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"And the keys to integration are (1) the science of harmony,
(2) the science of energy flow, and (3) the science of the spoken word.
Master these three, you who would be chelas of Maitreya,
you who would prepare diligently for that expansion of life
that is Cosmic Christ awareness!"—Lord Maitreya, December 14, 1975
"Therefore to you, Keepers of the Flame, I say,
if you do not embrace my sacred heart,
if you do not uphold the high principles of Maitreya's Mystery School,
if you do not set aside prayer time and Holy Spirit time
at some point you will have to admit to yourselves
that you are Keepers of the Flame in name only."
—Jesus Christ, October 8,1995
" . . . the Teachings of the Hierarchy have been entrusted to the Keepers of the Flame.
The keys to the counterrevolution have been given to the children of light."
—Kuthumi, Pearl Vol.19 No. 15
| Welcome to the heart of Maitreya. Welcome to Maitreya’s Mystery School. The Ascended Master whose name means kindness is present with us today. He is here at his Mystery School fulfilling his vow to tutor souls on earth who desire to walk the path of becoming the Bodhisattva. He who wore the mantle of the Lord God in the Lemurian Mystery School called Eden has come in answer to the call of the Divine Mother to save the Lightbearers. As a backdrop to our understanding of the person of Buddha Maitreya in his individualization of the God Flame, I shall continue my presentation of the many faces of Maitreya that emerge out of the East. I have said that Maitreya is unique in Buddhism because he is the only other figure besides Gautama Buddha who is universally accepted in all Buddhist traditions. He holds a prominent place among all of the Bodhisattvas as the one who is destined to be the next Buddha. Because of his future role, Buddhist writings and works of art sometimes portray Maitreya as a Buddha. Unlike other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who are shown sitting in the lotus posture, Maitreya is often represented standing or seated with his legs uncrossed, indicating his readiness to descend to earth. But like other Bodhisattvas, Maitreya is typically clad in princely garments and bedecked with jewels, which symbolize the Bodhisattvas’ spiritual sovereignty as heirs of the Buddha and the rewards they will one day earn when they will have attained Buddhahood. Maitreya is often portrayed wearing a crown with an ornament shaped like a stupa carved in it. A stupa is a dome-shaped mound or tower that serves as a Buddhist shrine; the different components of the stupa are symbolic of the elements of the awakened mind. <1> In the East Maitreya has been immortalized in
huge images chiseled out of rocks on mountainsides and cliff-faces.
For example, in Maulbeck, Ladakh (a district in north India bordering
Tibet), one can see a majestic twenty-four-foot rock carving of
a standing figure of Maitreya. Nicholas Roerich discovered many
of these carvings in his journey throughout Central Asia and wrote
about them in his book Altai-Himalaya. Of Maulbeck he says: In ancient Maulbeck, a gigantic image of the Coming One powerfully stands beside the road. Every traveller must pass by this rock. Two hands reach toward the sky, like the summons of far-off worlds. Two hands reach downward like the benediction of earth. They know that Maitreya is coming. <2> In another image of Maitreya, popular in the
art of China, Japan and Korea, we see him as a Bodhisattva in
a meditative or pensive pose. Art historian Christine Guth writes
of one such famous statue, believed to be of Maitreya, that is
housed at Chuguji, a convent in Japan: Since the events of the teaching career of Prince Ajita, the future Buddha Maitreya, are modeled after those of Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha Sakyamuni [Gautama], it is often impossible, without inscriptions or contextual evidence, to distinguish between images of these two Bodhisattvas. <3> A precious life-size statue of a crowned Buddha, a gift of students of the Buddha and the Mother, has graced our home and altar for many a year. Draped in golden robes trimmed in ruby, he is seated in a lotus posture, hands in the anjali, or namaskara, mudra with palms and fingers together at the level of the chest in the gesture of supplication or reverence. Art connoisseurs who have examined the statue have said that it may be a representation of a Bodhisattva rather than a Buddha because Buddhas are not usually presented with a crown. But I can see in this Buddha at once the sweetness of our beloved Gautama and the kindness of Maitreya, the crowned Bodhisattva become Buddha. We have always thought of this statue as a portrayal of Gautama Buddha, however. And for us the crown is apropos because we acknowledge that Lord Gautama Buddha was crowned Lord of the World on January 1, 1956. In like manner we proclaim Maitreya as the Coming Buddha who has come, as he did assume on the same day the offices of Cosmic Christ and Planetary Buddha vacated by Gautama. So whether you choose to see in this statue the face of Gautama or Maitreya, of Buddha or Bodhisattva smiling through, you may happily find the oneness of the Guru and the Chela.
