life —
all is transformation, change, flux, ebb, and reflux. The
outbreathing of divinity brings worlds, humans, atoms, and
suns out of the Unknown into visibility, enabling each to
express a little more of its potential. The cycle completed,
the inbreathing, inrolling, or withdrawal of the life energy
follows, the shedding of forms releasing consciousness once
again into realms vastly ethereal.
There is never a poison but nature has an antidote. Just
as scientific ingenuity has provided us with the means of
race suicide, so current e¤orts to synthesize Western scien-