Theosophical Sundays: Exploring Consciousness
Over five consecutive Sundays, starting Sunday 9th June, we will be joined live via Zoom by five different presenters from across the globe, each taking us on a unique journey in Exploring Consciousness.
Please note Registration is essential to access the Zoom webinar.
To register, click the link below:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rkTKafKGTlG9BQrK-p2ZnA
An email link will be sent to you 24 hours before the presentation is due to start.
Sunday 9th June 7.00pm – Jude Currivan
Our Conscious (R)evolution – Why Here and Why Now
The emergent understanding of a living, loving and unitive Universe that meaningfully exists TO purposefully evolve is revealing, as universal wisdom teachings have maintained, that we are its microcosmic co-creators - with our own sacred mission and evolutionary purpose.
What does this now mean here and now for each and all of us?
Dr Jude Currivan is a cosmologist, planetary healer, futurist and author. She has experienced multidimensional realities since early childhood and worked with the wisdom keepers both incarnate and discarnate of many traditions.
Jude integrates leading edge science, research into consciousness and universal wisdom teachings into a wholistic world-view. This underpins her work aimed at enabling transformational and emergent resolutions to our collective planetary issues, raising awareness and empowering fundamental change and sustainable solutions to global problems.
She holds a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Reading in the UK researching ancient cosmologies and a Masters Degree in Physics from Oxford University specialising in cosmology and quantum physics.
For the last two decades years she has also travelled around the world in service to planetary and collective healing, some of which is described in her books The 8th Chakra, The 13th Step and most recently HOPE – Healing Our People & Earth.
Sunday 16th June 3.00pm – Murray Stentiford
The Crucial Role of Meaning in the World of Consciousness
When Western science began trying to explain things in terms of mechanisms and materials, in the 17th century, it created an enormous imbalance in our world view. It cleaned up a lot superstition, but it left human beings feeling like a bunch of automatons in a meaningless universe. Spirituality and psychic phenomena were dismissed as woo, while religion was forced to rely on faith only, its authority largely undercut by science. People began to believe there was a conflict between them.
So consciousness received less attention than it deserved until quantum physics was forced to accept it, while having little idea what it was. Thankfully, new fields and discoveries have been opening up for it in recent decades, including, grudgingly, psychic phenomena.
But Meaning itself, has still been rather neglected as a study, despite being a vital part of our lives from love stories through to why we go to war.
In this presentation, Murray will unfold our concepts of Meaning from the vast, multi-dimensional viewpoint of Ancient Wisdom and its expression in modern Theosophy. This will include Artificial Intelligence, where popular concepts are naturally rather limited and fearful, and will go on to show how a deeper understanding of Meaning can enrich the tapestry of spiritual thought and our place in the Universe.
Murray Stentiford has long-standing interests in science and spirituality, music and social issues, from a practical involvement in all those fields. He has a Masters degree in Physics and delights in widening paradigms and building bridges between science and spirituality, consciousness and matter, and between religions. He is inspired by the possibilities of Global Consciousness, healing and transformation and has held several roles in the NZ Theosophical Society over the years. He is currently one of its National Speakers.
Sunday 23rd June 3.00pm – Pablo Sender
Scientific Validation of Theosophical Clairvoyance
This presentation examines empirical evidence that corroborates the clairvoyant abilities of prominent Theosophists such as H.P. Blavatsky, C.W. Leadbeater, Geoffrey Hodson, and Dora Kunz. We will explore specific cases where Theosophists accurately described natural phenomena that were inaccessible through the conventional scientific methods of their era. We will also present remarkable instances of collaborative research between some of these Theosophical clairvoyants and scientists across several disciplines. The credible testimony and documented statements from these researchers are evidence of the accuracy and power of Theosophical clairvoyant investigation.
Pablo joined the Theosophical Society in Argentina in 1996, and later stayed at the International TS Headquarters in Adyar, Chennai for two years.
Pablo is a Microbiologist with a PHD in Biological Science. He has been giving lectures and conducting classes, seminars and retreats around the world, both in Spanish and in English.
He currently lives at the Krotona Institute of Theosophy with his wife, Michele, where he continues to work for the TS in America and the Krotona Library.
