The Future? of the Adyar Theosophical Society

 

Profile of  Adyar

From a Victim

 

Preethi Muthiah

 

 

The circumstances in which she was forced out of

job and home should now be properly investigated.

 

 

Below is an article by former Adyar employee and resident, Preethi Muthiah, who was hounded out her job and her home in 2009 by the Adyar management in retaliation for her outspoken criticism. Although this took place 5 years ago, the Adyar Estate still has no formal grievance procedure and staff can still be summarily dismissed and evicted from their homes at the pleasure of management. It is likely that Adyar staff refrain from any expression of discontent for fear of a similar campaign of victimisation being conducted against them.

 

The General council have been aware of this situation for many years but fear of Radha Burnier had prevented them implementing measures to protect the staff from abuse. Since Radha Burnier’s death, the General Council still fail to address the issues. Silence still gives consent.

 

The victimisation of Preethi Muthiah has been ignored long enough, and the General Council are just demonstrating their weakness and continued lack of control over Adyar, by not acting on the matter. An enquiry and hearing could now be initiated into Preethi’s treatment to see if there is a case for her reinstatement, and the restoration to her home at Adyar.

 

An investigation could also be made into the treatment of staff at Adyar with findings and recommendations being made available to members, who ultimately own the Estate. This of course assumes that the Theosophical Society still owns the Adyar Estate.

 

 

These postings are directly relevant to this posting

 

Disgraceful Treatment of an Adyar Employee

 

 

The Preethi Muthiah Letters Tell A Very Sad Tale

 

 

Long Tradition of Bullying at Adyar

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s is Preethi’s article which was written in August 2009. Current reports from Adyar suggest that not much has changed.

 

The Adyar Theosophical Society

When the Winter Refuses to Let Up
By

Preethi Muthiah

 

 

Life is inherently cyclical. Mother Nature is inherently cyclical too. The seasons come and go; everything is in a passing state eternally. Spring gives birth to summer, summer to autumn and autumn to winter. When people were wiser, they moved along with these seasons and led their lives attuning themselves to the passing cycles of their lives. Thus we have in the Vedas and the Taoist texts the ideal way of leading our lives. In Spring, when the soul is fresh into birth, one learns of the ways of life and people; in Summer, when the soul has matured a bit, one learns to bear responsibilities for the future, to marry, to have a household, to bring forth fresh life; in Autumn, one begins to give way to the fresh life (one’s children) to prepare for their summer; and in Winter, when the soul has been through an entire journey in life and has grown old, feeble and tired, one moves out of activity into contemplation of the divine, of God, and provides guidance for the springs, summers and autumns in one’s life.

 

In Adyar, today, however, the winters are refusing to let up, to let go, to pave and make way for the other seasons to flower and bear fruit; creating thus an unwholesome and unhealthy atmosphere totally against natural law and the cycles of life. This article proposes to look at some of the problems rooted in the unwillingness of older and elderly workers at Adyar to let go of their lust and greed for not only life, but also for position, power and authority.

 

Having been at Adyar since 1994, I have seen Adyar changing from a green, life- and youth-filled Adyar to the Adyar of 2009, with a drab, dead atmosphere. It is not only the dilapidated buildings, but there is a certain air of sadness or death that permeates the atmosphere in Adyar. The white ants run havoc on buildings and trees, building their anthills wherever it occurs to them to build one. Unoccupied rooms at Leadbeater Chambers – which at one time housed about 7 or 8 workers from around the world throughout the year – has now only Bernice living in it. It is common to find annual visitors complaining about the state of the building and the hike in the rates. And a recent comment from the Superintendent herself indicates the state of affairs. At the end of the February session of the School of the Wisdom, when all the guests had gone, Uma Nilakanta commented that the entire place – not just Chambers – looked and felt so desolate. Most buildings on the Estate are vacant, because there are no workers to fill them. Most departments function with piecemeal staff; some departments have no heads to run them and some people run more than one department. Looking at the sorry state of affairs at Adyar, one would wonder why in a place that is only 133 years young, and that likes to claim that it is the international headquarters of a worldwide organization, and which had among its membership stalwarts like HPB, HSO and Annie Besant, there is today such a paucity of workers, such a dead, desolate look. The entire place resembles a home for the aged, where those who are too old to go anywhere else have settled in.

