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For a Universal Humankind - The Theosophical Society - P1/2
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Welcome noble viewers
to A Journey through
Aesthetic Realms
on Supreme Master
Television.
Today, we will introduce
a brief history of
the Theosophical Society
through a presentation by
the Theosophical Society
in America
and an interview
with Mr. Daniel Noga,
the Member Services
Coordinator at
the Theosophical Society
in America.
All over the world,
from ancient times
until the present,
a timeless wisdom has
been given to humanity
by such great teachers
as Lao Tzu, Confucius,
Zoroaster and Christ.
Other teachers, followers
of those great ones,
have carried on their work.
In modern times,
one such follower was
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.
When she arrived
on the shores of
the United States in 1873,
she had completed years
of world travel
and exploration.
Her many years abroad
had been nothing less than
a spiritual pilgrimage.
She had absorbed
deeper ideas
gleaned from such
great Western thinkers
as Pythagoras and Plato,
and from such
Eastern philosophers
as the Buddha.
A small band
of like-minded seekers
gathered around her.
Among them
was an attorney and
gentleman correspondent
from New York,
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott.
Together they would form
the Theosophical Society.
Henry Olcott was a man
of many accomplishments.
By the time he met
Madame Blavatsky,
he was an attorney
in New York City.
Helena Blavatsky
was born in 1831
of a noble Russian family.
As a child and teenager,
she was strong willed
and impulsive.
Perhaps the crucial element
of her character
came from the model
of independence
offered by her mother.
Married to the Russian
official Nikifor Blavatsky
when she was
only 17 years old,
Young Helena
almost immediately
left her husband to travel
extensively through
the Orient, Eastern
and Western Europe and
the Americas, seeking out
those experienced
in esoteric knowledge.
On her 20th birthday,
while in London, she met
her spiritual teacher,
Mahatma Morya,
who would guide her
in her later work
with Theosophy.
She studied Buddhism
and Hinduism first hand,
and with the help
of a Tartar shaman
is reported to
have crossed the border
into Tibet.
In the 1850s,
her adventurous spirit
even brought her
to the United States
where she traveled from
New York to Chicago,
continuing westward
by covered wagon with
a caravan of pioneers.
Finally, in 1873,
at the age of 42,
Madame Blavatsky
was ready to share with
the world her insights
gained from those
marvelous adventures.
Mahatma Morya,
the spiritual teacher whom
Madame Blavatsky
met in London, was
a handsome Rajput prince
who was part
of an Indian delegation
visiting Queen Victoria
of England.
Though there were
no outward signs of him
being a spiritual master,
Madame Blavatsky
recognized him
immediately as
the master of her dreams.
A picture of Master Morya
was drawn
by German painter
Hermann Schmiechen
under the direction
of Madame Blavatsky.
Apart from
Mahatma Morya,
Madame Blavatsky
also received
telepathic instructions
from another Master by
the name of Koot Hoomi,
one of
the Ascended Masters
who is helping humankind
reach higher levels
of consciousness.
These two masters
helped her to write
her important works,
“Isis Unveiled” and
“The Secret Doctrine.”
One of the first things
that Blavatsky did
in the United States was
to investigate spiritualism,
interest in which
was sweeping
America and Europe.
She went
to the Eddy farmstead
in Chittenden,
Vermont, where
remarkable phenomena
were taking place.
It was there that
she met Colonel Olcott,
reporting the events for
a New York newspaper.
Soon, however,
their interests would go
in a different direction
from that of spiritualism.
Blavatsky eventually
made her home
in New York City where
she and Olcott continued
to meet regularly
with others who
shared their interests.
Mr. Daniel Noga
is the Member Services
Coordinator
at the headquarters of
the Theosophical Society
in America
in Wheaton, Illinois.
The Theosophical Society
is an international
membership organization
that was originally
founded in 1875
in the state of New York.
The three main co-founders
were Helena Petrovna
Blavatsky, Colonel
Henry Steel Olcott
and William Quan Judge.
William Quan Judge was
one of the cofounders;
he was originally
from Dublin Ireland
and he came here
to the United States when
he was 21 years old and
got into commercial law,
and he also helped
to co-found the Society.
Many people
joined the new Society,
among them,
the well-known inventor
Thomas Edison,
and the noted author
and platonic scholar
Dr. Alexander Wilder.
A friend of
Madame Blavatsky’s,
Wilder helped her
with the editing
of her 1,300 page work,
“Isis Unveiled.”
After three years
in New York,
Madame Blavatsky and
Colonel Olcott decided
to expand the Society’s
efforts abroad, and
in late December 1878,
set sail for India.
The attitude
with which they came
is demonstrated
by that account of
how Olcott, when arriving
on the soil of India,
bent down
to worship that soil.
They felt that from India
had gone out
a great deal of wisdom,
which is even now contained
in the profound teachings
not only of
the Hindu tradition, but
Buddhist, Jain, and so on.
There was a spirit
of tolerance as well here,
of universality.
India gave
a place of shelter
to many different people.
It was
in the tradition of India
to try to understand
different points of view,
different cultures,
and to synthesize them
into a whole.
And this I think is central
to the work of
the Theosophical Society.
Perhaps all this was
in their mind,
when they came to India,
and they established
their headquarters here.
