VI. The Birth of Conscience

Now this development took place in quite a different way in different parts of the earth. If we were to allow ourselves to believe, in an easy sort of way, that the development of mankind proceeds in the most simple way possible, we should never arrive at an understanding of that development. One must indeed learn much before one can even to some slight extent grasp the great thoughts of the guiding Cosmic Beings! When man asserts that the truth is simple, that is great arrogance on his part; it shows that he wants to twist the truth to suit his own convenience. It is simply a love of ease which leads him to assert that the truth must be simple. The truth is indeed very complicated, and the spirit of the guiding cosmic beings can only be grasped by us when we make the most intense efforts to plunge into their thoughts, into their most subtle and intimate thoughts. So we ought not to believe that we have exhausted everything, when we say that: our souls have gradually evolved through Egyptian-Chaldean, the Graeco-Roman, and our own epoch. Let us now for a moment transport ourselves to that time when there was as yet no Graeco-Latin, but only Egyptian-Chaldean civilisation.