April 2017 – The Evil in Our Time
PB writes in The Spiritual Crisis of Man, Chapter VIII, The Evil in our Time, “There is an Idea implicit in the very orderliness of the cosmos. Science has begun to get some dim glimpses of little fragments of this plan. The last value of science is its revelation of the presence of law in the cosmos. For law presupposes mind and infers intelligence. Even so far as man’s present knowledge of the laws of nature extends, some kind of unifying mind is evidenced behind them. That it is not indifferent to his development is also evidenced. Nothing and no one has ever been, could ever be, outside the Infinite Being’s infinite field of awareness. Moreover, no event could ever happen except within its infinite field of law. If every man knew how much perfect wisdom, infinite intelligence, and orderliness have gone into the cosmos, all would fall on their knees every day in deepest reverence before the Power behind it. Let us derive from every intuited fact the firm assurance that a divine law holds all the processes of the universe in its power, and a divine mind exists behind all the innumerable human minds and is their source and goal.” (p. 167)
“We learn from philosophy that the life of the whole universe, no less than the life of every man, is ruled by order and not by accident, by law and not by chance, by intelligence and not by senselessness. There is an intelligent direction behind every phenomenon of life and Nature in this cosmos. There is no event, no creature, nothing in the whole universe which is without significance. This is so and must be so because the whole universe is the thought of infinite Mind.” (p. 168) He points out that the philosophic student needs to develop Perseverance and Patience rather than looking for quick results because “in no other way can the divine Idea guarantee the genuineness of the ego’s evolution.” (p.169.) He speaks of the ego as “having the right and freedom to make its own mistakes and involve itself in consequential suffering, because it must become thoroughly integrated with its parent-self by a process as natural as the seed becomes a tree.” (Ibid.) The text emphasizes that the heroic attitude is indeed the price he has to pay for truth, that truth which brings peace in its train. (Ibid.) Printed in italics is the following: He knows that holy forces will interpose themselves more and more into their history, despite all temporary lapses or partial retrogressions.” (p. 170)
The careful reader of these pages will find a prophesy on page 173: “Even within the next two or three millenniums civilization will shed so many of its evil characteristics, including wars, and acquire so many finer ones, that it will be blessed by a veritable new and joyous epoch in comparison with its present state. Just as the dinosaurs and other reptilian monsters died out when the planetary conditions had nothing further to express in that way, so the tiger and the vulture will die out at the same time outside man as Nature and inside him as passion and greed. Just as every night is followed by a dawn, so the dark period of materialism which now is culminating with its worse features will be followed, first by a short transition, then by a dawn period when the bright rays of a better age for man will manifest themselves.” (p. 174)