I. Chapter 2. Perspective on Culture

Little by little, a new attitude toward everything will arise: there would not be a slightest reason for the Rose of the World to come into being if it only repeated what has been said before. A new attitude and way of thinking will emerge in regard to every aspect of life, large and small: cosmic and historical processes, planetary laws and the links between variomaterial worlds, personal relationships and approaches to personal growth, states and religions, the animal world and the environment – in a word, everything that we group under the concepts culture and nature.

A new attitude toward everything will arise, but that doesn’t mean that every old way will be discarded or vilified: in many cases, such a point of view will be presented whereby past attitudes will no longer contradict but complement each other revealing each as merely a different aspect of the same reality, or even of many realities. Such an approach is often effective, for example, when examining the older religions and the realities behind them. This book is devoted in its entirety to that new attitude. The subject matter is far too broad and complex to be even briefly outlined in one chapter. Although this chapter is entitled “Perspective on Culture» and the following chapter – «Perspective on Religion», one shouldn’t expect an exhaustive treatment of these subjects. All six books of this work are permeated with a new way of looking at various spheres of culture, various historical events, various religious systems, and various kingdoms of nature. These first chapters are merely intended as a sort of introduction. They contain a synopsis of certain fundamental principles, no more.

In our century, science has assumed the dominant role in culture. The scientific method lays claim to absolute supremacy; for that reason, this chapter will begin with a description of the perspective offered by the Rose of the World on the scientific method itself. It must be stated promptly and plainly that, no matter how many illusions the partisans of the scientific method have tried to create in that regard, it has never been, is not now, nor will it ever be the only mode of inquiry or the only means to know the material world. One needs to remember that besides the artistic method – with which the scientific method now condescendingly and grudgingly shares its preeminent status – the foundations for the mode of inquiry and method to know the material world had been laid long ago. The study of that method is inextricably linked to people's work on their spiritual selves and the enlightenment of their moral selves. There is even a possibility that it will become, to a certain degree, the dominant method in the future. I have in mind not so much magic or occultism, which have been discredited by a number of misunderstandings, but rather the concept of spiritual work. Various systems and schools of that type can be found in all religions with long spiritual traditions. Having developed practical techniques in the course of centuries for bringing the will to act upon the human organism and on external matter, and guiding a person to that level only after protracted moral preparation and manifold tests, they have elevated, and elevate now, hundreds, perhaps, thousands, to what is in layman's terms called “miracle working”. That arduous method which has aroused the intense hatred of modern-day philistines is distinguished by one principle foreign to science: working on and transformation of one's own being, as a result of which the physical and etheric coatings of one’s self become more pliable, elastic, and obedient to his or her will than is normally possible. That path leads to such allegedly legendary phenomena as passing bodily through threedimensional objects, levitation, walking on water, teleportation, the healing of incurable diseases and of blindness and – that highest and rarest attainment – the resurrection of the dead.

What we are dealing with in such cases is the manipulation of laws acting in our materiality, and the suspension of lower laws by higher ones, which as yet are unknown to us. And if, in the twentieth century, the majority of us live our entire lives without encountering indisputable examples of such phenomena, it does not necessarily follow that such phenomena do not occur, or that they are impossible in principle, but only that the prevailing conditions – cultural, social, and psychological – In the secular era (especially in the West, and even more so in the countries belonging to the socialist camp) have to such an extent impeded the study and mastery of that method that the number of such phenomena has been reduced to a handful of isolated cases.

Certain truly momentous events that took place nearly two thousand years ago (they will be discussed later) are responsible for the fact that it has become impossible to usher not individuals alone but whole masses of people onto that path of knowledge. With the passage of time, the psychological climate of the secular era obstructed more and more any movement along that path. Nowadays, enormous obstacles face anyone wishing to embark on study of the method. In certain countries such study has become, for all practical purposes, impossible. But there is no reason to suppose that the method will remain that slow and arduous forever. The areligious era is not endless; we are living at its close. It is difficult to imagine anything appearing more unwieldy, unrefined, crude, and impotent than do the achievements of modern technology when compared with the achievements of the method which I am speaking of. If the incalculable material and human resources that are now swallowed up for the advancement of the scientific method were invested in the development and study of this other method, then the panorama of human life – creative work, knowledge, the organization of society, and morality – would undergo radical changes. The psychological climate of the era of the Rose of the World will create conditions more conducive than ever before to the development of that method. But that belongs to the future, and not the near future at that. Until that time arrives, we have no alternative but to use, in the main, a different method, much less refined and not leading very far but dominant everywhere at the moment.