One of Olcott’s
greatest achievements,
in keeping with
the society’s second object,
was his work to
re-establish Buddhism
in Southeast Asia,
and Ceylon, the island
now called Sri Lanka.
He organized
the first Buddhist schools
in Ceylon and obtained
government grants
from England
such as were given
to Christian schools.
Today there are over 400
Buddhist institutions
in Sri Lanka and portraits
of Colonel Olcott
hang in many of them.
Working with
the Buddhist High Priest
Sumangala in 1889,
he helped design the
Buddhist flag, now flown
in some 60 countries.
When we return,
we will find out more
about the noble goals of
the Theosophical Society.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
Welcome back
to our program on
the history and teachings of
the Theosophical Society.
After the passing of
the two main founders of
the Theosophical Society,
Helena Blavatsky
in 1891,
and Henry Steel Olcott
in 1907, two disciples
of Helena Blavatsky,
Annie Besant
and William Quan Judge,
emerged as
the new leaders of
the Theosophical Society.
Another prominent disciple
of Helena Blavatsky was
the English clergyman,
clairvoyant and author
Charles L. Leadbeater,
who became a vegetarian
upon meeting
Madame Blavatsky
and followed her to India.
After Helena Blavatsky
passed on,
Charles L. Leadbeater
became a close co-worker
of Annie Besant.
In 1895,
one year after meeting
Charles W. Leadbeater,
Mrs. Annie Besant
also became clairvoyant.
Together, they explored
the universe, matter,
thought-forms, auras, and
the history of humankind
through the gift of their
clairvoyance, and wrote
several books together.
Charles W. Leadbeater
and Annie Besant were
also dedicated promoters
of the vegetarian lifestyle.
In his article,
Vegetarianism
and Occultism,
Mr. Leadbeater
listed many reasons
for abstaining from meat,
and concludes:
“Let us free ourselves
from complicity
in these awful crimes
[of killing animals],
let us set ourselves to try,
each in our own
small circle,
to bring nearer that bright
time of peace and love
which is the dream
and the earnest desire
of every true-hearted
and thinking man.
At least we ought
surely to be willing
to do so small a thing
as this to help the world
onward towards
that glorious future.”
Likewise,
Dr. Annie Besant wrote
about the importance of
keeping a vegetarian diet
for spiritual purification.
“As we carry on
the purification
of the physical body
by feeding it on clean
food and drink and
by excluding from our diet
the polluting blood
and flesh of animals,
alcohol and other things
that are foul and degrading,
we also begin to purify
the astral vehicle and
take from the astral world
more delicate
and fine materials
for its construction.”
In 1909,
during one of his walks
on the beach of the river
at the headquarters of
the Theosophical Society
in Adyar, India, Charles.
W. Leadbeater met
a young boy by the name
of Jiddu Krishnamurti.
Being clairvoyant,
he was impressed
with the pure aura
of Krishnamurti
which he described as
the "most wonderful aura
he had ever seen,
without a particle
of selfishness in it."
Charles W. Leadbeater
and Mrs. Annie Besant
believed that Krishnamurti
was to become
the World Teacher whom
they expected to come.
They started the Order
of the Star in the East,
to prepare members
for the coming of
a great spiritual message,
which it was thought
would come
through Krishnamurti.
She adopted the boy
as her son and he was
educated in England.
In 1929, however
Jiddu Krishnamurti
renounced the role
as the World Teacher that
he was expected to play
and dissolved the Order
of the Star in the East.
From then on
until his passing in 1986,
Krishnamurti
travelled worldwide
to teach his message
of self-reliance and
self-knowledge and
became a highly esteemed
spiritual teacher.
In the constitution of
the Theosophical Society,
three main objects
were declared.
Mr. David J. Noga
elaborated on them
as follows:
The first object
of the Society is to form
a nucleus of the universal
brotherhood of humanity,
without distinction
of race, creed, sex, caste
or color, which is
basically a way of saying
that the organization
is intended as a place for
people to come together
and put this ideal of
brotherhood into practice.
The Society recognizes
the unity of all humankind,
that which
we all hold in common
and brings us together.
So, one,
a purpose of the Society
is this brotherhood
and the practice of that,
not just in functions
of the Society but
in our day-to-day lives.
The second object
is to encourage
the comparative study
of religion, science
and philosophy,
to realize that there are
many different valid paths
towards truth
and understanding
and that it’s important
to honor them all,
and in fact to compare
what each one says,
to see what comes out
at the end as being held
in common by all three.
And then finally, the third
object is to investigate
hidden laws of nature,
and the unexplained
sort of powers
latent in humanity,
the higher faculty
that unfolds through
spiritual realization.
It could be even argued
that the practice of
brotherhood is a power
that’s latent in humanity.
Once it’s unfolded,
the power that it has
is tremendous to change
the world around us.
Spiritual
self-transformation
and self-realization are
also powers that unfold
as we develop spiritually.
Thank you,
esteemed viewers,
for joining us today
on A Journey through
Aesthetic Realms.
Please join us
next Sunday, June 13 for
the second and final part
of our program on
the Theosophical Society.
Coming up next is
Our Noble Lineage, right
after Noteworthy News.
May Heaven’s
love and light
guide you always.
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