In-touch.online
Theosophical Order of Service International e-Newsletter
EN 50 - March 2019
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In this issue:
- Beyond Suffering
- A Tribute to John C. Kern
- TOS Adyar Sponsors National Day for the Mentally Retarded Persons
- TOS Youth - 1st International Youth Congress
- TOS Around the World: India, Finland, Belgium & England
- Expressing Truth and Beauty through Compassion
- Do We Have Your Group’s Updated Contact Info?
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Dear TS and TOS members and friends,
It’s March. Spring is here for some of us and just around the corner for others. Let us not forget our neighbours, South of the equator where things are the other way around, and colder weather is creeping up. In any case, with this first issue of our e-newsletter in the new year, it’s a good time to take a look at ourselves, assess how we’ve done with plans that were made and get ready for new beginnings.
Our TOS world is humming right along. Nancy, international secretary, and Vicki, our proof reader, attended the International Conference in August, David, our editor, had a new addition to his family when daughter, Helen, was born. Rozi, our webmaster, travelled to Adyar to attend a School of the Wisdom sessions. Nancy has been busy attending TOS events in and around Adyar, like the one supported by the TOS Adyar for mentally retarded persons, which is our featured project in this issue. She spreads the word about the TOS and our service work wherever she goes. In our last issue we told you about some of the TOS activities in Bhubaneswar, Odisha region, India, and in February Nancy visited there and saw them, first hand. The TOS there is involved in helping support an old age home, a girls’ home, and a facility for disadvantaged or mentally ill women, some of whom are survivors of abuse or rape. Besides this, they run a mobile vocational training centre that teaches sewing and fabric arts to women from disadvantaged areas, and they are trying to get a TOS school up and running. Our Around the World section in this e-newsletter tells of other TOS initiatives, some of them quite unique. TOS Finland just published a children’s book and the TOS in merry olde England is helping the sanitary habits of the world, one toilet at a time – see the article on our cover page. We are especially happy to announce that the permanent/National project of the TOS India is now Women's Issues. Something that needs attention the world over.
What is your group doing? We’d like to know and to share it with your fellow TOS members.
Please send information about your activities with good quality photos, to: [email protected].
Yours in service
,
T
he TOS in-touch.online tea
m:
- David Sztain, Editor
- Nancy Secrest, International Secretary/Editing
- Rozi Ulics, Webmaster/Editing
- Vicki Jerome, Proofreader
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"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
Viktor Frankl, Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist (1905-1997)
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Is the content of the newsletter still relevant to you?
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Svitlana Garveylenko, from the Ukraine
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Beyond Suffering
by Svitlana Garvylenko
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Charity is an internal need for many of
us. Moreover, at a certain stage of the spiritual path, selfless aid for the sake of the common good becomes a natural life-style, the path of least resistance. Such a life becomes an art piece, rather than just work or a fulfilment of mere duty. We should always focus our efforts on the elimination of the causes of suffering, and not just on the correction of consequences ...
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A Tribute to John C. Kern
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“Great man, great soul, great server”: these are the words expressed by American TOS member, Van Ly, when he learned of the passing of John C. Kern on January 20, 2019. Van Ly’s words certainly capture the essence of this Theosophist of exceptional human qualities and capacities. A TS member since his youth, his love of Theosophy, his instinct to serve and his sense of filial duty inspired him to dedicate decades of his life to the foundation his father, Herbert A. Kern, established in 1959 "to aid the spiritual enlightenment of as many people as practical by exposing them to the theosophical philosophy". From the age of 40 until his death, John directed The Kern Foundation that generously supported theosophical initiatives, exercising consummate diplomacy and discernment in his role as advisor to the Corporate Trustee in the development of grant programmes. He also chaired the board of the Theosophical Investment Trust that manages donations to the TS in America. He was wise, generous, long-sighted, gracious and courteous. We cherish his memory and send our kindest, most comforting thoughts to Anne, John’s wife of 60 years, to their children, Elizabeth, Jay and Louise and to their grandchildren, Elinor, Henry, Libby, Charles and Rupert.
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A Tribute to John C. Kern
May 22, 1925 – Jan. 20, 2019
Great man, great soul, great server
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TOS Adyar, Chennai, India Sponsors annual event to support mentally retarded persons
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TOS Adyar, Chennai, India Sponsors National Day for the Mentally Retarded Persons
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“When my son was five or six years old, I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He answered, “Happy.”
Happy, not fireman or cowboy or astronaut, just happy. I was so surprised. Where did this little child get such wisdom?
When I look at the faces of the children here today, I see ...
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1st International Youth Congress
By Karthikeyan Siva
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An interesting coincidence to be noted is when we were discussing ‘Karma’ Yoga, Ms Nancy Secrest, International President of TOS, dropped by and addressed us about the various charitable activities currently undertaken and encouraged us to take action, to turn what we were discussing into reality. On the last day all participants were given the opportunity to share their spiritual journey so far, and asked what our takeaway was, and the only thing I had to say was ...
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Maitri TOS Group visits an orphanage in India
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India – Annual Report from Maitri TOS Group
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It would be great to know if someone would like to support our activities, with
special reference to the Charitable Homeopathic clinic and a new school that we are planning to set up for children of under-privileged people.
We will share the details as they become available.
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Children don't usually have the means of communicating their experiences. Also, parents may not have the ability, time or energy to go through things from a child's perspective. It may also be hard to understand a child's perspective, if a parent is in the middle of emotional hardship.
Nonna-Nina started to develop the book's story, first for her children, after experiencing a long and hard divorce process. Even though she did all she could for her children including listening and having a dialog, communicating on a child's level turned out ...
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Nonna-Nina Mäki from TOS Finland
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Belgium - Annual Report from TOS Belgium
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TOS Belgium is very active and involved in multiple projects, including:
- Knitting bears: Through a member of Loge Antwerpen, we have received the contact details of a knitting club. We will introduce the project of the Teddies for Peace to them.
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TOS England - Toilet Twinning
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By donating £60 to twin your toilet, you help those in desperate poverty to have access to a proper latrine, clean water and the information they need to be healthy. Your smallest room becomes the proud owner of a certificate, complete with a colour photo of its twin and GPS coordinates so you can look up your twin’s location on Google Maps.
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Expressing Truth and Beauty through Compassion
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Erwin Bomas
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A perfect touchstone that we can provide others and that anyone can understand and use, is the idea of identifying with
Oneness. In our every day life, are our thoughts and acts in line with the whole, or are they out of self-interest? And we can learn to identify with a larger and larger whole. Maybe for someone oneness means identification just with his own family, for another it implies identification with his city or country ...
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Do We Have Your Group’s Updated Contact Info?
Please check your country's TOS information on our
website here
. You'll find it in the yellow, right-hand column on the home page. Click on your country's name and if the info is not correct, let us know. We want to make sure that your TOS group's information is up-to-date for our new website which is being designed.
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“When a great moment knocks at the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss.”
Boris Pasternak, Russian Novelist (1890-1960)
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