Theos-Talk Archives (August 2009 Message tt00049)

Preethi,
thank you so much for this open, but sad insight.

It's not surprizing at all.
The same situation as here.
The same mindset as here.

Instead of solving problem, deny them.
Instead of attract younger workers, bite them aggressively away.

It is a mood of insanity, of self-destruction, of devilishness.

When I saw the HQ people in 2002 in Berlin I had mixed emotions of 
compassion and fury together.
It was the most horrible atmosphere I ever felt in life, and I was going 
through many problems.

When I provoked the PTS with non-pc questions for the slip box, she reacted 
violently as expected and cried out, that the questioner in Besant's time 
would have been kicked out of the TS.

I am quite sure for this. But the questioner would have been welcomed with 
open arms from HPB, Judge, Tingley or Purucker, who all had no problem with 
serious and critical questions.

This bad situation at HQ and in the TM general is the result of karma, of 
unfaithfulness of the members, of perverting the teachings, of cant about 
masters, of attacking the messengers of masters and hindering their 
uplifting, life spending harmonizing work.

These fallen lay chelas, who turned against the great ones because of the 
outbreak of evil parts in their characters as Besant, Leadbeater, Crosbie, 
Johnston, Conger, Long, Knoche, are either not anymore co-workers for the 
temple, which is to be built in the future, or they have balance out a lot 
of karma. Judge in his super human compassion for Besant said in the next 
life, there will be thousands, whom she has in fact stolen away their 
messenger and with him the Master, who will stand up against her and call 
her for account.

But as the situation now is karmically from errors in the past, theosophist 
should have been eager not to create NEW karma.
New, bad karma is created on a daily basis in the theosophical movement.
The messengers are ignored, fighted against, the progress hindered.

Masters are forced by unfaithfull theosophists to find new channels to save 
the Aryan race from complete annihilation.
The link is broken and no one is bothered.

I remember a good man here some years agao, who was good in quote long 
passages from books, but attacked unjustly Tingley for her reorganizations 
in 1898 and the closing of 90% of the American lodges, which after the 
forced death of Judge soon have been degenerrated.

Obviously, this man was even 100 years after that of the opinion, that it is 
enough to held book reading clubs as the ULT does and claim that after Judge 
no great one came in.
This kind of Hinayana Theosophy or open opposition to the Masters is one of 
the main reasons for the degeneration of the TM and IMHO opinion a more 
mortal poison than the wrong teachings at Adyar under Besant and Leadbeater, 
for Purucker tried to co-operate with Adyar to prevent the danger, that the 
anti-spiritual ULT mindset becomes mainstream, which operates as a new age 
sect with the false claims that ordinary men and women can reach adeptship 
by their own forces, while pukka theosophy teaches, that not one Westener 
can get the teachings on own merits and it need a living teacher as 
mediator. And so was the unaltered, unfaked teaching from HPB 1874 on up to 
1942 under Purucker.

The proud self-styled initiates from ULT etc. have never given the world any 
proof of their claims. Nor have they shows that they at least theoretically 
understood the Master's plan for the TS now and in the future. Even Foes 
like Rene Guenon have understood the Master's plan and the direction of the 
TS better than this proud crypto occultists.

In writing this frankly I do not want to bother any individual, at least 
those, who are serious and even in the ULT.
I just judge from a general, strategic, group karmic perspective.

Frank








----- Original Message ----- 
From: seeker_preethi
To: theos-talk@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 1:19 PM
Subject: Theos-World WHEN WINTER REFUSES TO LET UP


  Life is inherently cyclical. Mother Nature is inherently cyclical too. The 
seasons come and go; everything is in a passing state eternally. Spring 
gives birth to summer, summer to autumn and autumn to winter. When people 
were wiser, they moved along with these seasons and led their lives attuning 
themselves to the passing cycles of their lives. Thus we have in the Vedas 
and the Taoist texts the ideal way of leading our lives. In Spring, when the 
soul is fresh into birth, one learns of the ways of life and people; in 
Summer, when the soul has matured a bit, one learns to bear responsibilities 
for the future, to marry, to have a household, to bring forth fresh life; in 
Autumn, one begins to give way to the fresh life (one's children) to prepare 
for their summer; and in Winter, when the soul has been through an entire 
journey in life and has grown old, feeble and tired, one moves out of 
activity into contemplation of the divine, of God, and provides guidance for 
the springs, summers and autumns in one's life.

