Hence the possibility of miscalculation, the possibility of error, the possibility of mistake; and you can well understand that these beings are subject to such limitations when you remember the startling assertion that even the Lord Buddha Himself, high above the Masters, that even He committed an error in His work on the physical plane.

When, then, a Master volunteers to serve as what may literally be called the scapegoat of a new spiritual movement, He takes up a karma whose whole course He is unable to see.

And it need not, therefore, be a matter of surprise that when the time was approaching when another great spiritual impulse might again be given, according to cyclic law, when the two who volunteered to undertake the task, to make the sacrifice, offered Themselves in the Great White Lodge, differences of opinion arose as to whether it was desirable or not that what we now call the Theosophical Society should be founded.
The time came, as most of you know, I suppose, for an effort of some sort to be made.

It had been so since the fourteenth century, for it was in the thirteenth century that in Tibet a mighty personage then living in that land, promulgated His order to the Lodge that at the close of every century an effort should be made to enlighten the "white barbarians of the West." That order having gone forth, it became necessary, of course, to obey it; for in those regions disobedience is unknown.

Hence at the close of each century--as you may verify for yourselves if you choose to go through history carefully, beginning from the time when Christian Rosenkreuz founded the Rosicrucian Society late in the fourteenth century--you will find on every occasion, towards the close of the century, a new ray of light is shed forth.