Tim Boyd - India, USA
The author
Rather than speak in a theoretical manner, I prefer to address the Next Steps from the point of view of my own experience and that of my co-workers at Adyar. Let me give you two quotes that might season our conversation. The first is from the Mahatma Letters: “We advise — never order. But we do influence individuals.”
The second quote is from Rumi: “Like a fresh idea in an artist’s mind, you fashion things before they come into being.” I would like to talk about how our next steps relate to the experience of connecting with those forms that have been fashioned, which have yet to come into being, which are awaiting our cooperation to appear. What I would really like to share with you is some thoughts on the “How to . . .” of this process.
In The Key to Theosophy H. P. Blavatsky says that the TS was founded “to make it known that such a thing as Theosophy exists”. It is an idea that I used to think was rather strange. What is the power in simply making it known that something exists? Over time it has become clearer to me that there is a transformative power inherent in the Ageless Wisdom, and that connecting with it, on any level, has the capacity to inhabit and transform us. The “how-to” part of transformation is often where we find ourselves casting around for advice and direction.
Outside of my office in Adyar there is a sign originally placed there by Annie Besant, it says: “Work for Adyar, the Masters’ Home”. It is a wonderful reminder of the nature of the place. In all that we have tried to do at Adyar, we have worked with a “Master plan”. Saying such a thing conjures up images of graphs, diagrams, five-year plans, and executive planning sessions, but that is not what I mean. It was not that kind of a plan. Initially our “plan” was not for combinations of specific projects or improvements. Our thinking was that behind the TS stand those who brought it into being. Before it came into the world it was one of the “fresh ideas” in the mind of the Masters. It was the “Master” part of the plan that was the focus of our attention and our efforts. The question for us was: How do we focus our energies and intention to connect with that which is already “fashioned”, but awaiting an opening to bring it into being?
Along that line, let us share a little story. A person once came to a great spiritual master to ask a question: “Master, what can I do to help you?” The question was brief. The answer was briefer: “What can you do?” Our attempt to answer that question was the starting point for what we have been trying to do at Adyar. It is also a starting point for meaningful and engaged spiritual living. Twelve years ago, when our contribution to the work began, faced with the conditions of the “Masters’ home”, it became clear that maybe Adyar was not yet ready to be declared the energetic center for the planet Earth, but there were things within our reach that could be addressed. There were people living at Adyar, many of whom had devoted themselves to this work over a lifetime. Twelve years ago, it was a simple fact that, when it rained, 80 or 90 percent of the people who were living there had to get a bucket to catch the rain dripping inside of their homes. Our response? We fixed the leaks. It was not an “aha!” moment, or some profound spiritual awakening. It was our engagement in a simple process of “What can I do?” I can fix leaks. It was not about luxury. It was about a fundamental regard for one another.
Our campus was in dire need of attention. We asked ourselves the question: if someone were to invite a great person to visit, would they welcome them with dishes in the sink, with the floor unswept, with the bed unmade? As soon as the idea of Adyar as a home to a sacred presence becomes rooted in your thinking, you see things differently. Care, cleanliness, beauty, restoration, and mutual concern for each other became our priorities. As we worked with the obvious, we started to find that other opportunities, previously unseen, presented themselves. The question always was: “What can I do?”
Soon we started thinking about reenvisioning the way that some of our existing activities function. Just one example: As theosophists we have a love, respect, and concern for all life. Part of that reflected itself in the work of the Besant Memorial Animal Dispensary (BMAD) on the TS Adyar campus. In Chennai, as in the rest of India, there are many stray animals who encounter injuries, disease, and other physical trauma. Years ago, a dispensary was started to care for them, but over time that effort had declined. What remained was wellmeaning theosophists with no training in veterinary medicine, unskillfully trying to do something that we thought of as good. As we focused our attention on BMAD, before long I was introduced to a young man, twenty-five years old. He was passionate about animal care, but had never run a clinic. As we talked it became clear that his commitment and clarity could attract what was needed to raise the level of the clinic. We decided to give him a try. As it turned out, he was brilliant! His organizational skills and his vision for animal care was exceptional. That activity, which was dying, is now, without question, one of the best activities of its type in southern India. The person required to meet the need appeared. The things that had been fashioned that had not yet come into being started to appear. They dropped in as various different ideas that became ensouled by people.
All across the Adyar campus similar things were happening. Our Olcott Memorial Higher Secondary School was founded more than 130 years ago by our first international President, Colonel Olcott. One day while sitting by the Adyar River he encountered a group of kids who should have been in school. When he asked why they were not, he discovered that, because of their status in India’s caste system, they were of a group of people who were not allowed to be educated. There was no school anywhere for them. Olcott being Olcott, founded the school specifically for these kids who had been denied any access to education. But the school was at a crisis point. Which way do we go? What can we do? We struggled, we thought, we worked, we tried. Before long another remarkable person was directed to our doorstep, who took on this project and has enlivened every aspect of the school.
