Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Summer 2014 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Boyd, Tim. "The Question of Seeing" Quest  102. 3 (Summer  2014): pg. 88-89.

Like many of us, if you were to follow me home you would find a couple of places in the house crowded with photographs. On top of the dresser in the bedroom are photos of family—my daughter, my wife’s parents, my parents, brothers, sisters. In my study I have other photos—teachers, wise women and men, special moments. It is here that you would find one of my favorite pictures. It is a photo of my daughter and me. It was taken at the end of a long day of walking and sightseeing in Washington, D.C. It was her first trip to the city. She was ten or eleven years old. We are sitting at the foot of the long stairway leading to the Lincoln Memorial. Both of us are tired—I more than she. So when the photo was taken, we were not frowning or straining to smile. I was simply looking at the camera, content to be sitting with my daughter by my side. We are seated on a granite embankment on a cool November day, with green boxwood hedges as a backdrop. My daughter is on my left, leaning her head on my shoulder, smiling and flashing a peace sign — something she tended to do in photos at that age. The photo is a freeze-frame of a contented moment, both of us happy; happy to be sitting down, happy with each other, happy because there was no reason not to be.

That photo was taken ten years ago, but when I look at it I remember the moment well. Nowadays when I take the time to study it, I see other things. One of the main things that stands out is how different we both look now. Then, unlike now, I had just a few gray hairs. My face was smooth, without the lines that I have now come to say give my face “character.” My daughter is grown and in college. Her choice of clothes has changed. Her hair is now rarely styled in that little-girl ponytail that was her constant look as a child. The peace sign no longer comes up as the chosen photo affectation. All of it has changed.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about examining that photo is that in spite of the changes, when I look at it I recognize myself and feel that in some way I am the same person. In spite of the evidence of change, there seems to be some essential sense of “me-ness” that fuses the person in the photo and the one looking at it today into a consistent whole. This habitual way of seeing is paradoxical. On one level it is correct, but at the same time, it is fundamentally wrong.

There is a piece of popular “knowledge” that has been repeated enough to have attained the status of a recognized fact. It says that all fifty to seventy-five trillion cells that make up our bodies die and are replaced every seven to ten years. Though not entirely accurate, this statement expresses a fundamental truth about the body’s impermanence. In a physical sense we are always changing, and the facts do not support our cherished idea of a continuous sense of self.

Although the physical body is the most visible part of what we call our self, most of us are as strongly attached to other, less material dimensions of our being—our feelings and thoughts. From the Theosophical point of view, what we identify as the personality is the combination of the physical, emotional, and mental components of an individual. Like the physical body, this arrangement of materials is ever-changing and temporary—even more so than the physical. Thoughts and emotions come and go rapidly. It is useful to keep in mind that from the Theosophical perspective the stuff of emotions and thought is considered matter in the same way that we regard solid, liquid, and gas as merely more refined, less dense physical matter. In letter 10 of the original edition of The Mahatma Letters to A.P. Sinnett, the Master Koot Hoomi makes the sweeping statement, “We believe in matter alone, in matter as visible nature and matter in its invisibility.” A continual stream of thoughts and feelings enter and exit, leaving their tracks and shaping the materials of our astral and mental bodies.

The specific combination of matter that we each identify as “me” holds together for a lifetime, then dissolves into the basic units that comprise it. At the end of a life the processes of change that have been ongoing become more pronounced. In the absence of a binding force the physical body decomposes. All of its materials are reduced to molecules and atoms and are recycled into the pool of materials used to build other life forms. The same holds true for the material of the emotions and thoughts. In a very real sense, even physically, we are one with all beings. Ultimately our substance finds its way into the bodies of all creatures. Thich Nhat Hanh uses the term “interbeing” to express this radical interdependence and beautifully says, “The tears I cried yesterday have become rain today.”

