Medley

Kathleen F. Hall – Canada

Roma mothers with their children

For the past two years I have been involved with educational research issues centered on Roma (Gypsy) children. Throughout this period I have gained knowledge and insights into Roma history, culture, and traditions. I have also observed the increasing persecution mounting against the Roma in east-central Europe under changing political and economic climates. The Roma have now become the scapegoats for the financial woes of many of these countries and blatant discrimination aimed at eradicating the Roma people and their culture seems to be part of the political agenda. As a humanitarian and Theosophist, I am compelled to advocate for the rights of the Roma people and to work towards educating North Americans about the life threatening and growing persecution that is taking place in many east-central European countries. Of grave concern is the safety of families whose lives are endangered, and those who struggle to survive under the crippling effects of rampant poverty.

The Roma are amongst the most persecuted people on earth. They are also the largest minority in the European Union with a population of seven to fifteen million (Greenberg, 2010). Most Roma living in the EU face racial, structural, and social discrimination, as well as multiple discriminations on the basis of gender, age, disability, and sexuality (Toth, 2010). The Roma suffer extreme poverty as many have no chance of employment. They often have to live in substandard and unsafe housing in mahalas (quarters or neighbourhoods) within dilapidated, pieced together shelters without water, electricity, or sewage. They usually have no access to medical care, and Roma children are frequently denied a proper education. Many Roma children are placed in segregated schools, or classes for the mentally challenged, and are given a sub-standard education if any at all (Greenberg, 2010).

Roma children

Doreen Domb – USA

Health is a harmonious meshing of life – spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

REIKI {ray-key} - Japanese (REI - universal spiritually guided; KI - life force energy) is a particularly high frequency healing that naturally seeks to restore & rebalance one’s own vital force.  Whether addressing it as ki, qi (chi), or prana, all refer to this ubiquitous life energy. Our physical body is alive due to the animating qualities of this non-physical life force flowing through it.

This holistic healthcare modality acts simultaneously upon the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels, connecting with the body’s own natural restorative abilities to manifest deep relaxation, and to re-establish an equilibrium of well-being. Through the laying on of hands, which is an ancient technique of energy transference, the body’s innate wisdom knows what it needs and takes what it needs from this gentle, yet all-pervading healing energy.

Edi Bilimoria – the U.K.

[Based on talk given at the Guildford Group of The Scientific and Medical Network]

EXPOSITION

The principal tenets of the ancient Mysteries – from Vendanta, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism in the east, and Plato, the Kabbalah and Alchemy in the west, now synthesized in a modern idiom by the likes of H. P. Blavatsky, Paul Brunton and Ken Wilbur in what is sometimes referred to now as the perennial philosophy – affirm the fact of the radical Unity of the ultimate essence of each part of Nature, such that: existence is One organic Being, not a combination of several things linked together; hence, there is no such thing as dead matter; therefore everything is endowed with consciousness, is indeed the product of consciousness. If these propositions are taken to be true not as a dogma or a blind belief, but in the sense of a working hypothesis to be investigated as we do in good science (and incidentally these ideas are finding ever-increasing corroboration from quantum physics), then the natural corollary is that:

1.    The primacy of consciousness is the ultimate Reality which we may choose to call the Divine or by any other name; and if that be the case then;
2.    There is One fundamental law – Divine Law – that functions at all levels. Not a collection of separate laws but One law; all the laws of physical nature that science has discovered to such perfection such as electromagnetism, light, etc. being the tributaries from the one central stream of Divine law (which Einstein intuitively realized when he spent the last thirty years or so of his life attempting to unify gravity with electromagnetism); and so
3.    self-consistently, all manifestation spanning the whole spectrum from the macrocosm to the microcosm is the expression in Nature of the operation of Divine Law; in which case, Nature being the visible garb and expression of the Divine must, like a hologram, mirror Divine Law as a whole, and in her various aspects resemble a fractal from a master pattern.

