Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Winter 2024 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Greenfield, Ginger "Sri Lankan Embassy Commemorates Olcott" Quest 112:1, pg 8

Napoleon Hill’s 1937 best seller Think and Grow Rich is one of the most influential works published in America in the twentieth century.

To me, the title evokes the image of a guy lounging in a hammock imagining his way to wealth, but this picture is rather misleading.

In fact, the title was an afterthought. By his own account, Hill struggled enormously to come up with one, even up to the printing date. Finally, his publisher called and said, “Tomorrow morning, I’ve got to have that title, and if you don’t have one, I have one that’s a humdinger.”

“What is it?” said Hill.

“We’re going to call it Use Your Noodle and Get the Boodle.”

Thus motivated, Hill came up with the final title after a night of sweating and laboring. He regarded it as a result of inspiration, but it’s nothing more than the publisher’s joke title recast in concise and serious form.

 In any case, Think and Grow Rich is an intelligent and thorough guide to success. Many millionaires have credited their wealth to this book.

The most relevant part of the book here is its central point. To succeed, you must have what Hill calls a “Definite Chief Aim.” You must formulate it clearly and concisely and repeat it to yourself every day, if not every hour, but you are not to reveal it to anybody else except to your “Master Mind” group, which you have assembled to work toward this purpose. You then take intelligent and concrete steps to manifest it.

Most people who have worked with Hill’s method probably set their Definite Chief Aim as wealth. If your aim is to accumulate $1 million, you at least have a clear and quantifiable objective: it is clear whether you have reached it or not.

If you succeed, what then? Usually, push reset: now make your goal $10 million, and on and on. Since after a certain point wealth compounds unless it is actively mismanaged, you can accumulate a great deal very fast. When you have eaten up enough of the earth, you start thinking about philanthropy. (Whether such philanthropy does anyone any good is a question I will not broach.)

But to quote Mr. Bernstein, chairman of the board in Citizen Kane, “It’s no trick to make a lot of money—if all you want is to make a lot of money.” At some point, this Definite Chief Aim may start to seem irrelevant. Hence all of the disillusionments with wealth that we have heard about back to Ecclesiastes.

It would seem that a Definite Chief Aim, if it is to have any legitimacy, has to be more fundamental to an individual’s being and identity—the purpose for which, as the Kabbalists would put it, you were “called forth, created, formed, and made.”

As you may know, I am currently writing a course entitled “Exoteric and Esoteric Psychology” for the National Lodge. In the second lesson, I deal with the question of meaning and purpose. Without attempting to summarize the whole thing here, I might draw attention to a couple of key points.

Some thinkers, such as Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, assert that meaning and purpose are crucial to life—in extreme circumstances, even to survival—but he regards this purpose as a matter of free individual choice. Frankl’s thought comes very close to existentialism, even though he does not use that term in that book.

Another great psychologist from the middle of the last century, Ira Progoff, agrees about the centrality of meaning and purpose, but he regards them as much more organically rooted in the life process itself. In his book The Symbolic and the Real, he even observes that “the human being does not fulfill even its essential biological functions when it does not feel a framework of meaning.” Moreover, “in its essence, the psyche is the directive principle in the human being which guides its growth from the moment of conception forward.” Progoff also says, “The essence of the psyche is that it is the directive principle by means of which meaning unfolds in the individual’s existence.”

In short, the pursuit of meaning continues the process of organic growth from conception on. If this process is stymied, it results in neurosis.

I find myself more in accord with Progoff’s view. If it is to be authentic, a Definite Chief Aim runs much more deeply than a mere career choice, although it may well be—and no doubt usually is—closely connected with the work that one does in the world. It is less of a choice than a recognition.

The Bhagavad Gita appears to agree. The Sanskrit term for one’s organic purpose, which is also one’s duty, is dharma. The text says: “One’s own dharma, though imperfect, is better than the dharma of another well discharged. Better death in one’s dharma; the dharma of another is full of fear” (3:35).

In other words, it is better to do your own job badly than to do someone else’s well.

Richard Smoley

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Printed in the  Winter 2024 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Secrest, Nancy "In the Service of All: The Theosophical Order of Service" Quest 112:1, pg 23-29

By Nancy Secrest

There is no other in this world. Each is a separate form, but one spirit lives and moves in All.
                                                                                                                      —Annie Besant

This quote gives us much to reflect upon. In the Theosophical Order of Service (TOS), humanitarian aid is given from that place that is the All in each of us to the All in every other.

Annie Besant, the second president of the international Theosophical Society, announced the founding of the TOS and published its provisional constitution in the February 1908 supplement to The Theosophist.

This document stated the organization’s purpose and set forth a structure of governance. The provisional constitution of the TOS outlined an organization of leagues, or groups. Within three years, there were over sixty recorded leagues around the world. They focused on such issues as animal welfare, education for the poor, the promotion of Braille, temperance, prison reform, and in India, the abolition of child marriage.

The document also acknowledged that Besant had founded the organization at the behest of members who wanted to put the First Object of the TS into action: “To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of humanity regardless of race, creed, sex, caste, or color.” This is still true today and is one of the main reasons for the existence of the TOS.

