Today marks the tenth anniversary of my father's passing into the Higher Worlds. I thought all day today what this means to me and how our parents affect us. I thought all day how we grow while our parents are alive and how we grow when they are no longer alive. While we hold their memories in our hearts, something subtle changes inside of us. We grow up in ways we never considered possible.

In November 2000, I wrote a summary of my thoughts about what my father's legacy meant to me. I had to get my arms around it and understand all the various emotions and actions that follows after a father/teacher dies. Since I have been deeply involved with his work and with continuing his work, I needed to understand what he did, what his work meant to me, and how I saw him and how I thought others saw him. I wanted to see how I could continue this work for the future benefit of others.

So here it is, the unabridged and full text of my musings.

I listened to people as they related how when Torkom died they no longer wished to be involved in the groups of the Teaching, so they went away.
How they just wanted to stay to themselves. How they wanted to go on with their lives. I wondered, did they not have a life when Torkom was alive?
“Been there, done that,” they said.
I wondered what really was happening to people’s hearts.
I asked myself, how can such a person’s life and his great accomplishments over a lifetime simply end when his life on earth also ends?
I wondered, there are only a few of us who remember him in person. After we die, what happens? Is that the end of a person’s accomplishments?
I felt sadness and wanted to understand.
After careful thinking, I started understanding that all Great Ones attract all kinds of people around them. That cannot be helped. People go to Teachers for so many reasons. It makes them feel pious; it makes them feel protected; it makes them feel they are important; it makes them feel they are deeply spiritual and appreciative of such greatness.
But what happens when the Teacher dies and all the pious ones disappear? Or worse, when the Teacher is maligned and the Teaching distorted? What happens then?
What is kept alive after the Teacher dies?
How then can we keep his legacy alive? What is truly his legacy?
What did Torkom bring to this era, and to the world that will last longer than one lifetime?
Each of us who had a personal contact with him saw only one side of him. We all have memories and stories to share. We all have anecdotes that make us happy.
But, who and what was this man?
We mostly see a public figure through our own prism. Each person sees one part of such a person. Everything we see can be right, or it can be a distortion; or it can be what we wanted to see.
Our relations to a great server is usually based on our own wishful thinking and our own personal needs. We usually do not say so, but internally we are saying: “What can I get out of this, how can I be protected, how can I be guaranteed that I can build grace for my life hereafter?”
We often judge a person from our own personal perspective of what we are most in need of at that time. It is neediness that attracts us to the Light, and it is sometimes neediness that keeps us there.
Our personal memories are really fine, they make us feel good, warm, and fuzzy. But, is there a better way to relate to such a person as our Father, Teacher, and Friend?
If we see him from a needy and personal standpoint, we will only see a reflection of our needs, our identities, our wishes and dreams. We will see our hopes. We will see what we want to become.
Sometimes, we will see an impossible achievement and feel frustrated, angry. We say: “How can this kind of accomplishment happen? Oh, he is just lucky, he has good karma, his parents must have been geniuses. We are not so lucky.”
Oddly enough, we may even feel jealousy, envy, and sadness at our lack and shortcomings. We will search to see a person with human frailties and familiar personal defects and reduce the person only to those.
But, is this the way to define Torkom?
Our responsibility is to see the man the way he saw himself. Can we do this? Do we have clues to his truth in his work and life?
In all his communications, if we look carefully, we will see the roadmap that he laid out for us so we can discover who he really was and is. In discovering his truth, we may even discover ours.

He said he was human.
He said don’t follow the teacher but the Teaching.
He said he had faults.
He said he saw his faults more often that we did, and often saw them only when his faults had already hurt others.
He also said he loved us all. He said, love one another.
He said he wanted to sacrifice himself totally to serve the Principles of the Teaching.
He said he wanted to sacrifice himself to the Glory of Hierarchy and Christ.
He told us how he tried and always tried no matter what.
He told us how he continuously strived to better himself, from the way he answered telephones and wrote letters to the way he asked questions to Christ.
He asked all the hard questions about himself, his relations to the Teaching, and his relations to humanity; questions that few dare to ask let alone listen when the answers were given.
He asked Christ, He asked Buddha, He asked Hiawatha.
And turning to his own Soul, he saw the answers.
He listened to the bitter pills of the answers from his Soul and he changed his course accordingly, every day of his life.
He said, “Follow the Teaching, the Teaching is perfect, it is given by Great Ones.
“Do not follow the teacher, I am just a humble sergeant, doing the work of the Lord.”

