Theos-Talk Archives (December 2006 Message tt00883)

Friends,

Blind people think the ULT, or the Adyar TS, or Pasadena, are about the buildings they use.  

The paragraphs below, written by one whose personal name does not need to be known right now,  have a few insights about what is, and what is not, the ULT.  
Regards,  Carlos. 

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[ From the text  entitled "A Non-Reactive Declaration of Independence". ]
 
The United Lodge of Theosophists ( U.L.T.) presents itself not as an organisation, but as an organism, a living body of students, devoted to the dissemination by study and otherwise of the original teachings of Theosophy as recorded in the writings of the Founders of the modern Theosophical Movement, H.P.B. and William Q. Judge. The only 'official' document of the U.L.T. is a brave Declaration of principles, and one of these principles "holds that the unassailable basis for union among Theosophists, wherever and however situated, is "similarity of aim, purpose and teaching," and therefore has neither Constitution, By-Laws nor Officers, the sole bond between its Associates being that basis". 

Although the above words sound simple and clear, it still may be difficult to understand their real meaning and thereby missing the unique character, mission and purpose of U.L.T. Unaquainted with the history of the Theosophical Movement one may think that U.L.T. is just another theosophical group, especially when from a purely historical and chronological view U.L.T. only originated in 1909, and thus may be considered as only one of the many off-shoots of the original Theosophical Society, founded in 1875. In order to comprehend U.L.T. and its declaration it is therefore helpful to point out the difference between the Theosophical Movement as a whole and any theosophical organisation in particular. W.Q. Judge gives some interesting thoughts on this important subject: 

"There is a very great difference between the Theosophical Movement and any Theosophical Society. The Movement is moral, ethical, spiritual, universal, invisible save in effect, and continuous. A Society formed for theosophical work is a visible organization, an effect, a machine for conserving energy and putting it to use; it is not nor can it be universal, nor is it continuous. Organized Theosophical bodies are made by men for their better cooperation, but, being mere outer shells, they must change from time to time as human defects come out, as the times change, and as the great underlying movement compels such alterations. The Theosophical Movement being continuous, it is to be found in all times and in all nations. Wherever thought has struggled to be free, wherever spiritual ideas, as opposed to forms and dogmatisms, have been promulgated, there the great movement is to be discerned... One can therefore see that to worship an organization... is to fall down before Form." (from "The Theosophical Movement", The Path, August, 1895)

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