Kindness, Fearless Compassion and Virya Maitreya exemplifies the Bodhisattva’s virtues of kindness, fearless compassion and virya, or vigor. As you will remember, the name Maitreya is derived from the Sanskrit word maitri, meaning “kindness” or “love.” Some commentators also trace the word maitri to mitra, meaning “friend,” and matr, which means “mother.” Maitri is one of the four brahma-viharas, or sublime states of mind, literally “Brahma-like, godlike or divine abodes.” The other three brahma-viharas are karuna (compassion), mudita (limitless joy) and upeksha (equanimity). Har Dayal, in his compendium on The Bodhisattva
Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature, notes that in Buddhist
writings the quality of maitri is considered to be the opposite
of malice: The diffused rays of maitri can be visualized coming from the heart chakra and from the threefold flame, which is sealed in the Eighth Ray chakra, the secret chamber of the heart. Call to your Holy Christ Self and to your Mighty I AM Presence to send forth powerful needlelike rays of Divine Love and Wisdom that reach all sentient life. True loving-kindness is indeed the perfect balance of Love/Wisdom crowned with Power, expressed as loving care toward the evolutions of God. In the Buddhist text called the Milindapanha
(or Milinda’s Questions), King Milinda asks the learned
monk Nagasena about the quality of maitri, translated here as
“loving-kindness”: “Revered Nagasena, this too was said by the Lord: ‘If the freedom of mind that is loving-kindness is practiced, developed, made much of, made a vehicle, made a basis, persisted in, become familiar with and well established, eleven advantages may be expected: one sleeps in comfort, wakes in comfort, dreams no evil dream, he is dear to human beings, dear to nonhuman beings, devatas guard him, fire, poison and weapons do not affect him, his mind is easily concentrated, the expression of his face is serene, he does his (karmic) time unconfused, and if he penetrates no higher (to arhatship than the attainment of loving-kindness) he reaches the Brahma-world (on deceasing from this life).’ But on the other hand you say: ‘The boy Sama, a dweller in loving-kindness, was roaming about in a forest surrounded by a herd of deer when, on being pierced by a poisoned arrow shot by the king Piliyakkha, he fell down fainting on that very spot.’ . . . [Nagasena replies,] “What was the reason for that? These (advantages resulting from developing loving-kindness), sire, are not a man’s special qualities; these are special qualities due to developing loving-kindness. At the moment when the boy Sama, sire, was lifting up his pitcher of water he was neglectful of the development of loving-kindness. At the moment, sire, when a man is filled with loving-kindness neither fire nor poison nor weapons affect him, and when those who desire his woe approach him they do not see him, they have no chance over him . . . “It is wonderful, revered Nagasena, it is marvellous, revered Nagasena, how the development of loving-kindness is a warding off of all evil.” “The development of loving-kindness, sire, brings all special qualities of skill both for those (desiring) weal and for those (desiring) woe. The development of loving-kindness which is of great advantage should be communicated to all those beings who are bound to consciousness.” <5> Sangharakshita, a Buddhist monk and scholar, explains that in addition to wisdom and compassion the Bodhisattva ideal encompasses the quality of virya. Despite the emphasis on compassion the Bodhisattva is no mere sentimentalist. Nor, for all his tenderness, is he an effeminate weakling. He is the Great Hero, the embodiment not only of wisdom and compassion, but also of virya, or vigour, a word which like the etymologically equivalent ‘virility’ signifies both energy and masculine potency. This aspect of the Bodhisattva’s personality is prominent in the well-known Ahicchatra image of Maitreya, with its powerful torso, massive yet graceful limbs . . . The right hand is raised palm facing outwards and fingers slightly curved in the symbolical gesture of bestowing fearlessness (abhaya-mudra). <6> We learn from these teachings that compassion
and loving-kindness, the bywords of the Bodhisattva, of necessity
embody fearlessness. Saint Germain gave us his definition of fearless
