Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl00604)

Chuck:
I enjoyed reading your msg.

When HSO and HPB came to Madras, in addition to all the TS and Theosophy
work, HSO started a school for untouchables and HPB started a Sanskrit
School in Madras. Everyone knows the work HSO did in Ceylon.

Annie Besant got involved personally in Politics and in addition in
building a network of schools and colleges funded and supported by local
Hindus. Such involvement in projects which directly benefit the common
"man" went a long way towards making a lot of people join TS and benefit
from what it offers to improve the conditions everywhere.

After AB, there was very little public activity in which the TS leaders
got involved, except perhaps in the Animal Rights and Cultural Activities
where Rukmini Arundale was personally involved for a long time.

History can be an eye opener for a perceptive observer and writers are
perceptive ones.

	....doss


On Fri, 10 May 1996 Drpsionic@aol.com wrote:

> Eldon,
> One of the problems I have with the institutional TS is that it seems to be
> so head oriented that it forgets that there has to be a practical meaning to
> all this.  For example, convention and summer school are coming up and we are
> probably going to be seminared to death but when it comes to making Theosophy
> a living thing, something is going to get seriously lost in the translation.
>  It's that way every year.
> It is almost as if the idea of action terrifies everyone.  Now I can see lots
> of ways where it should.  It the TS ever got involved in politics it would
> blow itself apart.  Poor Dorothy Abbenhouse made a stab at that sort of thing
> when she was president and was lucky to avoid being tarred and feathered.  It
> was not until Gerda and I made peace with her after the Bing debacle that we
> learned the hostility that her actions had generated.
> But there are ways of approaching the subject without dogmatism or
> divisiveness.  All it takes is a willingness to accept the fact that people's
> view of things differs, yet that seemingly simple approach is apparently
> beyond the official society.
> There is room for both head and heart.  We surely cannot exist without either
> for very long.
>
> Chuck the Atrocious MTI, FTSA
> Heretic
> Troublemaker
>