How Would You Lead If You
Were President?
A Canadian Theosophist
“Fohat” magazine, Fall 2006 edition
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A 2017 Editorial Note:
The following
article is reproduced from
FOHAT, the
international magazine published
at Edmonton, Canada,
issue of Fall 2006, pp. 67-68.
The yearly
correspondence to Radha Burnier proceeded
for various
years. After Mrs. Burnier died in 2013, the
confusion and precariousness
of the international structure
of the Adyar
Society showed it was the time to stop the
action. A considerable amount of awareness
about the issue
of Justice to William Judge had been attained already.
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
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In
the Spring of 2006, “Fohat” asked
its readers to send letters to Radha Burnier, the International President of
the Theosophical Society based in Adyar.
We asked readers to implore Mrs. Burnier to open up the Adyar archives
to responsible researchers so that they could research any additional material
pertaining to the Judge Case. The
following letter to Mrs. Burnier from R. Bruce MacDonald tries to appeal to her
moral integrity as it pertains to leading a Society based on Universal
Brotherhood. The letter from Edmonton,
April 13, 2006 reads:
“Dear Mrs. Burnier:”
“In the spirit of the open
letter by Carlos Cardoso Aveline printed in Fohat Spring 2006, I would like to implore you to action. The
Theosophical Movement needs leadership more than ever. With the recent passing
of Grace Knoche, you more than any other leader have a perspective informed through
the experience of time. You, more than any other leader, have an opportunity to
make a difference. You more than any other leader have the most to lose, but
also the least to lose. You more than any other leader have the most to gain.”
“Adyar
housed the pulse of the Theosophical Movement for many years, years when theosophists
were bound together by trust with one another and a vision of a better and more
just future for all of humanity. This
trust and great hope gave the theosophists at Adyar the strength to rebuff the
many attacks by her enemies. For a time
there was a spirit there that has not since been alive anywhere in the mundane
world that we inhabit. If the Movement
cannot find a way to renew itself, even the memory of this spirit will in time
be lost. That indeed would be a great
loss.”
“Adyar
today is fast losing the majesty that once graced it. When you turn over the leadership to the next
generation, I dare say that majesty will be gone. The ability of Adyar to exercise any pull on
the Theosophical Movement will be over.
Many theosophists look upon Adyar as a lost cause. I believe it is not a lost cause until its
leader demonstrates that it is so.
Carlos Aveline has faith in your integrity, and as such I implore you to
act. Adyar has very little left to lose.”
“The
Theosophical Movement has lacked any real vision now for many decades. We can blame this on the Presidents of the
various organizations, but the membership of those organizations must also
share the blame. Great leaders are
forged in times of crisis and we are now at a crisis. Real leadership on your part could turn
things around and revitalize both the Movement and Adyar. You have everything to gain.”
“We
are leaving the sign of Pisces and moving into Aquarius. Pisces is a sign of schools, institutions,
bodies of people. It is also a sign of
secrets. Those secrets will be brought
to the surface as we move into Aquarius and people will turn away from
institutions and move towards individual self-reliance. The Theosophical Movement has got to be aware
of these eventualities and restructure itself in order to play a role. Organizations must restructure themselves in
form and spirit from hierarchical models towards models where the various
lodges are fully independent. Centers
like Adyar and Pasadena must transform themselves into spiritual centres if
they should want to continue to have influence.
Political influence is sure to wane.”
“H.P.
Blavatsky and W.Q. Judge will, in the end, be vindicated. I suspect we both know this. Besant, Leadbeater, and others will in time
be reduced to footnotes. Adyar can lead
and help fight for this vindication or it can stand by and become increasingly
irrelevant. I am sure that you can see
this as well. I implore you to act. Put aside family, political lobbies, the fear
that immobilizes your colleagues and act.
Open up your archives and invite the best we have to research the
documents and vindicate the Founders.
Work to make alliances with Pasadena and ULT so that they do the
same. The only thing that divides
theosophists is a lack of trust.
Demonstrate trust.”
“I
truly believe that if theosophists cannot find a way to trust one another, this
will be reflected in the world at large.
The disastrous political realities of today will only get worse. The Masters created the Theosophical Society
to demonstrate to the World an example of Universal Brotherhood in action. If we do not find within us the wisdom to
make this a reality, the consequences will be dire.”
“Theosophy
can play a role in today’s world. One
way of doing this is to demonstrate that theosophists can produce great
leaders. We have had theosophical
managers for much too long. I implore
you to lead and show theosophists the possibility of what can be. If you
do not do it, then who is left?”
