Patrizia Calvi – Italy
“If through the Hall of Wisdom, thou wouldst reach the Vale of Bliss, Disciple, close fast thy senses against the great dire heresy of Separateness that weans thee from the rest” (The Voice of Silence, v. 37).
The divisions within the Theosophical movement are a fact that is certainly in conflict with the principle of universal brotherhood without distinctions. These divisions cause inconvenience to our conscience and entail a sense of failure in our living testing of that principle.
It has been said that, if Gautama Buddha walked into a crowded room, he would not see a hundred people, but a hundred Buddhas. And Latin affirms: Omnia munda mundis, “To the pure, all things are pure.”
Unity is, therefore, up to each of us. I believe that, with a minimum of common sense and spirit of brotherhood, there is much more to share than what could obstruct the true unity of purpose that distinguishes all those who have understood the sacred learning of the ancient wisdom.
The willingness to pass on such a precious teaching, the urgency to testify to it, the desire of cohesion and the strength that comes from all this, are the result of our being aware of what we have received. The challenge is to put ourselves to the test, to test our feelings and our passion for the unity in our daily life. We could start with those who most are like us.
A good opportunity to put the spirit of brotherhood to the test is provided by the annual ITC conferences, which gather together people from different Theosophical movements, in search of a shared platform stating common purposes and new goals.
In 2014 this event was held in Naarden, and I had the opportunity to take part in it. I arrived with many questions and fears, but also with a willingness to do all in my power to demonstrate – first of all to myself – that true unity is not a far-off utopia.
The symbolic image that has remained in my heart from those days of enthusiasm and sharing — of willingness to stay together and of discovering how others lived and understood Theosophy — is that of many people, each with a balloon in their hands: balloons of different colours, to indicate different approaches, but all of one and the same form, representing the ancient wisdom, which is one for everybody, the fraternal spirit that pervaded us all, and the lightness of our souls, only waiting to be a little relieved of the weight of materiality.
As the days of this important event went by, I felt the comfort of having discovered new friends, and I could realize that the joy to stay together moved our best energies. At a certain point, something happened: it was as if our hands joined together, clasped, releasing the balloon that each of us held tightly. It was a really fascinating scene: we saw the balloons fly high, all together, caressed by the leaves of the trees and rocked by the breeze, in spaces of free expression, and that was possible only because we were able to go beyond our schemes and patterns, beyond our personal experience of being to Being itself.