compassion in his April 16, 1988 dictation: "Think upon these words of the Bodhisattva vow: fearless compassion! Ah, what a state of mind to be in perpetually! Fearlessness to give of the fount of one’s being, to extend compassion instead of criticism and backbiting, to give such flood tides of love as to fill in the chinks and cracks of another’s shortcomings. "Fearless compassion means one no longer fears to lose oneself or to loose oneself to become such a grid for the Light to pass through that the Infinite One never ceases to be the Compassionate One through you." <7> "I will tell you what has impelled us to reach beyond our ability, and I speak of all the ascended hosts. It is because we saw a need so great and had such compassion for the one who had that need, and [we] saw that none other stood by to help that one, none other would come if we did not extend the hand. In that moment, beloved, Love itself supplied the intensity, the [sacred] fire whereby we could leap to the rescue, to the side of [one in distress], or enter some course of study [so] that we might become proficient in [the] knowledge that was needed. "This [response], then, this love that could forget itself and leap to save a life, this, beloved, was the opening for the great fire of the Holy Spirit to enter the heart, to dissolve recalcitrance there, to melt the impediments to those twelve petals [of the heart chakra] and their unique vibration, to take from us hardness of heart, physical encrustations, disease, fear, doubt, records of death. All of these could vanish in the ardor of service." <8> Virya is often praised by the Mahayanist writers, and its fundamental importance is indicated in unequivocal terms. Enlightenment depends entirely on virya; where there is virya, there is bodhi. Virya is the chief and paramount cause of all the auspicious principles that are conducive to Enlightenment. It promotes a bodhisattva’s material and spiritual well-being. It is far better to live only for a day with full virya than to vegetate without energy during a hundred years. <9> What qualities must a Bodhisattva possess? In the Teaching of Gotama Buddha and in the Teaching of Bodhisattva Maitreya, given by him to Asanga according to tradition in the fourth century (Mahayana-Sutralankara), the maximum development of energy, courage, patience, constancy of striving, and fearlessness was underlined first of all. Energy is the basis of everything, for it alone contains all possibilities. “Buddhas are eternally in action; immovability is unknown to them; like the eternal motion in space the actions of the Sons of Conquerors manifest themselves in the worlds.” “Mighty, valiant, firm in his step, not rejecting the burden of an achievement for the General Good.” “There are three joys of Bodhisattvas: the joy of giving, the joy of helping, and the joy of eternal perception. Patience always, in all, and everywhere. The Sons of Buddhas, the Sons of Conquerors, Bodhisattvas in their active compassion are Mothers to All-Existence.” <10> In Buddhism, the quality of forgiveness is an
aspect of the paramita known as ksanti, which is translated as”patience,”
“forbearance” or “endurance.” It is recorded
in the Majjhima-Nikaya that Gautama Buddha instructed his monks
to train themselves in this virtue: Har Dayal, in his summary of the perfection of ksanti, says: A bodhisattva knows that the Buddhas are “the ocean of forbearance”; gentle forbearance is their spiritual garment. He cultivates this virtue in its full perfection. He forgives others for all kinds of injury, insult, contumely, abuse and censure. He forgives them everywhere, in secret and in public. He forgives them at all times, in the forenoon, at noon and in the afternoon, by day and by night. He forgives them for what has been done in the past, for what is being done at present and for what will be done in the future . . . He forgives all without exception, his friends, his enemies, and those who are neither.” <12> For those who would espouse the path of the
Bodhisattva, Saint Germain gave a profound teaching on the ritual
of forgiveness and the danger of harboring resentment in his July
4, 1968 address: "In truth, when men understand the ritual
of forgiveness and the ritual of honor, they will understand that
as they reach out from their hearts to enfold one whom they meet
with true and unbiased love, there flows from their hearts to
that one an energy of upliftment that in contacting the receptive
heart is raised exponentially into higher dimensions until,
by the power of the square root, the cosmic cube glows within
that energy and amplifies it by love. This positively charged
energy then returns to the sender, assuring him that the blessings
he will reap for the joy he has released to another will be a
permanent part of his world forever. "For when the essence of forgiveness is released from your heart, not only does it create a passion for freedom in the erring one but it intensifies remorse in his heart, thereby bringing him to the feet of his own divinity. Thus he is able once again to laugh at the wind and the wave and the seasons and the buffetings of life and understand that all is a chastening to unfold his soul’s reality. "Do you see, then, gracious ones, that courtesy as an expression of forgiveness and affection between hearts is a spiritual activity that brings about great soul expansion, which is intended to bring every man from serfdom to a state of lordship where he is the master of his world? "Yet we sometimes look askance, even from our octave, at those individuals who have long been under our tutelage and our radiation who upon receipt of some