Living with the Wisdom Teachings – correspondence part 5: about Tolkien and Roerich
The correspondence with my young Indian friend went on touching numerous topics in an aphoristic way and much of it not “blogable”. In this and next blog-posts I’m picking out some strands of thoughts extended over a number of e-mails. This post is again illustrated by 2 photos from the excursion to the Creux du Van near Neuchâtel – not related to the content – showing groups of beech trees standing closely together like families and looking like one tree. Later some paintings by Nicholas Roerich.
When seeing the pics, my friend replied, “The beech trees from the second pic remind me of Lord of The Rings. Have you watched it? It’s an absolute must watch.”
My answer: “Lord of the Rings touched me very much – when it appeared in German (English books were not much around where I grew up) mid70s I took an off from university and kept reading the 3 books over 3 days. A little later a first, qualitatively poor movie in graphic / comic style presentation appeared – it didn’t give the ambiance. I later read all Tolkien books I could get, and then, end of 90s, the fantastic movie trilogy appeared – I went to see them in cinema with my then young sons, who also were thrilled. During my last flight to India I saw a new movie about Tolkien’s life – interesting.
There is lot of subtle occult knowledge in it. We also all were fans (except my youngest son who did only “read” mangas and then books on html, with 13, starting building websites) of Harry Potter, all books, audio-versions and films. Also much occult wisdom in them. Master EK mentioned that in teh future, wisdom would be given out via new means. – I can comment later on it. “
My friend was doing a transcription of a talk of Sri Kumar in which the word “supermundane” appeared. The following exchange developed:
“In the text the book “Supermundane” by Master Morya is mentioned, it was given out by Helena Roerich, the wife of Nicholas Roerich. In case you don’t know yet Nicholas and Helena Roerich – they are (were) great messengers of Hierarchy. A blogpost about Roerich’s paintings. And a nice impression from the book about Helena’s letters.
As per Nicholas and Helena Roerich – Sri Kumar said, he was a Master, she a high degree initiate. Helena Roerich channeled the Agni Yoga teachings from Master Morya, translated into many languages (for some time, I went deeply into them, not so easy because the teachings are dispersed over many volumes and you have to work them out yourself.)
Helena wrote a number of books (like Nicholas), they had a great global correspondence, and she also translated Secret Doctrine into Russian – HPB, though Russian, was trained by Master KH to speak and give it in English – HPB’s English first was poor but she had a very tough training.
Roerich’s came from Russia, fled to Paris at the beginning of the Revolution. In the mid-20s of last century, they did a long expedition to Central Asia, going from and returning to India, they managed to touch Tibet, which was strickly closed for foreigners, they went through Gobi desert with camels, under incredible hardships, to Mongolia, and him doing drawings all the time and then incredible paintings afterwards.
He painted over 6000 works, often big ones, which are in museums and private collections around the world. This is the excellent museum in New York (I once visited it 20 years ago, a very spiritual place) – have a thorough look through the site.
And this site from Estonia gives links to all his art work and much more.
Here a bit about his time in India.
There are also museums in India, and places dedicated to them (they stayed longer in Kullu Valley, not far from Dehradun (where my friend lives). One of their sons, Svetoslav, also was a well-known painter, having lived in Bangalore – though nice paintings but not of the power of his father. Take some time, when you find it, to go through – I’m always astonished to find paintings never seen before.
They had a tremendous artistic and political influence, creating an organisation for preserving cultural heritage in times of wars recognized by most nations and still valid today.
They were horribly defamed – like HPB – and their work nearly destroyed through attacks in the US – and now in Russia, the Roerich Museum in Moscow was recently closed down – though I heard from a friend from Moscow that this was a good step by the government because the heads of the museum were corrupt and non-cooperative – difficult to see behind.
I feel deeply inspired by him, and we named our youngest son Nikolas, because of Nicholas Roerich.”
My friend: “I haven’t heard of the Roerichs before. Thanks a lot for sharing about their work. I’ll check the book out this evening.”
Me: “The paintings of Roerich are extraordinary. I know them since 30 years and I’m always touched when I see certains of them – I have a print here behind me, ‘The Star of the Hero’.”
She: “It took me some time to go through the links you sent. I must admit that these paintings are breathtaking, especially King of Shambhala and Guardian of the Desert. I feel like they take me into a different dimension.”
