Sunday, October 27, 2013

Adyar, Sunday 27 October 2013


Path along the Adyar River




Adyar, Sunday, 27 October 2013

The theme of the Convention, which is to be held at the last week of the year, is “New Mind for New World” and the theme of the Symposium is “Regenerating Wisdom”.

These days are too short for us to keep up with the new pace.

Today we studied in the book “Supernormal” by Dean Radin.

It was a rather cloudy day and this evening there came a thunder storm with rain pouring down. The electricity was gone several times for some minutes, but as soon as we had lit a candle the electric light came back again.

We did not go to the beach in the morning, but were on time for breakfast at 7 a.m. House cleaning has begun and was done by ourselves as we are used to. This made us think about what the colleagues told us forty years ago, that we should engage a maid and a gardener, because there was so much unemployment in the country.

We did some laundry and hung it to dry in the dressing under the fan. The weather is so humid, that outside it would take too much time to dry. We shall do the ironing ourselves as we already have been doing lately.
There were lots of stains of paint and cement on the beautiful bathroom tiles, which we managed to scratch off with the little knife for pealing potato’s and cutting vegetables that we brought from our home country to India. We mopped bathroom and also the dressing room with the laundry water and regretted not to be able to avoid eliminating a number of ants. Because of the rain, they are still moving around and appear to relocate their nests, as we saw them walking with eggs in their mouths. One seemed to have lost its way on the work tablet of the kitchen. A few days later we saw, that there was an ant’s highway in the corner between the kitchen tablet and the wall. They come in at one side on this tablet in the corner of the kitchen walls and leave through the hole in the tablet and the wall at the other side of the kitchen, leading to the outside, where the gas containers for the kitchen probably are supposed to be situated. In front of the front porch they also are reallocating and carrying eggs from one side of the house to the other.

They are gradually moving out of those parts of the house where we are giving them signs of habitation. The bathroom, the bedroom and the kitchen are practically abandoned by them, but they still vividly remain active coming in and out of the doors and windows with their very busy colons most of the time marching further along in the corners between the walls and the floor in the living and the dining room. What exactly they are foraging is not too clear. One thing is sure, it cannot be water. They are actually still coming into the kitchen through the window and go out through the hole in the other wall, which is obviously for the gas tube. The rain, which falls especially during the night, might pose them more relocation problems than we are encountering ourselves.

Ahimsa and karma were discussed during the study group this week and it was said, that one man, when he asked the Buddha, why he had such a severe skin disease, was told that in a past life he had burnt numerous ants in the pieces of wood, which he had thrown into the fire. So we try not to kill them or the mosquito's, but it is not always evident to us, that we have to be attentive and wait to do the cleaning until the ants are gone. By the time we take the shower while we are preparing and after brushing our teeth, usually all the ants have left, except for one or two of them, who were too slow anyhow and who’s survival or not does not really have an influence on the survival of the group soul as a whole. 
  
We sleep without problems in our new residence, which has not been occupied for a long time. It will take a few weeks and may be several months to put everything in a better order there. It was built by the aunt of the president in office to date, who was married to the third president. Maintenance has to do a lot of repairs and adjustments to make the house look pretty again, like it must have, when it was built very modern some 75 years ago. This will not be easy, because the head of maintenance does not come every day and there appear to be not enough skilled workers to do the job. As an example, the man in charge at Maintenance told me that there are 100 houses on the compound, for which there is only one carpenter. This week, maintenance came quickly to replace the shower head, which was completely rusted. The house needs some attention, but is basically good. All iron rusts very quickly, because we are so close to the ocean. Now the bathroom is beginning to shine again as it should. The radiation has to begin in the center. Some time ago we read in a publication, that it takes the photons, which have been created by fusion inside the sun, about one million years to come out from the center to the surface, where they take off at the speed of light. There must be an awful lot of Higgs-boson particles keeping them so long inside. And do they have the speed of light while inside the sun for one million light years?

The first visitor came for tea in the afternoon, which was a good reason to sweep the front porch and bring some order in the house. Our discussion with him about the apes descending from man was reopened and we shall have to find the American Scientist article of some four years ago about the genetic DNA proof of this theory to show and try and convince him. He said he had found on Internet the other articles, which we also had seen, about theories based on bones, which were not convincing.

We stupidly did not answer the question about the origin of life in the right way according to the Theosophical Teaching and only said that the man of the first race on the first globe of the first round was a being of spiritual fire. We should have added that these first men were the Lunar Pitris left over from the preceding planetary manvantara of the Moon’s planetary logos.

The Madras Theosophical Federation had organized a talk by a journalist on the election systems in India and the UK. It seems that the time is coming for change in the system, as the majority of the voters do not see themselves represented in parliament. Astonishing fact is, that more than 55% of the Indian parliamentarians are multimillionaires with + 2.5 crores or more, if our memory from the talk serves us right.

Today we took pictures of the path along the Adyar River, which is in the process of being made better accessible, straightened out and cleaned up by the men of the subcontractor working for the Garden Department.



We have to find a printer and a filing cabinet. Printer can be bought on Internet, but the furniture should in principle be available at the compound.
The monsoon now has really started It has been raining every night, sometimes until ten in the morning. 