From that follows the Rose of the World's overall perspective on science and technology at the current stage of history. Laboriously gathering facts, deducing regularities from them without understanding the nature or orientation of those regularities, manipulating them mechanically without the ability to foretell what inventions and social upheavals its discoveries will lead to, science has long been open to everyone regardless of their moral level. The consequences are in front of our eyes and above our heads. The chief consequence is that not one person on Earth can be sure that a hydrogen bomb or some other, more appalling scientific achievement will not be dropped on them or their fellow citizens at any moment by highly educated minds. It is, therefore, only natural that one of the first measures the Rose of the World will undertake after it begins supervision of the states' activities is creating a Supreme Scientific Council – that is, a committee staffed by members from the inner circles of the Rose of the World itself. Consisting of people who combine the respect of the scientific community with a high level of moral integrity, the Assembly will assume executive management of all scientific and technological work, serving both planning and regulatory functions.

What is involved in the protection of the vital interests of humanity, overall, appears straightforward enough, at least in its principles, and there is hardly a need to pause over it now. As for the issues involved in the protection of the interests of the animal and plant worlds, they will be discussed in those sections of the book devoted to the animal world and the world of elementals. That is, perhaps, the only area in which the outlook of the Rose of the World and the views of the majority of contemporary scientists cannot be reconciled. The conflict, however, does not pertain to any scientific theory. Rather, it applies only to certain of science's practical methods that are incompatible with the basic demands of goodness not only in the view of the Rose of the World but also in the view of nearly every religious moral teaching and, indeed, of nearly every humane person.

Outside those purely methodological clashes, there are not, nor can there be, any conflicts between the Rose of the World and science. There is nowhere for a conflict between them to arise. They deal with different things. It can hardly be a coincidence that the erudition of the majority of this century's scientific geniuses did not prevent them from holding personal religious beliefs and from sharing and even creating bright, spiritual systems of philosophy. Einstein and Planck, Pavlov and Lemaitre, Eddington and Milne – no matter the field of their scientific inquiry, all remained, in their own way, people with a firm belief in God. I am, of course, disregarding here Russian scientists of the Soviet period, some of whom were forced to proclaim their materialism not out of any philosophical convictions but for completely different reasons, which are obvious to anyone.

Leaving aside philosophy and politics, we can say that, in areas purely scientific, the Rose of the World doesn’t make any claim that science would have sufficient grounds to reject. What is being asserted is that science has been silent thus far about the realities the Rose of the World describes. But that is a situation that will not continue for long. As for the social, cultural, and moral tasks that the Rose of the World will attempt to implement, it is impossible to imagine that they would meet with any objections in principle from authorities in the scientific community.

It is reasonable to suppose that it is not the very idea of planning scientific activities that will be the subject of debate in the future but the limits of the subject of planning as well as its practical methods. Special study could be devoted to the practices of planning and coordinating scientific work in certain states of the mid-twentieth century. But only individual features will be borrowed from their experience, if only because the Federation will be made up of many states, large and small alike, that will have just been unified, the states with varying stages of economic development, formed against the backdrop of different cultures, and possessing different sociopolitical systems. Systems distinguished by greater economic centralization will find it easier to be assimilated into the inexorable process of global socialization; others, accustomed to a laissez-faire system, will be drawn into it more gradually. That, as well as the variety of cultural traditions, will result in an extremely mixed global economy and interplay of cultural legacies during the first stage.