Besant acknowledged that her inspiration for founding the TOS might be found in an article written by a Master of the Wisdom, entitled “Some Words on Daily Life,” which H.P. Blavatsky had published in the journal Lucifer. It said:

Theosophy should not represent merely a collection of moral verities, a bundle of metaphysical ethics, epitomised in theoretical dissertations. Theosophy must be made practical; and it has, therefore, to be disencumbered of useless digressions, in the sense of desultory orations and fine talk. Let every Theosophist only do his duty, that which he can and ought to do, and very soon the sum of human misery, within and around the areas of every branch of your Society will be found visibly diminished. Forget Self in working for others—and the task will become an easy and a light one for you.

While the Master’s article and members’ requests may have been the immediate inspiration for the founding of the organization, Besant herself had had a commitment to service since childhood. This was fostered by her teacher, Ellen Marryat. Miss Marryat came into Besant’s life when she was eight. Annie’s father had died three years before, leaving her mother under financial hardship. Her mother struggled to obtain for her son the education she and her husband had wished for him. There was scant money left for Annie’s education. Miss Marryat was a maiden lady of large means looking for work which would make her useful in the world. She settled on teaching, and taking a fancy to Annie, invited her to study with her.

Miss Marryat proved to have a genius for teaching. Her methods were unique, without rote memorization or dry questions and answers. Instead, the children were encouraged to learn from the life around them and to think for themselves. Annie flourished.

Miss Marryat, a devout evangelical Christian, taught Christian values as well, including working on behalf of those in need. Therefore as a child, Besant was taken to help the needy, the poor, and the sick, laying a cornerstone for her future service work.

By the time she became international president of the TS, Besant had been a prominent social activist for many years. She worked for the betterment of the poor: better working hours, better, safer labor conditions, and women’s suffrage.

Besant brought her rich experience to the TOS in its formative years, and her writings often spoke of duty, altruism, and selfless service. Her presidential address of 1907 asked the question:

What of our practice? . . . our lodges should not be contented with a programme of lectures, private and public, and with classes. The members should be known as good workers in all branches of beneficent activity. The Lodge should be the centre, not the circumference, of our work. To the lodge for inspiration and knowledge; to the world for service and teaching.

The world was a busy place in those early years of the TOS. The North Pole was reached in 1908 and the South Pole a couple of years later. The first airplane flight was made across the United States, taking eighty-four days. The International Congress for Women was held in Amsterdam. There were race riots in Springfield, Illinois. In 1910, the thirteenth Dalai Lama fled Tibet from Chinese troops to British India, Gandhi was at work in South Africa, and in 1906 Finland approved women’s suffrage.

At this time, vast numbers of people were suffering under the weight of horribly long work hours, meager wages, child labor, oppression of women and those of other ethnicities, crime, and war or the threat of war. The newly formed TOS leagues worked to alleviate the suffering caused by these and other societal woes.

A Changed World

Today the TOS concept of leagues has given way to project-focused collaboration in its principal areas of concern: education, peace, social services, healing, arts and music, animal welfare, the environment, and emergency relief. Even more recently, helping those who have been affected by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic has taken center stage in our work, along with aid to those who have been displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The world has changed since 1908, partly thanks to the efforts of members of the TS and the TOS, who focused on service as spiritual action, lived the First Object, and made it practical. The citizens of many countries in today’s world enjoy shorter work weeks, better wages, better health care, housing, educational opportunities, and religious freedom than our forebears. The work continues. There are still places in the world where some of these basic rights have yet to be realized. But all in all, in many respects, the world is a better place today than in years and centuries past.

In a 2015 talk, Diana Dunningham Chapotin, then international secretary of the TOS, said, “Because the media bring almost instantly into our living room reports of acts of great violence committed on the other side of the globe, we have the impression that the world is an increasingly dangerous place to live. In fact, individual and collective violence has been steadily declining over the past thousand years. The number of wars and the number of deaths through war all over the world has been going down for many centuries proportionate to the number of people on earth.” She said that while “we need to be careful of statistics . . . it can be reliably said that today’s citizens are far less at risk of being killed or subjected to violence than a century ago and far, far less at risk than a thousand years ago” (emphasis added).

Because of rapid advances in media and the ease and speed of travel, the planet seems a much smaller place nowadays. The pandemic we have experienced over these last few years showed us its negative effects, with the Covid-19 virus being transmitted at lightning speed worldwide.

At the same time, over the last few years, many of us discovered Zoom and other meeting media that allowed us to improve our communications and remain in touch with each other. We traveled virtually, with Adyar and other conventions, conferences, and online talks given by various TS Sections accessible worldwide. TOS online programs were presented in India, the Philippines, Argentina, the United States, and Ukraine, with speakers such as Tim Boyd, Deepa Padhi, Nancy Secrest, Sivaprasad K., Rekha Harder, and others. This has allowed us to reach many more people than localized, physical programs did.

As the world gets smaller in this way, it is easier to see that we all have the same basic rights to shelter, food, clean water, opportunities to provide for ourselves and our families, human dignity, respect, justice, freedom, and the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. The smaller the world becomes, the more we understand each other, and the more apparent the oneness of all life becomes to us. We know that by serving others, we serve ourselves. We can see that service work goes beyond feeding the body or the mind. It is a spiritual path that, when trodden consciously and selflessly, serves the giver as much as the receiver.

This is reflected in the twofold purpose of the TOS, which remains the same today as at its inception:

• The unselfish service of the needy and suffering
• The inner transformation of the server

Radha Burnier, late international president of the TS, wrote:

The Theosophical Order of Service was founded by Dr. Annie Besant in 1908 so that the sum of pain in the world may be reduced, to some extent at least, and at the same time help its workers to learn, through their service and the attention they pay to the quality of their work, to purify the mind. The Order of Service has therefore a double purpose. From this point of view, it is not merely the doing of work which is important but the manner in which it is done and the purity of purpose behind it.

