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Why I am an Activist -
    Some of you have asked me to articulate my more personal philosophy.

I write this because I think many of you will find yourself here, as well. And this applies to our "apparent" enemies who participate, by their nature, by their level of evolution, in the destructive phase of creation and who "suffer more in their wrong-doing than do their fellow-men by the injury that they may inflict". Taken from Annie Besant, the Outer Court.
~~ Eileen Dannemann

"Let us take the quality that in its lowest stages we know as anger, as wrath, as that tremendous power that the man develops, by which he fights his way through the world, by which he struggles, and by which he oftentimes overcomes all opposition; that tremendous energy of the Soul rushing out through the lower nature and breaking a man's way for him through difficulties in the earlier stages of his growth ere yet he has learned to guide and to control it; an undisciplined energy, destructive because it is undisciplined; a tremendous force, valuable because it is a force, although destructive in its workings as we see it in the lower world.

Let us take this personal anger that is ultimately transform from its lower stages into the "noble indignation, of passion against injustice, of hatred of all that was wrong, and that was base and that was vile and that was cruel, and it did good service in the outer world under these many forms of destructive energy...and when he (the activist) saw the cruelty that was done upon the weak his passion broke forth against it, and when an injustice was wrought by a tyrant then he rose up against it in indignation; he had learned, as he practiced this virtue, to purify anger from much of the dross; for the anger that he had in his earlier lives was anger for himself-he was wrathful when he was injured, he struck back when someone struck at him; but he had long conquered that mere brute wrath in the lower nature which guards itself by destructive energy against a wrong, and pays back evil with evil and hate with hate....

....He had purified it to a great extent from the personal element and he had learned to be angry less because he himself was wronged; he had learned to be indignant less because he suffered, than because some one else was put to pain; and when he saw some cruel creature trampling on a helpless one, he sprang forward to rescue that helpless creature and struck at the wrong-doer and cast him to one side; in that way he had used the higher anger to conquer the lower, in that way he had used the nobler passion to slay the more animal passion of his lower life.

To get rid so far as the grosser qualities of the passion; he had learned to be no longer angry for himself, but angry only for those whom he desired to help. For he is a man, remember, who has long recognized "service" as duty, and one of his ways of service was by striking down oppressors, and by casting aside those who were inflicting suffering; this anger of his blazed up hotly against all forms of wrong, and he worked for the weaker, and perchance did hero's work in the world.

But in the presence of the Holy of Holies, there is no place for anger of any sort, even though the anger be purged from personal antagonism.

For the aspirant has now to learn that those who do the wrong are also his brothers, and that they suffer more in their wrong-doing than do their fellow-men by the injury that they may inflict; he has to learn that this noble indignation of his, and this passion of his against the wrong, and this fire that blazed forth to consume a tyranny that touched not himself...that that is not the characteristic of he Soul that is striving onwards towards the Divine; for the Divine Life loves all the children that It sends into the world, no matter what may be their position, nor how low the grade of their evolution. For the Love of the Divine that emanated All has nothing outside itself.

The Life that is Divine is the core of everything that exists, and there is God present in the heart of the evil-doer as well as in the heart of the saint. The Divine must be recognized, no matter how thick are the veils that hide it, for there the eyes of the Spirit are to be opened, and there is to be no veil between it and the Self of other men; therefore this noble indignation is to be purified until it is purged of everything that is of anger, and is changed into an energy that leaves nothing outside its helpful range; until this great energy of the Soul becomes an energy that is absolutely pure, that goes out to help the tyrant as well as the slave, and that embraces within its limit the one who is trampling as well as the one who is trampled; for the Saviors of men choose not whom they will serve. Their service is a service that knows no limitations, and they that are the servants of all hate none within the Universe. That which once was anger has to become, by purification, protection for the weak, impersonal opposition to strong evil-doing, perfect justice for all".

~~ "The Outer Court", page 28-29, Annie Besant
 

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