Adyar, 1st January 2013

Information board at the Convention Registration

Adyar, 1st January 2013,

We were ill with high fever, for two days and treated by one of the delegates, who happened to be a medical doctor.

On Wednesday the Convention started. The lecture by P. Krishna in the afternoon was a good one.

In the evening we went with a party of  nine to Kalakshetra, where the performance at the occasion of the 60^th Annual Art Festival by one of the best Traditional Indian Dancers, a woman of 60 years old, was impressive. For the non-accustomed ears though, the music was not bearable and for the non-local physical frame the chairs were like torture instruments. We all went out with our party and returned to base in rickshaws, not before having had a good time at a Pizza Restaurant till late in the evening.

On Thursday the short lecture by the International Vice-President was a soft and compassionate one about respect for nature.

The Annie Besant Lecture by Former Chief Justice, Mr J. S. Verma was excellent. He said that we all have to change our behaviour and that the T.S. campus in Adyar is the only place in India, which looks like the ideal place of peace and quietness that the freedom fighters under the colonial occupation thought that all India would be after the liberation. We cannot all be kings with several cars, great mansions and servants. In the old days there were just a few kings looking after their people, now you see the kings everywhere and the people are in distress. The T.S. is the only hope for change for the better in India and the world. For the moment we are at the right time at the right place.

The new T. S. Vocational Training Centre was officially inaugurated. This is a most important initiative for the formation of Construction workers like masons, electricians, plumbers etc.

We bought some books at the bookshop with discount. There was an Indian from Chennai, who lived since eight years in France and was married with a French citizen. They travelled with another Frenchman and were not member of the TS. We spoke in French in front of the shop showed them “The Buddhist Catechism” by Olcott, which made the lady from France go back into the shop to buy the same book.

The lecture by Tim Boyd was a good delivery. At the end he gave a citation from A. Besant: “Let us judge our spirituality by the effect it has on the world hoping that it makes it a better place for us to live in.” When he said this, a black dog crossed before the stage from left to right, then stopped for a while and returned to the left again.

Half way the Christian Easter fasting period of 40 days, there is in Europe a festivity of the Black Dog. This is when our animal nature is discovered by ourselves and we see it for the first time, but it still has to be purify into a white dog during the following 20 days. In China and Japan there are images of how one is looking for the beast, finds it, changes its colour gradually from black to white and dominates it by riding on the white animal. Tim was not yet the knight on the white horse, but he seems to be somewhere half way.

We discussed the citation of A.B. with the roommate and agreed, that spiritual progress is about enlarging one’s consciousness and has not as primary aim the improvement of material conditions in the world of duality. The positive and beneficent effects of the enlarged consciousness on the surroundings are symptomatic and by-products. They are not the aim, because the aim is to help as many as possible to also arrive at enlarged consciousness. If the material effects were the aim, we would be occupied in the practice of black magic, for the present circumstances always give to everybody the best karmic lessons for arriving at human perfection.

A new arrival came to went to check e-mails on our PC. Then we had a nice discussion in the room, because the rain prevented us from going out. It has been raining almost the whole day.

The lectures on Saturday 29 December were not too brilliant. The best performance was from the South-American. He had made a nice composition of citations from different sources, but too many citations left no room for the expression of his opinion. So it was a rather good but dogmatic exposition on theosophy titled “The Means Determine the End”.

The lecture by Dr. E. Sreedharan on the spiritual dimension of the success of the Delhi Metro was interesting, but not very spiritual.

We continue to have nice exchanges of views with old acquaintances and make connections with new ones.  

Short lecture by Dianne K. Kynaston was well prepared and of good quality about a Buddhist sage.

Marcos’ talk was soft spoken and nice, but difficult to follow, because of the accent.

We visited the museum, the archives and the old premises, where H. P. Blavatsky, A. Besant and J. Krisnamurthi had lived and we sat in during the Indian National TOS meeting, where mainly organizational problems were discussed. Money is not the problem, because the Vocational Training centre in Damodar Gardens collected the necessary funds for starting up in no time.

Sometime before we met Gautama, who is no longer principal of the Krisnamurthi school, but is setting up the new school in the premises outside Chennai. He has there about 40 pupils in different age groups, working and learning together in the same class rooms. It sounded like the Montessori system.

Olande did a very good one man show about “Living Mindfully in the Present”. He said that he had not prepared, but was very present and gave a lot of Buddhist teachings in his own way, while even touching on teachings of J. Krisnamurthi.

In the evening there was a movie about temples in South East Asia, which was very good, but lasted too long.

New Year’s Eve was celebrated in a traditional Indian restaurant. We were with seven people and could all speak the same language. Some went after dinner to the camp fire, where there was a very intimate atmosphere with singing etc.

The first day of the year there were lots of activities with a seminar of the Theosophy and Science group and a beautiful dance and a stage play performance organized by Adyar Lodge and the Adyar Youth Lodge.

Happy New Year to everybody,

Mr Brooder