Triennial Conference of IndoPacificFederation of the Theosophical SocietyThe IndoPacific Federation of the TheosophicalSociety (IPF) holds a conference every three years.In 2004 it was hosted by the Singapore members, in2007 by the Philippines in Manila and theconference last year was held in conjunction withthe International Convention of the TS at Adyar inChennai, India from 26 to 31 December 2010.Many brothers and sisters from member countriesand cultures come together for a few days everythree years. The warmth and friendly atmosphere,the meeting of old friends and making of new onesis the highlight of these events which take placebetween talks, discussions, workshops,entertainment and outings.We were fortunate to be able to come together atAdyar, India, our Theosophical home for the latestconference. For many of our IndoPacific membersthis was their first visit to Adyar and an experienceof the International Convention. It was amazing tohave 36 members come from Singapore, who allwore their bright yellow ‘theosophically branded’shirts to the opening, along with a large group from

Dear Brothers and Sisters,Greetings to you all in your theosophical work in and around the IndoPacific region. Ithas been a fruitful year as you can see by the details that some of the Sections haveshared with us in this newsletter. Of course the highlight over the last year for manywas the IndoPacific Triennial Conference that was held in Adyar, India, ourInternational Headquarters a year ago.We thank the Indian Section for being willing to host this convention, especially theirGeneral Secretary, Mr S. Sundaram and also thank our International President, Mrs Radha Burnier for beingwilling to allow the IndoPacific Federation to once again meet at Adyar in conjunction with the InternationalConvention.

Over the last few months we have started to see some Chinese additions to our website. Remember if you haveany special events coming up then we would love to know about them and share them with other Sections onour website at http://www.iptts.orgWishing you all the best for an inspiring theosophical 2012.John Vorstermans

IndoPacific Federation Newsletter December 2011

Indonesia. There were several from Malaysia, ThePhilippines, Australia and Sri Lanka as well as NewZealanders, Vicki Jerome (IPF Secretary) and JohnVorstermans (IPF President). A very large number ofIndian members were also present. Altogether over1,400 people registered for the gathering.The IndoPacific Federation had its business (Council)meeting at the end of the convention, attended by thedelegates and friends. Each member Section president isa Council member of the IPF. Representatives of someof the larger lodges in countries where there is noSection were invited to attend and speak at the meetings.We also welcomed many observers who could speak andshare their ideas during our gathering. Mrs LindaOliveira, the International VicePresident of the TS alsoattended.The meeting reelected John Vorstermans as theFederation’s President for a further threeyear term andelected Chong Sanne, the President of the Singaporelodge as VicePresident. Vicki Jerome was also reelected as Secretary. There was a great deal ofdiscussion on what the Federation would focus on overthe next three years. Below are some of the items thatare at the top of our list.

IndoPacific Federation Newsletter Page 2December 2011

• In an effort to promote theosophy in countrieswhere there is currently no presence andrecognising the Internet as a powerful tool forthis today, we plan to convert our website to amultilingual site with a focus on Chinese(Mandarin) and Vietnamese. Otherlanguages will also beused as translatorsbecome available.• To translate severalbooks into Mandarinand make theseavailable through thewebsite as EBooks(such as At the Feet ofthe Master which hasalready been translated) or as extractswith the option ofpurchasing the bookitself.• To facilitate speakers to travel around some ofthe Sections and Lodges in our regions each yearover the next three years.• To continue to publish newsworthy informationon our website for member Sections.• To look at the possibility of bringing severalpeople together to host events in Sections whichare currently struggling or have potential.• To develop interactive study courses madeavailable through our website. These will beaudio/visual with components for the student tohave an interaction with a learning system todeepen their understand of the course they arefocused on. We hope to be able to develop thesecourses in several languages. All this depends onworking with people who speak the differentlanguages and have a good background inTheosophy.Being at our International Headquarters was of course aspecial experience. Leadbeater Chambers has beenrepainted and looks magnificent. Many of the otherbuildings have also been painted giving the wholeplace a fresh feel. Walking through the estate is really ameditative experience as one goes down the pathbetween the Adyar Theatre and Leadbeater Chambersfor our meals – a pleasant 20minute stroll. The pace of

life is quiet with long periods between sessions whereone can talk with new friends or reflect on what isgoing on around.Dr Sunita and Mr C.V.K. Maithreya, who recentlyvisited New Zealand, werealso great Indian hosts. Theytook many of the IndoPacificdelegates for a twoday trip toPondicherry before theconvention started and againtook another bus full of us on atrip to some of the temples atMahaballipuram, south ofChennai. We are grateful fortheir kindness.

