TOS-intouch3

Issue 32 – September 2014          [Go to TOS website]

Contents

  • Developments from the international working conferences
  • ‘Hall Of Fame’ art exhibition in Bhubaneswar, India – a report from TOS group leader, Deepa Padhi
  • Of irresistible dogs, precious fish and trusting foxes: Portugal
  • A cosy place for little paws: Argentina
  • Shocking exposé of the leather industry
  • Lessons of love and service from the animal kingdom
  • TOS news from around the world -
    • Australia
    • India
    • Italy
    • Peru
    • Spain
    • USA
  • What’s new on the International TOS website?
  • Celebrate your birthday with acts of kindness
  • A meditation on our oceans

 

Dear fellow-members of the TS and TOS around the world,

We hope you are enjoying keeping in touch with what is happening in the TOS internationally. Our electronic newsletter aims to bring you information to inspire your service work within or outside the TOS and to help you get to know TOS members outside your own country.

In addition to news about outstanding service to individuals and communities, this edition has a focus on animal welfare concerns, with inspiring stories about how we can serve and protect our younger brothers.

Let’s keep in touch and continue to share our experiences. Please consider sending photographs of your TOS activities and news items that might be of interest to fellow TOS members. We would welcome your contributions by email to the editors at tosinternational@gmail.com

Remember that the newsletter is designed to be read while you are connected to the internet.

 

With best wishes in putting theosophical principles into action,

Carolyn, Diana and Geoffrey

 

 

 

 

  The editorial team (L. to R.)

Diana Dunningham Chapotin is the International Secretary of the TOS.

Geoffrey Harrod is the International TOS Webmaster.

Carolyn Harrod is the past National Coordinator of the TOS in Australia.

 

“What act of service could be more far-reaching than the careful regulation of the quality of the thoughts we think and the emotions we encourage in ourselves?  This is the ongoing contribution to the stream of life that flows through us all.  From moment to moment we choose the quality of our sharing.  Will it be a muddied current of confused emotion and thought, or a brightened stream of blessing?”


Tim Boyd, in The Question of Seeing, The Quest, Summer 2014

 

 

 

Developments from the international working conferences

A five year international plan was developed at the 2007 conference and in 2013 another conference was held in the same location to review and update the plan.  (There are surely no more professional and obliging hosts than the staff and volunteers at the National Centre of the TS in America – the TOS is deeply grateful to them.) The updated plan was published in March this year (e-news 30) and can be consulted here.

At the 2013 conference, delegates drafted their own national plans drawing ideas from the sharing at international level.  It is interesting to see how each is adapted to local circumstances.  One such example is the national plan and July 2014 update of the TOS in America.  Read more...

 

 

 

‘Hall Of Fame’ art exhibition in Bhubaneswar, India – a report from TOS group leader, Deepa Padhi

Late last April, the work of Dr Satyakam Das, a talented young handicapped artist, was featured by the TOS in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, at an art exhibition organised in collaboration with RAKA ART Foundation.

A little over ten years ago, Satyakam had everything going for him. Aged 24, he was a fine army doctor in Pune, married and blessed with a child.  He was an excellent singer, an enthusiastic sportsman and keen amateur artist. Life appeared perfect but then a traffic accident in May 2004 left him with multiple injuries which occasioned two long years in the hospital. His wife and son withdrew, leaving his family plunged in an ocean of grief.

Satyakam, affectionately known as Raja, decided to rebuild his shattered life and faith saw him through. Lying on his bed paralysed in three limbs, he started drawing with his left hand.  He has now made sketches in pencil and charcoal of over a hundred famous people including Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rabindranath Tagore, Abraham Lincoln, Einstein and many others.   Read more...

 

Raposinha

Of irresistible dogs, precious fish and trusting foxes:
Portugal

Do you love animals and wish you could think of an activity you and your fellow TOS members could engage in together to help them in the face of human exploitation, neglect or abuse? The members of the TOS in Portugal are doing surprising and touching things, both individually and collectively. 

Read about them here...

 


A cosy place for little paws: Argentina

The TOS in Portugal is not the only group supporting an animal refuge.  The TOS in Rosario, Argentina is not just supporting one: Marcela Riaudo, the local coordinator of the TOS in that city, has actually started a shelter herself with the full support of her fellow members. Forty dogs and four cats are now living together peaceably at “Little Paws under a Roof”.

