Theosophical Encyclopedia

John Patrick Deveney – USA

Lydia Paschkoff (Countess Lydia Alexandrovna de Pashkov)

One of the most intriguing keys to unlocking the murky history of H. P. Blavatsky in the years before she appeared in New York in 1873 is provided by those who knew her in the early years and then came forward to vouch for her, as Albert Leighton Rawson did, (1) or condemn her, as Emma Coulomb did. We can learn from both sides. Lydia Paschkoff is one of these witnesses who “knew H.P.B. when” and contributes several threads to the confused tapestry of the early history of H.P. Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. H.P.B. herself tells us (in Letter 78 to A. P. Sinnett) that Paschkoff was the kind soul who notified her that Agardi Metrovitch had fallen ill near Alexandria, Egypt, poisoned (as H.P.B. suspected) by villainous Catholic monks. (2) He died, as Master Hilarion had predicted, on April 19, 1872 (as H.P.B. believed) (3) —a date which, as we shall see, is almost certainly wrong.

WELCOME TO THE SURENDRA NARAYAN ARCHIVES

Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986) was an Indian Theosophist best known as a dancer and educator, and as wife of George S. Arundale, President of the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Chennai, India. At the beginning of her career in the Society, she expressed her purpose in these words:

To encourage the living of beautiful lives, of lives so refined and so artistic, so gracious and so compassionate, so true and so noble, so wise and so understanding, that everywhere the beautiful is extolled and ugliness fades away

Rukmini Devi was born on February 29, 1904, into a Brahmin family in the city of Madurai, South India. Her father, Sr, A. Nilakanta Sastri of Thiruvisanellur, was an engineer and a respected Sanskrit scholar. His wife, Srimati Seshammal, came from a very cultured family of Thiruvaiyar. They were "strongly influenced by theosophical ideas to which they had been introduced in 1901. When her father retired, he settled in Chennai close to the headquarters of the Theosophical Society.”

On April 27, 1920 she married Dr. George S. Arundale, a 44-year-old Englishman who was a Theosophist prominent in Indian education at Central Hindu College.

Arni Narendran – India

The Life and Altruism of Wanda Dynowska – Uma Devi –Tenzin Chodon 

(30 June 1888 – 20 March 1971) 

The Mystic Journey of a Polish Theosophist

Wanda Dynowska

In the sacred mountains of Arunachala, the abode of Lord Shiva, near the holy town of Thiruvannamalai, in South India, lived a sage by the name of Ramana Maharishi. One morning, after sitting in silence with the sage amongst many other Truth seekers, a young Polish lady approached the sage with a question about her dream in which she had a vision of Shiva. She asked the sage how she could retain her blissful vision for eternity. The Maharishi told her that a vision can never be eternal, therefore she should ask herself, who am I? One cannot see God and still retain once individuality. The seer and the seen unite into one being. There is no cogniser, no cognition nor the cognized. All merge into one Supreme Shiv. This was the sage whom Carl Jung described as the whitest patch in a white cloth of spirituality.

Since civilization began, human beings have considered the Sun as both as a source of life and an object of veneration. Sun worship can be found in the Purnas of India, and the mythology of the Greeks, the Norse, and other cultures. In India, the Sun is Surya, considered an embodiment of Brahmā, Vishnu and Shiva. Among the Greeks, it is represented by Apollo and Helios, while the Egyptians revered it as Ra (and later, Aton), also considered as the first Egyptian king. The Persian deity Mithras was a sun god. Even in Christianity, Christ or God has time and again been identified with the sun that Tertullian, St. Augustine and Pope Leo I had to vehemently refute this allegation.

The Earth’s satellite. It is considered by the ancients as one of the sacred planets. Helena P. Blavatsky states that its inclusion in the list of sacred planets is because it is but a substitute of a planet. It is “a planet with a retrograde motion, sometimes visible at a certain hour of night and apparently near the moon. The occult influence of this planet is transmitted by the moon” (Transactions of Blavatsky Lodge, 47). 

Esoterically, the Moon is the mother of the earth, and thus far older. It was once a Globe where life evolved through seven ROUNDS until it finished its task. It belonged to the Moon CHAIN that preceded the Earth Chain.

The fourth planet of the Solar System. It has two satellites, Phobos and Deimos. It is one of the planets visible to the naked eye, and has a reddish color. Based on the expeditions since 1965, the photographs of Mars show no life, but astronomers think that it may have supported life billions of years ago.

MERCURY. The nearest known planet to the Sun. It is considered by the ancients as one of the seven sacred planets. Helena P. Blavatsky states that, as a planet, Mercury belongs to a different CHAIN of globes from that of the earth and is much older than the earth. In the early years of the Theosophical Society (TS), the book Esoteric Buddhism stated that Mercury is one of the three physical globes of the earth chain, the other being Mars. This was subsequently disputed by Blavatsky (see also MARS). Mercury is, according to The Secret Doctrine, just coming out of OBSCURATION, that is, it is just emerging from an inactive period during which there were no life activities in the planet except for the remnants, called SHISTAS, that will be the seeds of future life activity in the planet. It is considered one of the seven sacred planets. Blavatsky wrote that: “Man derives his Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) from the essence of the Mânasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom, who are the Divine Beings (or Angels) ruling and presiding over the planet Mercury” (CW XII:545).