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Radha Burnier
Articles by Radha Burnier
- Action without End
- Annie Besant: a special kind of person, interview with Radha Burnier in the year of the 150th birth anniversary of Annie Besant
- Answers to some questions about membership of the Theosohical Society
- Challenge of Life, the
- Clear Vision and Sane Living
- Credulity Versus Faith
- Culture and human progress
- Ever Present Reality, the
- Hatred Ceatheth by Love
- H.P.Blavatsky's Signet Ring
- Krishnaji as I Knew Him [about Jiddu Krishnamurti - Katinka]
- Life and Death
- Looking at the world
- Path of Wisdom, the
- Presidential Address to the 1996 Convention of the Theosophical Society, Adyar
- Quiet Depths, the
- Rightness of living
- Shadows and Reality
- Social Values and Spiritual Insight
- Theosophists and Religion
- There is no religion higher than truth
- To Be Forever Young
- Universal Yoga Tradition, the
- Walking Without Crutches
- Way of Self-Knowledge, the
- What is our Aim?
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (March 18th 2010)
Radha Burnier (born 15 November 1923 in Adyar, India) is
president
of the Theosophical Society Adyar since 1980. She was General Secretary
of the Indian Section of the Society between 1960 and 1978.
She is the daughter of Nilakanta Sri Ram who was the fifth President of
the T.S. Adyar as well. She was educated in Theosophical Schools and
was a student in Rukmini Devi Arundale's school of classical Indian
dance (the Kalakshetra Foundation). Later on she went to the Benares
Hindu University from which she obtained a B.A. with distinction and a
M.A. on Sanskrit, standing first in that University. She played a
pivotal role in Jean Renoir's film The River (Le Fleuve).
She joined the Theosophical Society in 1935 and was president of youth
and adult Lodges for several years. She was President of the Madras
Theosophical Federation (1959-63) and librarian and worker at the
Indian Section Headquarters of the TS (1945-51). She has been a member
of the General Council of the TS (Adyar) since 1960, and has been in
its Executive Committee, Finance Committee and Theosophical Publishing
House Council for many years.
She has lectured extensively around the world on a regular basis since 1960 and has been guest speaker at many conventions, congresses and summer schools. She presided over three World Congresses of the Theosophical Society: 1982 in Nairobi, Kenya; 1993 in Brasilia, Brazil, and 2001 in Sydney, Australia. In July 1990 she conducted two well-attended seminars on "Human Regeneration" at the International Theosophical Centre in Naarden, The Netherlands, which included participants from many countries. In one of the sessions, speaking on "Regeneration and the Objects of the T.S.", she said: "Universal brotherhood, the realization of a mind in which there is no prejudice whatsoever, no barrier against anything, is regeneration, because such a consciousness is totally different from the ordinary consciousness."
She is the author of numerous articles in The
Theosophist, of which she has been the editor since 1980, and other
Theosophical journals. She supervised and directed the work of the
Adyar Library and Research Centre since 1954 and is the editor of the
Library's research journals and publications. She also translated
Sanskrit works for publication.
Radha Burnier is the Head of the Krotona Institute of Theosophy in
Ojai, California; The Manor Centre in Sydney and President of the
International Theosophical Centre in Naarden, Holland. She is president
of the Olcott Education Society, The Theosophical Order of Service
(founded by Annie Besant in 1908), the Besant Education Fellowship and
founder of The New Life for India Movement (1968), which promotes right
citizenship, right values and right means among Indians. She is a
former member of "Le Droit Humain" and presently is the Head of the
Eastern Order of International Co-Freemasonry.
She was also a close
associate of Jiddu Krishnamurti and is a Trustee of the Krishnamurti
Foundation India. On 4 November 1980, at her invitation, Krishnamurti
visited Adyar after an absence of 47 years. He walked with her and a
number of residents from the main gate of the compound to the sea-shore
and visited the beach where he was discovered, in 1909, by C. W.
Leadbeater. Two years later, in December 1982, during the Adyar
Centenary Convention of the TS, Krishnamurti planted a pippal [boddhi]
tree at Adyar.
(Source: Biographical data issued by the Secretary's Office, The
Theosophical Society, Adyar, Madras, India, 1973; Krishnamurti - A
Biography by Pupul Jayakar, Harper & Row,1986; The Theosophist,
Adyar Centenary Convention issue, April and May 1983.)
Radha Burnier was married to Raymond Burnier. Raymond Burnier was a gay Swiss photographer whose online work (now) include homoerotic art from
Indian Temples, and
came to India in 1932 with his French homosexual partner Alain
Danielou. Alain Danielou is described on Wikipedia as 'a French
historian, intellectual, musicologist, Indologist, and a noted western
convert to and expert of Shaivite Hinduism'.
The marriage of Radha Burnier with Raymond Burnier did not last long, but she did keep his name, probably in part to escape the Brahmin associations with her maiden name.
Works
- Human
Regeneration: Lectures and Discussions
. Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton 1991; ISBN 81-7059-169-4
- No
Other Path to Go
. Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton 1985; ISBN 0-8356-7578-5
- Way
of Self Knowledge
. Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton 1993; ISBN 81-7059-216-X
- Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton 1985; ISBN 0-8356-7576-9
Contributing author to: Theosophy
and the Theosophical Society
Online honours
On March 5th, 2008 Chennaionline awarded the Golden Lotus Award conferred on Radha Burnier by the at a glittering, but simple function in Chennai on Tuesday. The Award Carries a Golden Lotus, a Citation and a purse. Mrs Akhila Srinivasan, Managing Director in the Five thousand-crore Shriram Group presented this award, the citation and a purse to the eighty-four year young girl of Chennai.