Adyar, Sunday 16
December 2012
This week’s
session of the School of the Wisdom was very busy. The director gave ten
lectures on different subjects related to the “Science of Life”. After a few
days, it seemed as if we had several jig-saw puzzles mixed together in one box
and from time to time there miraculously appeared a nice picture, which was not
completely coherent, though. Different disciplines use the same words, but
these words have different meaning. By mixing them up one becomes confused. The
director and the students were doing their very best, but one does not seem to
be making a complete image out of the puzzles.
Almost every
evening after dinner, we have tea and fruit, like watermelon or papaya in one
of the rooms of the student dormitories.
Tuesday, after
the afternoon class lasted after 5 pm, we just managed to buy the return flight
ticket for one of the students from abroad. That evening we had no tea and
fruit, so we could write most of our article for the School of the Wisdom. Many
of the students had made their article on “Why to be Vegetarian”. Monday we did
one sentence with cover page, Tuesday one page, Wednesday another page and Thursday
a third one. It could be printed out at the office of one of the workers here..
We have a
usb-stick internet connection in the students’ rooms and can communicate by
E-mail and Skype with friends and family as well as with TS sections at home,
but we have no printer.
Wednesday afternoon
we went to St. Thomas Mountain, where there is a relic of the apostle of Jesus
Christ, who came to India and founded a church in the first century AD.
It is nice to
exchange experiences with the other students on subjects of the study and the
TS. Even with the newcomers the communication during lunch and dinner begins to
become more relaxed, once their jet-lag is gone.
The dormitories
are being refreshed and even the hot
water distribution (by hand) is re-established. One day, there was no water at
all in the morning, when we wanted to take the shower, but in the afternoon the
shower was nice and warm.
Thursday we had
lunch again in the Boat Club on the other side of the Adyar River. There were
about thirty attending the lunch, which was in the form of a self-service
banquet in a separate room. All together it was a bit too much for a simple
theosophist.
On Friday we had
the presentation of the articles of the students during the afternoon session
of the School of the Wisdom. There was a rich variety of views on the topics of
“Brotherhood of Religions”, “Life is Relationship”, and “Why to be Vegetarian”.
Saturday was a
holiday and we were invited to participate in a trip of six of the students to
Pondicherry and the Malamalapuram temples. Although the trip was rather
fatiguing, we were happy to be in completely different surroundings than the
classroom, library and student dormitories, where we have been almost every day
during the last six weeks.
We have made a
Sunday morning visit to one of the workers at Head Quarters, which was a good social
contact and helped us to have a clearer view on the happenings during the
oncoming sessions of the General Council and the Convention. It appears that
this year there will be coming lesser delegates from abroad than last year.
The president of
one of the TS Lodges in Chennai had invited us for lunch, tea or dinner on
Sunday, but nobody wanted to come along this afternoon, so we decided not to
go. The mobile phone connection was without coverage again and we could not
even inform the poor guy. When he shows up, we shall have to present him our apologies.
Advantage is that we have been able to make our weekly blog this afternoon.
Good bye for
now,
Mr. Brooder