 

And these are the oldies that are permeating the atmosphere of Adyar with their entrenched attitudes to life, to people, to relationships, and perhaps worst of all, to the work of the Society; because even though they are old, they continue to work. The great number of octogenarians is soon going to join the nonagenarians; the septuagenarians will soon make up the octogenarians. And they constitute the majority of the population of Adyar. Being of that physical or chronological age, they are low in energy, high in memory loss, but also stubborn, unwilling to change their gutted ways, preferring to do things the way they were done in days of old. The proverbial generation gap is in large evidence at Adyar today, for the younger workers who worked there in the past will always find when they bring in new and fresh ideas an older person who disapproves of it, and tries to traditionalize these ideas. Thus, Shailendra Agrawal who works as Superintendent of the Garden Department is daily insulted and abused and belittled by Mr Harihara Raghavan, General Manager of the Estate who is about 70 years old, while Shailendra is a little over 40 and the youngest worker on campus today.

 

Another aged member, Mrs Helen Jamieson, doesn’t understand the basics of computers and is dependent on younger workers to help her out with Adyar Newsletter. At one time, before the election results were announced, the President wanted to ease Helen’s workload and thought she could share the Newsletter with Preethi, only for Preethi to find that Mrs Jamieson is not open to help. She will not let go of responsibilities because that makes her anxious and insecure. At the Editorial Office, a similar situation exists. Older members are unwilling to learn computer skills, though younger workers are willing to teach these. So they create a web of dependency such that accomplishing work goals is almost always obstacle-filled, because position matters much more to Subha Nilakanta, Sundari Siddhartha, Saraswati Anand than the accomplishment of goals and targets. Old as they are, with failing eyesight, the likelihood of their missing out on errors in text is higher, but being proof readers and copy editors, they will not appreciate a younger worker correcting that error, all because the younger worker works as a typesetter.

 

As a youngster, were you to try to meet the President with suggestions, she most likely will tell you that there is no need for change because after all, things have been going on like this for 133 years. She refused to let Elvira make a map of the Estate for visitors to have easy access to the different places on the huge estate of Adyar. That was on the pretext of making it difficult for sandalwood thieves to enter the Estate. Who can explain to the President the unreasonableness of such thinking? For the sandalwood thieves have not stopped coming into the Estate; in fact, most of them come at night and are most probably not literate enough to read a map with its different points indicating buildings on the Estate. Yet to date, no map of the Estate exists and most members who come to visit go about asking for one so that they can get from place to place on the campus. But of course, one can suggest nothing to the President if she is not open to those suggestions.

 

But one will notice that there are those who can suggest even the silliest of things and those get accepted by the President. So what decides whether one’s suggestions will be heard or not? One factor is the willingness of the other to play the President’s game. Like, for example, Shailendra once suggested getting a golf cart to take aged members from place to place on the campus. According to Shailendra, the President approved of the suggestion. Pedro Oliveira, Keshwar Dastur and Radha Muthiah can almost always get what they want from the President. Uma and Subha Nilakanta can get away with almost anything on campus. But even these are not fixed. After you have worked with the President for a while, you will have to admit that she is rather whimsical. Today, if she is in a good mood, you can get away with murder. If she is, on the other hand, in a bad mood, even the best you can do will meet with criticism of the worst kind. If she likes you, you are God. If she doesn’t like you, you are the Devil incarnate. And once you have entered her bad books – does not matter at all whether due to your fault or not – she will not forgive you easily. In fact, she never forgives. She will constantly remind you – either directly or through her pets – of your past mistakes. She will keep it in the back of her mind every time you meet her face to face. She will also use that information to initiate gossip and an entire coterie of ‘enemies’ around you. And this is a President who will call you immature when you go to her with the sword of honesty and truth. She will call you and shout at you, berate you and denigrate you.

 

One of the toughest things about Adyar is for one to recognize that in order for everyone to live in peace at Adyar, one has to give a lot of leeway to the President, even though she is older than most of us, we must adjust to her, we must understand her, we must obey her, we must forgive her, we must overlook her flaws; for she will never do any of these with us. She will speak about compassion, but that is what you have to give her; not the other way around. In fact, it is never the other way around. So we have essentially a taking President, not a giving one. The only thing that freely flows out of her is criticism of your ways and anger that you don’t speak her language.

