Jan Nicolaas Kind – Brazil
If H. P. Blavatsky were with us today I am confident that she would have loved to make use of all the good things the Internet has to offer. Yes, she would have had her own Web site and blog. She would have been busy maintaining her social network: Orkut, Twitter and Facebook, you name it. It would have been a blessing for her, and for us, if she could have communicated her important message through the channels that are now at our disposal.
If used properly, the Internet can bring people together, build bridges, and diminish obvious differences. It can create platforms for dialogues or, if the common rules of decency are obeyed, even debates. It can be an enormous source of information, a guide for independent study, and an invaluable eye opener and pointer.
The Internet can be used to discuss problems and to look for possible solutions, although here we must observe caution and be discriminative. Some of the current issues we face are very complex and sensitive and perhaps not suitable to be discussed in cyber space. That is not because the issues need to be surrounded with secrecy or obscurity, but because of their density and their requirement for professional insight and, above all, impartial scrutiny.
Too often the atmosphere on some Internet sites degenerates into an ugly US against THEM environment where offensive language is used, thus making impartial investigation unachievable. This two-party notion, by definition is in conflict with everything Theosophy stands for. Over the past two years, it has become painfully clear how far the levels of tolerance and true understanding have sunk. This decline has resulted in a stubbornly biased approach, leading directly to nasty controversies in nowhere land.
If members of the Theosophical Society Adyar, collectively, had made more constructive attempts to live up to the Objects of the Theosophical Society, and had shown tolerance and insisted on transparency all along, doing away with the so-called secrecy, all those subversive elements that created this cacophony of discords in cyber space would not have existed.
There is nothing secret about Theosophy; there is nothing secret about Theosophists. So there shouldn’t be anything secret about its vehicle and those who are supposed to lead it wisely.
On the Internet we see the obstacles in the world and, by doing so, recognize the obstacles within the Theosophical Society. For in the Society too there is conflict, just as in the outside world. These conflicts are said to make us strong and to purify us, promoting spiritual or intellectual depth. But, of course, that’s only partly true. Conflicts can do irreparable harm and drive us further apart. The hidden root of conflict lies in the many levels of ignorance and self-interest and in a lack of altruism, which is possibly the noblest feeling that can well up in the human heart.
It’s important that we come together again and take a good and honest look at ourselves because the masses spread out sideways in their search; but those who truly wish to ascend tug at their own roots until ignorance and self-interest have been overcome.
That is what's important!