Mathematicians have applied their methods to this idea of interbeing in some fascinating ways. In one exercise the calculation was made for how many of Buddha’s atoms each of us has in our bodies. (My Buddhist friend says that these particular mathematicians are people who clearly have too much time on their hands.) There are three sources of Buddha’s atoms: (1) those produced at the time of his death, (2) those breathed out during his lifetime, and (3) those that exited in the form of solid, liquid, and gaseous waste while he was alive. Some of those atoms mixed in the atmosphere; some in the water; some in the earth, becoming present around the world in a period of days, months, or years. After some basic calculations accounting for the total number of Buddha’s atoms and the number of atoms in the total environment, it is possible to arrive at an approximation of how many of his atoms are in each of us. The startling number is two hundred billion (2 x 1011). Remarkable!

Before this little fact swells our egos, and we start rewriting the Dhammapada, or changing the Four Noble Truths to five, it would be good to realize that in terms of the total number of atoms in our bodies, this number is insignificant. The average human body has the unfathomable number of 4 x 1027 atoms — 4 followed by 27 zeroes! The Buddha contingent literally amounts to less than a grain of sand does on a beach. For the sake of humility we also should keep in mind that in addition to the atoms of Buddha, Jesus, Mother Mary, and Sitting Bull, within us are atoms of Stalin, Pol Pot, Nero, and every other good, bad, or indifferent person, animal, or plant that has ever appeared on earth.

There is a profound principle at work here. The materials that pass through the personality are changed by the contact. They are quickened or dulled by the quality of the consciousness within which they are embodied. Rather than looking at the experience of being human as some solid, permanent state of affairs, it might be more accurate to view our human experience, our period of incarnation, as a meeting place for the ever-flowing, ever-changing streams of the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. For the time that they are intermixed, each stream influences the other. Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, describes the purpose of the coming together of the streams of spirit and matter (purusha and prakriti respectively) as “the gaining by the purusha of the awareness of its true nature and the unfoldment of powers inherent in it and prakriti.” During our lives we are continually charging all of the materials we encounter with the qualities of our consciousness and passing them on to others.

To some, this idea of interbeing, which includes the illusory, impermanent nature of the self, is disturbing. By definition it is difficult to grasp. In the words of the twentieth-century Taoist writer Wei Wu Wei, “99.9% of everything you think, and of everything you do is for yourself, and there isn’t one.” For those who through careful consideration and practice eventually emerge into this way of seeing, it is liberating. Gone is the sense of needy grasping and competition. The gnawing sense of loneliness that drives so much of all the things we do, from entertainment to relationships, evaporates with the profound awareness of our inviolable connection. The meaning of service also transforms. 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 our 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? It’s all in what we see.

Printed in the Summer 2014 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Boyd, Tim. "From the International President" Quest  102. 3 (Summer  2014): pg. 83.

It has been a long strange road that led me to the Theosophical Society's international headquarters at Adyar, in Chennai, India. As I write, Adyar is where I am now serving as the TS's eighth international president. As much as we Theosophists believe that change is the nature of life and that all is in a continual state of flux, April 27, 2014, will be a day that marks an obvious and dramatic shift for the TS, and for me personally. That was the day that the election ballots were counted and the day that I stepped into the Adyar headquarters building to assume the president's position.

Just to give you a little background: In May of 2011 I had just taken over as the president of the Theosophical Society in America. It was an exceedingly busy time. Not only was I acquainting myself with the ins and outs of the national headquarters' operation, but I was also directing the endless details of the Dalai Lama's fast-approaching visit. It was a heady time, in which the TS's name and reputation received a great deal of favorable attention. Good wishes poured in from around the world. Soon after, in December, I attended my first meeting of the TS General Council at Adyar. After almost forty years of membership it was my first visit to the international headquarters. Then-president Radha Burnier had asked me to give a public talk to the twelve hundred people assembled for the annual convention. During my time at Adyar I spoke with Radha, inviting her to visit with us at Olcott when she came to the U.S. in 2012. She assured me that she would.

