In observance of the 77th birth anniversary of Sri Raghavan Iyer,
Teacher of the 7th Impulsion

from Dr. James E. Tepfer's Introduction to The Dawning of Wisdom, by Raghavan Iyer:

__Shri Raghavan Iyer, the transmitter of these marvelous and mysterious teachings, was himself a man of immense magnanimity and unparalleled spiritual genius. Born in Madras, India in 1930, he matriculated at the University of Bombay at the precocious age of fourteen and received his bachelor’s degree in economics at age eighteen. Two years later he was selected as the Rhodes Scholar from India. While studying at Oxford University, he actively participated in a variety of august and intellectually engaging societies: the Oxford University Peace Association, the Voltaire Society, the Socratic Society, and the Buddhist Society. He was also the founder of the Plotinus Society and was elected President of the Oxford Union in his final undergraduate year. At age twenty-four he earned first-class honors in Philosophy, Politics and Economics and later was awarded his doctorate in Philosophy.

__He was an outstanding teacher of philosophy and politics throughout his public life. He assumed the mantle of teaching at the age of eighteen when he was appointed Fellow and Lecturer at Elphinstone College, University of Bombay. After completing his bachelor degree at Oxford, he was selected at age twenty-six to be an Oxford don (or tutor) in philosophy and politics. In addition to his tutorials at Oxford, he lectured throughout Europe and also in Africa. His profound insights, sparkling intellectual clarity, mastery of different conceptual languages, and his infectious enthusiasm inspired thousands of students and earned the deep respect of eminent thinkers and professors as diverse as Isaiah Berlin, James Joll, and Houston Smith. After accepting a professorship at the University of California (Santa Barbara) in 1965, he taught classes and seminars in political philosophy until his retirement at the age of fifty-six. His introductory classes and graduate seminars were legendary for their philosophical depth, theoretical openness, and visionary richness. They were full of wit as well as wisdom, and they unfailingly inspired students with an abiding confidence in themselves as learners and as viable contributors to the emerging City of Man. His formal lectures as well as innumerable informal gatherings affected generations of students who later inhabited diverse fields of work, worship, and humanitarian service.

__In addition to his vast and varied gifts as a teacher, Shri Raghavan Iyer was an eminent international author. His most prominent writings were The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi and Parapolitics – Toward the City of Man. Written in lucid and impeccable English, each of these remarkable works is accessible to both the profound thinker and the beginning inquirer, the erudite scholar and the dedicated student, the earnest seeker and the committed practitioner. He also edited an extraordinary collection of inspirational readings entitled The Jewel in the Lotus, aptly characterized by Professor K. Swaminathan as “a universal bible”. In addition, he edited and wrote the introductions for numerous sacred texts, including Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Jewish, Christian, and Sufi teachings.
__Shri Raghavan Iyer became a Theosophist at age ten when his father first took him to the United Lodge of Theosophists in Bombay. There he encountered the profound writings of H.P. Blavatsky – the founder and teacher of the modern Theosophical Movement. Soon after entering the orbit of the Theosophical Movement, he made a sacred resolve to serve the Lodge of Mahatmas and increasingly assumed responsibility for forwarding the impulse of the world-wide Theosophical Cause of promoting universal brotherhood.

__As repeatedly witnessed by close students, Shri Raghavan Iyer spoke at many different levels and freely interacted with each and all – regardless of race, creed, or condition. He exemplified – for the sake of the future – a multitude of Aquarian modalities and qualities. He was, in one sense, very Hindu: a true Brahmin – spiritual, cultured, brilliant, full of the graces that immediately remind one of ancient India and of golden ages long past. He was also very English: confident, highly educated, extremely literate and at ease with statesmen, scientists, educators, and royalty. He was also very American: a true and fearless rebel, innovative, resourceful, visionary, and the eternal friend of the common man. Beyond all this, he was in a much deeper sense the Universal Man, original, sui generis, and timeless. His sympathies were always compassionately inclusive and his repeated emphasis – from first to last – was to “draw the larger circle” in thought and in act.

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THE FLUTE OF KRISHNA - II

__Tragically, most men do not grasp the universal significance of the benediction of Krishna and mistake the great magnanimity of the cosmos for an endorsement of their personal misconceptions and partial insights. But even they are provided for. Those who worship the lesser gods choose terrestrial things. They chase after shadows. They pursue secondary emanations. Some worship money, which comes from the elementals who preside over money, compounded out of the thought-elementals of all human beings focused upon the precious metals. They obtain what they crave. Some extol the pleasures of the body and think they seek Venus Aphrodite. They cling to secondary emanations, evanescent pleasures, for the sake of forgetfulness and momentary extinction. They also secure the object of their quest. Some woo the promiscuous goddess of fame, who courts different men and women on diverse occasions. They gain their object one way or the other, if not in this life, then in some future incarnation. Everyone in the progress of time receives such objects of imperfect devotion.

__Some are truly fortunate, under karma, to be prevented from securing the objects of their devotion in this life because in previous lives they took a decision that they do not want them again, however tempting they appeared. What comes to the personality as a setback is a bonus from the past, a current from the Higher Self which protects. Thereby they are saved from endless repetitions and compulsive re-enactments of the mistakes of previous lives.