The next conference is to behosted by the Indonesianmembers who have chosenBali as the place for theconference in 2013. This will be a great place for usall to come together again as it is easy for everyone toget to and a gentle, friendly place to spend time. Wewill advertise when this will happen as soon aspossible, so you can keep the dates free. Please watchour website for details: http://www.ipfts.orgMalaysiaThe Selangor Lodge over the period April 2010 to June2011 continued with weekly readings, discussions, atraining session, commemoration events, gettogethers andpublic talks.Weekly Reading Sessions. Weekly reading timesremained on Saturday (3.00 p.m. – 5.00 p.m.). Books suchas The Seven Principles of Man, At the Feet of The Master,Life your Great Adventure and The Hero Within werestudied continuously over several weeks.The Process of SelfTransformation Seminar inDecember 2010. Sisters Ay Na, Renuka and Thilagapicked three topics from the text book The Process ofSelfTransformation by Vicente Hao Chin, Jr for ahalfday seminar at the Lodge meeting room. Theseminar was surprisingly well attended. With a viewto someday being able to present the seminar to the

Vic Hao Chin, Jr and Chong Sanne

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public, this halfday seminar was organised to enablefacilitators to get some practice.Back to Basics: Study of basic theosophical texts.The Committee decided that members should also beconversant with some of the basic texts in order toenhance understanding of deeper theosophical themesand concepts.Book titles, At the Feet of The Master, Man and hisSeven Principles and Life: Your Great Adventure wereread and discussed in depth enabling members tounderstand and appreciate these classic texts.Attendance of members at InternationalConvention 2010, Adyar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu,India. Three members, Ay Na, Raj Kumar and AlanYong of the Selangor Lodge attended the InternationalConvention and the Meeting of the IndoPacificConference of the Theosophical Society heldsimultaneously in Adyar in December 2010.Visiting members. Australian members have visitedand presented talks at our Lodge. We are grateful forthe presence, sharing and talks on the topics of TheSeven Bodies of Man by Paul and Anna Robb ofQueensland and Michelle Mitchell from Adelaide inFebruary 2011.Public Talks. Dr Selvasingham of the J. Krishnamurticlub in Kuala Lumpur delivered a talk on hisexperiences with the study of the works of J.Krishnamurti. Ms Sophia Catha led a breathtechniques/meditation session for the benefit of lodgemembers in July 2011. Our member, Michele Boeglinled a powerful sharing and discussion on thearchetype ‘The Magician’ from the interestingtextbook The Hero Within by Carol Pearson, and themembers shall continue a Q & A as to how to applythe powerful awareness of the six archetypes:Innocent, Orphan, Wanderer, Martyr, Warrior and TheMagician in our daily life.The library is now organised for sales of books aswell as for borrowing. Our website:

http://theosophymy.webs.com

New ZealandThe New Zealand Section (TSNZ) has a newNational President, Sandy Ravelli, who began herthreeyear term of office in January this year. Sandyis a former National Education Coordinator for TSNZand brings much experience to the role, along withher passion for walking the Path of theosophy andsharing its Divine Wisdom with the public. VickiJerome continues as National VicePresident andMurray Stentiford as National Education Coordinator.The last 12 months have been exciting for the TS inNew Zealand. In November 2010 we were privilegedto have the President of the TOS in Chennai, India,Mr C.V.K. Maithreya and his wife, Dr SunitaMaithreya, visit us for two weeks to give talks andworkshops to our branches and study groups aroundthe country. Members of the Indian Section inparticular, and no doubt other IPF Sections, will bewell aware of their dedicated work for the TOS in theChennai Region, and in particular Dr Sunita’s manyhours per month of medical consultation, as a generalpractitioner, to the needy in her area and in the Adyarcompound. A special TOS weekend was held at HPBLodge in Auckland, during which the couple gavetalks and participated in a question and answer panel.

In January this year our 114th annual nationalconvention was held in the South Island city ofDunedin on the Otago peninsula, with its historicbuildings, spectacular scenery and Scottish heritage.Appropriately, the arriving participants were greetedat the opening ceremony with the eloquent tones ofthe bagpipes played by one of the host branchmembers, followed by a native American pipeceremony. The theme of ‘Creating Community – Key

Betty Bland (USA) and Sandy Ravelli (NZ)

