Theos-Talk Archives (June 2009 Message tt00580)

Hi MKR,

Perhaps instead of looking at recruiting new members, we must now start looking at the quality of members there are. Are we Theosophical enough? Are we even human enough? At the topmost level, if one will notice and accept, the TS is treated more like a piece of cake with each cat trying to get the best piece and perhaps the largest one for oneself. So perhaps instead of concentrating so much of your attention on recruitment, you must try at least to see if we can get intelligent, rational, thinking, self-reliant, truth-seeking, truth-speaking, courageous, righteous, incorruptible members.

>From my experience, most Westerners learn to question life early, perhaps because of their family structure, which in many cases is not structured at all. Divorces, broken homes, etc. Thus questioning life, when they approach the TS, that is also how they will view the TS. Is it worthy? How to current members behave towards each other? and such other.

In India, we are taught to obey our elders, so it is quite common that when the parents are members of the TS, the children will naturally join it at a young age. And then follow it unquestioningly till death, but it does not at all even occur to most Indians to question the authority of the President or a higher official in a Lodge or Federation. So they may be members of the TS on paper, but because they have not found expression in the Lodge's activities they stop attending Lodge meetings. That is what I would call empty membership; a sleeping or dead membership.

In Adyar itself, from 1994 when the estate was filled with young members and we had regular Vasanta Youth Lodge meetings and Youth Conventions, I have seen the change to a zero active membership from the Youth. In fact, at Adyar today, there are only two youngsters -- Shailendra Agrawal and J. Suresh. Shailendra comes from outside and does not participate in most Lodge meetings. He works as the Superintendent of the Garden Department. J. Suresh lives on campus, works as the head of the Security department and does not attend any meetings at all of the TS or ES or masonic. The only one who did attend Lodge meetings, was committed as a worker and member is the one who is currently writing this message and I am, as you know, no longer welcome at Adyar.

So perhaps it is time now for members worldwide to ask themselves some very pertinent questions, most important of which is, what is the level of their commitment to the Cause of the TS? Is the TS just another activity for them or is it a way of life? Is it something to brag about (as with Pedro Oliveira, who will lift a pin and then go tom-toming to the rest of the world that he lifted a pin for the TS) or is the Theosophic way of life so natural to oneself that one doesn't even know when one is or is not working for the TS?

Fraternal greetings

Preethi

--- On Sat, 27/6/09, MKR <mkr777@gmail.com> wrote:

From: MKR <mkr777@gmail.com>
Subject: Theos-World Membership - The Hot Potato
To: "theos-talk" <theos-talk@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Saturday, 27 June, 2009, 5:10 AM











    
            
            


      
      Membership - The Hot Potato



There is a saying - tail wagging the dog; being sidetracked from serious

issues. That is what is happening to the membership recruitment and

retention issue outside India. In India, over the years, the membership

count has been gradually growing, and is currently the largest section. The

Indian membership became a very significant factor in the hotly contested

last year's election. After the election, there were unsubstantiated

allegations about the Indian Section election procedures and the section

challenged the allegers to substantiate the allegations.



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Annie Besant, most savvy organizer and leader, knew the significance of the

large Indian membership and advised George Arundale to get to know the

Indian membership and get their support from their hearts. She knew of the

critical role the Indian membership plays in the life of TS. Such a large

number of members in the Indian section cannot be ignored by the rest of the

members when any key issues come up. Also, they vote as block and any

attempt to make members break away from the block will not work since most

members belong to lodges and there is a very close camaraderie and cohesion

within the lodges. I am speaking from personal experience since I lived in

India for several decades.



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Anyone looking at the recent historical data, can see that the membership

outside India is going down or at least stagnant for years. For example in

two of the countries, no new lodge was chartered for over 50 years. This is

not a happy picture.



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We see a lot of noise being made about various organizational issues and

members witnessed the shocking ultra secret attempt to seize control of the

presidency by disenfranchising members world wide and GC members take over

the power to appoint the president. And many seeing the timing of the move,

and the players behind the move, cannot but see it as an end-run by the

losing group to seize control of the presidency. Due to the good luck of TS

and its members, and with the help of theos-talk, the move was discovered

and broadcast to shocked membership because it was so closely held secret

that even long-time members and workers at Adyar and other national

headquarters were in the dark and had to learn about it from theos-talk, the

independent theosophical maillist.



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Many sectional heads travelled all the way to India in December for the GC

meeting, the expenses paid by TS, and not a single mention was made about

the poor membership situation and what to do with it. It is such a hot

potato that leadership did not want to talk about it. While it should be the

first priority item, it appears that it is a non priority item in the minds

of many leaders, which indeed is a pity.



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Everyone is aware that in most sections outside India, the retention is poor

and the turnover is very high. We have not seen any analysis of the reasons

for this phenomenon. Unless you know why it is happening, all academic

theorizing and tinkering with rules is not going to help fix the problem..

There is one other phenomenon that came to my attention. It is the

resignation of long-time members. Anyone leaving after being around TS for

10, 20, 30 years, should raise red flags and I think it is the duty of the

leaders to investigate and find a fix for it. I do not think this is

happening. The continued lack of transparency makes it almost impossible to

find out what is going on.



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Two instance came to my attention. One was the departure of a long time

theosophist in the USA. The other was the resignation of a member in NZ who

has been around theosophy for over 30 years. I think there should be some

very serious issues that turn off members with such a long connection to TS.

Unless these instances are looked into and quick actions taken to address

the underlying problem or problems, how do you expect membership to grow.. I

wish instead of spending time about intricacies of rules and regulations, it

would do a lot of good to TS if the membership retention issue is urgently

addressed. Since Internet provides historical info about TS, it is going

affect the decisions of prospective members since they would be wondering

about what is going on in TS. Is it a sinking organization and members are

jumping off?



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MKR



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Visit www.theosophy. net and enjoy the activities there.



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