Since the dawn of time, humanity has sought to know itself and master the considerable challenges of life. These two themes, self-understanding and mastery of all the perils of daily existence, have run through every chapter in the long history of our race.

Today we are in a new chapter of this story and both themes are poised for new turns. On the side of self-knowledge, we are now truly a global community with access to one another throughout the entire world. We can now see, hear and talk to our brothers and sisters everywhere on earth. This unprecedented change brings with it tremendous opportunities to meet the basic challenges of life. We can now see that all humanity struggles for the same things: life, security and relationship to one another. We can also see that all have approached these basic needs through varying structures of finance, government and religion.

All this tells us two important things about ourselves: we aspire to common ends and we get there through different routes. These basic facts provide the foundation for the new time that is directly before us. It will surely be a time in which we learn to respect different approaches to common ends. It will also be a time when we think very clearly about those ends. What do we really want and how can that best be achieved?

Today two fundamentally different answers to this question are being advanced. One group suggests that material wealth is the most desirable goal and that it is best realized through global capitalism. This group controls most of the raw materials and assets of the planet and would like to control them all. They believe that only when they have such “access” to all natural resources and every potential consumer will we actually reach the desired state of well-being.

A very different goal is advocated by a less well organized group of men and women from every corner of the earth. This group seeks sharing, justice and right human relations as their goal. They know that this can be achieved only when all people acknowledge the common needs and diverse methodologies of humanity. They know that no one system serves all people equally well and they advocate allowing local differences to flourish in a world with so many different kinds of people – all with different backgrounds and destinies.

This second group longs for the opportunity to be recognized on equal footing with the first, but they lack the wherewithal to achieve that goal. They know they need coordination, resources and access to the hearts and minds of humanity in order to make their case before the capitalists have dominated everything.

Into this fray now comes a group of individuals who know the heart of humanity and who offer their wise counsel to all who seek it. They are our elder brothers, people just like us who have gone far ahead on the spiritual path into realization of the divine nature that lives in all. They bring their gifts to a world desperately in need of reconciliation, peace and justice.

This group has been known to the western world since 1877, when H.P. Blavatsky first published her ground-breaking treatise, Isis Unveiled. In that she revealed the existence of a brotherhood of service that had existed for all time, quietly serving humanity as best they could from mountain and dessert retreats throughout the world.
These great ones have always sought to reach and aid humanity however possible, but their efforts were severely limited by our need to find our own way through the challenges of life. Like an adolescent species, humanity needed to flex its own muscles, make its own mistakes and learn its own lessons. Today, however, we are more mature, more aware of the dangers before us and more able to receive the guidance of those who know our struggle.

We have an unparalleled opportunity in the coming years to build a new civilization: one in which all have enough to meet their true needs and all know their fellow human beings as brothers and sisters within a single family. This time, this opportunity, this chance to re-form our basic approach to life comes exactly when we need it most and are best able to take advantage of it. We will respond positively to it because we are a species that has always met every challenge with our best effort. Today, now, this year and this time call to the very best within us. May we all find that God-given power and love that will enable us to build a world fitting our divine origin and destiny.

Dr. George Catlin, author of The Way to Happiness, will be speaking in Michigan in May. For more information call (888) 242-8272 or visit www.theTeachings.org.