All standing repeated:

O Hidden Life vibrant in every atom;
O Hidden Light, shining in every creature;
O Hidden Love, embracing all in Oneness;
May Each who feels himself as one with Thee,
Know he is also one with every other

My Brothers,

In that invocation of Dr. Besant’s we stated that there exist a hidden life, a hidden light, and a hidden love, and that it is the aspiration of each who feels himself as one with that hidden life, light and love, that he may also know he is one with every other. In that aspiration is the Universal Brotherhood for which our Society stands. Our Society was formed for a very special purpose. That purpose was not to give a totally new philosophy of life.

There existed already in 1875 in the great philosophies of Greece and India. And any deep student of those philosophies could make for himself a new philosophy of life. But the Society was formed for quite a different purpose. We know now from published Letters of the Adepts that the Society was definitely conceived and launched into existence by the Great Ones whom we called Mahātmas, the Masters of the Wisdom. They have stated in connection with the formation of the Society that, looking about the world for likely helpers, They selected two. One was a man of great moral courage, of undoubted ability. This was Colonel Olcott. They stated that he was far from being the best, but he was the best one available. Then They described how They selected H.P.B., a woman of most exceptional and wonderful endowments, second to none in the world  having her particular aptitudes.  She had strong personal defects, but she was the best that They could find. Then They stated how They brought these two together in the United States, and how from then the Society began as an experiment. In forming the Society the real reason was clearly enunciated. We have a statement from the Adept who signed under the initials K.H., Koot Hoomi, the following: “The Chiefs want a ‘Brotherhood of Humanity’, a real Universal Fraternity started, an institution which would make itself known throughout the world and arrest the attention of the highest minds.”

It is true that in our Theosophical Lodges we do not have many lectures on Brotherhood. We have many lectures upon various aspects of the Wisdom, of the hidden side of things, particularly of man. Nevertheless, we have the clear statement that Those who formed the Society had as Their objective a Universal Brotherhood. Now what is the basis of this Universal Brotherhood which we are striving to establish in the world? We state that we are going to form a “nucleus” of it, that is, only that centre within the cell which is vital, though the centre is small compared to the large envelope of nuclear material which makes the cell. Here in this Hall we are a nucleus. I note that the number of Lodges represented how in the United States there is a marked nucleus of Universal Brotherhood. Now, what makes the real foundation of Universal Brotherhood?

It is an occult principle. The Brotherhood we are aiming at is not the brotherhood of blood and bone, the material brotherhood which is obvious when we see that all men’s organization is exactly the same. Now our Brotherhood is based upon an occult principle. We may call it God, though many may object to the word. We may call it the Sanskrit word Brahman, which describes the united life of the universe. But in our Theosophical studies we do not attempt to label the fundamental Unity that make us all one Brotherhood. Perhaps the best description is that given by one of the Adepts in that remarkable romance, The Idyll of the White Lotus. It is as follows:

“The principle which gives life dwells within us, and without us,  it is undying and eternally beneficent, is not heard or seen or smelt, but is perceived by the man who desires perception.”

The principle which gives life: it is the root basis of the existence of all, not only of the cultured, but also of the savage, of the good but also of the so-called evil and bad, of the prisoner, but also of the jailer, of the judge, but also of the man in the dock, of woman as of man, one principle in which we are all rooted “without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color”.

*Excerpt from the address to the Convention, in Chicago, of the Theosophical Society in America, June 25, 1949. Originally published in The Theosophist, October 1949.