 

But coming back to the topic of seasons and cycles, let us look at what the unwillingness of the President to let go of position, power and authority does to the younger members and workers. Over the years, an abundance of elderly workers on the Estate of Adyar has meant that the younger generations feel a lack of expression in their need to do something for the Cause. And if they do, then they must of a necessity compete. Thus, greedy Helen, Harihara Raghavan, N. Muthuswamy or possessive Radha Burnier have given birth to competitive (though not necessarily competent and efficient) Uma Nilakanta, Subha Nilakanta, Radha Muthiah, Keshwar Dastur and such others. Competitive 55-70 year olds like the ones mentioned here and many others have given birth to competitive Maithreya, Pedro Oliveira, Jaishree, Geetha Jaikumar, and younger still, competitive Sushama, Juliana, Pablo, Lokesh. That is where all this competition being so talked about these days springs from – an entire older generation (the elders of Adyar) unwilling to let go of power, position and authority, unwilling to work in an entirely advisory capacity rather than heading departments that need younger and fresher ideas and energies. Instead of spending time preparing for death, or contemplating their lives thus far, these elderly spend time doing that which the youngsters ought to be doing.

 

And what does competition have to do with Theosophy, or with Brotherhood? Virtually nothing. In fact, competition is opposed to the ideal of realizing a nucleus of Universal Brotherhood. This is one of the reasons why there is no longer any fresh life in Adyar, because the older ones have not learned to or are unwilling to learn how to let go. So one of the things that I would suggest to readers of this article is to bring in a rule in the Constitution of the TS regarding the maximum age limit at which a person can be working at Adyar and limit it to 75. Anyone above that age ought to work at Adyar solely in an advisory capacity, rather than working as a head of a department. This anyone also includes the President of the TS.

 

What Adyar and the TS movement worldwide need urgently is fresh ideas, fresh ways of looking at and practising Brotherhood, because the current leadership and her assistants at Adyar are not capable any more of practising the First Object of the TS. We need elders willing to understand, rather than all the time seeking to be understood and obeyed. We need a leader who is rooted in life, has a deep insight and understanding into causes of events or happenings, is empathetic rather than whimsical, someone who is morally strong and can lead and guide those who work with her or below her upwards on the Path.

 

 

Dave Marsland

 

Posted March 25th     2014

 

 

Dave’s Theosophy News Board

 

Contact Dave Marsland

 

 

 

 

Theosophical Society Issues

 

 

 

The Tekels Park Family Eviction

A family has been evicted from their home at Tekels Park because

a Tekels Park Estate Limited director wanted to live in their house.

 

 

 

The Future ? of

The Adyar Theosophical Society

 

 

Will there be an Adyar Free Future?

 

 

Adyar’s Slightly International Convention

 

 

President of Nothing

Membership Decline – The Elephant in the Room

 

 

Ballast

The True Status of the

Adyar Theosophical Society Members

 

 

Open Election?

How Inconvenient

 

 

Adyar

The Voice of Stagnation

 

 

Tekels Park & Dead Animals

 

 

An Extra Box on the Ballot Paper

Suggestion for the 2014 Adyar Theosophical Society

International Presidential Election

 

 

A Society Without Members

 

 

Is the 2014 Adyar Presidential Election Invalid?

 

 

Radha Burnier Employment Services

Radha Burnier’s policy of allocating jobs to members of her own

family turned the Adyar Headquarters into the family firm.

How many suitable applicants were discounted so that

Radha Burnier could give a job to a family member?

 

 

Don’t Just Do Nothing

Stand There

Despite decades of decline and stagnation leading the

Adyar Theosophical Society to the verge of evaporation

or disintegration, the leadership have so far shown no

sign of coming up with a strategy for ensuring the

continuation of the Society as a unified body.

 

 

Adyar, the Sole Purpose of Adyar

 

 

Western President

Or

They’ll Knock Adyar Down?

 

 

Save Radha’s House

Revealing that the Adyar elite’s stately home is under threat

of compulsory land purchase and can be saved by convincing the

authorities that it is in fact an international headquarters (if true)

may have given the Theosophical Society members a brilliant

opportunity to get Adyar off their backs.

If not true then it looks like blackmail

 

 

Ignore the Voters

and Get Elected

An overview of the Adyar Theosophical Society

Presidential Election System

 

 

What an Insult to Members

Expecting members to vote for candidates while withholding

highly relevant information indicates an utter contempt by

the leadership for the general membership

 

 

Film of the Tekels Park Deer

Here is a link to a short film of the Tekels Park Deer

posted by a Camberley resident.

