Tim Boyd – India, USA
Annie Besant was a great individual, not just in terms of her impact on the work of the Theosophical Society (TS) worldwide. She was one of those people who periodically come into the world and touch it in a way that changes things. The changes that came out of the mature portion of her life, when all of the skills, abilities, and experiences were in place, manifested here at the TS and in India. I would like to celebrate her life just a little bit through remembering some of them.
As with all truly great people it helps us to recall who Annie Besant was. What is more important, at least to me, is not just who she was, but how she became who she was, because she was a person not unlike any of us. She was born into this world and over the course of her life came to be the Annie Besant that we know — the Daughter of India, the Diamond Soul, Indian National Congress President, Founder of the Young Men’s India Association, Women’s India Association and Boy Scouts of India, and other titles used to describe her.
She was born, then became, and it is this process of becoming that is more meaningful to us. From her point of view there are two ways in which we can unfold, two avenues that lead to whatever lies ahead for us. One of them is described as natural impulse. Along this line of unfoldment, just like a leaf blown by the wind, we have experiences that are out of our control. We are carried from one situation to another, then another, and gradually we find ourselves learning something. We grow, we change, and we are educated through what they call in the US “the school of hard knocks”. That is one way. But there is another way, which the life of Annie Besant illustrates so well, which is an unfoldment that occurs proactively, the unfoldment of powers that are asleep within us invoked through what is described as self-induced and self-devised efforts. We do play a role in that type of unfoldment.
Annie Besant lived for 85 years, and beginning from the time that she could think for herself things started to change all around her. She was born into an Anglo-Irish family in London. It was a religious family, especially her mother, who belonged to the Anglican Church. At the time of her birth the Anglican Church was a dominant force in England, both religiously and in shaping the laws of the land. She was devotionally religious in a Christian way, so much so that she wanted a life that served the Church. She married a minister, thinking that it would draw out more of her devotional capacity.
The problem that Annie Besant had throughout her life was that her greatest strength was also what brought her the most suffering, problems, and pain. She was a woman of an uncanny and unquenchable intellect. She asked questions, and in the Anglican England of the late 1800s, for a woman to question the status quo was guaranteed to cause many problems. But she was uncompromising in standing up for the things that she believed. That, too, was a problem.
We can list the remarkable transitions that occurred during the course of her life. During my life I have known people who I think of as great. People who, when you hear about their lives, it is difficult to believe that one person could live so richly in so many different areas. She was one of those who did it at the highest level.
When she walked away from the Christian Church the next thing that she embraced was atheism. This is the woman who would become the President of the Theosophical Society! She was a full-fledged atheist, but she was not an atheist in the sense of denying the possibility of a supreme divinity. For her a comprehension of such a thing seemed beyond human capacity to grasp, much less create a doctrinal description. Her atheism was based on a complete rejection of the possibility of Divinity as described in church doctrine — an all mighty, angry, old man who routinely doled out punishment of eternal damnation for nonconformity, or personal mistakes, who systematically suppressed and shamed women, yet who demanded obedience and thanks. She could not see it; it did not make any sense, and she questioned it all the way to the highest levels.
She sought out the highest thinkers in the Church, but could not get answers satisfying to her intellect. Her atheism evolved into a deep involvement in the world, because in a world that is not ruled by some capricious divine being, then the ways to improve the human condition came down to personal effort and outreach and kindness to others. That is what she embraced — a secular approach that involved thinking freely. That was the next phase of her life. She worked with trade unions, she organized unions for young girls who were making matches, and suffering all the hazardous health problems of that profession.
She worked with people who were protesting for higher wages, Irish Home Rule, division of Church and state. At great risk to her name and freedom, she published an educational pamphlet about birth control, an utterly radical idea in England of the 19th and early 20th century. The idea that a woman should have some degree of choice over the direction of her life and body was unthinkable to the English Church-based community. This was the “last straw” that caused the legal and political system of England to take her daughter away from her. To profess such a thing was seen as so immoral that clearly she was not a fit mother. So again, the result of her inability to deny the things that were so clearly true to her was that she paid a painful price.
Socialism was the next calling that she fully embraced. It seemed clear to her that if there is going to be a change, then the ways in which people are fed and supported, the means of production and distribution, should be in the hands of the people who are most affected. She worked with her usual dogged determination to promote this view.