Today the TOS is active in thirty-six countries doing humanitarian work based on spiritual concepts. Today, as in the beginning, TOS workers find a joy and a freedom in their work.

Let’s take a look at some of it.

The United Nations

To begin with, you may not know of the TOS’s longstanding interest in the United Nations. The TS and TOS have supported the UN since its inception in 1945 as well as its predecessor, the League of Nations. In fact, Annie Besant became one of the first members of the League of Nations Union in England. The TOS’s UN committee produced a brochure printed in October 2011, outlining the support shown to the UN by every TS president since Besant. Support for the UN is also shown through local TOS celebrations on UN Day, and our former Spanish-language coordinator, the late Fernando Pérez Martin, published more than thirty issues of a newsletter about the UN’s actions. Currently, the TOS is exploring affiliation with the UN as a nongovernmental organization (NGO). If pursued, this process will take a few years to realize. Ironically, our diverse reach may preclude us from being able to join, but we are looking into it.

Support for Ukraine

One of the service areas shared by the TOS and the UN is the promotion of peace. We all know of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Although the TOS does not involve itself in politics, we are dedicated to giving humanitarian aid wherever necessary. During this past year, letters from the TOS Ukraine asking for assistance have been shared with directors and presidents of the TOS worldwide. Here is a quote from a recent one.

As a result of the armed attack on Ukraine and damage to civilians, residential buildings, and communications, many humanitarian problems have arisen. As of today, June 28, 2022, about 3 million civilians live out of the country as refugees, and about 10 million civilians left their homes and moved to the western regions of our country, becoming internally displaced persons (IDP). In addition, those villages and cities which were under occupation and then returned to Ukrainian administration are essentially destroyed and those people need support. So all these people need help: water, food, medicine, housing, basic necessities.

Today, our TS members actively cooperate with social organizations (NGOs) and also organized our own TOS activity to provide humanitarian assistance to those in need.

The TOS in Ukraine received letters of sympathy and support from all corners of the world. In its annual report, the Ukraine TOS expressed “heartfelt gratitude to all who responded with their hearts to our trouble!”

Aid for Victims of War

The organization has also worked in relief of victims of other war-torn regions. Since 2013, the TOS in Italy has been active with projects to support the Syrian people fleeing war. The projects responded to emergency requests from Syria’s Bab al-Salam refugee camp.

The work the TOS in Italy has been doing to aid Syrian refugees has inspired much interest and respect. The Italian TOS has sent medicine, food, clothing, much needed footwear, tents, and firewood to those in camps and on the road. Of vital importance is the presence of Dr. Alì Nasser, a Syrian refugee now living in Turkey with his family, who immediately offered medical assistance, especially for children. At the suggestion of Dr. Nasser, and thanks to the commitment of other associations and many donations, two containers with the functions of a pediatric clinic were installed. The clinic, managed by him, is still active today and has been fully funded by TOS Italy.

Disaster Relief

Like war, natural disasters can displace many people. Unlike other TOS projects, which may be limited in scope to the group’s local area, disaster relief is a concern to which we respond on an international level. In recent years, the TOS worldwide has responded by raising funds to help with cleanup efforts, rebuilding and supplying food and water to those displaced by natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Nepal several years ago, and the earthquakes in Italy in August and October 2016.

In past years, TOS members have also offered assistance after hurricanes, cyclones, and tornados in the Philippines, India, and the United States, and floods in India and the United States. More recently, TOS Spain is working with other NGOs in Latin America after earthquakes in Haiti and hurricanes in Honduras and Nicaragua. This year record-breaking floods occurred in India, and cyclones again hit the Philippines. TOS members were there to give help to those who needed it. Teddy bears knitted by English, Italian, and French TOS members made their way to many children affected by some of these disasters. Belgium has now joined this project as well. Psychologists have shown that having a soft and cuddly friend to hang on to during stressful times is beneficial to small children. The TOS in England leads the way with this project. As of the last report, the TOS England had shipped over 30,000 teddies overseas, thanks to the generosity of two charities—International Aid Trust (IAT) and Furniture for Education Worldwide (FEW)—who convey the teddies free of charge.

Pandemic Aid 

For the last few years, we have been experiencing a different kind of natural disaster: a pandemic of global proportions. We have all had to deal with the effects of the Covid-19 virus in one way or another.

TOS members in many countries have given aid in various ways, such as medical assistance to those suffering from the disease, help to caregivers, and food and financial aid to those who have lost their livelihoods.

A scenario exemplified by the Hungarian TOS was repeated in many TOS countries around the world in an attempt to ease the suffering caused by the pandemic. This included assistance to the elderly and disadvantaged and help to students, who could only attend classes online or not at all.

The Hungarian TOS works closely with the Roma (Gypsy) community there, providing clothing and household items. This year, the number of emergency support donation requests soared. Elderly couples, families with many small children, and others taking care of older relatives received sums of money to ease the crisis. Food and household articles were also given.

Of special interest is a large donation received from the TOS in England for Covid-19 relief in India. The British responded to reports of suddenly increased rates of infection in India in summer 2022. The funds were used to purchase food and household articles in several cities in India, which were then distributed by TOS members in the local areas. Food was provided in villages and to old-age homes. Face masks and hand sanitizers were purchased in Chennai, a month’s supply of food was given to a girl’s home in Odisha (which is supported by TOS members there), and oxygen tanks were provided for a temporary Covid hospital. Some Adyar employees who needed help with medical costs due to Covid-19, or replacement of loss of spousal income due to the lockdowns, were also assisted. Some help is still being given, although we hope we have seen the last of this virus.