It all started when Marcela opened a dog grooming salon as a way of earning her living. After a time she added a pet minding service but before long she and her associates couldn’t resist looking after dogs and cats they found in the streets as well: hurt, sick, battered, abandoned or lost. 

Read about them here….

 


Shocking exposé of the leather industry

A heartfelt message from Julie Cunningham, the National Secretary of the Theosophical Society (Adyar) in Wales, has drawn our attention to alarming information about the leather industry provided by the association People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

“Skin is not just a by-product of the meat industry,” we learn, “it is the most economically important co-product.  Many people shun and refuse to wear fur because of the gruesome ways in which animals suffer and are killed for their skin. But what about leather? Most consumers are not aware of the cruelty to animals involved in the leather industry or of the detrimental effects of its production on the environment.”

“As part of the human race we share karma,” writes Julie Cunningham, “and if we buy the goods, we reinforce our connection to the cruelty and therefore must have a larger share in the karma.” 

Read more...

 

 

 

Lessons of love and service from the animal kingdom

Dogs aren't only the human's best friends. Pictured here on the cover of the latest For the Love of Life, journal of the TOS in the USA, are Tarra, the elephant, and her friend and constant companion, Bella. If you want to know how this unlikely pair became friends,
read more here
.

This issue focuses on animals and the lessons of love and service we can learn from them. 28 pages of beautiful stories and theosophical insights edited by Ananya Sri Ram Rajan.

 

 

 

TOS news from around the world

In this issue you’ll find news from the TOS in Peru about a project in their community and an update from the TOS in America about their project to provide gifts to the community of the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. From the TOS in Spain and the TOS in Assam, India, we have a report on their highly successful annual TOS gathering. There’s also news about fundraising activities organised by the TOS in Italy and TOS groups in Australia to support two international education initiatives – the extension of the curriculum at the Olcott Memorial School, Adyar, and the provision of basic literacy teaching in the home-schools run by the TOS in Pakistan.  

Read more...

 

 

kiev14-07

Members of the TOS in Ukraine
supporting a refugee camp

 

What’s new on the International TOS website?

In our Latest News we bring an update on our fellow Theosophists in Ukraine who say they greatly appreciate our loving thoughts and messages of concern in the face of the continuing military tension in eastern regions of the country. Ukrainian citizens are divided in their sympathies on the political situation. TOS members have decided not to discuss this whole political question at their meetings but instead to seek together to give aid to the victims of both sides.

The new Featured Article is the third of the talks on Service as Sacred Labour, given by a panel of speakers at the International TOS Conference in July 2013. In her talk, Cynthia Trasi shares her realisation that to be a true Theosophist is to live a life of service, a life of Sacred Labour. She tells us about Clara Codd’s advice that, like apprentices, we should study and watch the technique of great souls and suggests various sources of inspiration.

Our Featured Project describes an initiative of the TOS in America who launched an Animal Healing Network last year devoted to providing daily healing meditation for sick or terminally ill pets and their human companions. Serving as a complement to the TOS Healing Network for humans, these healing meditations call upon the angelic hosts to send loving, healing power over time and distance to the suffering animal to comfort and protect until health returns or the soul departs the body.

You’ll also find additions to the TOS photo gallery and the expanded Inspiration section.
Go to   http://international.theoservice.org/

birthday check Marina Andric-party


Celebrate your birthday with acts of kindness

Are you one of those people who aren’t terribly keen on celebrating your own birthday?  While you loved birthdays when you were a child, the novelty may have worn off a bit and you never know nowadays what to suggest when friends or family ask what you’d like as a gift…

If you are in this category, this story of a young German woman may be for you.  Marina Andric of Frankfurt was about to turn 30 when she read a Good News Network story about a 22-year-old girl who did 22 acts of kindness on her birthday.

“When I read it I felt inspired to do something great for my birthday and after a few evenings of brainstorming I had an idea,” she said.  Read more here

 

 


A meditation on our oceans

Enjoy this short meditation on our oceans prepared by Greenpeace. Be sure to turn the sound on, even though not a word is spoken.

View the video here...   (On YouTube by Greenpeace Italia )    

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