Deep-rooted national antagonisms will also long continue to make their presence felt. It will take time to balance and harmonize the needs of different countries and different layers of society that will benefit from, say, the priority development of such and such a branch of industry in such and such a place or the sale of their products somewhere or other. In order to reach an equitable solution to those kinds of problems, a new psychological trait will be required from those who will head the Scientific Council and the Rose of the World itself – the mastery of the inner sway of personal, as yet entirely natural, cultural-ethnic bonds, a complete impartiality toward nations that is. What effort, what moral authority and even self-sacrifice, will be necessary just to weaken deep-seated antagonisms, such as Anglo-Arab, Russo-Polish, or Turko-Armenian! What will Germans, English, Russians, or Americans have to do to make so many countries forget the hostility those Western nations have aroused in them? What educational programs will be needed to soothe the wounded pride that prevents many small or middle-sized nations from being on friendly terms with their neighbors and that escalates into aggressive dreams of attaining greatness at the expense of other countries?

But that is only one side of the coin. Many Western nations will have to rid themselves of the slightest trace of their old feelings of superiority over others. Russians will have to realize that their country is not the crowning glory of creation and is, in fact, no better than many other nations. The English will be forced to perform colossal work on their inner selves so as to renounce their habit of favoring the interests of the inhabitants of the British isles over the interests of citizens of Indonesia or Tanzania. From the French will be required the ability to take to heart the interests of Paraguay or Thailand just as passionately as they do their own. The Chinese and Arabs will liberate their hearts and minds from the once justified, and now anachronistic, distrust of Europeans, which they have nursed for so many centuries, and will learn to bestow no less attention on the needs of Belgium or Greece than on those of Shanghai or the Sudan. The citizens of the republics of Central America will have to cease caring and complaining only about their own situation and take part in the distribution of the world's wealth, taking into account the needs of Afghanistan, Cambodia, and even Yakutia. The citizens of the United States will be expected to remember that they call themselves Christians, and that Christianity is incompatible with a savage hate for any race, blacks included. This psychological remolding will be, as anyone can see, incredibly difficult, but it is the only way freedom from wars and tyranny can be won. As one would expect, nobody can hope to take part in the work of the global planning bodies without that remolding.

Nations will even have to learn to make sacrifices – not of their blood, not, of course, of the lives of their sons and daughters, but of dollars. For the more affluent nations will be faced with the necessity of sharing their resources with the peoples of the East and South, and disinterestedly at that, without an eye to turning such aid into big business. In short, all those in the leadership of the Rose of the World must be able to feel themselves as, above all, members of the entire cosmos, then as members of humanity, and only then as members of a nation.

The overall goal of the Rose of the World – or, to be more exact, of the gigantic spiritual process that began thousands of years ago and of which the Rose of the World is but one stage – is the enlightenment of Shadanakar. And the foremost task of our age consists in establishing everywhere, without excluding a single human being, a standard of living worthy of humans, simple day-to-day well-being, and fundamentally decent moral relations between people. The idea that every person without exception should be assured of worthwhile work, rest, leisure, a comfortable old age, decent shelter, access to all democratic freedoms, and satisfaction of their basic material and spiritual needs will begin to be actualized more and more in everyday life.

Only much later, in the very last chapters, will I be able to shed light on concrete measures, on that program of integrated reforms whereby these principles will, I believe, take on flesh and blood. For now, only the principles are under discussion. Thus, those in whom these principles awaken no sympathy shouldn’t waste their time and energy on further reading while those in sympathy with them will be able to get a forеtaste of the inner spirit of the Rose of the World before moving on to an investigation of the possible paths for making these ideals a reality.

The above is the basic attitude of the Rose of the World toward science and technology, as far as I can explain it without delving into metahistory and transphysics. That should also be the role played by the scientific method in the next few historical periods.

