A place for those in search of self-realisation

CHENNAI: Is life a mere chance? Does God exist? Where have I come from? Where will I go after death? These questions and some more have, over a period of time, drawn many different people towards the sylvan settings in Adyar. And the wooded campus has offered them more than answers. The journey of the Theosophical Society has traversed well beyond a century. In fact, the society organised the 136th International Convention of theosophy last week and the week-long events had many public lectures and deliberations attracting people from across the globe. However, there were not many young faces in the crowd. Are today’s youth far from theosophy?The curt answer, which had a much deeper meaning, came from Harihara Raghavan, General Manger, Theosophical Society, Adyar. “I do not understand why people coming over here ask, ‘What do I get if I come here?’ But my answer is, ‘Nothing’. It is all about giving here and you should ask ‘What do I give?’ It can be anything, be it time or energy or thoughts. To come to that stage in life to ask such questions, I think, they need to live longer and observe life more.”Raghavan continues: “But not everybody is the same. I joined theosophy when I was 24 and have been here for over 40 years now. I think people keep evolving all the time. Some evolve early into a higher spiritual life.”As far as reaching out to the youth was concerned, he said, “We conduct some classes in our schools. But spirituality is about self-realisation. There is a lot of misconception about spirituality. Being religious and keeping all the rituals is different from spirituality. The truth of all religions are the same. First, take the effort to understand the truth behind rituals. There is one life and one consciousness and everything is interlinked and interdependent.”Talking about meditation, he said, “There are several misconceptions about meditation too. There are different ways of doing it. There are different levels and stages to it. For example, to dance shivathandava, the performer should have gone through the earlier, more easy forms before. Same is the case with meditation.”

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