Point Loma and its world-wide membership elsewhere, is becoming, or
has become, one of the most potent instruments for the spread of our
work that the Leader possesses. First organized under the name of the
Woman's Propaganda League, it has greatly extended and enlarged its
activities under the new title. During the Spring months of this year
the women of the League in Lomaland organized a most successful series
of meetings for women only at the Isis Theater, San Diego, at which
the Leader gave addresses which are said by those who were present to
have been the most uplifting and inspiring she has ever delivered.
She spoke out in the plainest language about the causes and the only
remedies for the steady degeneration of the so-called civilized world,
and she showed what a marvelous power for redemption women have in
their own sphere, the home. The Isis Theater was crowded to its
utmost capacity on each occasion Katherine Tingley spoke, hundreds of
eager women of all classes could not find accommodation and, to judge
by the mass of correspondence received, the impression made was most
profound. According to the Leader's words, the splendid organizing
work of the women of the Woman's International Theosophical League and
the perfect harmony and unity prevailing among them in no small degree
helped in producing this admirable result; the conditions were ideally
perfect, and the audiences felt that there was an entirely different
spirit present from anything ever before experienced. From the loyal,
impersonal and womanly efforts of the League a new life has come into
the atmosphere of Lomaland, a broadening and harmonizing influence. Its
members are giving a fine expression to the principle of Co-operation
between men and women which the Leader is ever striving to build up.
* * * * *
SOON after the last of the women's meetings at Isis Theater the Leader
gave the signal for dramatic work, and the Woman's League began the
preparations for the Greek Symposium, _The Aroma of Athens_, several
representations of which were given with conspicuous success, first in
the Isis Theater and then in the open-air Greek Theater, Lomaland. Here
was an excellent opportunity for the co-operation spoken of, and it was
realized to the uttermost. While the artists and craftsmen prepared
the scenery and properties, or built the stately Grecian structures in
the open-air theater which remain permanently for use in the future
dramatic work, the skilful and tireless needlewomen made the hundreds
of costumes needed, all being done under the personal supervision
of the Leader and from her own designs. The same cheerful spirit of
co-operation was evinced in the musical and dramatic rehearsals for
the Symposium, and in the frictionless management of the arrangements
for the staging of the couple of hundred characters who appear in the
play--no easy task.
In view of the greater activities of the Woman's Theosophical League
which are shortly to take place, it has secured a spacious hall within
the Homestead grounds which will afford ample accommodation for the
present as a headquarters for its business meetings and other general
activities. It is known as the Woman's League Hall.
THE WOMAN'S INTERNATIONAL THEOSOPHICAL LEAGUE, POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA
Woman's Work in Lomaland; a Side Light: by a Member of the League
THAT is the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against
appearances (illusion). Pause, consider, do not be carried away. Great
is the combat, divine is the work. It is for kingship, for freedom,
for happiness.--_Epictetus_
I DESIRE not to disgrace the soul. The fact that I am here certainly
shows me that the soul had need of an organ here. Shall I not assume
the post? Shall I skulk and dodge and duck with my unseasonable
apologies and vain modesty and imagine my being here impertinent--less
pertinent than Epaminondas or Homer being there? and that the soul did
not know its own needs?
LET us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action
is of an infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated
with the celestial air until it eclipses the sun and moon. Let us seek
_one_ peace by fidelity.--_Emerson_
Several years ago Katherine Tingley said to a group of Lomaland
Students, while touching in a cursory way upon the general
world-problem of woman's work and true place in life, that her great
longing was to take up this question in a public way. She added,
reflectively, and with a trace of sadness in her voice,
But I cannot do this as yet. I should have to do it Theosophically,
and while the need is there, conditions are not yet ready; the time
for it has not come.