Several decades from now, the ever-increasing rate of economic growth will reach a level that we would be fully justified in calling global prosperity. Living standards now enjoyed by citizens of the economically advanced nations will be established in the remotest corners of the globe. The rechanneling of the massive sums that are now being spent on weapons into peaceful uses will impart almost unimaginable acceleration to economic growth. Universal elementary education will likely be achieved even before that. Eventually, even universal secondary education will be felt to be insufficient. The borders of the intelligentsia will encompass all of humanity. The development of newer and newer means of communication, along with their accessibility and practicability, will virtually eliminate the distance between nations and cultures. As the working day shrinks, new reserves of time will become available. Physiological science will devise technology that will make it possible for the human brain to memorize input quicker and indelibly. Leisure time will increase. And those matters that now occupy the majority of people – the economy, politics, product improvement, technology, the further upgrading of material comforts – will lose their interest. It is entirely realistic to think that the generations of those times will find it baffling and strange that their ancestors could have been so engrossed by and emotional about decisions relating to such boring and trivial matters. Their energy will be channeled into the creation of riches of a higher order, as the economic base, being firmly grounded and global, will not be subject to any sharp fluctuations.

Issues connected with technology and economics will cease to engage people's overriding attention. They will be dealt with in their respective committees and will be subject to public scrutiny, just as issues of restaurant hygiene or sewage are now. Humanity's gifts will be put to a different use, dictated by the thirst for knowledge, a love for all living beings, a need for higher forms of creative work, and a passion for beauty.

The thirst for knowledge, which at one time drove explorers to embark on voyages through uncharted waters and to range over unopened continents, will send them first (perhaps even before the rise of the Rose of the World) into outer space. But the other planets are inhospitable. After several exploratory missions the launches will halt, and the thirst for knowledge itself will begin to shift in focus. Methods will be devised to activate and develop the dormant organs possessed by every human being: organs of spiritual sight, spiritual hearing, deep memory, and the ability to separate at will one's inner, variomaterial bodies from the physical body. Voyages around variomaterial worlds, around the unfolding planes of Shadanakar, will commence. It will be the age of cosmic Magellans and Columbuses of the spirit.

What systematic views on the individual's value, rights, obligations, and growth will help to create a new psychological climate and hasten the dawn of the golden age?

The absolute value of individuals lies in the fact that they share with God an innate capacity for creative work and love. The relative value of individuals depends on the level they have reached in their spiritual ascent, on the sum of efforts – both their own and Providence's – spent on the attainment of that level, and on the degree to which they manifest in their lives those gifts for divine creative work and love.

The terrestrial leg of the cosmic journey of an ascending monad is that stage when its gifts for creative work and love already can and should be brought to bear in elevating its natural and human environment – that is, lessening the tendency of individual parts and units within that environment to assert themselves at the expense of others. Evil consists of just that tendency. Its forms and magnitude are almost endless in their variety, but at its root it is always the same: the attempt to assert oneself at the expense of everyone and everything else.

The older religions judged the relative value of individuals by the degree to which they obeyed the prescriptions of a given religio-moral code. Religions with ascetic leanings believed the highest stage to be sainthood, defining it as either pure monastic service or as martyrdom for one's faith. In so doing they relegated love to the background. A monk's or martyr's self-denial were performed not out of love for humanity or for all living beings but out of a yearning to merge with God and to avoid the torments of hell. I am, of course, referring here to the predominant tendency, the prevalent attitude, and not to such astonishing individual apostles of love as St. Francis of Assisi, Ramanuja, or Milarepa.

Monstrous though it may seem to us, even the eternal suffering of sinners in hell did not arouse in the majority of adepts of those religions the desire to enlighten the world's laws, including the law of retribution, or karma. Eternal punishment for temporal sins appeared to them a just act of God or in any case (as in Brahmanism) an unalterable and absolutely immutable law. Buddha burned like a torch with a flame of compassion, but he, too, taught only how to free oneself from the wheel of iron laws and not how to enlighten and transform those laws. As for creative work, its intrinsic nature was not recognized at all – such a concept did not even exist – while little importance was attached to concrete forms of creative work accessible to ordinary people, with the exception of religious works in the narrow sense of the word: acts of charity, theology, missionary service, church architecture, and religious service.

