24.03.2023

The Day of the Spiritual Teachers of Humanity in the Roerichs’ Estate in the Himalayas

The festive day on March 24, 2023 in the International Roerich Memorial Trust was traditionally marked by spring flower planting. Colourful primroses, pansies, daisies, carnations and freesias shone in bright colours at the Samadhi of Nicholas Roerich, in front of the Roerich House, next to the sculptures of Svetoslav Roerich and Devika Rani. All the Indian and Russian staff members of the Roerich Trust participated with joy and enthusiasm in the spring festival dedicated to the Great Spiritual Teachers of Humanity. Larisa Surgina, the Russian curator of the IRMT and a co-worker of the International Centre of the Roerichs, spoke to the colleagues and guests of the Estate about the history of the Teacher’s Day.

“I prostrate to the teachers of India. They have brought true creativity, joy of spirit and creative stillness into the chaos of our lives. In a time of dire need, they gave us a call. Calm, persuasive, and wise by knowledge,” Nicholas Roerich wrote in 1917. At that time the Roerich family was still living in Russia, but India was already firmly embedded in their lives. Following the call of India, the Roerichs travelled from Russia to the Scandinavian countries, then to England, America, France – and finally, at the end of 1923, they reached India!

This year we are celebrating the 100th  anniversary of this momentous event. It is significant because it was India that gave the Roerichs the joy of association with the Spiritual Teachers who through the Roerich family passed on to us the knowledge about the structure of the Universe, about the great cosmic laws, about the man as part of the Cosmos and about the New World on whose threshold modern humanity finds itself. This knowledge is contained in the texts of the Living Ethics, or Agni Yoga, the philosophical Teachings recorded by Helena Roerich in cooperation with the Great Teachers, Sages of India.

The first encounter between Helena Roerich and the Spiritual Teachers took place on March 24, 1920, in London. On this significant day, she wrote down the first lines of the Teaching of the Living Ethics. Since then, this day has been celebrated by all followers of the Roerichs and admirers of their work as Teacher’s Day.

In India the Teachers have long been called Great Souls, or Mahatmas. Svetoslav Roerich referred to them as “personalities who have completed the great and regal path of self-liberation” and have risen to a higher step on the path of cosmic evolution. The unique cooperation with the Teachers continued throughout the life of the Roerichs. And all the deeds of the Roerich family, such as the Central Asian Expedition, the creation of the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute, the development of the Roerich Pact and the Banner of Peace, artistic and scientific works, were connected with the Spiritual Teachers of the Humanity and the most important evolutionary tasks which the Teachers set before the Roerichs.

The teaching of the Living Ethics, given by the Teachers, was called by Nicholas Roerich himself as an “energy worldview”. This worldview is the basis of a new cosmic thinking now taking shape on our planet. The fact that the Roerichs, being Russians, received the whole system of the energy worldview in India and from the Indian Teachers, is in itself a fact of great importance. As Lyudmila Shaposhnikova, an outstanding researcher of the Roerichs’ works, wrote, “There is something symbolic in it, as if the Call of Cosmic Evolution itself manifests.”