As all Students know, the time came early in 1911, and the work that
had waited so long was ushered in by a series of meetings for women
only, at Isis Theater, San Diego, under the auspices of the Woman's
International Theosophical League of Lomaland, a body founded by
Katherine Tingley on July 24th, 1906. Any question as to this being
the right time--the psychological moment--had a twofold answer in the
eager and wide-reaching public response, and in the superb nature of
the service rendered in the arrangement and conduct of the meetings by
members of the Lomaland Woman's League. Everything was placed in their
hands, though under the Leader's direction, from the advertising and
distribution of tickets--the meetings of course being free although
admission was by tickets secured in advance--to the seating of the
audience and the carrying out of the beautiful and impressive program,
of which Katherine Tingley's address was at each meeting the central
feature.
The work was begun at a time when the tourist season was at its height
and in the audiences that crowded Isis Theater to the doors were
hundreds of women from distant points--Canada, Vancouver, the far
South, the Middle States, the Atlantic Coast, Europe, and even the
Orient. Consider that these were thinking women, by their very interest
in Theosophy marked as women apart from the mass; consider as well that
the subjects taken up by Katherine Tingley in the impassioned addresses
that formed the axis, so to speak, the real fulcrum, of the meetings,
were subjects of the most vital import to the home--the higher duties
of wifehood and motherhood, the sacredness of the home as a spiritual
temple and woman's duty as guardian of that temple, the key to a
knowledge of child nature, the protection of the growing child, the
Theosophic keynote of duty--and add to that the fact that nearly every
woman in those vast audiences was an important factor in some home,
and it is evident that the influence of these meetings could not be
measured.
Consider also that this work was launched at the present time of
transition, when all the old ideas of woman's work are being torn up,
root and branch, in some cases, by fanatics who little dream of the
reaction their frenzy and unwisdom is certain to produce, a reaction
that will make doubly difficult the path of unselfish workers for a
long time to come.
The climax of effort in the Woman's International Theosophical League
was of course reached in the marvelous production of _The Aroma of
Athens_, given under the League's auspices, with accounts of which
both Students and the public are familiar. Social Hall was converted
into a huge costumer's shop and greenroom for the space of nine magic
days, with the Leader here, there, everywhere, directing, designing
and fitting costumes, designing properties, drilling individuals,
rehearsing, oblivious for the time of all such gentle excellencies as
food, relaxation, or rest.
Here again shone forth in the members of this Woman's League the
qualities that were of such pre-eminent service in the conduct of
the women's meetings--intuition, fidelity, alertness, conservation
of energy, the power to work on lines of least resistance, unity,
trust. There was no friction, no personal competition, no jealousy, no
over-reaching, no gossip, no "rule or ruin" spirit, no personality, and
as a result there was a general capacity to get things done that made
the onlooker wonder if some hidden Aladdin's lamp were not in a nearby
corner, just "rubbing" results into existence.
What _was_ it? Pre-eminently, it was the power these women had created
by learning to _work together_. It was the Christos-spirit, that
magic-working something that harmony is powerful to create, the spirit
of which Jesus spoke when he said, "For where two or three are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
But _what_ did it? Theosophy as a system of thought did not, or it
would have done so in past centuries, for Theosophy has been brought to
the world before under this and other names. The inspiration that is
born when women work for women did not, for if this could do it then
we would have some royal examples of unity in women's organizations
elsewhere. What then did it in Lomaland?
There was a Sower once who went forth to sow; and some seeds fell on
stony ground and the fowls of the air devoured them; and others fell on
thin and shallow soil, springing up only to wither in the noontide heat
because there was no depth of root. But of the seeds which fell upon
good soil we are told that they sprang up and bore fruit an hundredfold.
There is the answer, and the answer also to the question as to why
Katherine Tingley could not and would not start this woman's work
earlier. The seeds were waiting and they are forever the same, the
Sower was waiting, the world was waiting, for whatever may be the
needs or conditions of any age the true Teacher knows how to adapt her
message to it. But--oh women of Lomaland! _we_ were not ready, for we
were the soil. The Sower was compelled to wait until _we_ would let the
hot plowshare of truth _in action_ break through, and break up, the
hard surface-crust of mental limitations and personality, and reach,
with its diamond-tipped point, the warm, rich, moist soil of integrity
and soul-life that lay underneath.