trivial offense immediately begin to send out a vibration of great resentment against the one who performs this offense against their lifestreams. "Quite frequently there is a mounting of intense reactionary resentment; this creates a great karma for the student of Ascended Master law, who ought to know better. And through the rupture that is thereby created in the emotional body, there is a pressing in from the sinister force of disturbing vibrations that not only flow through the aura and lifestream of the one who has taken offense but also puncture the peace and harmony of the supposed offender. "Do you not see, then, by contrast what a gracious thing the ritual of forgiveness can be? And O how wonderful it would be if our students would truly understand the law of forgiveness! It is a sweet gift from the heart of God and one that people ought to welcome into their worlds so that they may freely give it to others, even as they have freely received it. "Whenever someone does something that is not to your liking, precious ones, this is your great opportunity. This is your opportunity to say, 'I will use God’s energy and love to erase one more blight upon the universe! I will see to it that the blackboard of life becomes a radiant screen of white perfection, and I will put my perfection-patterns into manifestation. For these patterns are from the Father, and I am the Son representing the Father and I must show forth Light and not Darkness.' "Don’t you think it a bit strange, gracious ones, that from time to time people insist upon doing just the opposite? With their mouths they attempt to draw near to God as they speak and prattle of brotherly love; but when the moment of testing comes they are the first ones to rise up and say, “Vengeance is mine!” What a mockery this makes of 'pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father.'<13> "Let us, then, seek not after lust or luster but let us seek after the perfectionment of life. The perfectionment of life lives within you. It is quite natural to draw light from within your heart and send it out into the world. This is the virtue that creates the seamless garment. Do you realize that your tube of light is the seamless garment of the Christ? Do you realize when you call forth from God the perfection of his light-radiance to surround you that you are weaving the seamless garment around yourself? "Precious ones, I want you all to understand tonight that the moment that you have in your thought and feeling world resentment against any individual or any group of individuals on earth, you are immediately sending forth through the qualification of your energy the substance which will create a boomerang that will bring to your doorstep a great deal of unhappiness. "You do not wish to reap the fruit of unhappiness,
do you? Then I am certain you will understand that even if you
do not always feel like forgiving, it is that discretion which
is the better part, in fact the best part, of valor." In his dictation of November 21, 1976, Lord
Maitreya told us how the challenge to embody the virtue of loving-kindness
motivated him on the Path: "I come to initiate the line of Bodhisattvas of the New Age. I come to inquire: Are there any among you who care enough for Terra to live and to love, and to live and to serve until this people held in the hand of God come into the center of the One? " . . . Here I AM and, startling as it may seem, I have always been with you, even in the darkest hours of your aloneness, even in the hour of your rejection of my presence when you have cried out, “Whither shall I flee from thy presence?” For you have known in your soul that although you would ascend into heaven or be in the depths of the underworld, <14> you would find Maitreya Buddha answering the call of Gautama Buddha, of Sanat Kumara. For long ago I took my vow: "I will not leave thee, O my God! "I will not leave thee, O my God! "I will not leave thee, O my God! "I will tend that fire. "I will adore that flame. "And by and by some will aspire to be with me— "To be Maitreya. "And one day I sat, my head in my hand, deep in thought, and Lord Gautama said to me, 'What are you thinking, my Son?' And I said, 'My Father, can we win them with kindness and with love? Will they respond to Love?' And my Father said to me, 'If you hold within your heart, my Son, the full orchestration of Love, 144,000 tones of Love, if you yourself will come to know Love, then, yes, you will win them with Love.' "My heart leaped for joy. My Father had
given to me the challenge to know Love, to be Love, not for the
sake of mere love and loving Love, not for the sake of the mere
bliss of the communion of Love, but for the salvation of souls,
for the reaching out unto my God in humanity." On June 30, 1988, Lord Maitreya encouraged his
chelas to cultivate the quality of loving-kindness: "You say, then, 'But you have not yet appeared to us, Maitreya. How can we be thyself appearing to others?' "Yet I have so many times appeared to you.
