Subject: ABOUT EVENTS IN INDIA
Dear Members of the National Trust, Dear Members of the CCI
Dear Members of the ISPS and Vashi Boards,
CC The National Coordinators
In 2013 several matters concerning events in India were brought to the attention of the CC. At the beginning of the year, parents of children at the ISPS School in Dharamsala approached the CC and shared their heartfelt concern about the situation in ISPS; consequently the CC advised the World Foundation to conduct an independent evaluation to restore confidence in the situation. The WF agreed but the ISPS Board did not. Rather a group affiliated to the Board mandated its own exercise whose conclusions were not circulated. This of course does not promote transparency and trust.
The fact we are a spiritual community does not imply we wish management to operate in secrecy. We know the school was questioned by outside powers in the past and we rallied to defend it but the Board should help us to be in a position to do so.
More recently a number of people suggested a mediation of the CC in the conflict affecting Vashi. The CC of course deeply shares the concern expressed about events in Vashi, especially since some of its members had been trying for quite some time to request both parties involved (VHC and the trustees) to chose the path of reconciliation. It is most unfortunate but tensions between the two parties have indeed been ongoing over the year and we have been recommending that a solution be found before we get to where we now, regrettably, find ourselves.
For a CC mediation in Vashi to bring some results, any help that we would have been willing to offer would have required the prior request and willingness of both parties in order for it to be effective and it would also have called for our own assessment of conditions that could bring about a solution.
Both the fate of our children and the future of the Vashi Center are important to the global sangha. At the same time the truth of the matter is that the CC has no authority to dictate how situations in ISPS or Vashi can be solved without the consent of the respective boards.
With respect to ISPS and in the interest of the institution, the CC chose not to bypass the Board and in both cases, common sense suggests that a solution must be found with the Boards of the respective institutions.
Hence people who focus their mail attacks on Board members may perhaps feel better but they do not focus on a solution.
We remain mindful of the fact that, when HHSM created the Central Committee, She also asked that a Central Committee be created in India. Therefore we consider that a lasting return to auspiciousness and peace in India, our largest national sangha, would require a similar effort at reconciliation between the institutions in India, whose divergences are a relevant context to the difficulties in Vashi.
This is why, we would like to humbly refer to our previous mail, and invite the National Trust, LET and the CC India to find the path of reconciliation by 1) talking to each other, and 2) discussing steps that would help a return to trust between those concerned. With such goodwill being activated, solutions for ISPS, Vashi, or other institutions will be much easier to reach.
We would like to plead with Kalpana didi in the Mumbai LET Board to facilitate such a positive evolution and with Sadhana didi in the ISPS Board to accept the facilitation of a non-partisan renewal of the Board of ISPS, adding members who are respectable and respected by all of us.
If further divisions in the sangha were deepened in the context of family run institutions and along dynastic lines, this would clearly not serve the interest of the sangha or of the family of HH Shri Mataji. It would be so contrary to the teachings of Shri Mataji that this trend must be stopped and this course firmly avoided.
With love and respect, we bow to the collective wisdom of our brothers and sisters in India,
The Members of the Central Committee