Theos-Talk Archives (July 2007 Message tt00189)

One new factor in today's world that was not there in the past. That is
Internet. All organizations when combined with control of ideas and property
and money, brings in politics of one kind or another and everyone inthe
organization is expected to fall in line with what the bureucrats decide.
Such compliance can be overt or subtle and are effective due to the fear of
being excluded from the group. Groups also entice their followers by money,
opportunities to participate, award of medals, titles etc to reward
compliance.

In today's world, the big elephant in the room is the Internet. People with
similar interests world wide can discuss and disseminate ideas without any
censoring or control by those who claim to be experts or claim to know more.
This is the saviour of powerful doctrines which attract the attention of
thinking public. In addition, now written material can be made available on
Internet without the intereference or censorship of organizations and their
leaders. We may have to wait for some years before we can see how fast the
Internet acts as a change agent.

In closing, I feel the traditional role of organizatons will be minimized as
days go by due to changes in communication technology.

mkr


On 7/17/07, supreme_1l < AnandGholap@anandgholap.org> wrote:
>
>   I think Theosophy is going through the same process as all other
> religions did. After initial founding of the religion, it always
> happened that different people arrived at different conclusions about
> what constitutes true religion. After Jesus, Roman Catholic Church,
> hundreds of different protestant denominations, Orthodox church and
> like that so many churches were formed because of different
> interpretation of what true Christianity is. Each group says "our
> interpretation of Christianity is correct others are not correct in
> some ways"
> Same happened in case of Buddhism with branches like Hinayana,
> Mahayana etc. In Hinduism also there is tremendous variety among
> religious groups.
> So I think splits in the Theosophical Society, claims of possessing
> true doctrine , conflicts and bitterness due to difference of
> opinions, these are natural for the TS, as it happened in all
> religions. We will have to accept it as inevitable fact. Because of
> this process of differentiation, I think in future also there will be
> number of Theosophical groups, each claiming to be correct.
> Anand Gholap
>
> 
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]