Other religions that are not given to asceticism, such as Islam and Protestantism, modified the ideal of saintliness, broadening it and, at the same time, downgrading it, making it more accessible, more popular, even going as far as to require the observance of commandments with respect to God, the state, one's neighbor, one's family, and, lastly, oneself. It should be emphasized that neither one nor the other group of religions set themselves the task of transforming society, let alone nature. Accordingly, the conception of an individual's obligations also remained deficient and narrow.

It was only natural that such tasks were finally advocated by secular teachings, though in an extremely simplistic form. A lower, internally contradictory moral standard was proclaimed that blindly mixed progressive features with others that fell below a moral minimum one would have thought long beyond question. People dusted off the old formula “The end justifies the means» and, hesitating to proclaim it openly and honestly, began applying it in practice. The moral aspect of historical events was wholly ignored when the events were subjected to scrutiny or evaluation; verdicts were passed based only on consideration of the overall progressive or reactionary orientation of the given event. No one was disturbed by the fact that such a practice led to the justification of atrocities committed by many despots of the past, even such outrageous mass slaughters as the Jacobin terror or the activities of the Oprichnina. Many time-honored achievements in social progress – such as freedom of speech, the press, and conscience – were cast aside. Generations raised in such an atmosphere gradually ceased to feel even the need for those freedoms – a symptom that speaks far more eloquently than any tirade of society's shocking spiritual decline. Thus, as society further embraced that moral standard in the form it took in real life, those positive features that it did possess were nullified. For the future held only the prospect of the dominion of material satiety, purchased by a renunciation of spiritual freedom, by millions of human lives, and by the exile of billions of souls to the lower planes of Shadanakar, souls that had sold their divine birthright for a meager pottage.

One can only hope that humanity will learn from that terrible lesson.

The Rose of the World will teach the absolute value of individuals and their divine birthrights: the right to be free from the yoke of poverty and the oppression of power-hungry groups, the right to well-being, the right to all forms of free creative work and the public unveiling of the fruits of that work, the right to religious searchings, and the right to beauty. The right of people to a secure existence and to the enjoyment of the benefits of civilization is an inborn right that in itself does not necessitate a renunciation of freedom or spirituality. It would be leading people astray to assert that we are faced with a crucial dilemma here, that in order to attain what are only the natural and self-evident blessings of life we must sacrifice our spiritual and social freedom.

The Rose of the World will also teach the obligations of individuals: to consistently expand the area encompassed by their love and to foster, multiply, and enlighten what is born of their work. Thus, creative work is both a right and an obligation. Even now I am unable to comprehend how it was that that truly divine gift to humans did not receive due notice in any of the older religions, except for certain forms of polytheism, especially that of ancient Greece. If I am not mistaken, it was only in ancient Greece that creativity itself (and not productivity, as in other forms of polytheism) was deified. Great masters of the arts were even pantheonized.

It is a sad and puzzling fact that after the decline of Ancient Greece the creative gift ceased to attract the notice of religions and was no longer conceptualized in ontological, metaphysical, or mystical terms. Under the influence of the shallowly interpreted Semitic idea that after six days of creation the Divine Creative Spirit rested, theology has preferred to circumvent the question of God's further creation. The words of God recorded in Revelations, «Behold, I will make all things new,» has remained the lone flight of inspiration, the lone intuition in that regard. As for human creativity, an altogether suspicious attitude was formed toward it, as if the sin of pride to which a human creator could fall victim was more dangerous and deadlier than creative sterility. Unfortunately, the view on human creativity that formed in the religions of the Indian origin was no less injurious.

The last few centuries of the Western culture – so rich in works of genius in all spheres of art, science, and philosophy – have taught us much. They have taught us to hold human creativity in reverence and human labor in respect. But the secular spirit of these centuries has fostered just what the older religions feared: creators have become afflicted by pride in their creative gift, as if that gift had been forged by them themselves. True, that conceit has nested not so much in the hearts of real geniuses, let alone artistic visionaries, as in the hearts of lesser scientific and artistic figures. A series of chapters in this book will be specially devoted to a closer examination of that problem from the point of view of the Rose of the World's teachings.

