Theos-Talk Archives (February 2009 Message tt00041)

At the rate this is going the next GC meeting will be watched by curious  
members all around the world gazing into their crystal balls as the orthodox  
spew their prune juice in horror and shout, "Psychism!  Bad bad naughty  naughty 
bad!"
 
Chuck the Heretic
 
 
In a message dated 2/3/2009 6:23:17 P.M. Central Standard Time,  
mkr777@gmail.com writes:

 
 
 
Our thanks to Sampsa for keeping us informed from Finland.

Since we  have not seen the official record of the GC meeting, any event
witnessed by  several people will be recalled by each differently due to
various human  reasons. We have read accounts from two GC members. Hence it
would be  informative to all, if Sampsa can translate the Finnish version
into  English and post it here so that we can get another view of the meeting
(of  course with a disclaimer that Sampsa is not responsible for the accuracy
of  the translation.o

The tie votes for Lindemann is interesting. If  there is a legitimate concern
about his association with any other group,  there is no need for any
secrecy. TS is not a secret organization. Bring up  the issue openly with him
and ask him to respond openly. As a long-time  theosophist of highest
integrity, suspecting anything untoward regarding  his association with any
other group, surprises me and is also not fair to  him.

The right course of action is to ask him directly in writing and I  am sure
he will respond. In my experience, many times, when issues arise,  the real
reason behind the issue may be something other than that openly  cited or
discussed.

So it is better for TS as well as for himself to  remove the cloud that seems
to have spread over him and the hanging cloud  is neither fair to him nor is
a brotherly action from theosophical  leaders.

In my opinion, the proposals made by the Quartet need to be  viewed with the
events that took place since the start of the election  process. First came
the attempt to depict to membership, Radha as sick,  mentally and physically.
When three highly reputed doctors, one a GC member  and GS of a Section, from
two continents certified her fit, both mentally  and physically, instead of
immediately sharing this information with  membership so that they can come
to their own conclusion, the nominators of  the other candidate, kept silent,
thus leading many to think Radha as sick  and possibly voted against her.
Next was the move to disenfranchise the  membership world-wide and radically
change the rules. The timing of the  move (soon after the election), and the
players behind it (those who wanted  to defeat Radha) coupled with the
secrecy and speed with which the change  was attempted was the real problem.

The super secrecy with which  disenfranchisement move was crafted and speed
with which approval was  sought was astonishing. It was so secret that even
long-time members at  Adyar, Olcott and other National Centers were kept in
total darkness and  they learnt it from Internet.

All of us world-wide were to be  disenfranchised and a small group of GC
members end up monopolizing not  only the nomination (as at present) but also
the selection (the election is  a farce) of the president, would in effect
resulted in making the president  a puppet controlled by a small group of GC
members.

So the problems  are not with the proposals. It is with the lack of
transparency at all  levels of administration and last year's events creating
a culture of lack  of trust in the leaders. Until the trust issue is settled,
any change would  be highly suspect. Once members lose their rights, they
will never retrieve  it.

My 0.02.

MKR

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 4:26 PM,  sampsakuukasjarvi <
_sampsakuukasjarvi@sampsakuu_ (mailto:sampsakuukasjarvi@yahoo.com) >  wrote:

