19 May 2009 was the official end of the Government of Sri Lanka-LTTE war, and my essay posted below reflects my understanding of events since. I post it on our Theosophy blog because Theosophists, in particular Col. Olcott had done much to revive the Buddhist institutions in Sri Lanka. He is still widely respected there for his work - a widely-used postage stamp is in his honor. However, the Buddhist monks that he helped to revive became key agents of a narrrow sectarian spirit against the…

William Bloom

The Power of the New Spirituality

(Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2012)

         William Bloom who combines a long-standing interest in New Age approaches to spirituality with an identity focus in international relations (1), has written “We are in changing times. Our culture and technology are continually transforming, and the intellectual certainties of the last few hundred years are no longer secure…It is our need to find a new authenticity in our…

Fire of Reconciliation in the Wider Middle East

Rene Wadlow*

         The fiery attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, leading to the death of the US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others and the burning of the US flag at the US Embassy in Cairo are symbolic of a fire of hate, mistrust, and violence that sweeps from Afghanistan through Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria to North Africa.

        …

         World Citizens Call for Protection of Timbuktu, UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site and Center of Trans-Saharan Cultural History

         In a 8 April 2012 Appeal to Irina Bokova, Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Rene Wadlow, President of the Association of World Citizens (AWC) welcomed UNESCO’s speedy effort to prevent damage to Timbuktu and called for negotiations between the…

Rudolf Steiner’s Legacy Today

Rene Wadlow

            2011 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of the spiritual and esoteric teacher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925).  Although his key book is titled Theosophy, and he was secretary-general of the German branch of the Theosophical Society from 1902 to about 1913 when he left to start the Anthroposophical Society,(1) I do not recall many blogs here on his life and…

World Water Day: A Global Focus and Local Action

Rene Wadlow*

May your heart be like a lake — with a calm still surface and great depths of kindness.

         Since 1993, the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 22 March as World Day for Water.  Each year one of the UN agencies involved in water issues takes the lead in promoting World Water Day with a specific focus and a…

World Day of Social Justice: The People’s Revolution is On the March

Rene Wadlow*

         The United Nations General Assembly, on the initiative of Nurbch Jeenbrev, the Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to the U.N. in New York, has proclaimed 20 February as the “World Day of Social Justice” .The World Day of Social Justice gives us an opportunity to take stock of how we can work together at the local, national and global level on…

The Cooperative Spirit and its Many Manifestations

Rene Wadlow*

            The United Nations General Assembly in Resolution A/RES/64/136 has designated 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives in order to highlight the large role that cooperatives can play in ecologically-sound development and poverty reduction.  As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that…

Alison Pargeter

The Muslim Brotherhood: The Burden of Tradition

(London: Saqi Books, 2010, 248pp.)

         Although Pan-Islamic and Pan-Arab movements have not been ‘federalist’ in the sense that federalism is usually analysed, Pan-Islamic movements have been an effort to organize political community across State boundaries.  The division of the Arab world into a host of separate States has been condemned by some Pan-Arab thinkers while separate…

 Vaclav Havel (1936-2011):  His Revolt is an Attempt to Live Within the Truth 

            René Wadlow

            He rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game.  He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity.  He gives his freedom a concrete significance.  His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth.”                          …

David Edmund Moody

The Unconditioned Mind: J. Krishnamurti and the Oak Grove School

(Weaton: Quest Books, 2011, 260pp.)

The function of education is to give the student abundant knowledge in the various fields of human endeavour and at the same time to free his mind from all tradition so that he is able to investigate, to find out, to discover.  Otherwise the mind becomes mechanical, burdened with the machinery of knowledge. …

10 October: For Those on the Pay-roll of Death

Rene Wadlow

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death. I am not on his pay-roll. I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends nor of my enemies either      Edna St Vincent Millay

            10 October is the International Day Against the Death Penalty. Since the end of World War II, there has been a gradual abolition…

The Next Earth Summit: Rio Plus 20

Rene Wadlow *

         The United Nations, its Specialized Agencies and programmes, member governments and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are preparing their policies and evaluations to be discussed at the next Earth Summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012: 20 years after the original 1992 Rio conference that drew up guidelines for…

Arnaud Desjardins: Cultural Bridge-builder Toward the East Moves On

Rene Wadlow

            Arnaud Desjardins (1925-2011) was a leading figure in introducing the broader French public to the philosophies and religious practices of Asia.  His films devoted to Tibetan Buddhist leaders, Indian religious teachers, Japanese Zen philosophers, and Afghan Sufis were widely shown on French television in the 1960s and early 1970s when…

The Goddess and the Role of Women

Rene Wadlow

It is only when women start to organize in large numbers that we become a political force, and begin to move towards the possibility of a truly democratic society in which every human being can be brave, responsible, thinking and diligent in the struggle to live at once freely and unselfishly.

            As Ray Grasse, long-time Assistant…

Andrei Znamenski

Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia

(Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2011, 257pp.)

         Red Shambhala is a lively historical account of Soviet geopolitics in Central Asia in the first decade of the Communist government.  Znamenski tells the story through portraits of key protagonists, drawing on newly opened archives in Russia and new Russian publications. Znamenski, who now teaches in the USA,…