In any case, creative work, like love, is not an exclusive gift bestowed on only the chosen ones. Few possess saintliness and moral vision, heroism and wisdom, genius and talent. But all that is merely activation of the potential dormant within every soul. A sea of love, an inexhaustible wellspring of creativity, bubbles behind the consciousness of each one of us. The Religion of Epitome will seek to remove that barrier and allow those healing waters to wash over our life. A creative attitude toward everything will appear among the generations raised under it, and even labor will cease to be a burden. Rather, it will become the outward expression of an unquenchable desire to create new things, better things, and to create of oneself. All the Rose of the World's followers will enjoy creative work, teaching its joys to children and teenagers. They will be creative in everything they do: writing, architecture, science, gardening, the decoration and tempering of daily life, religious service and religious drama, the love between man and woman, childrearing, physical exercise and dance, the enlightenment of nature, and play. For all creative work, except the demonic, that is done in its own name and for its own sake is divine in nature. Through it, people elevate themselves and fill their own hearts and the hearts of those around them with God.

When it comes to spiritual growth, the majority of people move along the slow and wide path. The path runs through marriage and childbearing, work and pastimes, through the fullness and variety of life's impressions, joys, and pleasures. But there is also a Narrow Path. It is a path for those who harbor in their soul a special gift that requires strict self-denial: the gift of sainthood. Religious teachings are wrong to claim that the Narrow Path is the one true path or the highest one. Equally wrong are those social or religious systems that deny it outright and erect barriers against those who feel called to that path and to it alone. It is doubtful that monasteries will be numerous in the era of the Rose of the World, but there will be some, so that all who are driven onto the Narrow Path by spiritual thirst will be able to work on activating powers within their soul that require years of inner work in silence and solitude to develop. If a person enters onto the Narrow Path out of fear of retribution or dreams of a personal, egoistic, and closed relationship with God, that person's victories will be meaningless. There is no such God who rewards loyal slaves with the blissful contemplation of His glory. Contemplation of the highest spheres is nothing but transcending one’s self so as to commune with the One who contains all monads and the entire world within Himself. Therefore, a follower of the Rose of the World will not feel compelled to embark on the Narrow Path by spiritual egoism or by a desire for personal salvation mingled with cool indifference toward the fate of others. Those who follow it will be motivated by the realization that, on the Narrow Path, gifts become unveiled thereby making it possible for the living saint to help the world more effectively from solitude than hundreds can in the outside world; furthermore, that after death these gifts will so grow in strength that even the powerful upper hierarchies of demons will bow before them.

There is no need whatsoever for heavy vows to accompany tonsure (shaving or cutting some or all of the hair as a sign of religious devotion, translator's note). There are no grounds whatsoever for condemning or vilifying someone who, after the lapse of several years, leaves the path. Those entering the path will, at first, take only a short-term vow: for three, five, or seven years. Only after successfully completing those stages will they, if they wish, be permitted to take a vow for a longer period of time. Yet, even then the realization of the irrevocability of their decision, the fear of having made an irreparable mistake will not torment or haunt them, giving rise to despair and wild bursts of as yet unmastered negative emotions. They will know that with the expiration of the vow they will be free to return to the outside world, free to choose any lifestyle, any work, free to have a family without having to fear censure or scorn from anyone.

I have endeavored to provide a glimpse of the Rose of the World's perspective on the scientific and Scientific modes of inquiry, on individuals' rights and obligations, on human creativity and labor, and on the two basic types of spiritual paths: the Wide and the Narrow. In order to complete this overview of its perspective on culture, it would be sensible to dwell on the Rose of the World's views on art in the broader sense of the word. But that subject is so important and touches on so many different levels, and is so close to my heart personally, that I have decided to devote a series of chapters to it in one of the later parts of the book. Therefore, before moving on to the question of the Rose of the World's perspective on other religions, I will jot down just a few words about art in the imminent era.

What features might distinguish the art to be created by people who have embraced the spirit of the Rose of the World, in the near future, when the sun of the golden age will have only just begun to illumine the clouds on the horizon?