There was a funeral of one of the workers, who expired Sunday afternoon last week. The procedure was almost the same as in our country of origin, except, that what is done there in three to five days here is achieved within 24 hours after the event of death.

We removed all our possessions from the room in LBC to the house of residence with the help of one of the colleagues and his car. Altogether it took about half an hour.

Work is a satisfactory occupation and we have to discipline ourselves not to become a workaholic, like our predecessor who seems to have been combining many functions. We should delegate and obtain an overview of what is happening and decide what is important and what is not. We discover the way the system has been put in place and try to follow in the steps of our predecessor. It is nice to be busy again. Business is very similar to what we were used to before our retirement, so we are developing the necessary confidence to go for the long haul and try to gradually improve during each cycle of activities.

Internet is working in the new residence, but still no Skype with the family and friends. We have to make Skype appointments, like the neighbor at LBC usually does.

Someone said that the president was not well on Monday, but at twenty minutes to three that same day we saw her going in the direction of her office in the service car.

One day the service provider for our Internet connection sent us a message on the cellphone that we had to bring our visa papers and passport with a photo to their nearest shop in order to be able to maintain our Internet connection. One the way back from work, we got a lift in the company car as it is called here and could inform the president that we had moved to the new residence and had passed there a good night sleep. She inquired if we would continue to have our meals at LBC and we confirmed that we planned to continue to eat there and even our breakfast at seven o’clock on our way back from the early morning beach walk.

Wednesday there was a visitor from United Lodge of Theosophists, who also is vice-president of the International Theosophical Conference. Gene Jennings is his name and he visited the TS Head Quarters at Adyar for one day only. He had a quick tour organized by the Theosophical Publishing House, on which he visited the President, the Library, Leadbeaters Chambers and Head Quarters Building. In the evening there was a meeting on the subject of Theosophical Organizations in history. Very lively discussions with some 20 people present. After a short introduction on the different theosophical organizations from the past, like Plato, Pythagoreans, Phylatheleans of Ammonius Saccas, Jacob Boehme etc., an exchange of opinion took place. During the discussion, which lasted almost one hour, the subject ranged from the existence of elementals to the beginning of the sixth root race. Opinion was expressed, that there is no scientific proof for existence of elementals on the physical plane. Others stressed, that with will power one could accelerate the development of one’s spiritual consciousness. Also was emphasis laid on the teaching, that study and knowledge alone do not lead to spiritual growth, but that leading a life of service does have as result, that one becomes wiser and more compassionate. If we have understood him well, Gene spoke about power of the mind and awareness mirroring spirit in matter and fusing into oneness of consciousness. From his words it was clear, that he had read many theosophical works. His best one-liner is that he experienced the reading of the Secret Doctrine as reading poetry. This is a not so often heard appreciation of the Magnum opus of H. P. Blavatsky, which many theosophists might consider worthwhile to be reflected upon, at least. Communication between the East and the West is not easy, because the words used are not having the same meaning and the accentuation and pronunciation of the same English language are making it sometimes almost impossible to really understand the essence of what the other person wants to communicate. The same goes for communication between the different disciplines of science, philosophy and religion. When the scientist stated, that there exists no scientific proof for the statement, that there are elementals living in the physical world, the president of the lodge replied, that it therefore is the task of the scientist to find such proof.

We have a company vehicle, which was written off in the books of the department and are thus at risk of becoming involved in the rat race here. We should probably have to limit the use of the vehicle to occasions, which will take us outside the compound.

The subject of the evening study group is very interesting as we have begun with the book “Self Study” by I. K. Taimni, which starts with an explanation of the principal theosophical teachings. On these there are obviously different interpretations. One filibuster with Stentor’s voice ventilated the opinion, that plants do not have a soul or consciousness. We quickly threw in the short line “Everything is Consciousness”. It is sleeping was the riposte. So a sleeping man or animal would not have a consciousness? We could not pose this question, because others also protested.
Then there was the obligatory discussion about vegetarianism. It appeared once more that the concept of “ahimsa” or non-violence cannot be understood by those, who really are unwilling or not ready to try and change their diet.
After the study there was a conversation with an aspirant, who did not understand what we said about the multiple universes above and below in unlimited space. So it is better to be silent and try and understand what exactly is happening.

The Laundry man has billed us for one T-shirt too much for the second last service, which we received this week. We on the other hand had counted one towel too much for the last service, which we had already given for collection at Leadbeaters Chambers, last Saturday, when the Laundry man had a punctured tire and therefore did not deliver as promised. This time he promised again to have the laundry cleaned and ironed on Saturday, what did not happen, because it was raining too much again. It keeps pouring down during the night, so in the morning we do not always feel like going for a nice beach walk, but stay in bed as long as possible.

We have been invited to give several talks. We are surprised and humbled by the great honor bestowed upon us. Please let inspiration come and override our senseless daily life of leisure and luxury here in the incomparable beauty and serenity of the TS Headquarters at Adyar.

Yesterday after dinner on the way to the beach we met three participants from the Study Group, who were just discussing the possibility that we could publish a photo of the path along the river, which recently has been cleaned by the Garden Department from rubbish and undergrowth.

And that was the week that was again.
Bye for now,

Brooder