Happy birthday, TS!

The gates to the venerable Theosophical Society are quite easy to miss, unless you know exactly what you are looking for. Set on the banks of the Adayar, the Theosophical Society (TS, as it is known to those in the know) sprawls over 270 acres, hugging the river until it runs into the Bay of Bengal. While the gates are rather inconspicuous, the roving eyes of land sharks have not missed the grounds of the TS. There have been attempts in the past to push the Society to give up part of its land for 'development'; attempts that have been rebuffed time and again.

TS is old; not just that the spark of the movement was lit in the early 1870s in Vermont, USA: not just that it has been 133 years to the day today since it was founded in New York or that it has been over a century since this site, earlier the garden house of Huddlestone, was established as the World Headquarters of the Society. More worryingly, it is the feeling that the TS is increasingly irrelevant these days, when organized religion is making a vociferous comeback. The Society's goal of Universal Brotherhood and striving for that Truth which is higher than any religion does not appear to be galvanizing the youth or even attracting them to the Society. That's not a happy situation for the Society or these huge gardens that house their Headquarters.

Even as I write this, I am aware that I have little knowledge about the membership, or even what the TS does and how well it is doing it. So, my worry may be unfounded, after all - and on this birthday of the TS, I sure hope it is; so, here's wishing the Theosophical Society, Adyar several more centuries of working for Universal Brotherhood!