__There are also those who, with simplicity, propitiate by means of mantrams, chanting in the streets. They do not know what they really want. At some level they love Krishna. At another level, they wish to reach out to other human beings. Though all of this is sincerely meant, they often mistake the chanting, the dining together, and various monastic practices for some kind of short cut to Krishna. This mistake is only possible if one does not study the Bhagavad Gita. Alas, there are also teachers who are very earnest but who, because of their own limitations, underestimate other human beings and say that there can be a substitute for dhyana, meditation upon the living words of Krishna. There is none.

__No man can fully comprehend the Bhagavad Gita the first time he reads it, nor indeed, even if he reads it every day for the whole of his life. There are Hindus who merely take one stanza and chant it endlessly. This helps, though it cannot substitute for a study of all eighteen chapters. People often turn to the Gita only in times of distress. They get solace, but it is transitory. There are others who learn the whole of the Bhagavad Gita by heart in Sanskrit and intone it repeatedly. This may help as well, depending upon their state of consciousness. If they are thinking only of themselves, they have thereby blocked the inner channel to the divine flame concealed within and they cannot light the lamp of the heart. They cannot erect the throne upon which alone Krishna can preside with regal glory. There are still others who invoke Krishna at festivals, for the sake of getting a child, or for the sake of the means of livelihood that will enable the family to go through another year in times of trouble. There are those who invoke Krishna for the sake of consecrating the simple little book children use in learning the alphabet. There are those who at certain times of the year exchange gifts for the sake of bringing a little joy into the hearts of each other. Innumerable are the ways in which human beings seek to become worthy of a relationship with Krishna, the Divine Lover, the eternal darling of every gopi, the supreme guardian of each devotee.

__During the sad prelude to the Mahabharata war, every effort had been made by Krishna, by myriad devices, to avoid a carnage that became increasingly inevitable. This was due to the demonic will of one man – Duryodhana – and the weaknesses, compromises and corruptions of other men, coupled with the fear of taking decisions which could avoid what many knew would be a catastrophe. When all attempts failed, Krishna made a speech in the court of the blind King Dhritarashtra, father of all the sons who were now going to be arrayed on two sides in the arena of confrontation. Krishna was known as a child as a prankster and as a young man as a flute player who charmed the milkmaids. In his manhood he was first involved in the slaying of demons, but also advised the court of King Dhritarashtra. At the critical point, he came to the king and said, in one of the greatest speeches in the Mahabharata, "For the sake of a village, an individual may have to be sacrificed; for the sake of a nation, a village; for the sake of the world, a nation; for the sake of the universe, a world." The whole must prevail, not the part. Then he appealed to the king to avoid the horrors of war. He said, "Bind that man." For the sake of the demonic will, the insatiable insecurity, the endless egotism of one man who was sick, so many people could not suffer. It became clear to the whole court that this was not idle talk, but the king himself was too weak, too exhausted, to be able to take such a painful decision at that moment. A definite choice would have been impossible for him, given his habit of shilly-shallying.

__Krishna, knowing that the battle was unavoidable, went to Duryodhana and asked him to choose between himself and his finely trained warriors. Duryodhana scowled and said, "I can use all these people, but what can I do with you, one person? What can you do that is crucial?" So he chose the armies. Krishna went to each and every person and said, "You can have one gift, but only one. Choose what you want and you shall have it." And, of course, many only chose some paltry and ephemeral object of sense-desire from the great marketplace of the world. Arjuna alone was left with the option of either choosing or not choosing, accepting or not accepting, Krishna as his sole companion.

__Arjuna chose Krishna as his charioteer without really knowing why. Hence the questions raised by him in the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna was so filled with doubt that he simply could not understand the implications of his choice or the meaning of the war until, in the ninth chapter, Krishna addressed him, saying, "Unto thee who findeth no fault, I shall now make known this most mysterious wisdom." Krishna then gave to Arjuna a vision of the universal mystery because Arjuna had become unconditional in his devotion. Krishna does not do this for everyone, but because he excludes none and loves each and all, he can give each one something. Therefore, we are told, "Those who devote themselves to the gods go to the gods; the worshippers of the pitris go to the pitris; those who worship the evil spirits go to them, and my worshippers come to me." He says of those who worship him silently and secretly, as the Self of all creatures and manifested in any form and no form, as well as in the form of their chosen precepts, that they, "knowing me to be the Adhibhuta, the Adhidaivata and the Adhiyajna, know me also at the time of death."

__So inexhaustible is the joy of the Gita, that any person, even late in life or after many tragic failures along the path, may turn to it and hear the regenerating rhythms and authentic accents of universal Wisdom. Even if a person were to see that his whole life was meaningless and without importance to a single living being, still, in making his obeisance to Krishna, he will find that he is not excluded from the boundless generosity of the Logos. Divine men, like Krishna and Buddha, and those of their tribe – the race of deathless kings, perfected beings, immortals from the Isle of the Blessed who move among men in many disguises – can help each and every man according to the manner of his devotion. "In whatever way," says Krishna, "men worship me, in that way shall I assist them." The flute of Krishna sings of unconditional love and infallible help. The limits are only set by those who ask in relation to what they are ready to receive. This is the priceless teaching, replete with boundless joy and timeless relevance for every honest and humble seeker, for each blessed devotee.