An article in the New York Times of April 17, 2012, reports the rise in number of persons opting for some form of vegetarian diet (Web site: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/the-challenge-of-going-vegan):

“The dominant social-cultural norm in the West is meat consumption,” said Hanna Schösler, a researcher in the Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije University in Amsterdam, who has studied consumer acceptance of meat substitutes. “The people who want to shift to a more vegetarian diet find they face physical constraints and mental constraints. It’s not very accepted in our society not to eat meat.” / Still, the numbers are substantial, according to according to a 2008 report in Vegetarian Times. Three percent of American adults, 7.3 million people, follow a vegetarian diet, and one million of them are vegans, who eat no animal products at all — no meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, even honey. (And 23 million say they rarely eat meat.) / No one knows how many people have tried and failed to switch to vegan or vegetarian diets, but the popularity of books like “The China Study” and the “Skinny Bitch” series suggests that interest is growing. New vegans often cite Robert Kenner’s 2008 documentary “Food, Inc.,” which offers an unsettling view of corporate farming and the toll it takes on animals, the environment and human health.

Ruth Richards – USA

A chapter for a book with seven chapters

2—LOOKING AGAIN: Seeing Vastly More

Even now, what we see is definitely less than what we get. Let us look again at something we have already noticed. With conscious awareness, we can unveil ever more of the invisible. The depth and detail, richness, and sometimes beauty, of things we dismiss with little more than a name or a label. Noticing only what it takes for our action or goal.

An example: Norm is at a friend’s house and they are all going to the movies. The friend’s son is loading the dishwasher and the mom points out some plates and the mugs on the counter. Off the dishes go into the dishwasher, a little roughly, actually; the boy could have broken one. Later, he probably couldn’t have described any of them; they were just things that needed moving, plates, glasses, and mugs, remembered only by their names. There was a special “mug” in there, but no one noticed at that time.

Turns out Norm had made this mug the year before, when his friend was diagnosed with cancer, and when it wasn’t clear if she’d even make it. Norm made the mug at a pottery place where people can come and glaze, paint, and fire ceramics. Norm picked a large unfinished mug of clay, solid, but not too heavy, nipped in the middle, large handle, bowed out lip—easy to lift and drink from. He glazed it light tan to go with the clay, and put lavender colored flowers for healing, actually more like abstract purple blobs, around the top, with a few accents of white and green--Norm knew drawing flowers was not his forte. Finally he wrote “Be Well” on the side in white paint. Norm’s friend really loved the mug—and she cherished every bit of his work, and all it meant at this precarious time.

An Abstract by Leon H. Maurer (August 23, 1924 - June 19, 2011)

Longstanding Theosophist.

Leon H. Maurer held a graduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he specialized in atomic energy and electronic control and communication network systems, with additional graduate studies in ceramics, material science, physics, and architectural engineering.

He completed his graduate studies in communication arts at the New York Institute of Technology. He had instructed graduate level advanced courses in motion picture optical and computer special effects, and had done pioneering work in the early development of 3-D computer graphic animation and CGI special effects systems at the NYIT Visual Arts Center and Computer Graphics Lab (1976-79). 

Maurer held patents -- as one of the earliest inventors of motion control and automatic animation systems, and of 3-D and original lithographic printing systems. He was also an expert in 3-D stereo-optic visual communication systems.

For a period of forty years, Maurer delved deeply into eastern theories of metaphysics, physiology, psychology and consciousness, and practiced Patanjali’s Rajah Yoga of Mind Awakening.

He was director of consciousness study and research for the Uniworld Institute of PsiTechology

The New York Times for April 12, 2012, has an opinion column by Nicholas D. Kristof asking the question “Is an Egg for Breakfast Worth This?” It describes the abysmal conditions in which hens are kept by large-scale commercial chicken farmers who supply eggs to most grocery chains. And of course much the same could be said generally of those who raise animal as meat. All this will come as no news to vegetarian Theosophists, many of whom eschew flesh, fish, and fowl, not for reasons of their own health (though that is certainly a factor), but rather out of the moral principle of ahimsa. It is, however, encouraging to see the problem addressed in the major national newspaper of the United States.