Jan Nicolaas Kind –Brazil
Many moons ago, it must have been in the summer of 1968 while I still living in Amsterdam, that, for the first time in my life, I was told that such a thing as Theosophy exists. The man who was good enough to open that door for me was an elderly, well-known Jewish musician who miraculously had survived the horrors of World War II. I was fascinated to hear from him about the laws of cause and effects, karma, reincarnation, the visible and invisible worlds, tolerance and compassion, freedom of thought, and how music creates energies, influencing people’s minds and their environment.
I remember it vividly how we took walks in a park in the capital of The Netherlands. When we would sit down on a bench, he always started to tell me about his long and interesting life as a violinist and conductor, the artists and composers he had met, his years in Paris, the loves of his life and … Theosophy.

At the time, the colorful and vibrant sixties, my head was filled with Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and the Iron Butterfly. I was certain that I was going to change the world. Bob Dylan was my hero, the war in Vietnam was horrible, Woodstock was still in the making, and at night I sat down together with some student friends of mine, trying to understand what Jean Paul Sartre meant when he wrote that humans are condemned to be free. In addition to all that, this old man was talking to me about Theosophy.