In Adyar, today, however, the winters are refusing to let up, to let go, to 
pave and make way for the other seasons to flower and bear fruit; creating 
thus an unwholesome and unhealthy atmosphere totally against natural law and 
the cycles of life. This article proposes to look at some of the problems 
rooted in the unwillingness of older and elderly workers at Adyar to let go 
of their lust and greed for not only life, but also for position, power and 
authority.

Having been at Adyar since 1994, I have seen Adyar changing from a green, 
life- and youth-filled Adyar to the Adyar of 2009, with a drab, dead 
atmosphere. It is not only the dilapidated buildings, but there is a certain 
air of sadness or death that permeates the atmosphere in Adyar. The white 
ants run havoc on buildings and trees, building their anthills wherever it 
occurs to them to build one. Unoccupied rooms at Leadbeater Chambers - which 
at one time housed about 7 or 8 workers from around the world throughout the 
year - has now only Bernice living in it. It is common to find annual 
visitors complaining about the state of the building and the hike in the 
rates. And a recent comment from the Superintendent herself indicates the 
state of affairs. At the end of the February session of the School of the 
Wisdom, when all the guests had gone, Uma Nilakanta commented that the 
entire place - not just Chambers - looked and felt so desolate. Most 
buildings on the Estate are vacant, because there are no workers to fill 
them. Most departments function with piecemeal staff; some departments have 
no heads to run them and some people run more than one department.

Looking at the sorry state of affairs at Adyar, one would wonder why in a 
place that is only 133 years young, and that likes to claim that it is the 
international headquarters of a worldwide organization, and which had among 
its membership stalwarts like HPB, HSO and Annie Besant, there is today such 
a paucity of workers, such a dead, desolate look. The entire place resembles 
a home for the aged, where those who are too old to go anywhere else have 
settled in.

And these are the oldies that are permeating the atmosphere of Adyar with 
their entrenched attitudes to life, to people, to relationships, and perhaps 
worst of all, to the work of the Society; because even though they are old, 
they continue to work. The great number of octogenarians is soon going to 
join the nonagenarians; the septuagenarians will soon make up the 
octogenarians. And they constitute the majority of the population of Adyar. 
Being of that physical or chronological age, they are low in energy, high in 
memory loss, but also stubborn, unwilling to change their gutted ways, 
preferring to do things the way they were done in days of old. The 
proverbial generation gap is in large evidence at Adyar today, for the 
younger workers who worked there in the past will always find when they 
bring in new and fresh ideas an older person who disapproves of it, and 
tries to traditionalize these ideas. Thus, Shailendra Agrawal who works as 
Superintendent of the Garden Department is daily insulted and abused and 
belittled by Mr Harihara Raghavan, General Manager of the Estate who is 
about 70 years old, while Shailendra is a little over 40 and the youngest 
worker on campus today.

Another aged member, Mrs Helen Jamieson, doesn't understand the basics of 
computers and is dependent on younger workers to help her out with Adyar 
Newsletter. At one time, before the election results were announced, the 
President wanted to ease Helen's workload and thought she could share the 
Newsletter with Preethi, only for Preethi to find that Mrs Jamieson is not 
open to help. She will not let go of responsibilities because that makes her 
anxious and insecure. At the Editorial Office, a similar situation exists. 
Older members are unwilling to learn computer skills, though younger workers 
are willing to teach these. So they create a web of dependency such that 
accomplishing work goals is almost always obstacle-filled, because position 
matters much more to Subha Nilakanta, Sundari Siddhartha, Saraswati Anand 
than the accomplishment of goals and targets. Old as they are, with failing 
eyesight, the likelihood of their missing out on errors in text is higher, 
but being proof readers and copy editors, they will not appreciate a younger 
worker correcting that error, all because the younger worker works as a 
typesetter.

As a youngster, were you to try to meet the President with suggestions, she 
most likely will tell you that there is no need for change because after 
all, things have been going on like this for 133 years. She refused to let 
Elvira make a map of the Estate for visitors to have easy access to the 
different places on the huge estate of Adyar. That was on the pretext of 
making it difficult for sandalwood thieves to enter the Estate. Who can 
explain to the President the unreasonableness of such thinking? For the 
sandalwood thieves have not stopped coming into the Estate; in fact, most of 
them come at night and are most probably not literate enough to read a map 
with its different points indicating buildings on the Estate. Yet to date, 
no map of the Estate exists and most members who come to visit go about 
asking for one so that they can get from place to place on the campus. But 
of course, one can suggest nothing to the President if she is not open to 
those suggestions.