Educational Efforts

Many TOS groups focus on providing or supporting schools, particularly those that teach Theosophical concepts and virtues. Helping children is close to the hearts of many Theosophists. The largest and most successful of these efforts is the Golden Link College in the Philippines. The school has been providing transformational education for less privileged children since 2002. Eighty-five percent of the student body is on scholarship. The school is regarded throughout the Theosophical world as a model of Theosophy in action.

Besides teaching core academics, the school teaches meditation and focuses on developing character, integrity, and self-confidence. At the college level, courses in Theosophy are part of the core curriculum. It is felt that these qualities of character will be communicated to others throughout the students’ lives, promoting peace and harmony.

The Adyar Theosophical Academy has followed suit. The school is located on the Society’s campus in Chennai. ATA is beginning its fifth year of operations and added a fifth standard (grade) this year. Temporary classrooms have been built to add a sixth standard next school year. Construction of a new campus at Adyar for grades 1‒12 is scheduled to begin in December 2023. The TS would greatly appreciate donations to fund the construction of these classrooms.

The TOS in Pakistan provides fifteen home schools for 300 children, focusing on girls who would otherwise be unable to get an education. The TOS in Australia, New Zealand, and Italy all support individual home schools there. It costs $1,100 per year to support a home school.

These schools of literacy, founded by the TOS in Pakistan, take their distinctive name from qandeel, which means lantern and symbolizes the light of knowledge. It employs teachers who reside in poor areas of the country and who reserve a room during the day (of the two that usually make up their homes) to use as a classroom. The TOS provides whiteboards, mats for children to sit on, stationery, and other essential tools. The children learn the basic educational tools of reading, writing, arithmetic, and social skills.

The TOS in Pakistan also provides nursing scholarships to young women. This program was initially run jointly with the UN Women’s Group. It now relies on donations from the TOS and others. (Donations to both of these efforts can be made through the TOS in the United States.)

TOS Pakistan also works with Montessori teacher training. Members there are strong in their resolve to continue with their various programs unimpeded. This is no small matter, as Theosophists in Pakistan were targeted in the past and killed simply for being Theosophists. The TS was shut down, but the TOS was allowed to continue and just last year again began presenting public programs, with emphasis on charitable works.

The TOS in Finland, along with other TOS groups, supports the work of the Olcott Memorial Higher Secondary School (OMHSS) and the Social Welfare Centre at Adyar. The OMHSS, founded in 1894 by Henry Steel Olcott, provides a solid education for underprivileged boys and girls. The Social Welfare Centre cares for small children from the local area, allowing their mothers to attend the Vocational Training Centre, where they learn fabric arts, such as sewing, tailoring, embroidery, and weaving.

Many other TOS groups, particularly in India, run schools or educational programs for children, and TOS members around the world sponsor the education of many hundreds of others. These include a school in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sponsored jointly by the French TOS and the Liberal Catholic Church.

The TOS in Italy helps to support the Little Flower Convent School for the deaf, located in Chennai. Founded in 1926 by the Missionaries of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Little Flower Convent was recognized by the government of Tamil Nadu in 1931. It became a secondary school in 1968. It welcomes 800 deaf children and young people, giving them the opportunity to obtain a recognized diploma. The convent also welcomes and gives the opportunity to work for blind people, who are otherwise condemned to survive in poverty on the margins of society.

In Sweden, the TOS helps orphans and street children. Many TOS groups, like those in Bangladesh, offer school supplies to children.

The TOS in Spain has continued with its support to the NGOs COMPARTE and PERSONAS, both working in Central America, mainly involved in providing education to the most disadvantaged children in different parts of Latin America.

Another bright star in the TOS world is our youth group in Tanzania. Getting youth involved in the TS and in TOS work is something we all struggle with, but in Tanzania they have done it. (Brazil too does outstanding work with youth.) The young people work with children from the Chanika Orphanage, which the TOS there helps to sponsor. This year the TOS in Odisha, India, also began a TOS youth group. We are hoping that this concept will spread throughout India.

Healing Efforts

The TOS Healing Network operates around the world. In many places healing groups get together, usually weekly, to perform a ritual and a healing meditation that calls the devas to assist in healing or in a peaceful transition from this life. Names of those in need of healing are submitted by family or friends and are now shared internationally.

During the lockdowns, when groups could not meet physically, many began meeting electronically on Zoom or like media. The healing group in Costa Rica invited those from other countries, especially those that do not have a healing group, to participate. Members from Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico joined the meetings.

Other medically related TOS projects include the issuing of mobility aids, which is a principal project of the TOS in India. The TOS in Puerto Rico collects, cleans, repairs, and sells used goods of all types in a sort of flea market. The proceeds of their sales are used to buy prostheses or implants for children in Haiti. There are many such children who were injured by falling buildings during earthquakes there, and the prostheses need to be replaced as the children grow.

Animals deserve healing too, or so thought Rozi Ulics of the TOS-USA, who began an animal healing network there a number of years ago. The TOS in Hungary has followed suit. The TOS in Argentina started its own animal shelter six years ago. At present there are twenty-one dogs and seven cats enjoying life there.

In the spirit of ahimsa, several TOS Sections—Portugal, Uruguay, and Hungary—teach vegetarian or vegan cooking classes or have produced DVDs or vegetarian cookbooks.

