Theos-Talk Archives (July 2011 Message tt00065)

Transparency and Democracy go hand in hand. In reality, transparency is a
built-in protection for a democratic organization.

For anyone living in the United States and has taken trouble to understand
the government at all levels, this is nothing new. All government
proceedings including judicial ones, take place in the open. There are laws
demanding all governmental proceedings take place in public and failure will
not only make the decisions invalid, the participants may be subject to
criminal prosecution. Who cannot believe that some hidden hand or guidance
was behind these developments which took place over a period of time and no
one questions the open government.

Today I saw an interesting report from India about a 24/7 video feed from
the office of the Chief Minister of one of the Southern States so that
everyone can see who the visitors are and also see what is going on. This is
remarkable since non-transparency provides opportunity to do things not in
the public interest but private gain, whether monetary or not. At the bottom
of this msg I have provided a link to the article in NY Times and many would
like to read it.

When I read the article, I was reminded of the famous but overlooked 1900
warning from the Adept KH to Besant:

âMisleading secrecy has given the death blow to numerous  organizations.â

Many theosophists are familiar with the fact how when Besant took over TS as
President, more and more secrecy crept into the administration of TS and the
National Sections followed suit, It continues even today and we have
discussed it in many messages in the past.

The continued secrecy would have caused serious unrepairable damage to the
organization as a result of the activities of some of the leading elected
officials of Sections during the last elections and the subsequent attempts
to seize control of the International Presidency and the great crisis was
averted mainly because Internet acted as a bright light on the happenings
and kept members aware of the true facts. Continued misleading secrecy in a
democratic organization is bound to be a democles sword hanging by a thread.

Lack of any articles in official publications discussing Master KHâs warning
to Besant seem to indicate that it has been overlooked or not discussed
because it is incovenient to the elected officials function in a transparent
operation. I hope many of those who may be meditating every day will start
meditating on this warning and then it may open their eyes and spur them
into action for the long time well being of TS.

Here is the link to NY Times article:

<
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/business/global/in-india-an-official-puts-a-webcam-in-office.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha26
>


MKR


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