But one will notice that there are those who can suggest even the silliest 
of things and those get accepted by the President. So what decides whether 
one's suggestions will be heard or not? One factor is the willingness of the 
other to play the President's game. Like, for example, Shailendra once 
suggested getting a golf cart to take aged members from place to place on 
the campus. According to Shailendra, the President approved of the 
suggestion. Pedro Oliveira, Keshwar Dastur and Radha Muthiah can almost 
always get what they want from the President. Uma and Subha Nilakanta can 
get away with almost anything on campus. But even these are not fixed.

After you have worked with the President for a while, you will have to admit 
that she is rather whimsical. Today, if she is in a good mood, you can get 
away with murder. If she is, on the other hand, in a bad mood, even the best 
you can do will meet with criticism of the worst kind. If she likes you, you 
are God. If she doesn't like you, you are the Devil incarnate. And once you 
have entered her bad books - does not matter at all whether due to your 
fault or not - she will not forgive you easily. In fact, she never forgives. 
She will constantly remind you - either directly or through her pets - of 
your past mistakes. She will keep it in the back of her mind every time you 
meet her face to face. She will also use that information to initiate gossip 
and an entire coterie of `enemies' around you. And this is a President who 
will call you immature when you go to her with the sword of honesty and 
truth. She will call you and shout at you, berate you and denigrate you.

One of the toughest things about Adyar is for one to recognize that in order 
for everyone to live in peace at Adyar, one has to give a lot of leeway to 
the President, even though she is older than most of us, we must adjust to 
her, we must understand her, we must obey her, we must forgive her, we must 
overlook her flaws; for she will never do any of these with us. She will 
speak about compassion, but that is what you have to give her; not the other 
way around. In fact, it is never the other way around. So we have 
essentially a taking President, not a giving one. The only thing that freely 
flows out of her is criticism of your ways and anger that you don't speak 
her language.

But coming back to the topic of seasons and cycles, let us look at what the 
unwillingness of the President to let go of position, power and authority 
does to the younger members and workers. Over the years, an abundance of 
elderly workers on the Estate of Adyar has meant that the younger 
generations feel a lack of expression in their need to do something for the 
Cause. And if they do, then they must of a necessity compete. Thus, greedy 
Helen, Harihara Raghavan, N. Muthuswamy or possessive Radha Burnier have 
given birth to competitive (though not necessarily competent and efficient) 
Uma Nilakanta, Subha Nilakanta, Radha Muthiah, Keshwar Dastur and such 
others. Competitive 55-70 year olds like the ones mentioned here and many 
others have given birth to competitive Maithreya, Pedro Oliveira, Jaishree, 
Geetha Jaikumar, and younger still, competitive Sushama, Juliana, Pablo. 
That is where all this competition being so talked about these days springs 
from - an entire older generation (the elders of Adyar) unwilling to let go 
of power, position and authority, unwilling to work in an entirely advisory 
capacity rather than heading departments that need younger and fresher ideas 
and energies. Instead of spending time preparing for death, or contemplating 
their lives thus far, these elderly spend time doing that which the 
youngsters ought to be doing.

And what does competition have to do with Theosophy, or with Brotherhood? 
Virtually nothing. In fact, competition is opposed to the ideal of realizing 
a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood. This is one of the reasons why there is 
no longer any fresh life in Adyar, because the older ones have not learned 
to or are unwilling to learn how to let go. So one of the things that I 
would suggest to readers of this article is to bring in a rule in the 
Constitution of the TS regarding the maximum age limit at which a person can 
be working at Adyar and limit it to 75. Anyone above that age ought to work 
at Adyar solely in an advisory capacity, rather than working as a head of a 
department. This anyone also includes the President of the TS.

What Adyar and the TS movement worldwide need urgently is fresh ideas, fresh 
ways of looking at and practising Brotherhood, because the current 
leadership and her assistants at Adyar are not capable any more of 
practising the First Object of the TS. We need elders willing to understand, 
rather than all the time seeking to be understood and obeyed. We need a 
leader who is rooted in life, has a deep insight and understanding into 
causes of events or happenings, is empathetic rather than whimsical, someone 
who is morally strong and can lead and guide those who work with her or 
below her upwards on the Path.

Preethi