After Rudolf Schneider welcomed the participants and opened the General Assembly, then presented the excuses of our President, Sally Curry, who was unable to participate in the Assembly. She is now back to Canada. The participants then presented themselves.
Maria Cristina Amaral is IPS representative in Brazil, and met Rudolf and the IPS about 10 years ago through Brigitte Beretta in Milano, who headed at the time the International Childrens Peace Council.
Alice Boainain-Schneider, Brazilian, is a translator and has been working as secretary of the IPS since 1983.
Ursula Barter met Rudolf through her work at the UN, in particular in the CoNGO Committee on Ageing.
Claudette Falatakis-Mller has been in the IPS Executive Committee almost from the beginning, although she does not always agree with some of the Tibetans statements, including his statement about nuclear energy. This sparked a discussion among the participants. Most agree that the nuclear energy meant by the Tibetan is probably not the nuclear fission technology humanity developed since, but rather nuclear fusion or other cold fission technologies; Christian Post remarked that the nuclear bomb helped end the war, so in that sense it was not entirely negative. Claudette is also a member of the International Society of Friends of Nikos Kazantzakis (http://amis-kazantzaki.blogspot.com), a Greek author she recommends for the inner joy that inspires all his books. She provides a monthly contribution to the IPS Congo, for many years already.
Annie-France Gaidier is a member of Institut Alcor, in France, and met the IPS thanks to the cooperation between the two groups. Institut Alcor (institut-alcor.org) is a centre of research and teaching the laws of the soul, in Switzerland and France, and experiencing group life.
Roswita Grass works with NGOs in Geneva, and brings everywhere she goes the message that the Maitreya is among us for 35 years already, as announced in the writings of Benjamin Creme.
Shahida Mohamed met the IPS through Rudolf a few years ago, and is one of the founders of Propulse, a company with three main fields of activity: web strategy, organisational and human resources development, and humanitarian services (www.propulse-guide.com)
Christian Post is one of the founding members of Institut Alcor, and has been in touch with the IPS for the past 20 years or so.
Lida Shkorkina is IPS representative in Russia and head of the Association for World Education in Russia (rawe.ru). She helped organise many conferences and seminars with the IPS in the 1990s, and with Vitaly Yegorov translated and helped to publish many IPS publications and the books of Dr. E. Krishnamacharya. She stated that Rudolf Schneider broke down the borders when he came to the then Soviet Union, and brought her in contact with people outside the country with similar concerns in the field of education.
Vita de Waal met Rudolf Schneider when he was still secretary of the German section of the Arcane School and World Goodwill, was one of the founding members of the World Teacher Trust in Geneva, the Foundation for Gaia, the CoNGO Committee on the Environment, and heads the CoNGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns, of which the IPS is also a member.
After the participants had introduced themselves, we did the Taurus Full Moon meditation, using the meditation form given by the Arcane School, and the seed-thought given by Dr. E. Krishnamacharya in his book, Full Moon Meditations, for the month of Taurus.
Rudolf Schneider then reported on the development of the IPS over the past 30 years. A more detailed report is available separately, but the main lines of his report are below.
It started in 1981 with just nine members, people who were convinced that not only vertical work (meditation) was necessary, but also horizontal work (networking), using the tool of the 10 seed-group structure, as given by Master Djwhal Khul in the books of Alice A. Bailey. Most were Arcane School students.
A meeting with Dr. E. Krishnamacharya then followed, and a close cooperation over the next 3 years, during which the IPS co-ordinated the organisation of this programme in various European countries, until 1984, when he passed over. During the same period, four international teachers conferences were held in Geneva to develop the plans for a new University for Planetary Synthesis based on the 10 seed-groups.
This cooperation continues until today with Dr. Krishnamacharyas son, Dr. Anantakrishna. It gives us a bridge to the Eastern perspective on the teachings. This connection with India, with the teachings given by Krishnamacharya, is in part the spiritual essence and the heart of the Institute. We are now only one of the many groups working together with Dr. Anantakrishna, we are no longer responsible for the organisation of his programme in Europe, but we continue to welcome him in Geneva and over the years have helped building a bridge for him towards Eastern Europe. Some of our co-workers are also active in helping to translate Dr. Krishnamacharyas books into French.
Besides the organisation of conferences, the IPS has developed a series of publications on the 10 seed-groups and the spiritual sciences, the tasks of the nations, etc. Many of these publications are today available in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Polish and Portuguese. One of our working principles is never to use publicity, people learn about us only by word of mouth and, today, over the internet. Information is now available in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian and Polish in the website of the Institute.
In recent years, we have increased our involvement in the work of the United Nations. Our representatives have participated in sessions of the Human Rights Council, and in NGO working groups, such as the working group on Human Rights Education and Learning, the group on Freedom of Religion and Belief, the Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns, the Health Forum, the Committee on the Status of Women, etc. During these meetings, our focus is to recall spiritual principles, and for that purpose, we have published leaflets for distribution during UN meetings, on The Golden Rule, The Right to Know the Truth. We also participate regularly in the meetings of the meditation group for peace of the UN Staff.