Life went on, but it seemed to be taking on an international character for me. Radha came to the U.S. and we talked about many things. Specifically, she wanted to explore my suitability and availability to serve as international president. We parted agreeing that we would both think about it. At Olcott each year we hosted at least one major international event—in 2011, the Dalai Lama; in 2012, the International Theosophy Conference, which brought together the diaspora of Theosophical groups; in 2013, the international Theosophical Order of Service planning conference. On the invitation of various Sections I participated in TS schools and conferences in New Zealand, Singapore, India, Brazil, and Mexico. Then in October 2013 Radha passed on, and the TS was thrown into the selection process for a new president.

Fast forward to today. The international elections have come and gone. In the U.S. the TSA elections have just been completed with the same result — my election as president. While this dual presidency is unprecedented, it is the fact of the moment. For the time that this state of affairs lasts, it will require a division of my time between the two centers. The American Section is strong and has systems and people in place to advance the work. The international headquarters at Adyar needs a great deal of attention. Toward the end of Radha's life and during the six months since her passing, many functions ground to a halt in anticipation of a new president. The Adyar center has many dedicated and qualified long-time workers, but we are seriously understaffed. People here are performing two, even three different jobs to make sure that the work gets done. The result is that our people are spread thin. The level of commitment to the work is inspiring, but the workload many have taken on is unfair.

Although the maintenance of the Adyar head­quarters is only one part of the international work, it is an important part. The TS is an international organization. In recent years some of the sense of the TS as a global body has begun to fade. Many of our Sections have struggled. Going forward, we will have to give greater attention to reestablishing a genuine global participation. All around the world our various national Sections find themselves strapped for resources. Often, just like at Adyar, the main resource lacking is dedicated workers. Since I have taken office, every day has brought members to my door asking to volunteer their time and skills, as well as e-mails from India and abroad asking, “How can I help?” Step by step an international team is forming.

As great as the task seems, my experience in every situation of my TS life encourages me. Sincere aspiration, commitment, and intention are unfailing in calling forth a response from those Great Ones who support this and all work on behalf of humanity. The TS worldwide will be fine. My greatest hope is that you will find your way to participate in this special moment. I will wait to hear from you.

Tim Boyd

Printed in the  Summer 2014 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Boyd, Tim. "President's Diary-" Quest  102. 3 (Summer  2014): pg. 114-115.

Anyone who has been reading this diary during the three years that I have served as president will start to recognize a pattern. Each year in December I have gone to Adyar for the convention, then at the end of January I have traveled to Krotona for the Partners in Theosophy program. So again this year, the end of January found me in sunny Ojai, California at the Krotona Institute of Theosophy. This year’s program was ably led by Nelda Samarel, a past TSA board member, student of Dora Kunz, and retired professor of nursing (among other things). The program was titled “The Art of Leadership: Vision and Practice” and brought together members from around the country.

Krotona is one of a handful of places around the world that are dedicated spiritual centers for the TS work. Although there is necessarily some administrative work that must go on, it is not an administrative center, but a place focused on the cultivation of the inner life as a service to the TS and the world. It has been in its present location on top of Krotona Hill since 1926. One of the results of such longevity is that anyone with even a slight sensitivity quickly becomes aware of an energy that is both peaceful and forceful. Many people from the surrounding community come there just to walk and soak in the feeling. Probably I have said this before in previous diaries, but every time I am there, the thought runs through my mind that I could live here. It happened again this trip.

In February our board of directors came to Olcott for our semiannual board meetings. They were greeted by the subzero temperatures that had become so normal to us Midwesterners during this past winter. Most of our board members came from warmer places—Florida, Portland, Louisiana; even our New Yorkers had had warmer weather.