It has taken time, and patience on the part of husbandman, and trust
on our part, though with greater trust it could all have been done
so much earlier. But we had no knowledge of our own natures, when we
first touched Theosophic truth, and it was necessary to learn that
in Katherine Tingley's curriculum lip-knowledge and wisdom are two
different things--that one _may_ have a brain-mind understanding of the
literature of Theosophy without being a Theosophist in the slightest
degree; that in short, the Theosophy that is not lived, that is,
applied to every act, every problem, every relationship of daily life,
need not hope to be recognized in Lomaland.
And this takes time. From the precept to _the life_ there is a path
to be traveled, often a long one. It is indeed plain that the work
upon which the women of Lomaland have been permitted to enter is one
that could not be done Theosophically by any body of women who had not
gotten beyond the limitations of the lower psychology, that master of
the brain-mind, where only diversity lies; it could not be done by
any who had not found and clasped hands on the plane of soul-life,
where alone is unity. If all other proofs of brotherhood as a fact in
nature--Theosophy's shibboleth and standard--were to be swept away
and the Woman's International Theosophical League alone permitted
to remain, that would suffice to demonstrate to the world that
Theosophy is what the Teachers declare it to be, a living power, and
that universal brotherhood _is_. Small wonder that as we listened to
Katherine Tingley's heart-appeal to the women of the great world--truly
orphaned, as is all humanity--we saw barriers swept away, limitations
dissolve, mountains move, and, verily, a new world come into being. In
the discourses of Epictetus, slave of the profligate Epaphroditus, and
in chains, but the grandest Stoic in all Rome, we read:
Never then look for the matter in one place and progress towards it in
another....
What then is progress? ... lo, _if_ a man, in every matter that occurs,
works out his principles, as the runner does in reference to running
and the trainer of the voice does with reference to the voice--this is
the man who truly makes progress, and who has not traveled in vain.
If I were talking to an athlete, I should say, Show me your shoulders.
And then he might say, Here are my Halteres. You and your Halteres
look to that, I should reply, I wish to see the _effect_ of the
Halteres!
That is the point and that is Theosophy.
The burden of this ancient problem of woman's work lies heavy upon the
world, unspeakably heavy because so many lesser problems are enfolded
within it--the problems of the home, of the protection of childhood,
of man's true place in the grand creative scheme, of the much
misunderstood and more discussed sex-question, in short, of education
in all its phases. To borrow the old Socratic metaphor, myriad other
problems hang down from it as from a ring held in suspension by a
magnet other rings hang down, chainlike, one depending from the other.
To carry such a burden, or even part of it, requires not treatises
nor diplomas but _shoulders_, strong shoulders, strong in a threefold
sense, physically, yes, but still more mentally and spiritually.
We women of Lomaland see now why this great public work for women could
not have been begun earlier with absolute confidence on the Teacher's
part that the heat of noontide endeavor would not cause it to wither
and fall away. It would have withered if begun earlier, as women's
efforts are withering all over the world today, partly because they are
mistaken in themselves, it is true, but mainly because _the soil is
not there_. The workers themselves cannot stand the test. The storms
of jealousy and rancor, the hot winds of ambition, the noontide heat
of heavy demands, the shallow soil of brain-mind interests and desires
which point like a weathercock to a new quarter with every gust of
illusion--ay, these are what test the nature.
Thinking it all over, a gratitude wells up within the heart too deep
for words to touch--gratitude to the Teacher who has led us along the
path with so much patience and love; helping but not putting props
under us; heartening and encouraging, but not carrying us along on
silver platters; forcing us to put into practice these treatises we
have been studying--for Theosophy is the science of soul-strength and
it enunciates principles and possesses rules. Lomaland is verily a
great School of Philosophy, greater than those of past ages, for here
divine principles are actually demonstrated which in the golden days of
our historic past were but dreamed of, and the Woman's International
Theosophical League is one of its Halls of Learning. Plato and
Epictetus, Sappho and Hypatia, would understand.
