Imagining Adyar TS as Irrelevant?
Mar 20, 2006 09:58 AM
by carlosaveline cardoso aveline
Dear Friends,
Krsanna says (see below):
"I believe that Adyar is irrelevant to the degree it is not capable of doing
the work of theosophy, to unify by showing that all esoteric knowledge stems
from one common tree, and this knowledge has become exoteric. Contemporary
Theosophists who hide in the shadow history or some vague future, 25,000
years from now, are equally incapable of doing the work of theosophy in the
contemporary world and, in this way, irrelevant to the degree they fail to
deal with conditions of the world as it now exists in exoteric and esoteric
terms."
I say:
1) No one is hiding in the future. The practical reason for looking things
in a comparatively long term
is that it gives us a much better perspective of reality as we face short
term challenges. Time, and space, in the SD, is much wider that 25,000
years and our planet Earth.
2) Who is the "spiritual authority" to judge that Adyar is "irrelevant"? Is
Krsanna modestly offering herself to such a position? Adyar is part of the
theosophical movement; it is far from being the smallest of its parts; it
has many sincere students, including undrieds of HPB students; all of the
movement is "relevant" in the long run.
3) It is beautiful to acknowledge our own relative irrelevancy in the
greater scheme of things; it is not correct or accurate to judge OTHERS as
irrelevant.
4) Mistakes are NEVER irrelevant as they always hide important lessons.
Adyar TS's mistakes are relevant and identifying them will give important
lessons not only to its own members, but to all the movement.
Actual differences between Adyar TS and other theosophical organizations can
be much smaller than some of us think.
There is a difference between fighting Adyar and fighting Adyar's
illusions. These illusions are, in a way, the illusions of the movement as a
whole.
Adyar TS members are our brothers and sisters. Sometimes, family
relationships are uneasy and difficult, but frank discussions can help.
Brothers and sisters are always relevant to each other.
Best regards, Carlos.
From: "TimeStar" <timestar@timestar.org>
Reply-To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
To: <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Theos-World HPB's resignation from Adyar and its irrelevancy
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 04:01:16 -0700
Dear nhcareta:
I had never seen the letter in which HPB resigned from the Adyar TS, which
was later ordered to be produced in court by a judge in 1929. Thank you
for
bringing it to the attention of this group. Adyar has never published the
letter in its entirety, except with all derogatory comments about Adyar
removed?
I believe that Adyar is irrelevant to the degree it is not capable of doing
the work of theosophy, to unify by showing that all esoteric knowledge
stems
from one common tree, and this knowledge has become exoteric. Contemporary
Theosophists who hide in the shadow history or some vague future, 25,000
years from now, are equally incapable of doing the work of theosophy in the
contemporary world and, in this way, irrelevant to the degree they fail to
deal with conditions of the world as it now exists in exoteric and esoteric
terms.
HPB used newspapers, magazines, books, and contemporary events of her day
to
illustrate the principles she taught. She was dynamic and present in the
world.
All individuals of this planet and the developing life forms are one,
including mineral, plant and animal. Saying that Theosophical Societies
and
Theosophists are one on the inner plane without including all life of the
planet constitutes a new caste system of theosophical interests.
In this oneness of all life on earth, Adyar has failed the theosophical
mission and HPB resigned from it. She abolished the authority of the
parent
society declaring all lodges autonomous. Her resignation, it seems,
prophesied the future of Theosophy: "Mankind - the majority at any rate -
hates to think for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest invitation
to step for a moment outside the old well-beaten track, and, judging for
itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction."
Theosophists and their societies are as mired in dogma as any other
religion
has ever been. They have become the new "dead letter."
Again, thank you for this post.
Best regards,
Krsanna Duran
nhcareyta <nhcareyta@...> wrote:
In light of recent postings, this article written in 1991 and subsequently
published in The Canadian Theosophist might be of interest. It was sent to
me whilst involved in personal correspondence with the author during my
early stages of disenthrallment and disillusionment with the Adyar T.S.
IN MEMORY OF H P. BLAVATSKY
BY D. J. BUXEY
"We cannot exaggerate the debt we owe to H.P.B. She brought us the
Light...and we can best carry on her work by remembering the gratitude that
we owe her.
Dr. Annie Besant.
H.P.B. resigned ("in utter disgust." as she called it) from the
Theosophical
Society on the New Day of Spring, March 21, 1985. She ended her words on
the matter with:
"I leave with, one and all, to every one of my friends and sympathizers, my
loving farewell. I would implore you all to be true to the Society (this
essay is being written only " to be true to the Society", as she puts it. -
D.J.B.) and not to permit it to be over-thrown by the enemy.
Fraternally and ever yours - in life or death.
H.P. Blavatsky.
Adyar was happy to see her go. As she put it later, there was hatred from
every department in Adyar towards her.