During one meeting, to add insult to injury, our fire alarm went off, requiring everyone to leave the building immediately. It was not a planned fire drill that we had dreamed up to make the board suffer. It turns out that because of the extreme cold, some vent in the kitchen had frozen shut and the fumes had set off the alarm. What it meant was that we all gathered outside the building for the twenty minutes it took the fire department to arrive, diagnose the problem, and allow us to return. It was eight degrees below zero. In addition to the work done during the meetings, I am certain that our board members returned home with that cherished memory of the camaraderie experienced while huddling together in the subzero weather.

In March I was back in southern California, this time to attend the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Phung Su Chan Ly (Service to the Truth) Vietnamese Lodge in Orange County. Back in October, when we had the Olcott Experience, among other members coming from around the country, Hiep To, president of the lodge, came. At that time he invited me to visit their lodge. We planned the date around my availability. Hiep To was a little concerned because the day that I would be free was not their normal meeting time. He was hesitant because he might “only be able to get thirty to forty people” at that time. I assured him that even if it was only him and me it would be fine. So on March 12, I flew into Los Angeles airport, rented a car, and drove the forty minutes to Garden Grove, where the lodge is located. When I turned onto the street for the meeting, I was on the phone (hands free). I told the person on the other end that I had to end the call so that I could look for the address. As soon as I said it, I said it was not necessary to hang up because “I think I know which house it is.” Across the front of the house there was a twelve-by-three-foot banner that read, “Welcome Mr. Tim Boyd, President of the Theosophical Society in America.” On one side was the emblem of the TS and on the other was a large photo of me. This must be the place.

Before the fall of South Vietnam’s government in 1975 the TS in Vietnam had been extremely active, with over thirteen hundred members, a headquarters building, and many books written and translated into Vietnamese. With the government’s fall, all of that ended. The headquarters was taken, the books were burned, and the members ended up dispersed around the world. Many came to the U.S. Today the TSA has two strong Vietnamese groups, one in Houston, the other in Garden Grove. As soon as our date had been confirmed, Hiep To set to work planning the event. Although he already had a large room in his home that was used for the group’s library and meeting place, he built an addition onto his house that could seat eighty people. He contacted TS and family members around the country. Because my Vietnamese is limited to the words “Phung Su Chan Ly,” and many of the members only speak a little English, he arranged for a translator to participate. In the end over a hundred people attended. Longtime friend and former TSA board member Robert Bonnell and his wife, Leatrice, were some of the handful of non-Vietnamese people attending. Van Ly and his wife, Lien, came with a sizable contingent from the Houston group. Other members came from Seattle. It was a wonderful affair that included homemade vegetarian food, presentation of medals and plaques, and ample time to socialize with some highly motivated and accomplished members. While there, I told the members that after the wonderful way that they had treated me, it was going to be difficult to speak at the American groups.

Two days later found me in Krotona again, this time for a retreat. Professor C. Shinde, the librarian at the Adyar international headquarters, had come to conduct it, and did a fine job. Members came from around the country. It was a welcome opportunity for me to attend a program that I did not have to present. 

Back home at Olcott the month closed with a flurry of visitors. Nicholas and Kirsten Van Gelder came down from Madison, Wisconsin for a couple of days. Nicholas is a fourth-generation Theosophist, Theosophical historian, and a nephew of Dora Kunz, past TSA president and world-renowned clairvoyant. Drawing on extensive family archives, Kirsten has written a biography of Dora. It will be released by Quest Books in 2015. While he was visiting, we got Nicholas to give a talk.

Overlapping the Van Gelders’ visit, Glenn Mullin was with us for a week. Glenn is a friend of almost thirty years, and one of the foremost Tibetologists in the world. He has studied with the Dalai Lama’s principal teachers, has written thirty books, and translated many important Buddhist texts into English. Every year for the past twenty-eight years he has visited with us and presented talks and workshops. It is always a lively time when he comes. While he was with us we got a chance to do some planning for another group trip to Tibet (the first one took place in 2007, followed by another in 2008). The idea is to take a small group (maximum twenty-five people) on a tour of the country. The tour would end in Dharamsala with an audience with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. We are looking to do it in 2015. Stay tuned.

