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.

Greetings and welcome to the continuation of our program introducing the Theosophical Society with Mr. Daniel J. Noga, the Member Services Coordinator of the Theosophical Society in America. As a relatively recent movement that has strived to embrace the timeless wisdom, the Theosophical Society has no particular practice, nor ceremony nor rite. Rather, it extends to its members the freedom to follow their own traditional religious customs.

Because Theosophy is not incompatible with religions, members are encouraged to take part in their regular religious ceremonies. So, members do things like meditation, or attend church if they happen to be Christian or temple if they’re Jewish, mosque if they’re Muslim.

Theosophy claims that regardless of one’s religion, we should be spiritually aware. Why is spiritual awareness important to our daily lives?

Spiritual awareness sort of brings a recognition of that unity that we have discussed, in distinction to purely religious awareness, whereas spiritual awareness is more open and inclusive in bringing people together.

Meditation and spiritual practice are encouraged by the Theosophical Society. The specific method, however, may vary among individuals.

The attitude of the Society is that its members are to be able to seek for themselves and sort of determine for themselves what the best path is. But most forms of meditation have the effect of expanding our awareness. Even a simple meditation like mindfulness of breathing makes us more aware of our own breath, it makes us more aware of our own actions in general.

And it brings sort of a clarity and a peace of mind. And it’s from this foundation that some of the other consequences flow, a deeper understanding of unity.

So, what is the ultimate message of Theosophy?

The message that comes through most strongly and most often is the emphasis on unity. Unity of all things, that even though we all appear to be separate, we’re really all one. And from that, I would say that the most important object is brotherhood, which is the practical expression of that unity, that way of actually not just saying but demonstrating that we’re all one.

One of the main objectives of the Theosophical Society is to “encourage the study of Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Science.”

The main intention behind that is the idea that truth is something that has to be approached from more than one angle. So in other words, the Theosophical Society recognizes the validity of the scientific, the religious and the philosophical methods of approaching truth, and sort of professes that to arrive at a clearer picture of truth, we need to have a worldview that combines all three of these and sort of takes them all into account.

In accordance with this objective, from 1975 onwards, then president of the Theosophical Society Mrs. Dora Van Gelder Kunz organized yearly science seminars which take place at the Olcott Estate, the American headquarters of the Theosophical Society in Wheaton, Illinois. The seminars explored fascinating topics of science and spirituality, cycles, evolution, and unfolding consciousness. In 1981, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama attended.

The Theosophical Society has had a long history of providing charitable and humanitarian services. The Theosophical Order of Service (TOS) was founded in 1908 by Annie Besant, the second president of the Theosophical Society. TOS’s motto is “to unite all who love in the service of all that suffer.” Some of the early expressed objectives of TOS were: 1. To minimize the sum of misery in the world; 2. To forget self in working for others; 3. To eliminate selfishness and substitute love as the rule of the world; 4. To live to the highest that is within us.

Today, the Theosophical Order of Service is established in many countries around the world and strives to provide medical missions and disaster relief, establish orphanages and schools, provide scholarships, rehabilitate malnourished children, care for the disabled, prevent cruelty to animals, and promote vegetarianism, etc.

Mr. Noga spoke about the environmental and charitable principles that guide the Theosophical Society.

Learn to honor our natural resources for what they are. Recognize that they are limited and that we need to share them rather than to hoard them for ourselves. One of the other core principles of Theosophy is selflessness, service to others and sharing in the wealth of not just the world, but the universe in spirituality and ideas.

The problems that we see in the environment stem from a materialistic attitude, that sort of looks at the world around us as just matter to be played with, dominated or taken over. There’s this attitude by science that we’ll someday dominate nature. Theosophy instead points to the idea that since we’re all connected, we can’t even separate ourselves from the environment around us. And that if we were to recognize that we’re one with our environment and that there’s harmony that exist between us and the environment, then we would reverse the position that we have in relationship to our planet.

When we return, we’ll find out more about the Theosophical Society’s views on vegetarianism and meet some of history’s famous people who were shaped by Theosophy. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to A Journey through Aesthetic Realms and our program briefly introducing the principles and history of the Theosophical Society. The Theosophical Society has played an important role in the promotion of vegetarianism, based on reasons of universal compassion as well as spiritual well-being.

We do promote vegetarianism on principle. And actually, here at the national center, we don’t allow meat on campus at all, and all of the meals that we serve here are vegetarian.