In Chennai, although it is not a TOS program, the Besant Memorial Animal Dispensary has long been a favorite among TOS groups and individuals when deciding where to donate funds. BMAD has grown exponentially in the last five years. Not only does it serve dogs and cats on both an inpatient and outpatient basis, it is now home to horses, cows, donkeys, injured monkeys, and pigs. BMAD helps with a turtle hatching and release program in Chennai each year. The surgeons there have performed over 1,000 spaying and neutering operations to help hold down the population of street (we call them community) dogs and cats as well as complicated surgeries on major injuries. Recently, the government of India asked BMAD to assist in a program for wild animals.

Women’s Issues

Several years ago, the international TOS declared a worldwide focus on women’s issues, which we have extended ever since then. We asked TOS Sections to sign on to this commitment. Several Sections have done so and are actively supporting women’s safety, both outside and inside the home, education for women, equal economic opportunities and basic human rights. The especially fine work in gender issues of Dr. Deepa Padhi (international vice president of the TS) and TOS Bhubaneswar in Odisha Region attracted significant support from TOS groups in other countries.

Dr. Padhi says the initiative began when her group went to the then governor of the region and solicited his support to put up billboards to educate people about violence toward women. Since then, they have conducted seminars at workplaces, put on street plays, and published a journal with many articles about women’s issues and a book containing a compilation of these and other articles. Proceeds from the sale of the book Yes, She Can go toward supporting projects for destitute women. Karate classes are even being conducted for young women.

In the last year, sewing machines were purchased with a donation from TOS New Zealand for use with a vocational training program in the region’s slums, and scholarships have been given to twenty-five young women. These have been matched by donations from TOS Italy doubling their impact.

In Kenya, women are being taught various skills, such as hairdressing and manicure, in order for them to help support themselves and their families. The Olcott Education Society’s Women’s Vocational Centre, while not a TOS program, is a shining example of providing poor women with skills that will help them to be more independent and to help provide for themselves and their families. The center teaches tailoring and weaving. Also, TOS groups in the U.S. and France help to support shelters for abused women.

Recently, the TOS Odisha opened a clothing store, where people can donate clothing and small household appliances. Those in need can then visit the store, selecting needed articles at no cost. The TOS Odisha also gives an Empowered Woman of Odisha award each year to a woman who has exemplified the role of women as empowered individuals.

In Kenya, the men are not forgotten. The TOS there recently invited applicants for training in tailoring, carpentry, and landscaping. Three candidates were selected. The training lasts for six months with fees paid by the TOS.

The TOS is active in thirty-six countries doing humanitarian service work based on spiritual concepts. I want you to know that the international TOS and the TOS in the U.S. are there to help and support you in your own service endeavors, whether in your private lives or within the TOS or the TS. The TOS has resources available on its website and people willing to listen to you and share ideas. The TOS’s whole reason for existing is to support the Theosophical Society’s work in making Theosophy of transformative value in the world and in the life of the individual spiritual seeker. We all need to work together “in the service of all that suffers.”

As the poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Nancy Secrest is the international secretary of the Theosophical Order of Service. Originally from the United States, she now lives and works at Adyar as the treasurer of the international TS (international.theoservice.org). Nancy has been involved with the TS for over fifty years, previously working as national secretary and national treasurer of the American Section. 

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Printed in the  Winter 2024 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Greenfield, Ginger "Sri Lankan Embassy Commemorates Olcott" Quest 112:1, pg 8

By Ginger Greenfield   

On the evening of Wednesday, August 2, 2023, in celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Sri Lanka‒U.S. diplomatic relations, Douglas Keene, Rozi Ulics, Susanne Hoepfl-Wellenhofer, and I attended a wonderful event at the Embassy of Sri Lanka in Washington, DC, to commemorate TS cofounder Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (1832‒1907). Olcott is known and honored for his support of Sri Lankan independence, culture, and religion.

We all gathered around a rectangular garden pool in the embassy’s magnificent outdoor space. Behind the speakers, a statue of the Buddha was visible through the open door of a glass shrine.

A group of monks in saffron robes sat together near a panel of four other monks. The panelists offered perspectives on the history of Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Olcott’s contribution to the revival of Buddhism there. An official from the embassy showed a video with images from Olcott’s time and telling of his history in the nation.

Douglas Keene gave a fascinating talk on Olcott’s work for the Society and in Sri Lanka. Olcott’s grandnephew Douglas Olcott attended the event with his daughter, Angelica Olcott. He spoke of Olcott from the unique viewpoint of a family member and told some of the history of his family in America.

As a part of the diplomatic nature of the event, Elizabeth Horst, principal deputy assistant secretary for Pakistan Bureau of South and Central Asia, spoke of the strength of U.S.‒Sri Lanka relations, which are based on shared democratic values and a rules-based regional and international order. U.S. policy toward Sri Lanka is characterized by respect for its independence, sovereignty, and moderate nonaligned foreign policy.

Positioned at the geographic and political heart of the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka is arguably the most strategically located maritime nation in the region. Since the nation’s independence in 1948, the U.S. has invested more than $2 billion in support of its agriculture, education, health, environment, infrastructure, governance, and business development.