Why did the Council of the T.S. accept her resignation? Perhaps, as she put
it, (I am quoting from The Canadian Theosophist. Sept.-Oct. 1982, p.80.
Vol.63, No. 4):
"Mankind - the majority at any rate - hates to think for itself. It resents
as an insult the humblest invitation to step for a moment outside the old
well-beaten track, and, judging for itself, to enter into a new path in
some
fresh direction."
This essay is being written, in her memory, precisely for the T.S. to move
"in some fresh direction" in the second century of its existence. As I was
writing my paper for the International Conference, as invited, and came to
this point, the biographer of H.P.B., my neighbor, came in I asked him why
he ended his book on H.P.B. with her resignation and did not go further.
His
answer shook me. He said, as invited, he speaks to the lodges, but never
became a member - (this surprised me) - "as so sordid is the history of the
T.S. that I want no part of it."
I then remonstrated. "You are then presenting only part of the picture."
His reply was, "Be it so. but I cannot wash dirty linen in public." After
her resignation, H.P.B. then left India on March 30, 1885, against her will
as she put it later to friends. As she saw the shores of her beloved India
recede, she wept like a baby. She was carried on board ship without a
change
of clothes, and, in her own words, "...indecent haste."
And now, with her out of the way Adyar started playing games. It started
"manufacturing" Masters in their factory, - not merely manufacture, but
commercializing and selling "Them" also, much as the Christian missionaries
sell Jesus - their American TV. programs earn at least a 100 million
dollars. In the last bulletin of Convention No. 4 that a friend sent to me
from Adyar, it mentioned that a property in Holland reverted to Adyar. But
I
happened to read Dr. Besant's Watch Tower notes in The Theosophist of how
the property was made to be donated. The donor said that she was made a
member or pupil of the Great White Brotherhood (Annie Besant's eyes widened
at this stage) and she was put on probation by the Master K.H. This was
Bishop Wedgwood's mischief - when I went to see him in Camberley in 1950 he
had already gone mad (from tertiary syphilis. -Ed.). Dr. Besant said that
she had never heard of such a thing (that the property was being donated),
-
all sorts of things happened behind her back - but she was accepting the
property nevertheless. This is just an example to illustrate the point. The
property, Huizen has now come to belong to Adyar.
H.P. Blavatsky now declared:
a. I cannot now live at Headquarters from which the Masters and Their
Spirit are virtually banished.
b. The Presence of Their portraits will not help. They are a dead letter.
(These portraits are now in the E.S. Shrine Room.)
c. No advice of mine on occult lines seems likely to be accepted.
d. The fact of my relations with the Masters is doubted, even totally
denied
by some, and I myself having no right to the Headquarters, what reason is
there, therefore, for me to live at Adyar?
This letter has been kept secret from Adyarites to this day. Only when a
Parsee judge objected was it partially repeated in The Theosophist of 1929.
By then Annie Besant was losing her memory (she asked Krishnamurti if they
had ever met!), and was nearly dying, so they (Adyar officials) felt it was
of no harm then. But all derogatory references to Adyar, even until then
(1929) were removed. After H.P. Blavatsky's departure from Adyar, the
Masters became "alive" at the Adyar Convention. Who was to stop them? A
member, Franz Hartman, astonished at all these goings on, wrote to H.P.B.
and I quote from her very long letter of April 1885:
"As to ... that portion of your letter where you speak of the "army" of
the
deluded (viz. T.S. members at the Convention) and the "imaginary" Mahatmas
of Olcott - you are absolutely and sadly right". (Note "sadly right" and
"imaginary Mahatmas, Olcott's Old Diary Leaves is pure fantasy and
imagination - D.J.B.) "Have I not seen the thing for nearly 8 years? Have
I
not struggled and fought against Olcott's ardent and gushing imagination
and
tried to stop him every day of my life?" (Note her words, "his gushing
imagination" on Masters. - DJ.B.) "Was he not told by me that if he did
not see the Masters in their true light and did not cease speaking and
inflaming people's imagination, that he would be held responsible for all
the evil the Society might come to?" ("Note the words, "inflaming people's
imagination" by tall stories about Masters. - D.J.B.)
Who started inventing all this? To the German theosophist, (Hartman) H.P.B.
explained:
"Then came Damodar and several other fanatics (note this word, - D.J.B.)
calling them "Mahatmas" and little by little, the Adepts were transformed
into Gods on earth. They...were becoming with every day more legendary and
miraculous. The idea that Masters were mortal men never crossed anyone's
mind, though They wrote themselves repeatedly" Why did she not stop all
this? As she put it at the end:
"I was always occupied with The Theosophist, and ever in my room. All were
left to Olcott and Damodar, two fanatics." (The word "fanatics" appears
again. D.J.B.) "How I protested and tried to swim against the current, only
Mr. Sinnett knows, and the Masters."
