Theos-Talk Archives (September 2004 Message tt00387)

Hi,
It is somewhat different in case of my TS lodge. We have large number
of young members. And many of them seriously study Theosophy
including it's esoteric aspects. So far all matters were handled by
old members and young members found it awkward to mix with so old
officers. So although they were studying Theosophy at home, they did
not mix much at lodge.
Book sale was very low.
Second point is proper guidance as to which books to read should have
been given. It was not there in the beginning. Out of seven thousand
books only five hundred books were on Theosophy and newcomer could
not know exactly what to read, so they lost interest and stopped. So
I made a list of most important thirty books most of them were by
C.W.Leadbeater, some by Annie Besant, Hodson and Taimni. These
writers use modern terminology and language unlike HPB who used old
religious terminology which often makes little sense to many people
and bores new generation.
I took 100 zerox copies of that list and distributed among all and
kept copy in lodge to be referred by new-comers. The impact was
tremendous. Book sales rose by almost twenty times. People reported
that they liked books, they understood many principles in Theosophy
and want to read more books.
Style of leadership required now must be very different. Now old
members must consider young as their friends and equals and behave,
speak accordingly. Teacher-student relationship does not work. If
leadership is given by some professional MBA, scientist or such
qualified member, then young generation gets attracted in large
number. However even if a leader is young but has read lot of writing
on orthodox religions, then his aura changes, vibrations and thoughts
he emits change, it is sensed by other members and such member repels
qualified and young members. People sense aura and when orthodox
religions are studied aura changes, it repels others and many times
such person is ridiculed by new generation.
CWL, AB investigated and realized spiritual truths and found laws of 
nature with first hand
experience but they made Theosophy like a science and not like old
orthodox religion.
I think this experience will help greatly if they repeat the
experiment. If required I will send the list of books for reading
which I distributed among large number of people.
Regards.
Fraternally,
Anand Gholap