Olcott and H.P. Blavatsky arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon), on May 16, 1880. They took the Five Precepts of Buddhism at the Wijayananda Viharaya, located at Weliwatta in Galle on May 19, 1880. The precepts are:

I undertake to observe the rule

1. To abstain from taking life
2. To abstain from taking what is not given
3. To abstain from sensuous misconduct
4. To abstain from false speech
5. To abstain from intoxicants as tending to cloud the mind

	The Theosophical Society presents a portrait of Olcott to Sri Lankan ambassador Mahinda Samarasinghe at the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington. From Left: Elizabeth Horst, principal deputy assistant secretary for Pakistan Bureau of South and Centra Asia; Amassador Samarasinghe; Douglas Olcott; Douglas Keene; Susanne Hoepfl-Wellenhofer; Angelica Olcott; Rozi Ulics; and Ginger Greenfield.

During his time in Sri Lanka, Olcott worked to revive Buddhism. He wanted to avoid Westernized interpretations often found in America and to discover the pure message of texts from the Buddhist, Hindu, and Zoroastrian religions so as to properly educate Westerners. In 1881 he wrote The Buddhist Catechism, which is still revered and used today. Buddhists of colonial Sri Lanka under British dominance heard Olcott’s interpretation of the Buddha’s message as socially motivating and supportive of their religion. Olcott is the only major contributor to the nineteenth-century Sinhalese Buddhist revival who was born and raised in the Protestant Christian tradition.

Olcott supported the presence of Buddhists at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. The inclusion of Buddhists at the parliament allowed for the expansion of Buddhism in the West and led to the development of other Buddhist modernist movements.

In 1885 in Colombo, Olcott acted as an advisor to the committee appointed to design the Buddhist flag. The Buddhist flag was later adopted as a symbol by the World Fellowship of Buddhists and as the universal flag of all Buddhist traditions.

Olcott’s work in Sri Lanka has earned him the enduring gratitude of the country, where the anniversary of his death on February 17 is remembered with prayers. In 1967 the government of Sri Lanka honored Olcott with a commemorative stamp. Two major streets in Colombo have been named Olcott Mawatha (Street). Statues of Olcott have been erected in front of Colombo Fort Railway Station and in the southern city of Galle. All schools that he helped found or were founded in his memory possess commemorative statues in honor of his contribution to Buddhist education. The Buddhist schools built by the Theosophical Society in Ceylon remain the leading schools in Sri Lanka to date.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, Douglas, Rozi, Susanne, and I enjoyed the honor of presenting a portrait of Olcott to Sri Lankan ambassador Mahinda Samarasinghe on behalf of the Theosophical Society. The embassy offered tasty vegetarian triangle sandwiches and both hot and cold tea. The evening could not have been more lovely. I am grateful to have been a part of the event and am enriched by the friendship connections highlighted and shared between Sri Lanka, the United States, and the Theosophical Society, historically and today.

Ginger Greenfield is former president of the Ojai Valley Lodge of the TS.

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Printed in the  Winter 2024 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Long, Jeffery D "Service as a Spiritual Path: Swami Vivekananda’s Teaching of Karma Yoga" Quest 112:1, pg 23-29 

By Jeffery D. Long

0The Indian sage Swami Vivekananda (1863‒1902) was one of the most influential figures in bringing the spiritual teachings of India to the modern West. In a lecture delivered in Boston on March 28, 1896, titled “The Spirit and Influence of Vedanta,” he says:

There has not been one religious inspiration, one manifestation of the divine in man, however great, but it has been the expression of [the] infinite oneness in human nature; and all that we call ethics and morality and doing good to others is also but the manifestation of this oneness. There are moments when every man feels that he is one with the universe, and he rushes forth to express it, whether he knows it or not. This expression of oneness is what we call love and sympathy, and it is the basis of all our ethics and morality. This is summed up in the Vedanta philosophy by the celebrated aphorism, Tat Tvam Asi, “Thou art That.”

The swami continues:

To every man, this is taught: Thou art one with this Universal Being, and, as such, every soul that exists is your soul; and every body that exists is your body; and in hurting anyone, you hurt yourself, in loving anyone, you love yourself. As soon as a current of hatred is thrown outside, whomsoever else it hurts, it also hurts yourself; and if love comes out from you, it is bound to come back to you. For I am the universe; this universe is my body. I am the Infinite, only I am not conscious of it now; but I am struggling to get this consciousness of the Infinite, and perfection will be reached when full consciousness of this Infinite comes. (Vivekananda, 1:399)

In 1897, Swami Vivekananda established the Ramakrishna Mission and coined its motto—atmano moksha artham jagaddhitaya cha: “For the liberation of the self and for the welfare of the world”—under the inspiration of his guru, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836‒86). Ramakrishna made two statements which Vivekananda would take as an imperative to the kind of social service to which he would later dedicate herculean efforts. These statements are Jatra jiv, tatra Shiv—“where there is a living being, there is Shiva”—and Jive doya noy, Shiv gyane jiv sheba: “not compassion to living beings, rather service to the living being that one knows to be Shiva.”

For Swami Vivekananda, and for the Ramakrishna tradition, the ideal of service cannot be separated from, and is indeed deeply rooted in, the understanding of oneness that is at the heart of Vedanta. Why should I serve others? Is such service not a distraction from the spiritual path? These questions fail to grasp the oneness, the nonduality, that underlies self and other. To posit duality between one’s own state of God-realization and the good of the world around us is to introduce a bifurcation that is ultimately a false one.

