- 1911, Annie Besant, then president of the TS, spirited K and his brother Nitya out of India to London, England, for she couldn't stress more how important an Oxford education would be for the future of the boys. Besant's view was that K should be groomed as a commonwealth figure; and it was K's role to present the most sacred elements of oriental wisdom on an occidental platform, thereby bridging east and west, Hindu and Christian.
Although Annie Besant was brought up as a devout Christian, she began to question the fundamentals of Christian faith along with a growing crowd of ninetenth-century dissenters. She emerged as a leading light in the world of Free Thought, faminism and political radicalism. She was the first woman to make public statements on the issue of contraception, and her work in the area of birth control led to her being tried in 1877 for attempting to currupt the nation's morals.
The central of Theosophical doctrine was especially appealing to Annie Besant that, a person's actions in this life affect his or her opportunity for upliftment in the next – a cyclical path of spiritual improvement leading ultimately to Adeptship and nirvana. The corroborated Besant's conviction that evolution was not just a physical progression (along with lines of Darwin), but also a spiritual, and thus social one as well.
As minkind passed through multiple lives to achieve perfection, pain and suffering would evaporate, to be replaced by philadelphian unity. This was human equality, this was freedom from a vengeful God-Figure, this was the modern science of evolution, this was the dignity of man endorsed by natural law.
Back in the summer of 1895, Annie Besant and CWL formed the partnership that would dominate Theosophy until the mid-1930s. On the personal front, she was believed by some to be the lover of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Also between her and K, a respectful lifetime affection was developed, which herself proclaimed to be as old as the hills – order, indeed. Also she was habitually addressed by K and Nitya as "Mother" or "Amma mine".
The Order of Star in the East (OSE) was established by Besant, in the same year of 1911, to gather into one body those who, within and without the Theosophical Society, look for the coming of the world teacher, and would fain share in the glorious privilege of preparing the Way of Lord.
WOA