self-created from your
aspirations now. And just in proportion as each of you nourishes those
aspirations, and cherishes those ideals, and tries, however feebly, to
work them out amid the limitations of your past which cramps your
present life, just so far will you, in the interval between death and
birth, make the nobler faculties which shall qualify you to be born in
the sixth sub-race upon earth. That should be your keynote in your
lives now, that the inspiring motive, the controlling power. And if
you want to assure yourselves that that sub-race is on the threshold,
as I said, then look at the world around you, and measure the change
which is coming over it. I said we were weak in numbers, that we are
only average and mediocre people; but what about the spread of our
ideas? What about the way in which, during the last thirty years,
these Theosophical ideas have spread through this Fifth Race
civilisation, have permeated its literature, are beginning to guide
its science, are beginning to inspire its art? That is the proof of
the strength of the force, despite the feebleness of the vehicles in
which that force is playing. Very clearly not to you nor to me is the
spread of these ideas due, but to the Mighty Ones behind the Society,
who give the forces in which we are lacking. For the whole Movement is
Theirs; They are working outside as well as within. And Their outside
working shows itself in the innumerable movements which are all
tending in the same direction. It is not we who have spread the ideas.
The ideas are scattered in the mental atmosphere around us, and our
only merit is that we caught them up a little more quickly than other
people, and realise that they are a part of the Eternal Wisdom. That
is our only claim, our only prerogative--consciously, deliberately we
choose these ideas, and however weakly we carry them out, none the
less the choice has been made and registered in the books of Destiny.
For whether you will or not, you must grow in the direction of your
thought; and you cannot be part of this Movement without your thought
being more or less colored by the Theosophical ideal.

People often say: "Why should I come into the Theosophical Society?
You give us your books. You spread your knowledge broadcast
everywhere. I can buy it in the book-shops. I can hear it in the
lectures. Why should I come in?" And I always say: "There is no reason
why you should come in, if you do not wish to come. Take every