Yet, we heard all these words, and still we smiled at him, nodding our heads, and still continued to go to him, to take from him. We went to him only if he would give what we wanted. We defined the man in our own image. We wanted to fill our hunger by taking, not by giving.
“What shall I eat?
“What oils shall I use?
“How do I speak with my spouse, my child?
“Can I name my dog Shamballa?
“Will you pray for my dog Torkom?
“Will you hold me in your heart Torkom when I am in labor for my child?
“Will you pray for me Torkom?
“Will you protect me Torkom?

When he died, we felt hurt.
His life became personal. How can he leave us?
We fought and we went away;
We felt betrayed,
We felt abandoned,
So we fell silent.

Were we mourning for the loss of a Teacher?

Or, were we mourning for the loss of someone who fed us?
Someone who brightened our days?
Someone who made us feel full and forget the emptiness inside,
Someone who directed us,
Protected us,
Made us feel important,
Someone who gave us all his time?

We took,
We did not give.
We still want to take,
We still do not know that we need to give.

When he died, we felt abandoned.

Who will direct us?
Who will feed us?
Who will teach us?
There are no other teachers,
We do not accept others.
Who will answer our intelligent questions?

“Ask your Solar Angel” he said,
“My Solar Angel? I thought that was you” we thought.

“No, do not keep asking me
“Do not keep wanting to take
“Ask instead, ‘What can I give to you Lord?’”

Father, Teacher, Friend, Mentor,
You showed us by example
that we can only
Understand the Teaching when we give.
If we expect to take, when the Teacher dies, we also die.

This is how people leave the Teaching.
Because they were never there to give, but to take from the Teacher.
To fill their forever empty lives

The Legacy of Torkom was one of giving,
Not one of fulfilling our own personal wishes;
Not in remembering anecdotes,
Although anecdotes are entertaining.
The Teaching was not for him “fun”,
It was Life.

If we want to continue his true Legacy, what can we do?

We can give to the Teaching everything that we can give.
We listen to the Teacher.
We live the Teaching.
We honor the memory of the Teacher by keeping the Truth alive.
We leave no stone unturned to discover the Truth.
We do not accept lies,
Hypocrisy,
Manipulations,
Nor Torkom sightings
No matter from where they come.

Remember the Teaching he said, follow the Teaching, not the teacher.

In keeping anecdotes alive, we do not honor the Teacher, we dishonor him. He was not our anecdote. He was much, much, more.

He said: “ I am a man of the Teaching
If you are not in the Teaching heart and soul, you are not with me.”

By putting the Teaching first in our lives;
By organizing our life around the Teaching not vice versa;
By giving our hearts to spread the Teaching;
By doing everything to complete his labor;
By comprehending that it is only in giving that we receive;
It is only in sacrificing that we are truly alive,
This is how we honor our Teacher.

Our Father, Teacher, Mentor, Friend, was not a bag of anecdotes,
Designed to entertain and feed us.
He was a tremendous warrior,
Who battled daily on all visible and invisible planes;
Who filled the space with his songs;
Who filled all hearts with his joys and invincible spirit;
Who filled evil hearts with terror;
Who fulfilled his mission on Earth;
Who honored his Teacher and Mentor;
Who taught us lessons that we did not hear;
Who loved us despite the fact that we did not give, did not see.
Who gave us everything despite the fact that we did not take.
Who forgave us despite the fact that we thought he was entertaining us.

Let us keep Torkom’s Legacy alive,
By completing his work, not by fulfilling our desires.
Let us see who he really is and was.
Let us read his joys, his sorrows, his life, and dance to his songs.
Let us together give to keep the flame alive.
Let us do our best,
So that when we die
And the anecdotes die,
The Teacher and the Teaching can live forever in the hearts of the young.

I no longer want to remember anecdotes, although his smile and his eyes are forever etched in my heart.

I do not want to reduce such a life to a few funny moments.
I want to complete his work,
And I ask all of you to help me and support this effort,
Step up your service a little more,
Make more sacrifices,
Give all that you can,
So that we can truly say we are men and women of the Teaching,
And be rightfully with our Teacher, because we listened to him.