It was at this stage that she encountered one of her greatest internal crises. A realization took root in her that all of the different systems of thought she had embraced, inhabited, and promoted did nothing to change the nature of the human being; that socialism, radicalism, secularism, atheism, or any “ism”, had limitations. It was at this time in her life that she first encountered H. P. Blavatsky, who talked to her about the Ageless Wisdom tradition. It found Besant at a time in her life when she was ready to embrace such a thing. It was from that point that she became the Annie Besant that we celebrate here today. From that point she came to India. She had hardly touched the ground before she embraced this place and herself as a “Daughter of India”, and committed the remainder of her life to work on its behalf.
Schools, universities for women, for men, the Young Men’s India Association, the Women’s India Association, the Boys Scouts, all of these were her initiatives. Then we have to talk about politics, because she involved herself deeply in the political climate of India, with the idea that it was unjust and unjustifiable, for this country to be under the boot of the British Raj. She advocated for India’s independence. She was the first person who had the nerve to make a direct pronouncement that India needs Home Rule, not some cooperative arrangement that benefited the British. Home Rule is what she demanded and organized for. Out of that she rose to the heights in the Independence movement.
As the political ferment within India developed the various initiatives she had put in place, like the Young Men’s India Association, which was designed to be a training ground for the future leaders of India, as these leaders started to grow into their own, there came a time when it was no longer appropriate for an Irish/English woman, who could speak no Indian language, with the white skin that had once been such an advantage for the movement, to be the spokesperson for a movement that represented India and its future. Quite sadly, but naturally, she was moved to the side.
All these things were part of her life. The invocation that was pronounced before this meeting, that began “Oh, Hidden Life”, was penned by her. It states the view that she grew into: it is not about politics, it is about a life that resides in every one of us that can be awakened. Some of us have known people like that — people who, when we find ourselves in their presence, things that we may not have been able to see, become clear to us; where the possibility of not only a free and independent India, but of a free and independent soul are clearly seen and felt. Out of that perception this theosophical movement grew.
She was the kind of person who, in all she did, found a way to translate her vision into acts of kindness in the world. On occasions such as this, whether it is a celebration of the gods, of saviors who have come to this world, of great people, or of heroes, the beauty of it is not so much about the list of accomplishments. Her list is long, but beyond mere accomplishments, there was a quality of character, of soul, that causes us to this day to feel something stirring within us.
Great people awaken us to hidden possibilities within ourselves. It is not enough to look at them and admire. That is necessary, because people such as Annie Besant are certainly admirable. The idea that speaks to us as we remember her life is not just of a great person, but of the great person that each one of us can be. In the presence of such a person, or even the memory of such a life, we come to recognize that every one of us is Annie Besant. There is no division, no separateness, when it comes to greatness. Her greatness is shared by all, if we would only acknowledge it and act.
I would like to close with some words that she said. During the course of her life she lost friends all along the way because she refused to compromise the integrity of her mind. She made some comment about that, which I think is good for all of us to hear, but especially for the young women present today. She described herself as follows:
A woman who thought her way out of Christianity . . . into Freethought and Radicalism absolutely alone; who gave up every old friend, male and female, rather than resign the beliefs she had struggled to in solitude; who, again, in embracing active Socialism has run counter to the views of her nearest “male friends”. Such a woman may very likely go wrong, but I think she may venture, without conceit, to at least claim independence of judgement.
All of us, Annie Besant included, will make and have made countless mistakes, but to make them because of the integrity of our consciousness and awareness is uplifting. I would like to share some things that she said about the all importance of action. Although she was the President of the Theosophical Society, which is a spiritual organization, she stressed that spirituality was not enough. She said: “Whenever a person comes within our circle of life, let us look to it that he leaves that circle a better man. . . . Let us judge our spirituality by our effect on the world.” Our spirituality should be judged by its impact, not just by our elevated states and happy moments.
Another thing that she said was it is “better to remain silent, better not even to think, if we are not prepared to act”. Forget about a spiritual life, if we are not prepared to take a step toward realizing it in our environment. Forget about the possibility for goodness to direct the world, if it is only something that we think of casually in quiet isolation. Unless we are prepared to act, little of this has value. She acted and made a difference in this world. Before she died she said there was only one thing she wanted to appear as her epitaph: “She tried to follow Truth.” So it is an example that we celebrate today, next year, and every year thereafter, because, as people, as the future Annie Besants of the world, we do need to be reminded from time to time.
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This article was also published in The Theosophist, VOL. 146 NO. 2 NOVEMBER 2024
The Theosophist is the official organ of the International President, founded by H. P. Blavatsky on 1 Oct. 1879.
To read the November 2024 issue click HERE