To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

Psychism / 127
with enormous possibilities both for progress and retrogression.
What the generations to come will face we cannot
foretell. Their dilemma and opportunity may well focus,
even as ours does today, on how to prepare inwardly to
achieve the required moral purity and strength of character
to meet the continuing ingress into the thought atmosphere
of our planet of astral and psychic influences — from
within themselves, from others, and from the earth’s astral
light.
We ask again, why are so many interested in acquiring
extrasensory powers? Of what benefit will this be to anyone?
Suppose we do learn to mind-read, to travel in our
astral body, see clairvoyantly, foretell the future, would anything
of spiritual worth be gained? More to the point, and
perhaps the only question: What is our real motivation in
life? If we can answer this honestly, to the satisfaction of
both intellect and intuition, we may find that we need to
center our concern in our spirit-soul, where I and Thou are
one — not in the psychic and physical, the least permanent
parts of our constitution.
The building of character is an ongoing challenge: the
transmutation of selfishness into altruism, of personal interest
into the warmth of compassion — a slow, patient
alchemy.