Additional information
by Annie Besant (Author)
Let us, first of all, ask ourselves, looking at the world around us, what it is that the history of the world signifies.
When we read history, what does the history tell us?
It seems to be a moving panorama of people and events, but it is really only a dance of shadows; the people are shadows, not realities, the kings and statesmen, the ministers and armies; and the events-the battles and revolutions, the rises and falls of States-are the most shadow-like dance of all.
Even if the historian tries to go deeper, if he deals with economic conditions, with social organisations, with the study of the tendencies of the currents of thought, even then he is in the midst of shadows, the illusory shadows cast by unseen realities.
This world is full of forms that are illusory, and the values arc all wrong, the proportions are out of focus. The things which a man of the world thinks valuable, a spiritual man must cast aside as worthless.
The diamonds of the world, with their glare and glitter in the rays of the outside sun, are mere fragments of broken glass to the man of knowledge.
The crown of the King, the sceptre of the Emperor, the triumph of earthly power, are less than nothing to the man who has had one glimpse of the majesty of the Self.
What is, then, real? What is truly valuable?
Our answer will be very different from the answer given by the man of the world.