According to Swami Vivekananda, the practice of service to others as one would wish to be served oneself is a path to the full consciousness of the Infinite. The other that one is serving is, in fact, oneself. The servant and the one being served are not different, and both are divine. In practical terms, it certainly appears that there is a “self” helping an “other.” But in reality, the helper and helped are one, and the act of giving and receiving dissolves the duality which appears to separate them, joining them in a bond of love.

Love is essentially the experience of the deeper oneness of being. Love is what it feels like to be one with all existence. By helping the other, we in fact are helping ourselves, manifesting the love that is our true, fundamental nature. To again quote Swami Vivekananda: “Our duty to others means helping others, doing good to the world. Why should we do good to the world? Apparently to help the world, but really to help ourselves” (Vivekananda, 1:75).

Swami Vivekananda refers to the path of spiritual service as karma yoga. In this context, he is not referring to the law of karma, which is the principle of action and reaction. He speaks of karma in this latter sense as follows: “As soon as a current of hatred is thrown outside, whomsoever else it hurts, it also hurts yourself; and if love comes out from you, it is bound to come back to you.”

By contrast, karma yoga harks back to the meaning of the word’s original Sanskrit roots: action. This is the yoga, or spiritual discipline, in which action is performed with detachment from its fruits and offered lovingly as a form of service. This becomes a way to purify the mind of egotism and thus aid us on our way to the highest realization.

The philosophy of oneness underlying Swami Vivekananda’s ideal of social service not only helps to ground such service in a wider metaphysical worldview, it also serves as a theodicy: an account of why there is suffering in the world at all. Vivekananda unpacks these implications of karma yoga when he explains why we should help others in light of the insight that the world is itself a manifestation of the Self.

In the course of developing this theodicy, Vivekananda makes a number of claims that, if taken out of context, would sound like rejections of social service. But one must bear in mind the larger worldview behind these assertions. From the perspective of the Infinite, time, space, causation, and the seemingly fundamental distinction between subject and object are unreal. There is therefore, at the ultimate stage, no suffering, no servant, and no person in need of service. This is the paramartha satya, the ultimate truth. But if this is confused with an assertion of the vyavahara satya, or conventional truth of the realm of duality, it would sound cold, strange, and out of touch with the reality of the miseries of this world. If we bear in mind the extremely important distinction between these two aspects of truth, we can now turn to sayings that are seemingly at odds with Vivekananda’s deep commitment to the ideal of serving suffering beings.

“If we consider well,” Swami Vivekananda says, “we find that the world does not require our help at all. This world was not made that you or I should come up and help it. Is it not a blasphemy to say that the world needs our help? We cannot deny that there is much misery in it; to go out and help others is therefore the best thing we can do, although in the long run we shall find that helping others is only helping ourselves.” (Vivekananda, 1:75)

Most dramatically and counterintuitively of all, Swami Vivekananda tells us that the world “is perfect . . . We may be perfectly sure that it will go on beautifully well without us, and we need not bother our heads wishing to help it” (Vivekananda, 1:76).

Here Vivekananda is not denying that suffering is very real in the world that we are currently experiencing. As we have seen, he also says of the world that “we cannot deny that there is much misery in it; to go out and help others is therefore the best thing we can do.” But how can this be squared with the ultimate truth that the world is “perfect”?

The seeming imperfection of the world, as Vivekananda explains, can be likened to the exercise equipment in a gym: it is there so we can do the work that we need to do in order to realize our goal: “The world is a grand moral gymnasium wherein we have all to take exercise so as to become stronger and stronger spiritually” (Vivekananda, 1:80). Thinking that we will finally make the world a better place by solving all its problems is therefore futile, for it would defeat the whole purpose of these problems. In the words of Swami Atmarupananda, another teacher in the Ramakrishna tradition, “life is problem-solving.”

It is not the case, then, that we should not solve the problems before us. This is our dharma, our duty, as human beings, and a central theme of the Bhagavad Gita, in which the hero Arjuna is encouraged to do his duty, however difficult it may be, in the awareness that this is an essential part of his path to realization.

On the other hand, we should not solve problems on the assumption that all problems will one day be solved, or in the expectation that there will ever come a time when there will be such a thing as a problem-free existence upon the earth. Should that time come, the earth would cease to be a fitting place for living beings to work out their spiritual paths, for it would be missing an essential element of its purpose. If life is problem-solving, then a world without problems would be dead. Earth will be problem-free only when there are no more sentient beings upon it. From a spiritual perspective, the point is not so much solving the problems themselves (important though this is in the near term) as the transformative effects that our attempts to resolve them have upon us.

The world, therefore, is full of urgent problems, and it is imperative that we work to resolve them. But the world is also perfect, because problem-solving is precisely what we need to do to realize our ultimate oneness and manifest the love which is the infinite ground of our being. In a gym, we do not run the treadmill to get somewhere; we do not lift weights because the weights need to be moved from one place to another. These obstacles exist so that we can transform ourselves, and we choose to avail ourselves of them because we yearn for this transformation. In a gym, we are trying to cultivate physical health and fitness. In this world (in which we have chosen to be born), we are trying to realize the infinite potential that is the divine Self within us all.

