THE THEOSOPHIST VOL. 129 NO. 1 OCTOBER 2007 CONTENTS Theosophical Philosophy 3 Radha Burnier The Future of the Media — Part I 6 N. S. Jagannathan Annie Besant as Instructor and Educator 13 John Algeo Religious Harmony: The Need of the 21st Century 18 Samdhong Rinpoche Altruism’s Inextinguishable Fire: Annie Besant’s Testimony 24 Pedro Oliveira Understanding, Sharing, Loving 30 Terezinha Kind Practical Work for Theosophists 32 Annie Besant Theosophical Work around the World 36 International Directory 38 Editor: Mrs Radha Burnier NOTE: Articles for publication in The Theosophist should be sent to the Editorial Office. Cover Picture: Annie Besant (1847-1933) in her earlier years — Adyar Archives Official organ of the President, founded by H. P. Blavatsky, 1879. The Theosophical Society is responsible only for official notices appearing in this magazine. Theosophical Philosophy RADHA BURNIER SCIENCE is our greatest ally. This does it all. When so personified, it does not not become true simply because the recent appear very factual, but it may be more thoughts of a few scientists seem to be of a fact than we realize. Not only may in tune with occult philosophy. Occult there be a vast unknown or even un- science deals with facts, just as ordinary knowable region, but according to the science does. It does not need validity Ancient Wisdom, all that is manifest and through the corroboration of what society unmanifest in the whole of the cosmos is says at the moment; it stands on its own, a living presence. It is not matter at all; just as when a scientific pronouncement it all throbs with life, because it eman- turns out to be wrong, it is no longer ates from a vast sea of consciousness. part of scientific knowledge. A certain The word consciousness is difficult to number of scientists seem to indicate describe. It includes profound wisdom the truth of such a thing as the existence and love. Everyone who is able to tran- of âkâshic records, but occult science scend the limitations of brain and mind by no means becomes an ally of occult has realized that Presence. They feel it philosophy because of this. More im- to be a loving Presence; in fact, an extra- portantly, scientists are unable to see the ordinary blessing called Ânanda. No moral implications of what they have difference is then experienced between discovered. There are other aspects the individual and essential happiness. which science has hardly touched upon This is a small reflection of the very nature and which are at the very heart of all of the cosmos. Similarly, our experience spiritual knowledge. Modern scientific of happiness, although limited, is an ex- thinkers do accept the reality of invis- perience of the love which is the nature ible fields of force, but they are quite of the universe. unconscious of the extent of those in- Earlier this century, some thought was visible regions. given to the fact that there are manifest- ªri K·shna in the Bhagavadgitâ says ations of life which have nothing to that animating the manifested with one do with the evolutionary process. For fragment of himself, He stands above example, the intricate beauty of the Lecture given at the Centenary celebration of the Finnish Section in Helsinki, 15 July 2007. October 2007 3 The Theosophist peacocks attire has nothing to do with the deepest core of life itself. We can survival or with the process connected grasp it when our own mind lets go of with survival. All the work put into it the sense of selfhood, which separates is not necessary for attracting the pea- it from the rest of existence. hen. Similarly, there are birds which When the sight becomes clear, it sees sing complicated songs that are not the Presence in everything, the supreme necessary for survival or for attract- purpose which is God itself. In the ancient ing other birds. Raynor Johnson has Vedântic philosophy, one of the great written about this in his book The sayings is You are that (tat tvam asi), and Imprisoned Splendour. the disciple has to go on meditating on The true purpose of existence has this. When we think we have a purpose, little to do with the material world, we feel our life must have a certain quality. although it appears to have everything to This is the kind of nonsense that goes do with it. The bee serves a purpose on in the mind. But if we understand the according to our thinking, because it basic truth of that statement, then there is pollinates flowers, and produces a sense no part of the whole which does not have of beauty or a fruit, but this usefulness the Presence, and then everything changes. has little to do with a purpose connected In the Bhagavadgitâ ªri K·shna, who with the