Everyone opposed to the killing of the Tekels Park animals

will want to see this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fkfw8amMps

 

 

International Election Protocol

This is only an idea for consideration but if the Theosophical elite

continue to treat the members with the current levels of indifference and

contempt for the duration of this election then the Adyar Theosophical

Society will be an empty shell by the time it is completed.

 

 

The Secrecy

The secrecy with which the Adyar Theosophical Society

leadership conducts the Society’s affairs is legendary.

Is this secrecy for its own sake or are some serious

issues being suppressed and kept beyond discussion?

 

 

Banging the Drum for Theosophy

Looking forward to the post Adyar era

 

 

Burnier Town Hall

Family control of Adyar has reduced the members

of the General Council to the status of town hall officials.

 

 

The Great Election

Rip-Off

Silence by elected management cheats

the members out of participating in the

running of their own organisation

 

 

Keeping the International Headquarters at Adyar

It may not be that easy

 

 

 

ABOLISH

The International President

ABOLISH

The General Council

An idea for consideration

 

 

What is Behind the

Attitude

of the

Theosophical Elite?

The Adyar Theosophical Society ruling elite denies

members the right to be consulted on issues and the

ability to convey their views directly to the leadership.

Why does the leadership of an organisation

treat its members like this in the modern era?

 

 

Towards a New Model for Theosophy

The Adyar Theosophical Society Leadership

now isolates itself within a cult of superiority

while the Society evaporates around it.

A Theosophical Society can survive but not

in the current format.

 

 

Choose a Stooge

When the Issues are Huge

Is this what is on offer to the Adyar Theosophical

Society's paying members from a ruling elite

that has a different agenda from that of the Society?

 

 

SHUT UP & VOTE

This election is really inconvenient for the leadership, isn’t it?

Why are the members being hustled into blind voting?

What are the leadership’s post-election plans?

 

 

Members No Longer Members

of their Own Society

An inter-regnum in the presidency, during which

matters are discussed, is the only course of action

with a chance of saving the Adyar Theosophical

Society as a unified body.

 

 

Now Here’s Something Worth

Keeping Quiet About

Are there plans to sell Adyar without

consulting the members?

 

 

Is There Hidden

Bad News?

A leadership shutdown combined with a total

news blackout suggests a serious hidden issue

and an intense fear of revealing it.

 

 

Control Adyar or

You Control Nothing

Is the self imposed isolation of the General Council effectively

a mass resignation as they have found, after the death of

Radha Burnier, that establishing control of Adyar is too difficult?

 

 

A Manifesto

Well Done! CVK Maithreya

 

 

Elected Representation

Not Representing

Silence is Killing the Adyar Theosophical Society.

The presidential candidates are as much victims of the

General Council’s silence rule as are the members.

The silence rule also seeks to establish General Council

control over the future president.

 

 

Make Way for the Messiahs

Have the Esoteric Section and the

General Council merged into one body?

 

 

Does Silence Mean

Game Over

for the Adyar Theosophical Society?

CVK Maithreya presented plans for the future, in

defiance of General Council instructions.

Does suppression of discussion mean that the

Adyar Theosophical Society doesn’t have a future?

 

 

Accountable Leadership Urgently Required

The General Council has abused its power

by putting itself beyond accountability.

A new leadership is needed, and fast.

 

 

Anybody There?

No Information,

Discussion forbidden,

No replies to questions.

Do the members still have a Society?

 

 

Can’t Change

Won’t Change

Those who have kept the Society time warped

in the 1930s now have the task of introducing

reform and they obviously don’t want to do it.

 

 

Beggars at the Door

Left sitting out in the cold and starved of information,

members now realise how the General Council regards them

Why not include this picture in any information request to General Council

officers as an indication of how members feel they are being treated.

Or just send the picture anyway.

 

 

From The Top Down

The Adyar Theosophical Society is decades

out of date and desperately in need of reform

starting with getting rid of a leadership that

refuses to be accountable to the members.

 

 

Who Owns Adyar?

 

 

The Royal Court of Radha Burnier

 

 

General Council Meeting 2013 Minutes

 

 

Adyar

Theosophical Society

International Rules

 

 

Something Wrong?

Making it a bit obvious aren’t you?

 

 

Disgraceful Treatment of an Adyar Employee

A woman sacked and evicted for complaining.

Given 13 days to get out of her home.

