Theos-Talk Archives (November 2009 Message tt00070)

One of the issues I have mentioned in several of the msgs in the past is the
importance of the role played by regular visits of the National President to
all the lodges and centers in the USA. I just happened to come across a
piece in Rossâ book Krotona IV. It is quoted below. In a separate msg, I
will further provide some of my thoughts on the matter.

A P Warrington was the National President and also was International Vice
President. He was a lawyer by training and played a key role in the
establishment of Krotona.

+++

Warrington reported on his tour of the American Section in The Messenger.

... I left California on the 25th of February, made a tour of the Southern,
the Eastern and the Northern (Great Lakes) Divisions of the Section, and
returned again to the Golden State on the 4th of May. In the 69 days of
absence I traveled 10,764 miles, visited 43 cities, spoke 77 times before
T.S. lodges, E.S. groups, and public audiences. The interviews were many and
the social engagements not missing.

The pace had necessarily to be a swift one to cover so large a territory in
so short a time and include so many duties. In most places the arrivals were
early and the departures by night trains just after the evening lecture. So
continuously was I engaged that there were times when I should gladly have
given a neat little sum, if money could have bought it, for a 30 minutes
restful nap just before an evening lecture. This does not mean, however,
that I was not met with consideration and kindness everywhere, for I was.
The generous and loving reception extended me by hearts overflowing with
kindly goodwill was a bestowal that one does not easily forget and cannot
overvalue.

Judging from the results of this tour I should say that it should be in the
plan of whoever is General Secretary (National President) of this great
Section to visit practically all the active lodges once a year if possible.
This can be done, e.g., by visiting the Southern, the Eastern and the
Northern (Great Lakes) Divisions in the spring, and the Middle West,
Northwest and Southwest in the early fall, just after Convention. Each trip
would take about two months, requiring an absence from Headquarters of at
least four months each year, and as long as the harness is on my shoulders I
shall hope to fulfill this program.

The message I carried was the old one of fraternal love. While it is true
that our Society is a student body, sifting, comparing, analyzing and
discarding old forms, yet it is also true that it is the builder,
conserving, combining, synthesizing and preserving that which must go into
new and more flexible forms. We must never tear down or destroy until we are
prepared to build up or recreate, and then preserve or maintain for
evolutionary ends. In every way we should hold faithfully to our God-given
Trinitarian nature, and balance the pairs of opposites in us by the
consciously directed will as a channel of the One Will. So lodges, like
individuals, should not become lopsided on the intellectual or analytic
side. They should remember that ours is a spiritual movement and that the
essence of spirituality is unity. This becomes realized as
we learn to love one another and to bear one another's burdens. Love is the
keynote - the kind spoken of by St. Paul - that beareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. We must
realize that there is such a thing as Heart Culture, and set about its
development with eager intent.

This is the missing weight needed to balance the head culture upon which we
have been focusing attention all these years. With these two well-developed,
the third point of our triangular nature - active, unselfish service -
becomes the avenue through which blessings may pour out over humanity in
abundance. We must construct the get-together habit and so create a real
nucleus of brotherhood and not merely an academic, or hypothetical one; we
must try to demonstrate a brotherhood that is worthy the name. We must
remember that ours is a fraternal order, a fellowship, not a mere study
club, or debating society. Until we realize this we shall never approximate
the usefulness that we were intended to have as an outer instrument in the
hands of that greatest of all orders, the Great White Brotherhood - a
wonderful body of beings who have learned how to think, to love, and to
serve with divine perfection.

The world needs all three of these qualities just now in deep measure, when
so much loveless human waste is going on, and especially that of brotherly
love. Will not the American F.T.S. do their utmost to realize this practical
expression of human brotherhood in their lodges and in their lives? Do they
realize how each unselfish effort in this direction constitutes a weight
thrown into the scales to prevent the heavy evil from over tipping the
balance?

How the times do need the breadth of knowledge, the depth of love and the
radiant expanse of universal service afforded by the ideal of the Ancient
Wisdom - our beloved Theosophy! For we must remember that although no
nucleus of Universal Brotherhood proved itself strong enough to influence
the world not to enter upon the horrible war that is now torturing its
children, yet the days of reconstruction are soon to approach when our
precious message will be needed even as greatly. In these days to come plans
will be wrought out for the building of stable foundations for centuries of
time and, what is more important than that, these foundations should be laid
upon the rock of Universal Brotherhood. That is the key to the future. How
will we rise to our age-born opportunity, and demonstrate brotherhood as
well as talk about it? To explain its basis is wise, but to live it is
perhaps even wiser just now.

Well were it that we learned to work with our own higher being in this
momentous undertaking. Man has become a kind of alien from his Higher Self.
Like the prodigal son, he has long enough asserted his right of free-will to
do all the folly he chose, and now is the time to return to the father's
house. Knowledge and growth may come either through the contacts of pain and
pleasure that he gets from his environment without, or it may come from
deliberate culture of the powers latent within him of divine nature by
contacts with the sources of environment within. When we can turn away from
the outside and look within for guidance, then shall we begin to see the
light, for the way of evolution for us - personalities that we are - is
inward and upward by the high road of our own inner selves. So let us train
ourselves to listen for the voice of the silence and obey its behests. In a
word, let us develop our in tuitions, the perception of the God within us,
learning how to distinguish its subtle voice from the instincts, the
impulses, the habits of the lesser self, and so shall we gain that
everlasting conscious link with the Divine Self that waits so patiently
within for the age-long recognition he has lost, and so also shall the
Master be able to reach us when He too would use us for His sublime service
in the world that needs Him so.

Such was the essence of the message I bore.

It is certainly a privilege to get out into the Section and meet the members
of the large American T.S. family. They are a hardworking, earnest body. For
the most part they are very poor in finance, but rich in spirit. There are
very many whose valiant spirits are absolutely undaunted either by poverty
or domestic opposition, or the bodily fatigue that comes from their
unceasing struggle for daily bread. They press on patiently and even
enthusiastically with the work of the Society, and it is by such that our
activities are largely carried on. At the same time there is an equally
worthy element growing up that has more of leisure and brings in a
viewpoint, with a willingness to work for it, that promises to more greatly
extend our movement to and among the leaders of men in outer affairs.

It seems unlikely that Theosophy can ever become popularly accepted. Even
the brilliantly endowed intellects of the race are not responsive to it, to
say nothing of the masses. Yet among the leaders of men à the employers of
labor, the teachers of the youth, the preachers of religion, the writers,
dramatists, artists and servers in general, there are a few who recognize
its worth, and who in turn transform its message in terms which their
respective constituencies can more easily understand. So theosophists are
destined no doubt for long to play the part of influencers of men through
their normal leaders rather than be the recognized leaders of men, even
though their thought will in time take a leading part.

And technical Theosophy does not constitute the sole theme with the earnest
workers in our ranks. I found these altruistic ones expressing their
impulses in many worthy directions, thus carrying the influence of Theosophy
widely into the ranks of men.

+++

After two months touring in the field, Warrington brought back a richer
knowledge of Section life and conditions, of fraternal links and business
needs, which ought to make for greater efficiency and helpfulness in the
performance of headquarters duties.

***

pp.142-145; Krotona IV - Ross

xxx


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