Gratitude--it is a feeble word, plumb the depths of its meaning though
you will. Even the most splendid examples of womanhood that graced
the audiences at the various Women's meetings which the Teacher of
Theosophy addressed, can realize what is being done and what is going
on only to a very limited degree. We in Lomaland do not realize it
fully for if we did we would rise to that height of trust and calm
that would verily make us _like_ the Teacher; not like her in wisdom,
for that is the rare fruit of ages of search and service, and we are
but beginners on the Path; but like her in a certain _quality_ of
courage and devotion that would makes us ten times in effectiveness the
instruments in her hands that we are today.
For the acquirement of soul-strength is the object of this soul's
gymnasium, this _life_, the living out of which in all its fulness of
opportunity alone makes it possible for the Teacher to sow the seeds of
that tree the leaves of which shall be for the healing of the nations.
Here is the keynote, sounded clear amid the resolving harmonies of
Katherine Tingley's last address:
Overcome! That is the song the gods would sing to you women and to all
the world. Overcome! Learn to overcome and learn to love!
ILLUSION AND REALITY: by Lydia Ross, M. D.
The Man was wearied with success. He had sought to win beauty, fame,
fortune, and personal power, and he had linked them all with his name.
Around him was a wide circle of desirable things; within him was a
restless center of discontent.
Far into the night he sat musing over his career. He had been fortunate
beyond all expectation. He could name no ambition which had not been
gratified; but the thought brought with it no feeling of elation or of
satisfaction. Just now his keenest sense was that stinging ache in his
breast which so often came of late at quiet times like this.
"It is all illusion and disappointment," he said, at last. "Marriage is
a failure; fame is a mockery; happiness is not had at any price, and
life is not worth living."
That nameless hunger from which he suffered was so baffling. If it were
only possible to find the meaning of that dreary want. With all the new
inventions for lighting the world why was there no illumination for the
dimness of the inner life? If he could only find the source of that
hungry need which devoured all the pleasure in his possessions.
Filled with intense desire for light, he drifted into the Land of
Dreams with its countless pictures. There he saw a moving figure which
was himself and yet not himself. There were no familiar lines in the
form; but the eyes were his own and through them he read the thoughts.
He knew that this Traveler had come from afar. Along dusty highways,
in shady bypaths and green meadows, through thickets and unwholesome
swamps and across waters he had played a part in many scenes of a
changing world. Youth and strength and gaiety were his companions, and
together they sought activity and pleasure. Through places all unknown
and often full of hidden dangers they made their way with merry jest
and idle song and noise, fearing nothing save it were the Silence.
Then came a day when the Traveler grew tired of dust and heat and
stains, of noisy mirth and empty songs and poisonous miasma. He wished
for solitude and rest. As his companions sped along he turned aside and
wandered into the deep forest. Throwing himself upon the ground long he
lay beneath the trees with closed eyes and fingers threaded through
the soft grass, finding refreshment in the touch. His chest rose with
deep draughts of clear air, and as the cool quiet stole into his blood
the throbbing pulses sank into a healing stream.
He had found some pleasant places in the old life that seemed so far
away now, but this was beyond compare. Filled with a novel sense of
awakening, the past appeared but a feverish dream. The sweetness of the
place seemed to be taking form somewhere near and to be surrounding him
with a delicious perfume.
As he sprang up his wondering eyes rested upon a new-blown Rose growing
near. The dainty folded petals had uncurled and opened out until its
golden heart was centered in tinted light. Its fragrance filled the air
with a subtle tenderness. It was beautiful!
He had not failed to gather flowers, too, in his time--conventional
hot-house blooms and gorgeous tropical beauties, and some with cold,
odorless petals--how many had drifted through his hands. Never was
there one among them all like this. Standing out against the guardian
green leaves like a beloved queen, it shed a royal circle of uplifting
peacefulness over everything.