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IndiaThe 2nd event of the 3rd round of the Eastern ZonalTheosophical Conference, hosted by the AssamTheosophical Federation and Theosophical Order ofService, Assam Region, was held with due solemnityand enthusiasm, at Guwahati on the 24 and 25 February2011, followed by a daylong study class on 26February.The theme of the conference was ‘Brotherhood’. Bro.S. Sundaram, General Secretary, Indian Section of theTheosophical Society, graced the conference as theChief Guest while Mrs Manju Sundaram, President,Kashi Tattva Sabha, Varanasi, conducted the studyclass on At the Feet of the Master. Bro P.S. Mittal,former National Secretary, TOS Allahabad, was theguest of honour. Delegates of other Federations of theEast Zone joined the conference. There were sevendelegates from Bihar, 13 delegates from Bengal andnine delegates from Utkal Federation. More than 105members of Assam Federation attended the conferenceon both the days. The local press and electronic mediagave an encouraging coverage of the conference.There were two short talks. The subject was ‘Who is aTheosophist’ Bro. Dr Bipul Sarmah of Assam initiatedthe talk on ‘TOS & Brotherhood’. The inauguraladdress of the conference was delivered by the chiefguest, Bro. Sundaram, in the afternoon (open) sessionof the conference. The subject was ‘The Realization ofBrotherhood is the aim of true Religion’.Two symposia were held during the conference. Thesubject of the symposium held on 24 February was

‘Theosophical knowledge should make us realise thetruth of life deeply by heart and not merely as theory’.The symposium of 25 February was conducted byBro. S.K. Agarwal, former National Secretary of TOS.The subject was ‘Service is Practical Theosophy’. Ageneral discussion on ‘Selfless Service is Service toGod’ was held in the afternoon session.Indian Section Headquarters. Two study camps on‘Significant Factors of Theosophy’ were held at theSection Headquarters, Varanasi, between 23 Marchand 6 April 2011. These camps were intended for themembers arriving at a deeper understanding oftheosophy. The specific chapters in A Study inConsciousness, (Preparation of the Field and thePeopling of the Earth); the spread of Monadic essenceover all the planes of nature were elaborated.While this aforesaid study was done in English, thisCamp had a second Camp for Hindi knowingparticipants directed by Bro. P. K. Jayaswal, NationalLecturer. It was held from 31 March to 6 April, 2011.

Some of the Members who performed in the ceremony of the RoundTable at the Adyar Convention 2010

to the First Object’ was reflected in the workshops andpresentations by various members. The guest speakerDr Lynne Hume, who teaches and writes on theanthropology of religion and alternative spirituality atthe University of Queensland in Australia, gaveseveral talks including ‘Living in Harmony asIndividuals and Communities’.By revisiting our strategic plan this year andanchoring with our purpose, vision and values, TSNZis making headway towards the changes alluded to inour previous report.

The subtopics relating to Monads, Permanent Atoms,Group Souls and Fohat were covered in Camp No.I inEnglish. The subtopics related to Swabhavat,Purusha and Prakriti, Tattvas & Gunas, and Journey tothe Sacred Source were covered in Camp No. II inHindi. The intention was to delve into thefundamental doctrines concerning the Eternal

IndoPacific Federation NewsletterDecember 2011Page 5

SingaporeSingapore Lodge has recently held two majorprogrammes: The Key to Theosophy Study Class whichis currently in progress with a high number ofparticipants. Average attendance is over 50 in the class.We last conducted The Key to Theosophy Study Class tenyears ago in 2001. It was also very wellreceived then.The following topics are highlighted for study:

• Theosophy and the Theosophical Society• Exoteric and Esoteric Theosophy• The Working System of the T. S.• The Relations of the Theosophical Society toTheosophy• The Fundamental Teachings of Theosophy• Theosophical Teachings as to Nature and Man• On the Various Postmortem States

JapanNippon Lodge of the Theosophical Society inJapan activities are as follows: We are reallygrateful for heartfelt messages and deepest concernfrom the world's Theosophists regarding currentnuclear crisis caused by the huge 9.0magnitudeearthquake and Tsunami in Japan. Japan's Nuclear andIndustrial Safety Agency raised the emergency alert ataccident of the Fukushima nuclear plant to levelseven – the highest on the international scale ofnuclear accidents – at 12 April 2011. Present situationof nuclear radiation is gradually worsening in Japan. Iconfirmed that all 66 members of Nippon Lodge arein safe condition. At the Nippon Lodge in Japan, wemake every endeavour to survive in currenthorrendous nuclear disaster.In deteriorating situation of nuclear radiation, we holdmonthly study meetings of the Nippon Lodge atTokyo, Japan, with an average attendance of 12throughout the year. We are really grateful for theatmosphere of freedom of thought at the lodgemeetings of the Theosophical Society. Recent studiesin the lodge meetings were based on texts from theJapanese translated version of H. P. Blavatsky'sCosmogenesis, Volume I of The Secret Doctrine andArthur E. Powell's The Solar System.We investigated the details of H. P. Blavatsky'senormous research literature. The subjects of ourmeeting included profound themes from tenet ofseven cosmic principles, H. P. Blavatsky'sTheosophical synthesis of Indian philosophy, PlatonicPhilosophy, Christian religion, Jewish religion,Egyptian religion, and background of psychicphenomena and deeper psychological meanings ofoccultism, religion and evolution of spirituality andintellectuality in root races. We also confirmed thesignificance of cultivating understanding of profoundtenets of Theosophy in the study meetings of theTheosophical Society.

