The Day of the Spiritual Teachers of Humanity in the Roerichs’ Estate (India)
On March 24, 1920 in London for the first time Helena Roerich met with the Great Spiritual Teacher and the first record was made, which laid the foundation for a new philosophical and ethical Teaching. The Teaching contained a complete system of a new cosmic worldview and was called Living Ethics, or Agni Yoga. Later Roerichs themselves, their associates and followers in different cities and countries annually celebrated this day as one of the most important and significant.
The philosophical ideas of the Teaching of Living Ethics, written down in cooperation with Spiritual Masters of the East, give an idea of the spiritualized cosmos, the magnitude of processes and phenomena occurring in it, not yet studied by science, and cover the problems of evolutionary development of the earthly humanity, affirming culture as its basis.
The Roerichs met with the Great Teachers more than once. These were meetings in Darjeeling, in New York, in Kullu... That is why the Kullu Valley and the estate where the Roerich family lived have such a high energy, and many visitors to the IRMT feel this peculiarity.
On this significant day, it is customary for the Roerich International Memorial Trust to lay floral garlands on the bronze monuments to the Roerichs and decorate the Estate with bright spring flowers as a mark of respect for the memory of the Roerich family and their spiritual teachers. This year, Assistant to Professor Him Chatterjee and students of the Department of Visual Arts, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla took part in the ceremony of laying garlands and planting flowers. The exhibition of young artists was inaugurated at the IRMT Exhibition Hall the previous days.
The Russian and Indian curators of the IRMT told the guests that it was here, in the Estate that Helena Roerich's collaboration with the Great Teachers continued. In her small study on the second floor of the House, Helena worked from early morning until late at night on the books of the Living Ethics, or Agni Yoga, a Teaching closely connected with Indian ancient thought. Even today in the room-verandah there is a chair of the Master, at which intimate conversations were held. There is also a triptych painting by Nicholas Roerich “Fiat Rex”, in the central part of which the artist depicted the shining Image of the Teacher.
“Dear friends,” wrote Nicholas Roerich on March 24, 1939, “on the memorable day of March 24, we will come together in different parts of the world and send our best thoughts to Him who in eternal labor and in eternal beauty composes a happy future. <...> Let us summon all our strength to serve humanity. Let us not stumble over human fallacies, but let us hope that it will be possible to sow throughout the earth those good seeds called goodness. This seed of goodness needs a beautiful frame and therefore, while calling for goodness, let us also serve beauty. Beauty and goodness are the key to joy. Rejoice on the day of March 24!”
