Ancient ideals in modern life : four lectures delivered at the twenty-fifth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical society, at Benares, December, 1900 / by Annie Besant.

  • Besant, Annie, 1847-1933.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ancient ideals in modern life : four lectures delivered at the twenty-fifth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical society, at Benares, December, 1900 / by Annie Besant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    thought, her teaching, her ancient literature, trans¬ lated into the English tongue—which is the most widely-spread tongue on the earth, and is fast becoming the world-language, which is spreading in every direction, which is talked by the foremost nations of the world. Thus, while politically she is subject, her thought is beginning to dominate the whole of that Western civilisation. That is the first point which marks the place that India will have in this great evolution. In the older days she was the spiritual teacher of the world, and now nations are being prepared to recognise her again in that loftiest and most sacred of characters. Her great teachings are becoming assimilated all over the world through this vehicle of a world-language which is being made part of our own national life. As her teachings are more and more widely accepted, what will be the one supreme teaching which will come as the key-note of the next civilisation ? The great teaching of India, the most precious, the most vital, and the most far-reaching, is the unity of the Self, the one Self in which all things are, and which lives and moves in all. That is India’s central and most important teaching. There is one Self, one Existence. In that Life all other lives inhere. In that consciousness all other