 

 

The Preethi Muthiah Letters

Tell A Very Sad Tale

 

 

Concerns Raised

About General Council Meetings

Looks like there has been some attempt

by a General Council member to promote

reform within the Theosophical Society

 

 

General Council

2012 Meeting Minutes

 

 

New Committee?

Make Your Wife The Chairperson

 

 

Adyar Internal Problems

that the General Council

Should Investigate

 

 

Is Adyar Still The Headquarters?

 

 

Creep On!

General Council

Or why don’t you do something

to recover Adyar for the members?

 

 

Good Campaign Pitch, Mr Singhal

 

 

Adyar Prepares for the Break-Up

 

 

Adyar Family Appointment

A Job for Your Daughter

 

 

 

 

Another Family Power Appointment

For your Daughter

 

 

Bold Initiative

By Singapore Lodge

 

 

 

 

Triumph of the Weak

Don’t expect the General Council

to do anything if the election is bent

 

 

Adyar Job News

You don’t need a plan

You don’t need a degree

If your name’s Raghavan

It’s job number three

 

 

No Stand For Democracy

An appraisal of the General Council’s commitment

to maintaining the Adyar Theosophical Society

as a democratic body

 

 

Bent election?

But Vote Anyway

 

 

A Society Without Leadership

Nobody sees it, Nobody hears from it

Is it hiding somewhere? Does it exist?

 

 

Who will Believe It?

Even if the presidential election is correct and above board,

the confidence in the General Council has fallen so low

that members won’t believe it.

 

 

Supporting Adyar?

Haven’t members been cheated for long enough?

 

 

 

 

Long Tradition of

Bullying

at Adyar

Preethi Muthiah has highlighted an endemic problem at Adyar,

which the General Council has ignored for many years.

There are still no plans implement a grievance procedure and

Anti-bullying policy at Adyar.

 

 

Summary Dismissal

Of lady over 70 from her job at Adyar

 

 

True Purpose of the

2014 Election

What the paying members want has little to do with

this election, as the silence and lack of information show.

The real purpose of this election is for the General Council

to deliver the candidate that the Adyar ruling elite wants.

 

 

What Makes this Election Invalid?

 

 

Trouble

After the Election

 

 

Was Your Vote Counted?

Was your vote forwarded to Adyar?

Was the election actually held?

Against a background of silence, a court case and

allegations of irregularities, these are fair questions.

 

 

Not Being at Adyar

Well, it’s much easier than being a real president

 

 

Democracy in the Adyar Theosophical Society

R.I.P.

 

 

11,432 Votes

Is That All?

 

 

No Right To Complain

Well, what can you expect in an organisation where

the leadership regards the membership as ballast

 

Doubts about the integrity of the election

are left unresolved, rendering the result invalid.

 

 

 

President’s Inauguration

A Private Function

Elite Welcome

The Ballast now know their true status

 

 

Pray Silence

While the President Creeps into Office

 

 

It’s Silence as Usual

By the Adyar Theosophical Society ruling elite.

No hurry to prove the election result

But a real hurry to get the president installed

 

 

Who Can Support

The Leadership Now?

 

 

Shut Up & Pay Up

The Adyar Theosophical Society has become

a multi-level marketing operation

 

 

President?

Really?

Doubts about the election result will

make the President’s job impossible.

 

 

Adyar & the US each have

Half a President

 

 

The White Lotus Hi-Jack

President uses White Lotus Day

as a personal platform.

What was the inauguration for?

 

 

Don’t Anybody

Ask Me Anything

That’s the clear message from the

International President to the members.

 

 

 

Is this the

Great Wheaton Rip-Off?

Questions now arise over allocation of Wheaton

resources by a two job president

 

 

Why Did

The 2014 Election

Go Ahead?

The General Council was confronted with considerable

evidence that the election was bent but just stood there

and let it go ahead.

 

 

Should Members Recognise

Tim Boyd

as International President?

 

 

A Leadership at War

with the Paying Members

of its Own Organisation

 

 

______________________________

 

 

Links to other News Boards

 

 

The Future of the Adyar Theosophical Society

Institutional Issues

 

 

Theosophy Forum

InvisionFree

 

 

Theosophy Nexus

 

 

www.FilosofiaEsoterica.com

 

 

www.TheosophyOnline.com

 

 

www.Esoteric-Philosophy.com

 

 

Theos-Talk

 

 

Теософическое Сообщество

"Нет религии выше истины!"

The Theosophical Community
"There is no religion higher than truth!"

 

 

_____________________________

 

 

Contact Dave Marsland