The Masters (made, as H.P.B. says, omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent)
leave the Society. We will quote only three phrases of what the Masters
said, from Their numerous statements:
1. 'The Society has liberated itself from our grasp and influence, and we
have let it go."
2. "This policy (Olcott's) has done more harm to the spirit of the Society
than several Coulombs can do." (What a strong and damaging statement to
make, "more than what several Coulombs can do." - DJB.)
3. "He (Olcott) saved his body (organization )but the T.S. is now a
soulless
corpse." (Or, he saved the body but killed the soul. - D.J.B)
Now with the Master K.H. saying "the T.S, has failed", H.P.B. is asked to
start a new movement. Her words:
"Acting under the Master's orders. I began a new movement in the West on
the
original lines ... I founded (the magazine) Lucifer." Now the Lucifer was
founded to attack The Theosophist, otherwise why two magazines? How else
would her voice be heard? How else could she crusade, a brave and lone
warrior against falsehood? With this we must slowly end her story.
History continues, as the story of others begins, and it is with her memory
that we are more concerned about here. Just as Krishnamurti told me many a
time, once with tears in his eyes, how he was thrown out of Adyar at a
moment's notice (he came to continue H.P.B.'s work), just as I saw, year
after year, the pain in his eyes and words, we find from her letters the
pain coming, as in this sentence:
"...those for whom I had the deepest affection, regarding them as a mother
would her own sons ... have turned against me..." At this point we must
stop; her story is over. What about her successor? His story would start.
H.P.B. had told Wm. Q. Judge in July 1886 (and a number of times
thereafter), "Take my place, Judge, ... replace me at Adyar."
But Annie Besant played politics. "Politics" means fighting for power. She
need not have, for Judge was to die in a year, but she did not know this.
She would have come to power in any case, and later confessed to many
people, such as B.P. Wadia that she was misled. An Australian, Mouni
Sadhu,
in his In Days of Great Peace, says on p. 49:
"On my enquiry late in 1926, Mrs. Besant wrote to me:
'It is true that after the death of Col. Olcott in 1907, the Masters
withdrew their direct guidance of the T.S.' " Besant died broken-hearted,
and as Krishnamurti was to tell me and others later, she nevertheless was
sincere, but the others were not. Olcott also realized this. In his
biography, Hammer on the Mountain a conversation appears on page 299- 300:
Olcott - "I have learned more, particularly as regards Judge -
"Yes, Henry," I (Laura Langford - Holloway) said eagerly,
Olcott - "I know now and it will comfort you to hear it, that I wronged
Judge - not willfully or in malice; nevertheless I have done this and I
regret it."
"God bless you", I said and then thanked him for his brave recantation.
H.P.B. tells her Masters she wants to start a new movement in her beloved
India, the home of the Mahatmas, "of whom every Hindu school boy knows".
(Mahatmas being true sanyasins etc.), but not in Europe. Master K.H. asks
her to go to pondicherry, but Adyar threatens arrest (as its existence is
at
stake), and in utter disgust, Master K.H. asks Aurobindo to go to
Pondicherry. Was there any way to save the situation then? Yes, by
recalling
her, as the Master told her "most plainly":
"Master told me most plainly that if the Society did not recall me before
1886 (which it did not - D.J.B.) They would retire entirely from any
connection with it, signify it to the London Lodge and other European and
American Societies, and break every connection with every member."
Conclusion:
H.P.B. asks, "Whom do I blame?" (for this mess). She answers, "Certainly
not
I."
Obviously blame goes to Olcott, as the Masters pinned the blame on him, but
she is so noble, so chivalrous, that she puts it this way, "Loaded and
heavy
is his karma, poor man...", but she does not blame him. Then whom? "To
human
nature, demanding money." - All this was done for money - for organization,
not teachings. So far as teachings were concerned, she had said, as J.
Krishnamurti had told in practically the same words:
"I saw with terror and anger the false track they (the T.S.) were all
pursuing."
When Judge started his magazine The Path, she had said, so far as the
teachings are concerned:
"Bravo! Judge, ... your Path outclasses my Lucifer any day." While for
Adyar
she said, "Adyar is the laughing-stock of the theosophists themselves, let
alone their enemies.
Even Swami Vivekananda had said, "God knows what happened. But Judge was
the
best representative the theosophists ever had."
Post Mortem
Is there a post mortem? Possibly yes.
Annie Besant died. She possibly saw things in a better light, and as
reported in The Theosophist Dec.1941. P.232, told Arundale. "The Lodges
have
become confused ... they have forgotten what theosophy is. Their members
run
here, there, and everywhere, everywhere but towards Theosophy."
"...everywhere but towards Theosophy". This is why this paper is being
written. May there be a new turn of direction by 1991.*
* The approximate time of writing of this essay. Add a prayer for a belated
new turn of direction in 1996. -Ed.
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