A Challenge

I challenge the thinkers of the world to drop their sectarianism, their nationalism, and their partisanships, and in the spirit of brotherhood to work in their particular nation, regarding it as an integral part of a great federation of nations,—a federation that now exists on the inner side but waits for the activity of the world thinkers to bring it to materialisation on the outer side. I charge them to work in the cause of religion and in the field of that particular religion in which they, by an accident of birth or by choice, are interested, regarding each religion as part of the great world religion. They must look upon the activities of their group, society or organisation as demanding their help, just in so far, and only so far, as the principles upon which they are founded and the techniques which they employ serve the general good and develop the realisation of Brotherhood.

I ask you to drop your antagonisms and your antipathies, your hatreds and your racial differences, and attempt to think in terms of the one family, the one life, and the one humanity. I ask for no sentimental or devotional response to this challenge. I would remind you that hatred and separateness have brought humanity to the present sad condition. I would add to that reminder, however, the fact that there is in the world today a large enough number of liberated men to produce a change in the attitudes of mankind and in public opinion, if they measure up by an act of the will to what they know and believe.

I challenge you also to make sacrifices; to give yourself and your time and your money and your interest to carry these ideas to those around you in your own environment and to the group in which you find yourself, thus awakening your associates. I call you to a united effort to inculcate anew the ideas of brotherhood and of unity. I ask you to recognise your fellow workers in all the groups and to strengthen their hands. I ask you to seal your lips to words of hatred and of criticism, and to talk in terms of brotherhood and of group relationships. I beg of you to see to it that every day is for you a new day, in which you face new opportunity. Lose sight of your own affairs, your petty sorrows, worries and suspicions, in the urgency of the task to be done, and spread the cult of unity, of love and of harmlessness.

I ask you also to sever your connection with all groups which are seeking to destroy and to attack, no matter how sincere their motive. Range yourself on the side of the workers for constructive ends, who are fighting no other groups or organisations and who have eliminated the word “anti” out of their vocabulary. Stand on the side of those who are silently and steadily building for the new order—an order which is founded on love, which builds under the impulse of brotherhood, and which possesses a realisation of a brotherhood which is based on the knowledge that we are each and all, no matter what our race, the children of the One Father, and who have come to the realisation that the old ways of working must go and the newer methods must be given a chance.

If you cannot yourself teach or preach or write, give of your thought and of your money so that others can. Give of your hours and minutes of leisure so as to set others free to serve the Plan; give of your money so that the work of those associated with the New Group of World Servers may go forward with rapidity. Much time you waste on non-essentials. Many of you give little or nothing of time. The same is the case with money. Give as never before, and so make the physical aspects of the work possible. Some give of their very need, and the power they thereby release is great. Those on the inner side are grateful for the giving by those who can give only at great personal cost. Others give of what they can spare and only when it needs no sacrifice to give. Let that condition also end, and give to the limit, with justice and understanding, so that the age of love and light may be more rapidly ushered in. I care not where or to whom you give, only that you give,—little if you have but little of time or money, much if you have much. Work and give, love and think, and aid those groups who are building and not destroying, loving and not attacking, lifting and not tearing down. Be not taken in by the specious argument that destruction is needed. It has been needed, no doubt; but the cycle of destruction is practically over, could you but realise it, and the builders must now get busy.

I challenge you above all to a deeper life, and I implore you for the sake of your fellow men to strengthen your contact with your own soul so that you will have done your share in making revelation possible; so that you will have served your part in bringing in the light, and will therefore be in a position to take advantage of that new light and new information, and so be better able to point the way and clear the path for the bewildered seeker at that time. Those who are not ready for the coming events will be blinded by the emerging light and bewildered by the revealing wonder; they will be swept by the living breath of God, and it is to you that we look to fit them for the event.

(From Esoteric Psychology, Vol. I, p. 187-189) by Alice A. Bailey