Rudolf Schneider has also been invited to participate in conferences in many parts of the world, sometimes as keynote speaker. A close cooperation has developed, in particular, with groups in Bolivia and in the Ukraine. In Bolivia, we have been invited by groups in Cochabamba, La Paz, Sucre, and Santa Cruz; in the Ukraine, by the Ankh Cultural Foundation in Kiev, groups in Zaporozhye and Odessa; and in Turkey, the Universal Brotherhood Union.
The development of the internet radically changed our way of working. Today, most of our exchange of correspondence is done by e-mail, and printing of books and booklets has almost stopped, since we can now make available most of our publications in electronic form.
In short, our work is to stand and continue to irradiate positive thoughts and energy in a world that is going through a crisis of orientation. Self-interest and materialistic values are today promoted worldwide, and our part is to continue to promote selflessness, harmlessness and right speech as a way of life. We use the guidance and tools given by the Spiritual Hierarchy of the planet.
After a break for lunch, Alice Schneider presented the financial report for the past 3 years. Brigitta Andermatt has retired as our auditor and since 2009, Bruno and Beatrice Gsteiger have thoroughly checked all our accounts , so that every year we could present totally orderly and transparent accounts to the fiscal authorities. We have now an annual budget of about CHF5,000. This reduction of our annual budget is due to several factors: the Institute no longer pays any rent, since its office is housed in the home of Rudolf and Alice Schneider, mailing and printing costs have been drastically reduced, since most of our correspondence is done via e-mail; telephone costs have also gone down over the years; and we have no remunerated staff, the entire work is done by volunteers and financed by donations in money and in kind.
Elections followed. The executive committee was re-elected for the next 3 years, with one change. Vita de Waal has withdrawn from the post of Vice-President, and Claudette Falatakis-Mller replaces her in this post.
Some members of the Consultative Committee were not re-elected, since we have not heard from them in many years, and in some cases we do not even have their addresses anymore. Three new members were elected, from the Institut Alcor in Paris. We had not heard from Michael Robbins before the meeting, but both Vita de Waal and Maria Cristina Amaral said they would contact him, and indeed, he has written to us just the week after, to reaffirm his cooperation with the IPS, although the other two members of the University of the Seven Rays who were members of the Consultative Committee, Mary-Ann Casalino and Aggie Lim, no longer work with the University of the Seven Rays.
The new Consultative Committee for the period 2011-2014 has now 17 members.
* * *
To conclude our meeting, we projected a slide-show on the ten seed-groups, and had an exchange of ideas on the subject for about two hours. One of our projects is to make the studies on the 10 seed-groups available in electronic form. For the moment, they exist in electronic form only in Portuguese. Vita de Waal suggested that each could type one of the studies.
The gathering finished with a short silent meditation in gratitude for the spiritual guidance.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE AND BOARD OF ADVISORS
MEMBERS ELECTED AT THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ON 15 MAY 2011
Executive Committee 2011-2014
President: Sally CURRY
Vice-President: Claudette FALATAKIS-MLLER
Secretary-General: Rudolf SCHNEIDER
First
Secretary and Treasurer: Alice
BOAINAIN-SCHNEIDER
First
Assessor: Jeannine HAEFELI-SCHERZ
Second
Assessor: Elisabeth RLLI-WALLER
Consultative Committee 2011-2014
AMARAL Maria Cristina, Unidade de Servio para Educao Integral, Resende, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
ANDRIEVSKA Natalia, Ankh Cultural Foundation, Kiev, Ukraine
EKKIRALA Anantakrishna, Master E.K. Spiritual and Service
Mission, Andhra Pradesh, India
GAIDIER Annie-France, Institut Alcor,
France
KURNOSSOW
Yuri, IPS-Moscow, Russia
MANANGA
MASUNDA Albert, IPS-CONGO
POST Christian, Institut Alcor France
POST Corinne, Institut Alcor, France
REMUS
Marion, Centro de Luz Sol, Santa
Cruz, Bolivia
RIBAS
Sandra, San Jos, Costa Rica
ROBBINS Michael, University of the Seven
Rays, Seven Rays Institute, USA
SCHNEIDER
Richard, University of Global
Education, USA
SHKORKINA Lida, Association for World Education, ZHUKOVSKY, Moscow
Region, Russia
SUBOTINOV Viktor, Odessa, Ukraine
ULATOWSKA Lisinka, All-Win Network, BUSSUM, Netherlands
VIDMAR Vida, Fazenda Vida, Comandatuba,
UNA, Bahia, Brazil
YEGOROV Vitaly, Zhukovsky, Moscow Region, Russia
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