whole of the extraordinary represents the whole, says he is this and cosmic existence, manifesting itself at he is that. He invokes an entity which material levels also. Perhaps it is not refers to the whole of the species, the trying to do anything. The bird may elephant, the horse, the cow and so on. not be trying to produce a song, but This is not to be taken literally, but in sings because it is a bird. Krishnaji the sense that the Presence is every- perhaps meant something of this kind where, in every part of existence. If we when he asked, What is the purpose of a like we can say that the Presence is in sunset?, something into which a purpose the archetypical form. Nothing requires cannot be instilled; and we have to admit any reason for existence except that it is that the purpose of the sunset is, because part of the eternal, which is described it is. as glorious, beautiful, and mighty. The whole cosmos may have a pur- If only we could see it in all that is pose. A part of it makes us human beings about us, we would see it in ourselves. aware that is sufficient. So purpose It is the energy which moves all things, may not be inherent in everything what HPB calls absolute motion. That where life is, and has nothing to do with is perhaps what the ancient Indians be- the purpose that a human being has in lieved when they said that everything mind. Therefore we could say that the is Brahman. It is our perception which true purpose of anything is, though it has makes it appear different. If a mother nothing to do with material existence, has a baby, she is enamoured of it, she 4 Vol. 129.1 Theosophical Philosophy does not ask what the purpose of that in all individual existences. To the extent baby is, or whether it will support her that science can glimpse something of when she grows old. Its loveliness is its this, it will become one with the religious own purpose. Similarly we can see what teaching given to humanity, which is the the Mahatmas called the latent purpose heritage of all human beings. ² With the information revealed in Occult Chemistry a great expansion of our knowledge of Chemistry lies in front of us. It is just because this expansion is inevitable, that our clairvoyant investigators have toiled patiently for thirty years. They have claimed no recognition from chemists and physicists, because truth accepted or rejected is truth still, and any fact of Nature seen and stated clearly will sooner or later be woven into the whole fabric of Truth. The fact that this generation of scientists hardly knows anything at all of an extraordinary work of research extending for thirty years, matters little, when we contemplate the long vistas of scientific investigation which the imagination sees awaiting mankind. Occult Chemistry October 2007 5 The Theosophist The Future of the Media Part I (Besant Lecture, Adyar, 27 December 2006) N. S. JAGANNATHAN ADYAR which is synonymous with through an unprecedented intellectual the Theosophical Society is an old ferment. New currents in political soci- haunt of mine, having lived here in my ology and life sciences such as Marxism college days in the early nineteen forties and Darwinism were toppling age-old with my brother, Dr N. S. S. Gopalan, beliefs and radically altering the way who was then the resident doctor of people were thinking. She was a familiar the Society. I have ineffable memories figure in the intellectual circles of Lon- of those days. don, with friends like Charles Bradlaugh Public amnesia being what it is, recent and George Bernard Shaw. A regular generations of Indians might not even contributor to the learned journals of the have heard of Dr Annie Besant, who in time, her conversion to Theosophy is an her time strode the world like a colossus. interesting story in itself. They might be even less familiar with When the two thick volumes of Ma- the myriad faces of her intellectual and dame Blavatskys The Secret Doctrine spiritual journey from conventional arrived at the office of The Pall Mall Christianity and incurious politics to Gazette edited by the legendary William militant agnosticism and radical social- Stead, he felt, as he put it, an obligation ism and eventually to the certitudes of to notice them, though I shrank in dismay Theosophy. She was one of those rare from the task of mastering their contents. individuals who pursued truth where it led He then thought of his friend Annie them, unmindful of earlier beliefs be- Besant and asked her to tackle them, ing superseded by later discoveries. As saying, My young men all fight shy of Emerson said memorably: Consistency them, but you are quite mad enough on is the hobgoblin of little minds.