We started to reenvision things we were already doing. It started to mount. The TS Archives were housed in the Headquarters building. In 2015 Chennai experienced historic flooding. The waters in the Adyar River, bordering the Headquarters Building, quickly rose. As a precaution we had to remove everything from the archives and bring it upstairs to the President’s office. If the water had risen another couple of inches, the historical records of the TS would have been destroyed. So, what could we do? We repurposed a space in our Adyar Library and Research Center, away from the river, and created a climate-controlled, modern archives. That arrangement was a commonsense response to changing weather conditions. But there were other issues we had to first see, then address. Over the years we had adopted a fortress mentality with our archives although there were people around the world asking for access to our archival material. Because in our past experience not all of them had portrayed the TS, or its leaders, in the way we preferred, we had become distrustful and had closed our doors to scholars. The history of the Theosophical Society pervades the history of modern India. In our archives we have a wealth of material on Gandhi, Annie Besant, Rabindranath Tagore, as well as artists, spiritual icons, and leaders of movements in places around the world. Our response was to develop policies, not to hide from the world, but to give access to those scholars who found it sufficiently meaningful that they wanted to take their time and their research funds to explore the TS’s varied history. Now there is not a day that goes by without authors, scholars, and academics around the world consulting our archives to write papers, dissertations, and books, related to the history of the TS and its impact on the world.
I am not going to walk you through the list because it is constantly growing. But many of these things initially were clearly impossible for us to do. A number of crises of a substantial nature have also arisen that challenged aspects of the organization’s function. In such situations what do you do? You do everything that you can, yet there are times when whatever we can do is not enough. In all such cases invariably, a moment has come where from some unexpected direction some person appears as an answer to the need. It happens time and time again, to the point where it becomes an expectation. We live in a responsive universe and the agents and agencies of the universe respond to need that is genuine. So, part of the process we have engaged in is the creation of ever-deepening levels of need, and the response has been continuous.
Traveling and visiting with members around the world, I am asked a variety of questions. One that I have been asked is: “Have you ever received a letter from the Masters?” Because the questioner was looking to hear about a piece of paper, some physical sign of contact, my answer would be some variation of “No, I never got one of those letters. At least not yet. But I haven’t checked my mailbox today!” Today I answer that question very differently, because at this point my experience and my way of seeing has shifted. Asked if I ever received a letter from the Masters, today my answer would be not only “Yes”, but “Yes, I have received many. But none of them was on a piece of paper.” There was no red or blue ink involved in my reception, but I have received letters, that I have been able to read, that even now are being written. Those letters have come in the form of people — many of them are sitting here in this hall.
They are people precipitated into our midst who came in answer to needs within this Theosophical Movement. Planted in the right soil, given the necessary resources, I have watched how they have grown in ways that I am sure they could not have imagined. They have been the avenue through which things that have been fashioned before they come into being have appeared in the world.
My mother is 106 years old. Sometimes I have to remind myself of what has she seen in her lifetime. She was born at the end of World War I, in the Great Depression she was in college, she was an adult in World War II. She has seen people landing on the moon, the rise of computer culture and social media, the Civil Rights movement in the US and all that came before and after it. At 106, your siblings, every person that you grew up with, the vast majority of your relatives and associates are gone. Recently she and I were watching some gloomy news report on television. We turned it off and were talking. I asked her: “Mom, with all of this depressing news, are you hopeful for the future?” If I had been asked, I would have needed to give it a moment’s thought. Of course, I would say “yes”, but as more of a “long-range” hopefulness. Her response was immediate: “Yes, I’m hopeful.” My next question was, “Why?” Again her answer was immediate: “Because always there are positive people appearing in the world.” Having seen all that she has seen, her experience of more than a century tells her this is a hopeful time, because the positive people suited to this moment’s need will always appear.
If we are looking for some instructions on a piece of paper, we are missing the point. Our dependence on physicalized expressions blinds us to the all-important activity going on in our midst. What we are waiting for is to be that letter, to be guided by our own intention and intuition to that place where we find ourselves planted, taking root, and growing into the expression of a waiting possibility. At this point I have seen it time after time. We can expect it. Things may look challenging, dark, but it is coming. The mail has not been delivered yet.
(Concluded)
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This article was also published in The Theosophist, VOL. 147 NO. 2 NOVEMBER 2025
The Theosophist is the official organ of the International President, founded by H. P. Blavatsky on 1 Oct. 1879.
To read the NOVEMBER 2025 issue click HERE