"In gratitude for the God Flame that is your threefold flame, serve to set life free. Kindness always comes forth from gratitude. Selfishness emits from the state of the ingrate who receives again and again and demands more and demands more again as though Life and Hierarchy and Mother should supply all wants and needs. "Blessed ones, to forget to be grateful for the gift of the flame of Life means that you can be capable of riding roughshod over another’s tenderest moments and feelings in this insensitivity. "'The Keeper’s Daily Prayer'
is given [to you] by the beloved Nada that you might neglect not
profoundest gratitude [in the] daily memory that you are and shall
be eternally yourself because the flame of Life as divine spark
beats—beats, beloved—and leaps, burns and blazes within
you. All else may fade but the flame burns on, and out of the
flame is [heard] the Call, the Call to the soul" “Come Home to the heart of Maitreya!” <16>
In profound gratitude for the gift of the flame of Life whereby we extend kindness, fearless compassion and virya to all life, let us offer “The Keeper’s Daily Prayer” to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who have carved the Path before us. The Keeper’s Daily Prayer A Flame is Active— I AM a God Flame of radiant Love Pilgrim upon earth, I AM set free right now from all that binds I AM an active Flame! Where I AM, there God is also.
Maitreya’s Role as Buddhist Saviour While Maitreya is accepted by all Buddhists, he does take on a variety of roles in different cultures and religious sects, some of which I told you about in my introduction to Book I. These roles include the guardian and restorer of the Dharma; intercessor and protector; a guru who personally communes with, initiates and teaches his devotees; a messiah who descends when the world is in turmoil; a messenger sent by the Divine Mother to rescue her children; and the Zen Laughing Buddha. Maitreya’s role as an imminent Buddhist saviour originated with certain Chinese Buddhist sects that, contrary to traditional Buddhist sources, believed that his coming was to be in the very near future. Traditional sources have maintained that Maitreya is destined to come as far into the future as 5.67 billion years after Gautama’s parinirvana, when the earth will have already evolved into a utopia. The calculations for this period were based on very lengthy definitions of the cycles of time. But Chinese Buddhist sects in the late third to sixth centuries used radically shorter definitions of these cycles, bringing Maitreya’s coming close to their own lifetime. These sects believed that they were living in a period called mofa, a dark and destructive time similar to the Hindu Kali Yuga that must pass before a new era can begin, and that Maitreya would come to judge the wicked and save the righteous from the evils taking place. Summarizing this belief, Professor E. Zurcher writes that in the final period before Maitreya’s arrival “the world is stricken by famine, epidemics and natural disasters; the government is cruel and corrupt; punishments are heavy and arbitrary.” The Sangha (religious community) is “degenerate, ignorant, and indulging in all kinds of forbidden practices.” Zurcher describes this period of Chinese Armageddon
using sixth-century texts: Then the cosmic conflagration takes place: the whole world is burnt down by an Asura-king [demon-king] holding seven suns in his hands. Even the mountains melt and disappear; the earth has become a scorched plain. At that moment, Maitreya descends, seated in a splendid shrine that floats down from the Tusita heaven . . . When Maitreya descends, the demon-kings with their armies will try to resist him, and they are defeated by a host of myriads of bodhisattvas, riding on supernatural elephants and lions, and armed to the teeth. These sixth-century texts, writes Zurcher, state
“in almost biblical terms” that ‘the father will not know his son, nor will the mother know her daughter.’ The crowds of sinners and of the pious ones seem to be herded into two separate groups; . . . when Maitreya descends he will collect those who are destined to be saved ‘east of the bridge,’ and the sinners ‘west of the bridge.’ The chosen people constitute a small minority . . . Their salvation is the fruit of their religious piety, which [includes]: the confession of the Triple Refuge [the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha]; the Five Rules to be observed by laymen [prohibiting killing, stealing, adultery, lying and intoxication]; fasting, the practice of ‘visualization’, and reciting the Guanshiyin Scripture [the Kuan Yin Scripture]. In addition to these formal precepts and techniques, the practicants are constantly told to devote themselves whole-heartedly to religious works, to repent, and to abstain from desire and evil intentions. They are ordered to ‘change their hearts and change their thoughts,’ to ‘change their former ways and cultivate themselves for the future’; for soon a Lord of Darkness . . . will come, and only those who exert themselves to the utmost can be saved. <17>
