Defining Alice Bailey - Christians Are "Selfish"

Alice Bailey and other theosophists wrote a lot about selfishness. To Alice Bailey, who is selfish?

"This thirst for the souls of men forced Christ to open the door into the kingdom, and to hold it open Himself, so that it might be His hand and His aid which should lift us over the threshold. This is the redemption, and in this redemption we all share, not from the selfish angle of our salvation, but from the consciousness that, as we redeem are we redeemed, as we save are we ourselves salvaged, and that as we help others to achieve, we too are admitted as citizens into the kingdom."¹

"The keynote of this world centre is "I light the WAY;" this is the privilege of the States if its people so choose and permit worldwide humanitarian, self-sacrifice (self-initiated) and a firm decision to stand by righteousness to govern their present attitudes and policies. This is slowly coming to pass and the selfish voices of blind idealists, the fearful and the separative are dying out. All this is happening under the inspiration of service, motivated by love. Thus the two major democracies can eventually restore world order, negate the old order of selfishness and aggression and usher in the new order of world understanding, world sharing and world peace."²

"The only incentive which will be strong enough (or which ever has been strong enough) to enable a man to tread the fivefold way to the Centre from which the Word goes forth is a realisation of the deep and distressing need of our modern world for revelation, for pure example and for loving service. There is no way by which this sad and war-torn world of ours can be saved and men's lives transfigured except by a manifestation of the spirit of God. Instead of waiting for God to take action and send some Saviour (Who would probably not be recognised any more than Christ was), the time has come, and mankind has evolved sufficiently, for the divine life within it to surge forth and up to God, calling forth His response, His recognition, which we have seen Him repeat time and time again. He is willing to accord. We are His children and we are beginning to live divinely, thinking (as He thinks) in terms of the whole and not in terms of the separative and selfish individual."³

"Though They cannot absorb it or react to it or re-develop it again, it can cause Them the acutest discomfort and pain; that is the reason why the Son of God was called in The Old Testament a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief". This did not in reality refer to His sufferings for poor miserable humanity (as orthodox theology so selfishly interprets it) but to the fact that He had to submit Himself to contact with humanity. The Hierarchy is therefore, along all lines (many of which I may not indicate or upon which I may not enlarge), preparing Itself for the experience of physical manifestation; It is also endeavouring to "create" the needed responsive apparatus which will be of such a nature that Members of the Hierarchy may function with the minimum of difficulty on earth and will experience the least possible measure of handicap; They will thus be enabled to give full time and attention to the work to be done by Them in physical manifestation."⁴

Born Again Christians