> A correction. I was told that Gabriel Burgos Suarez and  Conrad
> Jamieson are not anymore additional members of the General  Council:
>
> "According to the 2007 Annual Report, both Gabriel  Burgos' and Conrad
> Jamieson's terms as Additional Members, ended on 31  Dec. 2008."
>
> The GS report given by the Finnish General  Secretary reminded the
> reports given by Betty Bland and Warwick Key,  but it had been written
> softer, more politely. The report was  published in Finnish on the
> Finnish Theosophical internet  forum.
>
> Not any decisions were made in the GC meeting. The  reason is that
> they were not on the agenda. Transparency, rule  amendments,
> membership decline and other hot potatoes were neither  discussed
> formally, but they were discussed informally during the  convent.
>
> The tie votes mentioned by MKR in his message below  took place in the
> Vice-President nomination and in Ricardo Lindemann's  nomination.
> Lindemann has some connections to an other organization in  Brazil and
> some General Council members thought that the TS will be  mixed with
> that other organization (which name I don't want to  mention).
>
> I believe that there are serious problems in the way  how Adyar
> administration works. It is undemocratic. Erica, MKR,  William, Pedro,
> Aryel and others big critics against the proposals  should admit this.
> It is not so that "the quartet" behind the  amendments is just
> villains. The truth is somewhere between the  opposites.
>
> Sampsa
>
> --- In _theos-talk@yahoogrotheos-t_ (mailto:theos-talk@yahoogroups.com)   
<theos-talk%theos-talk%<WBthe>, MKR
> <mkr777@...>  wrote:
> >
> > Thanks for sharing the information. I think  we have a good set of GC
> > members. Would it not be nice if the  International Secretary
> publishes their
> > e-mail addresses  so that members world-wide can write to them of
> any issues
>  > that should be considered by the GC.
> >
> > Already  two TS members have suggested that the meetings at national
>  and
> > international level can easily be opened up by putting a  camera and
> > broadcasting live on Internet. Looks like Internet  technology is
> going to
> > help us bring transparency to TS.  Transparency will be the bulwark
> to help
> > prevent any  secret dissentious moves by GC members with their own
> stated  or
> > hidden agendas.
> >
> > Tie votes in the  last meeting shows the division that exists and it
> would be
>  > interesting to know who is in what camp and possibly discover and
>  understand
> > any underlying unspoken driving force or ideology  behind them.
> >
> > After all we are all human and as a  Master once said - the human
> nature in
> > London and Adyar  are the same. Hence we should be prepared for
> surprise
> >  actions subtly conflicting with the first object we all subscribe
> to  in
> > varying degrees.
> >
> > Let us keep tuned  in and hope we get feedback from other sections
> and learn
> >  what their members are being told about the GC meeting..
> >
>  > M K Ramadoss
> >
> > THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN  TRUTH
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 18, 2009  at 12:12 PM, sampsakuukasjarvi <
> >  sampsakuukasjarvi@  > wrote:
> >
> > > The  General Secretary of my country (the Finnish Section) will
>  soon
> > > inform our membership about the decisions and  discussion that took
> > > place at the General Council meeting at  Adyar. (I am, of course,
> > > talking about the TS  Adyar.)
> > >
> > > I already heard from her who are  the current additional members of
> > > the GC. I am sure that  some people here are interested as I to
> know
> > > these  people.
> > >
> > > Ex-officio members:
> >  > President Radha Burnier
> > > Vice-President Linda Oliveira  (Australia 1)
> > > Secretary Keith Fisher (Australia 2)
>  > > Treasurer Keshwar Dastur (India)
> > >
> > >  New members (since 2009):
> > > Helen Jamieson (New Zealand  2)
> > > Ricardo Lindemann (Brazil)
> > > Sriram  Panchu (India)
> > > H.K. Sharan (India)
> > >
>  > > Old members (in 2008 Ãâ" 2010):
> > > Gabriel Burgos  Suarez (Colombia)
> > > Terezinha Franca Kind (Brazil)
>  > > D.K. Govindaraj (India)
> > > Conrad Jamieson (New  Zealand 2)
> > > Tran-Thi-Kim- Tran-Thi-Kim
> > >  Joy Mills (USA)
> > > Surendra Narayan (India)
> >  >
> > > Explanations:
> > > 1 = will soon move to  Adyar
> > > 2 = lives at Adyar
> > >
> > >  Best Wishes,
> > > Sampsa
> > >
> >  >
> > >
> >
> >
> > [Non-text  portions of this message have been removed]
> >
>
>  
>

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