Theos-Talk Archives (June 1997 Message tl00016)

Hello, everybody

Farthing's article titled THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE [from the
May, 1997 HIGH COUNTRY THEOSOPHIST], is a scholarly and thorough article
that everyone interested in Theosophy should read. [Due to copyright issues,
I am not posting it here]. It was posted in the Theosophy World, June 1,
1997 issue.

There are two items in the article that needs to be commented on.

The first relates to his views on the political and social activities that
Annie Besant undertook while she was the President of TS.

To better understand the overall picture, we need to just review the
happenings around the many well known members of TS in India. ML to APS
shows the keep interest that the Adepts took in trying to establish an
native owned English language newspaper and also the work They did in the
background relative to some of the issues which had an impact on the welfare
of the masses. It was also after one of the early Annual TS conventions in
Adyar that some of the members met and formed the Indian National Congress
which fought for Indian Freedom and A O Hume was one of those involved in
that effort and still today he is called the father of Indian National
Congress even though most Indians know very little about his
correspondence/connection with the Adepts and Theosophy. While dissemination
of occult doctrine in an effort to change the human hearts from inside out
thus revolutionize the world, practical efforts by the Adepts went hand in hand.

While TS as an organization did not directly get involved in all these
efforts, members in their personal capacity did participate in all these
political and social endeavors. While the long term fix for human problems
may be changing of human hearts from inside out, in the shorter term, any
improvement, however slight in the conditions of the masses should be
welcome by any one who has the best interests of the "orphan" Humanity at heart.

I have already mentioned how HPB, Olcott, CWL all helped in practical
application of Theosophy. In this tradition, Annie Besant reached new
heights and did lot to the masses in getting herself involved in many
political and social issues. While she was President of TS, she made sure
that none of these activities took place from the International
Headquarters. During her days of political activity, she had an office
outside the International Headquarters from which she worked on all the
political matters, which included even publishing a magazine/newspaper.

The second issue relates to Jiddu Krishnamurti.

HPB herself had anticipated the visit of Messenger from the Great White
Lodge to help Humanity and I recall her commenting how easy for the
Messenger to do His work now that TS has established itself far and wide.

No one can be sure if K was that Messenger or not nor how high spiritually
the Messenger was. It is impossible, in my humble opinion, to judge anyone,
especially one who is far ahead of ourselves in evolution.

True Annie Besant and CWL and others anticipated that the Messenger would
come in a particular way. The model, based on what happened 2000 year ago
did not pan out.

Again how can any one of us can judge if the direction in which K started
teaching -- shutting down of the Order of the Star of the East and K's
famous "Truth is a Pathless Land" is not the best suited to the Humanity at
this point in time. Only at a future date when we come back and reincarnate
we may be able to see if indeed this was the approach that did work. If say
1000 years from now , you are back and we find that no one knows about a
person named Krishnamurti, then we can perhaps say that K was not the
expected Messenger. On the other hand, if we find that K's ideas have
accepted widespread acceptance, then we know that after all K was right when
he charted his future direction. So only time can tell, the best course
seems to be to not to come to any conclusion. At the same time, if each one
of is find something in K's teachings that appeals to us and is helpful to
us, I think as open minded Theosophists we should make the best use of it.

We need to add K's involvement in other matters. One of the little known
facts about K is the effect he seemed to have had in helping Indian
Politicians. K had been consulted by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime
Minister and the father of Indira Gandhi, since the days of Independence,
even though very few knew about it. After Nehru, Indira Gandhi continued to
consult him till her death. As a matter of fact it was K who convinced
Indira Gandhi to lift emergency rule and call for elections (in which Indira
Gandhi herself was defeated). No one can be sure of what effect he had on
the Indian Politics. R. Venkataraman, one of the students of the Rishi
Valley School in India became the President of India and prior to that he
held various key state and cabinet positions. So everything seems to point
that K had a significance effect on the developments in India. K also had
set up schools in various countries. The aim of the schools is to produce
future citizens who may help change the world.

So all of the above seems to show that they are practical theosophy pure and
simple. After all helping the suffering "Orphan Humanity" seems to me to be
more important than all the detailed information relating to man and the
universe.


........doss