The Society’s founder, Helena Blavatsky, was a vegetarian and explicitly advised Theosophy members to abstain from eating meat for the following reason:

“When the flesh of animals is assimilated by man as food, it imparts to him, physiologically, some of the characteristics of the animal it came from... We advise really earnest students to eat such food as will least clog and weigh their brains and bodies, and will have the smallest effect in hampering and retarding the development of their intuition, their inner faculties and powers.”

Other prominent members of the Theosophical Society who advocated a vegetarian diet were Dr. George Arundale and his wife Mrs. Rukmini Devi Arandale. Dr. Arundale, who was a bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church in India and the third president of the Theosophical Society, said this about the value of the cruelty-free living:

“One way leads to destruction. It is the way of the tolerance to cruelty, if not the active engagement in it. It is the way of hunting for sport, the way of vivesection, the way of killing for self-adornment, the way of killing animals for food, the way of making slaves of animals without thought for their happiness and well-being. This is the way the world has been treading. The other way leads to salvation. It is the way of harmlessness, the way of the recognition of brotherhood with all creatures, the way of tenderness and compassion, the way of service and not of selfishness.”

Dr. George Arundale’s wife, Rukmini Devi Arundale, was a classical dancer of Bharatnayam and founder of the famous Kalakshetra Academy of Indian Dance and Music in Chennai, India. She was also the vice president of the International Vegetarian Union for 31 years.

The Theosophical Society has had a deep influence on many distinguished individuals who shared the ideals of inclusiveness, unity, and brotherhood among all.

There are some pretty big historical figures who have professed to be influenced by Theosophy. Mohandas Gandhi was one. It’s very clear that his actions had a wide effect on the world, and as did the effects of some of the early Theosophical members, like Annie Besant, who was once the president of the Theosophical Society. She actually worked with Gandhi in India towards the liberation of the Indian people.

And there are other examples: Maria Montessori, the educator, spent some time living at the Society’s international headquarters in India, at Adyar, and it’s certain that Theosophy influenced her teaching methods. And the same with Rudolf Steiner and his Waldorf education.

Austrian-born Dr. Rudolf Steiner was the General Secretary of the German section of the Theosophical Society.

He later founded the Anthroposophical Society which brought forth the Waldorf schools, a new method of organic vegetable farming, the Camphill movement assisting people with special needs, and a new holistic medicine approach.

Other influential individuals who were deeply influenced by Theosophical thoughts include Irish poet and Nobel Prize winner William Butler Yeats, American author of children’s books L. Frank Baum, Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, and accomplished painters Paul Gauguin from France, Piet Mondrian from the Netherlands, and Wassily Kandinsky of Russia.

Today, the ideals of the Theosophical Society continue to appeal to the open-minded. Keeping pace with current issues, its members carry on the work of their predecessors to bring greater fellowship, peace, and tolerance in our world.

What does the Society view as some of the most prevalent problems today and how should these issues be resolved?

One of the issues that the Theosophical Society in America has recently been paying close attention to is interfaith and dialogue. The society, not just now, but in the past, has been active in the promotion of interfaith dialogue.

In this day and age there are many different religions, philosophies. Theosophy calls for unification of people and ideas. How can this be done and what would be a good starting point?

I think a very good starting point is simple open-minded inquiry, to lay ourselves open to different possibilities and even to possibly seek out different possibilities. Occasionally make a special effort to step outside of our own personal comfort zones; get some exposure to different experiences and different ideas and really try to understand where other people are coming from.

Some would argue that we have been created differently from one another and achieving unity or oneness is an ideal and not a reality. How would you respond to this?

Many of the realities that we see around us started out as ideals. There was a time in history, when the idea that people could be free individuals, was not very popular and now it’s something that we really sort of take for granted. So, whenever we have an ideal that doesn’t exist, I think that becomes a challenge for us to make that ideal happen, and it’s something that we need to carry out in our everyday lives.

We thank Mr. Noga and the Theosophical Society in America for explaining the noble minded principles and past and present endeavors of the Theosophical Society. By joining together, may our shared dream of a harmonious planet be realized soon.

Thank you, gentle viewers, for your presence on A Journey through Aesthetic Realms. Coming up next is Our Noble Lineage, right after Noteworthy News. Blessed be the Divine spirit in everyone.