Overlapping Glenn, Nicholas, and Kirsten, Minor Lile and his wife, Leonie Van Gelder, came to visit. They are officially in my category of “favorite people.” I have known Leonie for thirty plus years. Minor and I served on the TSA board together for six years during John Algeo’s administration. One way or another we get together every year. Often it’s when I visit Indralaya, where they have been managing the camp for years. Since becoming president of the TSA I have prevailed upon them to come out to Olcott every year. I always feel a little bad about it, because in their hearts they are workers, and every time they visit I take shameless advantage of this character trait. Fortunately they seem to love it.

This diary ends with another part of the annual cycle, my visit to the Detroit Lodge. This year, like the past twenty, I made my pilgrimage to Detroit (actually the suburb of Royal Oaks) for our traditional Friday public lecture and Saturday workshop. Over the years we have become so comfortable with each other that our spring visit has become a much-anticipated bright spot for all of us. The comfort and sense of open exploration that I feel with the group always leaves me feeling enriched. Unanticipated insights seem to always bubble up. I am looking forward to next year.

Tim Boyd

Printed in the Summer 2014 issue of Quest magazine. 
. "Explaining Money to a Fairy

At the C G ferry wharf, the rocks of the hillside come down and almost overhang the gate that gives entrance to the wharf. At this gate a man is stationed on holidays to sell tickets for the ferry. Surrounding this spot is a countryside comparatively rich in fairy life, for much of the land is park and military reservation, and the whole place is therefore suited to the nonphysical creatures of the wood as well as the water sprites of the harbor. A curious adventure with one of these woodland devas will probably interest many people as showing the relationship between the human and collateral nonhuman kingdoms. It took its origin in the very early morning near the spot where the gateman is often seen collecting money.

We met there a curious elfin or sprite, a little fellow perhaps four feet high, slender and extremely active, rather roguish but friendly, and much less timid than most of his fellow fairies. Probably the frequent association with human beings had produced this result, for he seemed actually to be anxious to communicate with us. At any rate he had sufficient courage to attract our attention as we were passing by, shyly and yet gleefully opening his tiny hand, and exhibiting, as a child might, a coin which he seemed to want to know about. Whether this was connected with a real coin he had found and somehow got secreted as a prize possession or whether he made an image of the coin in superphysical matter is immaterial to the narrative. He at any rate clearly indicated that he treasured this thing, and the association in his mind seemed to be that he had seen human beings reluctantly surrendering these curious disks to the ferry gateman. Our fairy friend did not in the least understand why these little disks were prized. To him their special merit lay in the fact that they shone in the sun, at least the silver ones; and he had, as I say, noted that the human beings frequently surrendered them with some reluctance, and got in exchange a much less interesting bit of paper and then (from his point of view) appeared to go down the wharf into a box—the ferry boat—and so proceeded to the city. To him the whole proceeding seemed a kind of unintelligible game, and a bit dull, because human beings seemed never to vary it. He and his less patient friends might have played such a game for a little while now and then, but to go on constantly repeating it seemed to him ridiculous; and he wondered why these humans did not float over to the city through air, or run along the surface of the water by way of varying the game. He had got so far in the study of the matter as to realize that the coins were the key to the situation in some mysterious fashion; hence his appeal to two or three of us passing by and his childlike delight in exhibiting himself as the possessor of one of the treasured shiny disks.

The reader should realize that our fairy friend was neither human nor animal in consciousness, but was at a curious stage between the two. He had all the characteristics of a terrier—yes, reminding one in actions, though not in shape, of the intensely lively, joyous, impudent, and inquisitive terrier, so desirous of knowing the unknown and enjoying life so hugely. At the same time he possessed a not inconsiderable reasoning faculty and a charming and delicate emotional equipment. The problem before us was to interpret to his consciousness this senseless procedure of buying a ticket and getting on a boat. This in turn involved the explanation of money to him. How was this to be done?