The Worship of the Eternal Venerable Mother Maitreya appears again as a messiah in the teachings of the White Lotus sects of Buddhism. The White Lotus religion began in the twelfth century in China and continued as a strong movement until the early nineteenth century. It was the most powerful and long-lived spiritual movement in the history of Chinese Buddhism. In general its adherents were devoted to piety, the restraint of the passions, and vegetarianism. They sought to popularize Buddhism beyond the monastery and wrote scriptures and ritual texts in their own vernacular. Although some White Lotus groups did become involved in violent political activities, such as the overthrow of the Mongolian rule in the fourteenth century, by and large they were sincere and peaceful. By the sixteenth century, these sects focused on a new element of religious belief, the worship of the Eternal Venerable Mother. They believed she would send Maitreya as a messenger and saviour to rescue her children whom she had sent to live on earth. In a study of White Lotus sects and their beliefs, Professor Susan Naquin writes: Believers formed small congregations bound by strands of teacher-to-pupil ties, and met to worship and to read [their] scriptures together. Some, inspired by their patriarch’s predictions that the end of the present cosmic era would be signaled by great catastrophes and by the appearance of a savior sent by the Eternal Mother, rose in rebellion in order to usher in the new world. Although outlawed . . . for their beliefs, deemed incompatible with official orthodoxy and conducive to violent political action, communities of White Lotus adherents survived and grew in subsequent centuries. For those who believed, the White Lotus religion provided a process for salvation that did not necessitate reliance on the temples and priests of either popular religion or the state cult . . . By the early eighteenth century, a variety of different sects (groups of believers linked by the bonds between pupils and teacher) had appeared, some relying on written scriptures and congregational life, others emphasizing the recitation of mantras and individual yogic meditation. Although uprisings were few, government persecution (arrests of sectarians, confiscation of books, destruction of meeting places) slowly intensified . . . At least two thousand books (nearly four hundred different titles) were seized and destroyed by the government between 1720 and 1840 . . . Both congregational and meditational sects nevertheless continued to attract followers. <18>
The White Lotus religion taught that the children of the Eternal Mother were all “Buddhas and immortals” (Sanat Kumara’s 144,000) but that during their sojourn on earth they became caught up in desires and sensual pleasures, forgot their true identity, and became immersed in the (astral) “sea of suffering,” or samsara, <19> with its endless rounds of rebirth. In the scripture called the Precious Dragon-Flower Sutra Examined and Corrected by the Heavenly Spirit Old Buddha we read: “The Eternal Mother sent her children to the Eastern Land to live in the world. Here their heads were surrounded with light, and their bodies were of many colors . . . [But after] they reached the Eastern Land they all became infatuated . . . and [the Mother] commanded [them] to meet together again in the Dragon Flower Assembly.” <20> Author Hue-Tam Ho Tai writes that Maitreya is associated with the Dragon Flower Assembly, Gautama with the Mount Meru Assembly, and Dipankara Buddha with the Lotus Pond Assembly. Each assembly, which is a great gathering of the elect, takes place “immediately following an apocalypse when the survivors gather to receive the new Dharma for the coming age from the appropriate Buddha.” <21> Another scripture states that “the Eternal Mother in the Native Land weeps as she thinks of her children. She has sent many messages and letters [urging them] to return Home, and to stop devoting themselves solely to avarice in the sea of bitterness. [She calls them] to return to the Pure Land, to come back to Mount Ling [the Vulture Peak], [so that] the mother and her children can meet again and sit together on the golden lotus.” <22> Summarizing this theme in White Lotus