. . . for there is indeed in this terrestrial abode the Sacred tribe of heroes who pay attention to mankind, and who are able to give them assistance even in the smallest concerns . . . . This heroic tribe is, as it were, a colony [from the gods] established here in order that this terrene abode may not be left destitute of a better nature.  When the whole order of mundane things, greatest and least, is corrupted, then it is necessary that the gods should descend fro the purpose of imparting another orderly distribution of things [a new age].

I produce myself among creatures whenever there is a decline in virtue and insurrection of vice and injustice in the world; and thus I incarnate from age to age, for the preservation of the just, the destruction of the wicked, and the establishment of righteousness.

The time is coming when . . . nation will make war upon nation, kingdom upon kingdom; there will be famines and earthquakes in many places.  With all these things the birth-pangs of the New Age begin.

Man has never been without a friend, but has a line of elder brothers who continually watch over the progress . . . of the soul . . . . Some of their number are rulers of men, some teachers, a few great philosophers, while others remain still unknown except to the most advanced of the body . . . . Abraham and Moses of the jews . . . had their work to do with a certain people . . . . A mighty triad . . . composed of Buddha, Confucius and Jesus . . . all have a single doctrine.

The Mahatma . . . deals with . . . egos . . . whose nature is great and deep but who are not wise enough to be able to overcome the natural illusions of devachan.

The Sons of Wisdom, who are the Elder Brothers of every family of men . . . have the light . . . . They set fire to the  . . . lower principles and the Monad, thus lighting up the fire of Manas in the new man and preparing another great race for final initiation . . .

Him I call a Brahamana, who has no desires, who has destroyed his doubts by knowledge and has plumbed the depths of the Eternal . . . who knows the mystery of death and rebirth, who is free from attachment, who is happy within himself and enlightened . . . who knows his former lives, who knows heaven and hell, who has reached the end of births . . . who is a sage of perfect knowledge and who has accomplished all that has to be accomplished.

                    Sangiti Sutta

Brethren, in this world, one comes into existence in the mother's womb knowingly, stays in it knowingly, and comes out from it knowingly; this is the fourth [birth].

The grades of the Brotherhood are: 1) the Pupil; 2) the Disciple; 3) the Brother; 4) the Elder; 5) the Master;
6) Those Who Know; 7) Perfect Men, for whom rebirth has ceased, who dwell on earth in physical form by their own will, and can return or relinquish that form as they choose.

I cannot deny that there may be higher natures than our own among the Monads [Souls}.  A World Monad may produce out of the womb of its memories that which will prove prophetic but is actually a dim remembrance of something long-expired . . . . When one reflects upon the eternity of the Universe, one can conceive of no other destiny than that the monads should eventually participate in the bliss of the gods as joyfully cooperating forces . . .

. . . to reach the highest degree possible in our world, many incarnations are required.  Those who have achieved it are humanity's great teachers, beings like Jesus, Buddha and Krishna, who, as members of a fraternity of highly evolved souls, ceaselessly help mankind to the degree its karma and evolutionary development permit.

. . . every additional Buddha or Saint is a new soldier in the army of those who work for the liberation or salvation of mankind.

                                The Secret Doctrine

. . . higher and exalted beings, . . . the "Wise Men" of our [present race], of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in learning, not teaching . . . by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts . . . . The flashing gaze of those Seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane, however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form.

. . . the "Nameless One" would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion . . . . It is under the direct, silent guidance of this MAHA-(great)-GURU that all other less divine Teachers and Instructors of mankind became . . .

[These beings have] sacrificed themselves for the sins of the world and the instruction of the ignorant . . . . Though unseen, they are ever present.  When people say of one of them, "He is dead;" behold, he is alive and under another form.  These are the Head, the Heart, the Soul, and the Seed of undying knowledge . . .

On the law of parallel history and races, the majority of the future mankind will be composed of glorious Adepts . . . while . . . the failures of nature will vanish . . .

. . . there appear from time to time great thinkers, who, devoting their lives to a single purpose, are able to anticipate the progress of mankind, and to produce a religion or a philosophy by which important effects are eventually brought about.

Even a Buddha or a Jesus had first to make a vow, which is a desire, in some life, that he would save the world or some part of it, and to persevere with the desire alive in his heart through countless lives.