Softly he knelt before this symbol of purity and loveliness with its
message from the source of light and sweetness. The soul of the Rose
was glowing upon him with tender beauty and glad fearlessness. His own
soul stirred into life and looked out of eyes all too sadly strange
to their indwelling guest. The littleness and folly of the past were
but faded pictures of half-forgotten dreams. He knew that this was the
awakening; this was the steady, noble, tender glow of real life.
His heart dilated with a sense of all that life might mean: its
dignity, its love, its aspiration, its unspeakable destiny. Oh, but he
would struggle to keep alive this enlarged and transfigured sense of
things! His rapt gaze rested on the Rose until the mystery of color
and light and sweetness entered into his very heart. He felt himself a
part of the brightness that lives at the center of all things, and his
confident soul swept out to the unseen stars to claim its own. Beyond
and beyond, throughout distant space, everywhere was a flush of light
and beauty and a radiant heart of peace.
Then came a memory--a mere shadow from his dream-life--and a selfish
doubt brought him back to earth again. The Rose still smiled upon him
in sweet faith. He would never leave it, but together they would live
the larger life. As the wind whispered in the leaves the Rose bent and
brushed his cheek and a swift wave of tenderness surged over him.
What if someone else should find this flower and should rise upon its
power as he had risen? What if he should lose it? A hungry look stole
into his eyes and his old self in a misery of longing cried hoarsely,
"Never! It shall be mine, mine, only mine!" He leaned forward until the
petals quivered beneath his breath. What if it should turn from him?
"It is mine, mine," cried the selfish self as with eager, passionate
grasp he kissed it and crushed it close, close, until he grew faint and
sick with the spent sweetness.
He is stung with pain. Ah, the thorns, the thorns! Impatiently he tries
to pick them out, but the sting remains. And oh! the pitiful Rose that
he holds--so crushed and weary and broken! Gone is the delicate fire
of the higher life that breathed through every curve of its free-born
petals. And the fragrance which had radiated waves of tender gladness
falls like the faltering breath of some beautiful, wounded, dying thing.
* * * * *
In the dim light which fills the mind in sleep, a mountain scene
took form upon the moving screen. Up the steep side a Hunter toiled,
burdened with weapons and game. In his strangely familiar eyes was a
weary, dissatisfied look. The trail he had followed grew indistinct and
was lost; but as he pushed onward he reached a place where the rough
mountain side stretched out into a broken level of fertile plateau. How
grateful it looked after the steep climb. This was the place to rest,
he thought, catching sight of a tiny, sheltered lake and turning his
steps toward it. Even now he can see its unruffled surface reflecting
the blue sky and a drowsy chorus of encircling pines.
On the lake-shore the Hunter stood spell-bound with the beauty of the
scene. The spoils of the chase and the weapons dropped from relaxed
fingers as with uncovered head he drank deeply of rest and comfort and
inspiration.
As the wind swayed the bordering pine-branches flecks of light came
and went through the shadowy circle of scintillating water. Around the
shallow border the glint and tint of glossy stone and delicate shell
lighted the mosaic curtain of shadows with the fire of a living iris.
Deep and dark and clear was the mystical center. A tall, slender fringe
of grasses around the edge softened and deepened the whole liquid
beauty before him like the lashes of a sentient eye.
A feathery cloud floated by overhead. Its reflection brushed the
surface like a breath of fancy, a mere passing thought. The opalescent
gold of the sunshine sank down, down, down, until, transmuted into a
look of love in unfathomed consciousness its glow was diffused through
the limpid depths.
Beyond the beauty of the lake was the infinite calm, the untouched
purity and the perfect peace.
The atmosphere was filled with restfulness. From the lighted depths
came an answering look to his eager eyes. The soul of the lake speaks
to him in lingering softness and silence; and oh, how serene it is! The
iridescent picture of a flying bird falls into the clear water, a song
in color. He sees his own face bathed in a tender light.
He will seize this mysterious beauty of a living calm and hold it
forever. It shall reflect only his face, he thought, jealous of the
very sky. "This treasure is for me, for me alone," he said, as his eyes
followed the shafts of light that illumined the shadowy depths. "For
me," plunging in and stretching out greedy hands.