Singapore members at the IPF Convention 2010

We publish The Japanese Theosophist which isbimonthly Japanese Theosophical magazine of theNippon Lodge of TS. The contents of our magazineare Japanese translations of Theosophical literaturewhich are Annie Besant's Thought Power, C. W.Leadbeater's Textbook of Theosophy, C. W.Leadbeater's Hidden Life in Freemasonry and H. P.Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine Vol. II Anthropogenesis.Osaka Lodge. Mr Suzuki and other 6 members aredeeply influenced by a Japanese mystic religioussect, RYUOKAI. Members of Osaka lodge useactivity of Theosophical Society to the benefit of thisJapanese mystic religious sect. Atmosphere offreedom of thought is lost in Osaka Lodge. I cannotcontact Mr Suzuki.

Essence, Manifestation (involution and evolution) andthe Path. A set of books by HPB, Annie Besant, C. W.Leadbeater, I. K. Taimni as well as Mahatma Letterswere used as reference materials and Study Noteswere prepared to help the participants to focusattention on the relevant subjects in the varioussessions. Each Session was interactive.

If you would like to receive this newsletter by emailthen please go to the website at http://www.ipfts.organd subscribe to the newsletter. Alternatively send mean email at president@ipfts.orgThank you,John Vorstermans

IndoPacific Federation Newsletter December 2011 Page 6

• On Reincarnation or Rebirth• On the KamaLoka and Devachan• On the Nature of our Thinking Principle• On the Mysteries of Reincarnation• What is Practical Theosophy• On the Misconceptions about the TheosophicalSociety• The “Theosophical Mahatmas”Dr N. C. Ramanujachary visited from 15 to 31August 2011. During his visit, he conducted a studyclass on ‘The Secret Doctrine: How to Study’ whichincluded the following topics:General introduction of The Secret Doctrine. Whatthe Text intends to convey. Why The SecretDoctrine and Isis Unveiled must be read together. Method of Study.Useful commentarial/ abridged texts.* Nasadiya Sookta, The Book of Dzyan. The Proem and The Summing Up.* Human Evolution. The New Propositionsand their Impact. Human Races; OurEarthen Races and Subraces.* Occult Catechism. Symbology in the Text. Vishnu Purana in the Secret Doctrine. Occult Philosophy in Daily Life.* Madame Blavatsky, The Person and ThePrinciple. Main Philosophical Writings.* Enormity of Theosophical Philosophy. Occult Hierarchy down to the hierarchiesconnected to Humanity.MyanmarDespite the difficulty of the TS being able to meet inMyanmar we still have private regular monthlymeetings. We have weekly meetings every Saturdayand Sunday. For festivals we have special meetingsin the whole year. On Saturday and Sunday, we useto celebrate discussions, meetings and seminars forone topic from 2 to 4 pm. In the early morning onSunday, ES meeting at 9 to 10 am. During 10 am to11 am Meditation. 11am to 3 pm Sunday lecturesand discussions.Sri LankaThe Head of the Editorial Office at Adyar, Mr Pedro

Oliveira, visited Sri Lanka from 19 to 25 September2010. The programme included a visit to theDharmaraja College in Kandy, founded by Col. Olcott.After an address by Mr Oliveira on the contribution ofCol. Olcott to Buddhist education in Sri Lanka, somestudents, with the assistance of the Deputy Principal,formed a Theosophical Study Circle. A number ofbooks in Sinhalese were donated to them by thePresidential Representative of the TS in Sri Lanka, MrS. M. Jayathilake. In Colombo, Mr Oliveira addressedstudents of the Musaeus Girls’ College, which wasfounded by German Theosophist, Mary MusaeusHiggins. With the support of the College Principal, anumber of girls constituted another Theosophical StudyCircle and will undertake the study of Theosophicalbooks donated to them. Mr Jayathilake will keep incontact with the students in both Kandy and Colomboand encourage them in their studies. A meeting ofmembers at the TS Headquarters in Colombo took stepsto revive the Besant Lodge which was dormant forseveral years.– Reprinted from the November 2010 issue of TheTheosophistBangladeshComilla Lodge: Prof. Dilip Pandit from Comilla Lodgein Bangladesh, the father of Obed Pandit whom manyof you will have met in Singapore, writes:“I am now very happy to inform you that a number ofmembers of our lodge, including Obed, donated a sumof money and we have now been able to repair the oldbuilding of the lodge constructed in 1913. Here I mustmention the service of our secretary Chandan Roy, whohimself uprooted some 80 kgs of banyan tree roots byhand from the top of the building. Now the building willkeep on standing for another 50 years.“With best regards, Dilip Pandit”