from Awareness Journal, Vol II, No 2, Winter 1994

History of the Teaching

What is the history of The Science of Man? Where did it first appear and did it evolve or change through time? Who has known it and how have they utilized it (good and bad)? Can we see it visibly at work today in our civilization? In other words, who, how many, and which people are our comrades in the Teaching? K.C.

Yours is a question that everyone asks sooner or later. The answer to “What is the history of The Science of Man?” is “The same as the history of civilization.” Idries Shah says that without the Teaching, there would be no civilization, period. Humanity would have perished.

According to Rhondell (and to advanced students who have checked this out for themselves), the Teaching obviously comes from “a higher realm.” This is not defined up front… when one has experienced this, one needs no definition; no definition will help one who has not experienced it. In any case, no person claims having “invented” it (or if a person does, avoid him/her — they are lying).

I don’t know where it first appeared. Many ancient myths contain an obvious thread of Teaching. It is unlikely (but not impossible) that we could check it out if we were told, say, the builders of the Sphinx were Sons of God, i.e., agents of the Teaching… and so such claims are not made — all tenets of the Teaching can be checked out, in time, by the individual Working.

(In his 48 Lessons, for instance, Rhondell mentions the thread of Teaching in Magic, Alchemy, Astrology, and the Kabbalah — that these were outer schools; after many years of apprenticeship in the outer school those who asked the proper questions and/or showed promise in other ways were admitted to the inner school, which was the Teaching as we know it, though, of course, presented in a form appropriate to the time, place, circumstance and people. He also states that the version we practice is called The Way and is the inner school of Christianity, which is an outer school.)

Yes, definitely its presentation has changed throughout the ages (though not the fundamentals), because a tenet of the Teaching is that it always conform to the time, place and circumstance and people to whom it is given. One can see threads of the Teaching in various Scriptures and many old textbooks, even poetry; for most people in the West, these books are difficult and dense, unless one has the keys to decipher ancient texts, of course, because they do not really conform to our time, place, circumstance. So that is why it appears in new forms now and then, in keeping with the present. But the Principles are the Principles, for instance, that awareness gets contaminated by conditioning, by the world; that there are four forces of creation, not cause and effect; that conflict — struggle — resistance is the disintegrating factor; that the four dual basic urges may be by-products of living but are not the purpose of living; the nature of the relationship between Awareness and Spirit; and especially, that one must question one’s purpose of living before one can evolve beyond a sophisticated mammal. In other words: What am I? Where am I? What’s going on here? and What can I do? are what has always been Taught.

Every now and then a great Teacher brings a new idea to mankind (the Teacher is a channel between mankind and the “higher realm.”) For instance, Moses was given and brought The Law, which taught people that rather than living as jungle animals, “you took my eye, I will take your life,” one could settle for taking the other’s eye in full payment. This sounds almost barbaric to us when worded this way, but (1) it is a great leap from taking another’s life for any infraction, completely justified in the jungle; and (2) we see “an eye for an eye” fully operative today everywhere we look — anyone who ever sued anyone else, or served on a jury, for instance, is living this second phase of evolution. The Christ came along with a new idea, “The person who took your eye felt right, proper and justified in doing so with the light that he had, just like you do.” In other words, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” One can see this is a leap from “An eye for an eye.” The Christ also taught immortality… this is an advanced Teaching and one must do the baby work (like living agape 100%) first; then one can pursue this Teaching about immortality. It is not even approached without the third evolutionary leap, conscious intelligence, of which The Science of Man is the School.

These stages are taught at the same time, depending on time, place, circumstances and especially people. One can’t teach love or agape unless people are at least content to settle for an eye for an eye, rather than “your life for my eye.” One cannot teach intelligence to people who can’t yet comprehend agape, who have some understanding of how things are. So you could say that the various stages of Teaching are overlapping all the time, everywhere.

As for recognizing Teachers or Masters, there is a Catch-22. Obviously one would have to know the material in order to evaluate its purported agent. (This applies to any teacher, doesn’t it? Few of us could evaluate a teacher of physics, say, unless we already knew the material; you wouldn’t know if a teacher of Greek was qualified to teach unless you actually took the class and were able to learn what you needed to know.) Because of this, and because there are charlatans in every field, we can only truly evaluate someone who is merely as far along as we ourselves are — we are not qualified to evaluate beyond our own achievements.

As to specific people besides the obvious great Teachers of the past who are living and demonstrating the Teaching, it is hard to tell, for the above reasons, but not always impossible. Occasionally some famous person will perform in a way that demonstrates a degree of understanding of these things. More often, though, the Teachers are “invisible” so to speak. They have not sought fame and fortune and seldom have it (although it is possible), so one does not hear of them unless one knows someone who knows them, and introduces you, for instance.

Teaching in the past was so dangerous as to necessitate secrecy; the institutions had such great power they could do away with opposition without any repercussions; this is less true today, but rest assured, it has its perils. Teachers and other agents of the Teaching are “sly men” and “wear the cloak of invisibility” for their protection. The Not-I’s are threatened only by the Teaching and so despise its agents and want to do them in. And, as you know, most people and certainly institutions are governed by these Not-I’s.

As for seeing it visibly in our civilization, the answer is: check it out. See if you can find incidents where the Teaching had an obvious influence. Hints: occasionally one will find a movie that has something REAL to say; I’ve noticed there are more main-stream books available today that contain Teaching information (whether or not they are wholly “Teaching books”); once in a great while a famous figure will make a Teaching demonstration — but it is inaccurate to confuse the container with the contents. Apparently Life will use any available container under the proper circumstances. For instance, someone who had been the object of an assassination attempt was photographed, soon after his recovery, sitting knee-to-knee with his assailant in the assailant’s jail cell, chatting like old friends. This picture was worth a thousand words, it was the most accurate picture of agape I have ever seen in. Whether this person is a bona fide agent of the Teaching, I don’t know; I don’t know that one whose purpose appears to be the strengthening of an institution could be a Teacher, but it is irrelevant. It is the contents of that picture that matters, not the names of the people in it.

As to how many are our comrades, I don’t know that either. I will tell you what I have heard from “reliable sources” regarding this: if only 40 people on earth were conscious (full time), there would be a major evolutionary leap. Forty doesn’t sound like many, but how many fully conscious people do you know? (Of course, beware: 40 is a mystical number in certain valid material which means “an indefinite number”!) I also know that there are many, many (countless) people Working at least a little bit at any given time. I am privileged to connect with many of them because of the Work I do, and I am always astounded at the efforts people are making — all of which are cumulative, by the way, according to the Teaching, both individually cumulative, and affecting the whole body of Friends, and all of humanity, in ways we can’t begin to really imagine.

So, all said and done, the real answer to your question is to check it out for yourself. As you grow in the Work it will become a little easier to do, but it is doubtful every part of your question will be answered, and it really doesn’t matter, does it? If no one else on Earth were practicing the Teaching, I would still find it of value to me. But it would be a great exercise for anyone who has wondered about the prevalence of the Teaching to start hunting for it. You will find it everywhere, this world is a book, life is the cast, form is the props, events contain the story. You will find it everywhere, thought I don’t think you will every find it as complete, intact, and simplified as in Rhondell’s presentation. He has given us the absolute bare bones, sans mythology, sans psycho-babble, sans arcane mumbo-jumbo of any kind. It is up to us to put the flesh on the bones of this New Man.