A first attempt was made to convey in terms of feeling the fact that money could buy pleasant things. It was no use endeavoring to explain physical life—eating, drinking, and the like—but it seemed possible to impress the little fellow with the idea that these metal disks in some magic way unlocked enjoyment. Without trying to correct his impression that taking a boat was an obscure sort of a game, we tried to convey to him that money is related to joy. He got at this rather skillfully but curiously, for he possessed himself with the notion that the glitter of the coin was in a way the bottled-up essence of some of the happier things he understood—sunrise, moonlight, and starlight—and also reflections of these and other things in water. He seemed to think that in some way or other the coin was a fragment of these things. Like a terrier with an old boot, he seized upon this idea and got tremendous enjoyment out of it, skipping about and shimmering over it. It proved of no use trying to take this notion away from him.

The next stage was to convey the idea of purchasing the right to travel. For this purpose a boat seemed less likely to enlighten him than something else, and so we trooped up to a milk cart or some such conveyance that happened to be passing by and pointed out that this, like the boat, was a method of getting somewhere. Our fairy friend considered it extremely stupid as a method of conveyance, but he managed to take in the notion that there was somehow fun connected with traveling in this slow vehicle. At any rate there was fun for him in hopping onto it and hopping off again and skipping ahead much more rapidly than the horse, very much as a terrier might skittishly rush about.

When he had achieved this notion, we tried to explain to him that by giving the shiny round object to the man on the cart he would permit human beings to ride. But here we struck an immovable obstruction, for the lot of us were already riding, or making believe to ride, and had paid nothing! Furthermore, our fairy friend exuded the idea that any moment he desired to do anything so stupid as to ride on a cart, he could do it without letting the baker's boy know anything about it! Altogether he thought the whole thing rather idiotic (as perhaps it is), and was inclined to take us all for lunatics. It happened that he popped off the cart just as it turned in the road, and caught sight of the moving wheels, which shone a little in the early sunlight; and he instantly jumped to the not unnatural conclusion that the cart wheels were also some kind of money, for they were round, flat, and shiny, and were connected with the cart and the idea of travel which had been involved in our explanation. He expressed this idea of wonderment and instantly succeeded in reasoning sufficiently to suggest that if the tiny little metal coin was worth so much, the cartwheel in comparison by size ought to be able to purchase for him a whole sunrise! This funny bit of reasoning, though entirely logical, struck us all as being so humorous that we burst out in merriment, whereupon our fair friend, just as any dog might act under a sudden accession of joy, went shooting off into the air down the hillside, coruscating with delight over his adventure, rejoicing in the courage he had exhibited, the unusual nature of his experience, and his supposed triumph in understanding the nature of money.

There was another element in the experience. Just before the adventure of the milkman's cart, we tried to use the idea that sunlight and metallic shine were (to him) related, and we compared the latent force of money to the energy which the fairies sometimes pour out on plants. I remember our friend the sprite going up to a flower and flicking his fingers at it, to show us how he did this. The plant stretched its petals as it unfolded, very much as a cat stretches its legs after a long sleep, enjoying the new liberty. That idea was also part of his conception of the value of shining money.

But altogether, in retrospect, the business seems hopeless, for our fairy lacked completely any understanding of the physical limitations out of which money has grown. I have no doubt that if he remembered the episode for more than a moment, which is of course unlikely, he has conveyed to his fairy friends the most extraordinary conception of human ideas, and made us out to be, as compared with himself and associates, rather stupid and foolish, and interested in the most useless and dull things. And perhaps we are, who knows?

This article first appeared in The Adyar Bulletin, May 15, 1924. The identity of the author is unknown. The most likely candidate is the Theosophical writer and lecturer Fritz Kunz (1888–1972), whose wife, Dora, was known for her highly developed clairvoyant powers and her ability to communicate with nature spirits.