It would be naive to try to predict or summarize the variety of artistic trends, genres, schools, and styles which that sphere of culture will scintillate with toward the end of this century. But a certain dominant style will, I think, emerge. Of course, it will not exhaust all the different artistic movements (under the conditions of maximum freedom that would be impossible as well as unnecessary for the same reason). This style is destined to become the mainstream in art and literature in the last third of this century. The perception of reality intrinsic to the Rose of the World – transparent perception which distinguishes variomaterial or spiritual planes through the physical plane – will find expression in that style. Such a perception of reality will be a far cry from ostentatious optimism that is afraid to shatter its own peace of mind in heeding the dark and tragic sides of existence. Creators of that style will not seek to ignore the distressing and frightening underside of the world. They will consider it cowardly to desire to forget about the bloody path of history; about the reality of the dreadful infraphysical planes of Shadanakar; about their merciless laws which bind untold hosts of unfortunates in chains of inhuman torments; and about the ghastly fall that is being readied for the human spirit by the forces of the Antigod and that will almost certainly take place when the golden age has run its course. But a higher level of awareness will not tarnish their love for the world, it will not lessen the joy they receive from nature, culture, creative work, public service, love, and friendship. In fact, quite the contrary! Could the awareness of hidden dangers threatening the one you love ever extinguish the flame of that love? There will be wondrous, life-affirming works of unprecedented purity and joyfulness. There will appear in all the artistic genres – both those that already exist and those that will arise later – works that will sparkle like splashes of water on sunlit ponds, works by artists of the future about a love that is much more capacious than ours, works about youth, about the joys of family life and public service, about the broadening of human consciousness and the expansion of the frontiers of our perception, about friendship between people and elementals, about the daily proximity of the friends of our heart who are as yet unseen, as well as much more that will concern the people of those times and that we are incapable of imagining.

It seems to me that such a style – masculine in its fearlessness and feminine in its lovingness, a profound combination of joy and affection for people and the world, yet with a keen awareness of the world's darker depths – could be called either transparent realism or metarealism. And need I mention that a work of art will not necessarily have to be an example of transparent realism for people who have embraced the Rose of the World's spirit to be able to enjoy and delight in it? They will delight in everything that has the mark of talent and at least one of the following features: a sense of beauty, broad scope, profundity of thought, sharpness of insight, purity of heart, or a joyful spirit.

There will come a time when the moral and aesthetic level of society, and of artists themselves, will be such that the need for restrictions of any kind will disappear, and freedom of artistic, literary, philosophical, and scientific forms of expression will be absolute. But it will not be until several decades after the Rose of the World has assumed moral supervision over the states that the era of that ideal moral level arrives. It is not through wisdom but youthful naivete that one could arrive at the idea that society has already reached those heights of maturity when absolute freedom will not give rise to critical, irreparable abuses.

At first, it will be necessary to assign to local branches of the Global Artistic Council, besides more pleasant duties, that single checkpoint through which an artistic work will have to pass before its public unveiling. That will be, if you will, the censor's swan song. In the beginning, when national antagonisms and racial-prejudice are yet to be eliminated, and power-hungry organizations still continue to play on those prejudices, a ban will have to be laid on any form of hate propaganda against any segment of the populace. Censorship will be maintained longer over books and texts that popularize scientific and philosophical ideas that give inadequate, superficial, or distorted treatment to objective facts and thus lead uninformed readers astray. Censorship will persist over works of fiction, requiring from them, it seems to me, a minimum of artistic merit in order to protect the literary market from a flood of tasteless, aesthetically ignorant trash. Finally, an unconditional ban on pornography will likely be in place longest of all. With the removal of each of these restrictions another measure will take its place: the Global Artistic Council or the Global Scientific Council will, after the release of a work of poor quality, print an authoritative review of it. That will suffice.

Clearly, it will not be easy to devise a system to determine who will sit on such councils, a system that will ensure that people with party or conceptual biases, intolerant supporters of particular movements or philosophical schools, or champions of the creative interests of some single group, nation, or generation not interfere in any sphere of culture. I would think, however, that in the psychological atmosphere of the Rose of the World a system like that could be devised.