To use another image, Swami Vivekananda says, “This world is like a dog’s curly tail” (Vivekananda, 1:79). We can try to straighten it out, but it is just going to flip back to its former position. We can and should solve specific problems by doing good in the world: specific conflicts can be resolved, specific wars prevented, diseases cured, and obstacles overcome. But life in samsara will always have problems; if it did not, it would be pointless. According to Swami Vivekananda, this way of thinking can help us to avoid fanaticism. In solving problems, it is important not to lose sight of the big picture:

It is a mistake to think that fanaticism can make for the progress of mankind. On the contrary, it is a retarding element creating hatred and anger, and causing people to fight each other, and making them unsympathetic. We think that whatever we do or possess is the best in the world, and what we do not do or possess is of no value. So, always remember the instance of the curly tail of the dog whenever you have a tendency to become a fanatic. (Vivekananda, 1:79) 

Precisely how do problem-solving and service to others help us realize the infinite ground of our being? Karma yoga operates by subordinating the ego to something far greater than itself. It thereby brings the ego to such an attenuated state that it eventually vanishes altogether. Or rather, the ego becomes transparent, allowing the light of our potential divinity to shine through and thus be realized, actualized, and made manifest both in the world and in our consciousness. At this point we realize that we are not in fact the doers of action, but merely instruments of the Divine. According to the Bhagavad Gita, “one who is confused by egotism thinks, ‘I am the doer.’” (3:27; my translation). The ego makes us think we are the ones solving the world’s problems, and in extreme cases, that the world needs us to “save” it. This kind of thinking has caused much destruction in human history.

The aim of karma yoga is this purification of the mind from the stain of egotism:

The main effect of work done for others is to purify ourselves. By means of constant effort to do good to others we are trying to forget ourselves; this forgetfulness of the self [meaning the ego] is the one great lesson we have to learn in life . . . When a man has reached that state, he has attained to the perfection of Karma Yoga. This is the highest result of good works. (Vivekananda, 1:84, 86)

This is what is meant by “helping others is only helping ourselves.”

To further dramatize the point, Swami Vivekananda goes so far as to say that “unselfishness is God” (Vivekananda, 1:87). Unselfishness, for the karma yogi, is the highest ideal, just as the personal deity serves as the highest ideal for theistic devotees who surrender their egos to the Divine in the experience of loving devotion.

The ultimate purpose of karma yoga is to eradicate the ego. This fact has profound implications about the attitude with which one should engage in service. It prevents what both Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna took to be the problematic attitude inherent in more conventional approaches to charity, which can all too often involve a self-congratulatory attitude or an attitude of superiority over those who are “less fortunate.” To again quote Swami Vivekananda: “It is a privilege to help others. Do not stand on a pedestal and take five cents in your hand and say, ‘Here, my poor man,’ but be grateful that the poor man is there so that by making a gift to him you are able to help yourself. It is not the receiver that is blessed, but it is the giver. Be grateful to the man you help, think of him as God” (Vivekananda, 1:76).

If the recipient of aid is not to be looked down upon in pity, but rather to be looked up to as divine, then aid is not charity but service, or seva, as it is known in the Hindu tradition. This is of course the point of Ramakrishna’s dictum: “not compassion [or pity: doya] to living beings, rather service to the living being that one knows to be Shiva.”

One could extend this idea even further and say that karma yoga in this sense is a form of bhakti yoga, the spiritual discipline of devotion: to cite another famous line of Swami Vivekananda, “work is worship” (Vivekananda, 5:245). Vivekananda famously exhorts his followers, in language almost reminiscent of the biblical prophets, to worship the living God in the form of suffering humanity—daridra narayana—even to the point of appearing to belittle more conventional forms of worship (Vivekananda, 7:245).

Vivekananda places the ethical implications of oneness at the front and center of his vision of Vedanta, going so far as to extol karma yoga, in the form of seva, as a path to liberation as valid as the other yogas of wisdom, devotion, and meditation. His ethical monism is the cornerstone of the Ramakrishna tradition’s ethos of selfless service. It is also deeply rooted in a traditional Vedantic understanding of oneness as expressed in the Bhagavad Gita: “I am not lost to the one who sees me everywhere and who sees all in me, nor is that one lost to me” (Bhagavad Gita 6:30; my translation).

Citing the Bhagavad Gita brings to mind the image of Lord Krishna, who is often represented as playing his flute. A modern bhakti poet, Radhey Shiam, writes eloquently of this flute as an image for the transformation of the ego that both karma yoga and bhakti yoga aim to cultivate. Shiam prays to Lord Krishna to make him like the flute, which must be hollow in order to allow air to pass through it. He prays that he may be empty of ego, empty of the sense of “I” and of being the doer of action, so that the Lord may use him to make beautiful music in the world. Through the practice of karma yoga, through selfless service that is offered with this understanding of oneness—that God is everywhere and in everyone—we become like Lord Krishna’s flute: instruments of divine action in the world. This is reminiscent of the first line of the Prayer of St. Francis from the Christian tradition: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

This is the essence of the philosophy of oneness propounded in the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and embodied in the service work of the Ramakrishna Mission. Service is not to be contrasted with the quest for realization and rejected as a distraction. Service in the spirit of oneness is realization. It makes the reality of oneness manifest in the life of the world through loving service aimed at serving suffering beings: service offered not in a patronizing spirit, but with love. 

Sources

Bhagavad Gita. Edited and translated by Winthrop Sargeant. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009. Translations in this article are taken from the Sanskrit text of this edition.

Swami Vivekananda. Complete Works¸volumes 1, 5, and 7. Mayavati, India: Advaita Ashrama, 1979.

Jeffery D. Long is professor of religion, philosophy, and Asian studies at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, where he has been teaching since receiving his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School in the year 2000. He is the author of a variety of books and articles, including Hinduism in America: A Convergence of Worlds and Jainism: An Introduction. He has spoken in many national and international venues, including three talks given at the United Nations.

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