Sunday 30th June 7.30pm – Dr Edi Bilimoria
Consciousness Came First
As one world, our pressing need is for a renaissance and restitution of what it means to be really human. Is this because of the spiritual vacuum created by the global monopoly of scientific materialism on knowledge associated with the domination of secular values? Are sophisticated financial and commercial schemes, trading deals, and innovative technology the most effective ways of tackling the economic, health, and psychological challenges confronting humanity, notwithstanding the problem of peaceful international co-existence compounded by the looming environmental crisis threatening our planet?
This presentation argues that humanity has undoubtedly derived considerable material benefit from an age dominated by scientific technology, but it has forgotten the Key—the perennial philosophy—which reveals the spiritual origins and the true nature of the universe and of humanity. By pointing to what it means to be truly human, these Volumes place the Key firmly back in the hands of the seeker by disclosing the means to restore humanity to human beings, and revealing, unequivocally, the unfolding and expression of the universal, world-pervading Element through all the Kingdoms of Nature—Consciousness.
Dr. Edi Bilimoria was born in India and educated at the universities of London, Sussex, and Oxford. He presents an unusual blend of experience in the fields of science, arts, and philosophy.
Professionally, Edi is an award-winning engineer and consultant to the petrochemical, oil and gas, transport, and construction industries. He has been Project Manager and Head of Design for major innovative projects such as the Channel Tunnel, London Underground systems, petrochemical plants and offshore installations. He also worked in safety and environmental engineering for several Royal Navy projects, including the Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carrier and the fleet of Offshore Patrol Vessels.
A student of the perennial philosophy for over half a century, Edi has given courses and lectured extensively in the UK, and internationally. He has organized and chaired conferences with the object of encouraging discourse on the different, but overlapping, roles of science, religion, and practical philosophy. Edi has published extensively in the fields of science, engineering, and the esoteric philosophy. "Unfolding Consciousness" has received recognition with the 2022 Grand Prize Award from the Scientific and Medical Network. Edi's earlier work, "The Snake and the Rope" also an award winner, can be found here.
Sunday 7th July 11.00am – Ravi Ravindra
Spiritual Search – East and West
In this talk we will explore some of the striking similarities between the Abrahamic Traditions (consisting of Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and the Indian traditions (consisting of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism) and some significant differences. God or the Ultimately Real is not Hindu or Christian, American of Chinese. But we are and we are very deeply influenced by our cultural and religious background even though we may revolt against it and wish to be free of it.
One common lesson of all the teachings is that as long as I remain the way I am, I cannot come to the Truth or God. Therefore, a radical transformation of the whole of my being is called for. This in turn requires more and more freedom from the cultural conditioning I am subjected to. If we can become aware of some major Truth expressed differently, it is easier for us to realize that expression of Truth is not the Truth.
The major difference between the two streams of spirituality arises from the fact that in India there is not a creation myth. Instead, there is an emanation myth. Brahman --the Unknowable Vastness, Endlessness and Eternal -- did not create the world; the world emanated from the substance of Brahman. Therefore, everything that exists has a particle of Brahman in it, and the call to every creature is to find that level within oneself and be united with it. Consequently, there is a strong emphasis on the essential oneness of all. In the Abrahamic traditions for any creature, even at the highest level, to claim to be one with God is a blasphemy. Also, the emphasis is on the uniqueness of each being. This has many consequences even at the level of whether the body of a dead person should be cremated or buried.
Ravi Ravindra was born in India and received his early education there. He later travelled to Canada as a graduate student and has since made Canada his home.
Ravi is now a Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he served for many years as a professor in three Departments: Comparative Religion, Philosophy, and Physics.
He was a Member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla, and the Founding Director of the Threshold Award for Integrative Knowledge. He has been a member of the Board of Judges for the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.
He is a life member of the American Section of the Theosophical Society. He has directed more than a dozen courses in the School of the Wisdom in Adyar, and many courses at Naarden in Holland and Krotona in USA.
He has published several books including The Yoga of the Christ; Wisdom of Patañjali’s Yoga Sutras; Science and the Sacred; The Bhagavad Gita: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life; The Pilgrim Soul: Search for the Sacred Transcending World Religions.