If, for the moment, we avoid entering into fine distinctions between the concepts of culture and civilization, we may say that culture is nothing other than the sum total of humanity's creative work. If creative work is the highest, most precious, and sanctified of human gifts, an expression of the human soul's divine prerogative, then there is not, nor can there be, anything more precious or sanctified than culture. Further, the more spiritual a given cultural level, a given cultural sphere, or a given creative work might be, the more valuable it is.

The culture of a united humanity is only now emerging. Until now, the only cultures to reach individual maturity have been those of individual suprapeoples, a suprapeople being a group of nations that are bound by a distinct, jointly created culture. But none of these cultures is confined to that aspect that exists and evolves within our three-dimensional space. Those who participated in the building of that culture here continue their creative work in the afterlife as well, though the work, of course, becomes altered in accordance with the conditions of that world or those worlds through which the soul of the human creator is passing at the time. An awareness is growing of million-strong communities of such souls, of heavenly lands and cities above each of the world's suprapeoples, and of Arimoya, the emerging heavenly land of the culture of a united humanity. A perspective on culture based on such principles is novel and outlandish. We would be right in even noting that with further crystallization and deepening it will grow to become a vast mythology, if in using the word “myth» we disaccustom ourselves from thinking of something that has no basis in reality. Here we are dealing with just the opposite: a colossal reality that is reflected hazily and superficially, but reflected all the same, in mythology.

The atmosphere established by the Rose of the World and its teachings will give rise to conditions necessary for that cultural mythology to be grasped by every mind. Even if only a limited number of minds are able to comprehend it in all its esoteric complexity, the spirit of the worldview, and not its letter, will gradually become accessible to almost everyone. And if we contemplate the prospect of instilling that worldview in the general populace, then devising a system of measures to safeguard all spheres of culture from interference by people who have no inner right to manage those spheres, it will cease to appear a hopeless task.


Вперед: Chapter 3. Perspective on Religion
Назад: Chapter 1. The Rose of the World and its Foremost Tasks
Начало: «The Rose of the World». Table of contents

Продолжу тут то же, что и в переводе предыдущей главы.

Не уверен, что это стоит в этой теме обсуждать, но почему бы и нет, можно и перенести потом. Что обсуждать и что перенести? Вопросы и правки к переводу. Напишу лист моментов интересных по переводу этой главы. Буду рад ещё с кем-то из читателей Андреева обсудить моменты, которые я отметил. И буду рад узнать про моменты, которые я не отметил, а Вы отметили.

раскрыть

the environment (стихиями)
it has never been, is not now, nor will it ever be the only mode of inquiry or the only means to know the material world (но ни единственным методом познания, ни единственным методом овладения материей он никогда не был, не будет и не может быть.)
All six books of this work (все двенадцать книг этого труда)
Special study could be devoted to the practices of planning and coordinating scientific work in certain states of the mid-twentieth century. (Не будет лишено, вероятно, некоторого интереса специальное изучение практики планирования и координации научных работ в некоторых государствах середины XX столетия.)
arduous
Systems distinguished by greater economic centralization (Некоторые из этих укладов, отличающиеся большей социализацией экономических отношений)
equitable solution (справедливого решения)
It is difficult to imagine anything appearing more unwieldy (трудно представить себе что-нибудь столь же тяжеловесное)
unwieldy, unrefined, crude, and impotent (тяжеловесное, несовершенное, грубое и жалкое)
a standard of living worthy of humans (достойный человека материальный достаток)
to commune with the One who contains all monads and the entire world within Himself (приобщение Единому, объемлющему все монады и зиждущему весь мир)
giving rise to despair and wild bursts of as yet unmastered negative emotions (порождая отчаяние и бурные вспышки неизжитого)
(under the conditions of maximum freedom that would be impossible as well as unnecessary for the same reason (в условиях максимальной свободы это невозможно, да и не нужно по той же причине) — нет такого, что «that» можно понять как апеллирующее к «conditions of maximum freedom»?
to protect the literary market from a flood of tasteless, aesthetically ignorant trash (оберегающий книжный рынок от наводнения безвкусицей, эстетически безграмотной макулатурой)