Clarisa Elósegui – Spain
Clarisa is the General Secretary of the Spanish Section, and has been a member of the Theosophical Society since 1997. She lives in Terrassa (Barcelona)
The question we ask ourselves is “How could we or how should we, as members, work in a way to help the T.S. move forward?”
When we look at the present condition of the world, we see a challenge which is as big as or even bigger than the one HPB and the first Theosophists encountered, and maybe this is so because we do not have the strength and the training that they had. We must, first of all, be sincere to ourselves if we want to be sincere to everybody. I think we should ask ouselves: “What does the world need?” And, from that question, we should find out whether we are capable to give that to the world, because nobody can give what they do not have.
We can see the work that is being done in every lodge and the difficulties that the members have to face. The freedom we have to organize ourselves does not always lead to fruitful work. We do not have a clear orientation about how to organize the work, even though we have received information about it from different authors. Very often, the study becomes an effort to show our colleagues and the world how well prepared we are intellectually. This atittude ends up being anything but fraternal, as it is just a copy of the existing competitive attitude everywhere.
When we ponder upon this, we always seem to get to the same idea. We don’t work hard enough at the setting of the foundations. Very often, I have heard old members stating: “Oh! This is very basic, we should already know this. We must not spend time on this. We must study and speak about the higher aspects!” It is true that each of us will have to rise to the highest planes of conscience but that is not possible if we do not tread each and every one of all the steps before.
Take, for example, the analogy with the construction of a building. The foundation is the first thing which has to be laid. It has to be deep, thick and strong, according to the weight of the building it will have to support. If the work is well done and the first floors stand on thick columns, all the building will endure both its own weight and the attacks of the weather and other hazards of nature, and we will be able to climb to the roof in all safety.
Something similar can be applied to the construction of the character of a Theosophist. His foundation has to be strong, solid and such as to enable the whole building, where the Self abides, to bear the attacks of the numerous trials that daily life will make him go through.
The Theosophical Society would not exist without its members. So, if the Society has to move forward into the 21st century, it can only do that if many of its members are able to build lives over a strong solid foundation, which can bear thick columns and connect the floors below to the floors above. What should the foundation be made of? We can read this, once and again, in the Theosophical literature.
However, we tend to go for more abstract and lofty things, without having first built the things solidly in our daily lives, although these things are the ones that make, one by one, the steps which can lead us to higher planes. I dare to say that the foundation is made of sincerity, honesty, coherence, lack of selfishness, generosity, a simple life, work and many other things, and with this foundation, Theosophy is bound to be something alive rather than a theory.
If each one of us, as a member, is able to live Theosophy, then the Theosophical Society will move forward and will convey to the world that message which was delivered to it and which is the very reason for its existence.