Mrs. Burnier kindly responded, reminding the writer
that one earns leadership, the importance for a leader to stay true to her own
convictions, and of her own experience of finding trust and brotherliness wherever
she has travelled. Mrs. Burnier writes
from Adyar on May 22, 2006:
“Dear
Mr. McDonald [sic],”
“In
responding to your letter of 13 April, I cannot but say that the leadership of
the Theosophical Society is the responsibility always of whoever has earned
it. No person in a position of
responsibility can act according to what another person thinks and feels should
be done.”
“Perhaps
you are unnecessarily pessimistic about Adyar and the Theosophical work in
general. You may even be wrong in
imagining that you have a truer perception of Theosophical work than other
people, and that your assessments are final.
Travelling all over the world as I have been doing for many years, I
find a great deal of trust, brotherliness and devotion to the Theosophical
Society among members everywhere. Of
course, there are always higher levels to reach.”
To Mrs. Burnier’s response, I have the following
points to make. First on earning
leadership, it has to be agreed that leaders are often the hardest working
members of the Society. However, as we
have alluded to in many places in this magazine, we have had a string of leaders
in the Movement who have moved the Movement in directions based on alleged
authority given to them by the Masters or by Blavatsky or Judge. This is what this plea to open the archives
is about - to negate the ability of those who allege to act on the authority of
the White Brotherhood. To give an
example of this kind of nonsense, Ernest Hargrove writes the following when
criticized for not joining the leaders of Adyar and Point Loma to participate
in a White Lotus Day Memorial:
“There
was a very active correspondence among other societies calling themselves theosophical,
in which we were invited to participate.
Point Loma, instructed by a Mahatma to do so, invited us and invited
Adyar, and invited everybody else, to assemble on White Lotus Day at Point
Loma. And Adyar (in other words, Mrs.
Besant), by order of the Maha Chohan - because a Mahatma would not do, as Point Loma
had used that already - Mrs. Besant accepted the invitation.” (“The Judge Case”, Part 1, p. 268.)
Naturally, this exercise in competing authorities
broke down and the Memorial came to naught.
This nonsense has been too frequent with the leaders of The
Theosophical Society and must cease if the Movement is to ever grow
up. Leaders must gain their authority by
working hard, working selflessly, and working wisely.
Mrs. Burnier further states, and again quite rightly,
that a leader must follow their own convictions. Hopefully, a leader’s prime conviction is
that of Universal Brotherhood. The
Theosophical Movement was created to encourage people to enter onto the
Spiritual Path. It also pointed to
material for those on that Path to think about.
The Spiritual Path is underpinned by the principle of Universal
Brotherhood. Universal Brotherhood can
only exist in an atmosphere that does not endorse creeds of any type. Creeds are the means by which dugpas foster
division and seek to control the minds of people. For some in the Movement there is a creed known
as Apostolic Succession where it is supposed that the word of the leaders of
some Societies have greater weight because there is an authorized leadership
traced back to Blavatsky. This creed and
others like it must be uprooted and destroyed.
No leaders of a Theosophical Society can carry on with creeds such as
this being tolerated. They undermine
self-reliance and destroy the possibility of Universal Brotherhood. This nonsense began with the attacks on
Blavatsky and Judge by Olcott and Besant.
Olcott and Besant put themselves forward as authorities and thereby
created a creed that has been protected in one way or another ever since. The question that must be put to Mrs. Burnier
is does she think that her words and actions are officially sanctioned by the
Mahatmas? Does she think that was the
case with Besant, with Olcott, with Tingley, etc.? The real fact is that even leaders make
mistakes; what is important is that these mistakes are not institutionalized.
Finally, Mrs. Burnier talks about trust. The Theosophical Society in Canada finds such
words empty. As Edmonton Theosophical
Society knows the entire story as to why the Canadian Section was
excommunicated by Adyar, and as it knows the various trusts that were betrayed
in order to do this, these words must remain an empty claim for us. When politics enter into the running of the
Theosophical Movement there can be no trust.
There are instead alliances and intrigue. The exoneration of Blavatsky and Judge will
end all of that. It will eliminate the
creeds and reestablish the Society as a Spiritual Beacon for all of humanity. Mrs. Burnier is not being asked to follow
convictions of others; she is being asked to follow the convictions of any true
theosophist and to reestablish the trust.
000
In September
2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement
worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists, whose priorities include the building
of a better future in the different dimensions of life.
000