literature, Susan Naquin writes: The Eternal Mother wanted her children to return to their “primordial native land,” their “original Home . . . ,” the spiritual paradise that mankind had once left and where their Mother still resided . . . It was . . . a splendid and luxurious place, a paradise that incorporated many of the features of the Pure Land, or Western Paradise, of popular Chinese Buddhism . . . Having described this paradise to which the Eternal Mother longed to bring her children, the literature of these sects goes on to explain how the Eternal Mother would, to this end, intervene in human history. She would send down to earth gods and buddhas who would teach a new system of values by means of which men could find salvation and thus “come Home.” Because mankind was “steeped in wickedness” the Eternal Mother had been compelled to make repeated efforts to open this road to salvation. She had first sent down the Lamp-lighting Buddha [Dipankara, an incarnation of Sanat Kumara] to save the world; then she had sent down the Sakyamuni Buddha [Gautama] to try again. Each had been able to save some of her children, but most of mankind remained lost. Therefore, the Eternal Mother had promised that she would send down yet another god to lead men to salvation, the Buddha Maitreya. <23>
The Venerable Mother Sends Maitreya to Teach Her Children Their Sacred Roots and How to Return Home
White Lotus devotees believed that in each of three great periods of history (called kalpas) one of these Buddhas would appear. The three Buddhas would each be responsible for disseminating a certain teaching particular to his age. According to White Lotus teachings, Maitreya is sent by edict of the Venerable Mother to remind her children of their sacred roots and to show them how to return Home. One text says that Maitreya “took forty-eight vows to save all imperial children [i.e., the children of Sanat Kumara].” <24> An eighteenth-century text entitled Precious Book of Salvation Brought by Maitreya says: “Maitreya transformed himself to save living beings; holding a staff, he roamed about everywhere, observing how the people of the world piled up sins as high as the mountains and did evil as deep as the sea.” <25> This scripture provides vignettes that portray Maitreya exhorting and converting people in his various guises. Maitreya appears as a Confucian physician carrying an elixir of youth and healing all illnesses with one dose. He appears as a ragged scholar who preaches to drunkards, prostitutes, selfish monks and unscrupulous businessmen. A fifteenth- or sixteenth-century White Lotus text tells how Maitreya descends from paradise as a patriarch to preach to those with “karmic potential.” In one section Maitreya outlines the spiritual practices that his followers should engage in in order to guarantee their return to heaven. As Professor Daniel L. Overmyer writes in his study of this scripture, “these practices include exercises to enable the soul to pass through the mysterious aperture between the eyebrows, and ‘publishing one’s name in the registry for returning home’ by sending up the appropriate memorial.” <26> Near the end of the book Maitreya prophesies that he will return again to usher in the “Imperial Ultimate stage.” Maitreya says, “I am leaving now, but I will return to restore the original wholeness. Those with karmic potential I will see again.” <27> Maitreya is withdrawing to give the seed of Sanat Kumara time and space to pile up good karma. Take note that the Guru who would take on a chela gives a requirement and the requirement is “karmic potential”—good works and the embodiment of the Word and the Work of the Lord. When the chela is wanting in these specifics the Guru must withdraw—sometimes for centuries or even millennia. In another scripture, the Precious Book of the Merit and Original Vow of the (Healing Buddha) Master of Medicine, Maitreya laments to the Buddha: “Sentient beings in the last age of the Dharma (mofa) are concerned only for wine, sex and wealth. They do not fear at all the fact that when one loses human form it is extremely difficult to obtain it again <28> for . . . myriad ages. If we don’t do something now, they will continue to revolve in samsara and again fall into the wrong path.” <29> In reply to Maitreya’s concern for sentient beings lost in samsara, Gautama then instructs him: “Exhort all people; [tell them,] ‘Why don’t you turn to the Light and become concerned with obtaining your original face [that is, with understanding your true nature]?’” This is followed by a verse explaining that “the Bodhisattva Maitreya in the lower world, in this world of suffering, saves the worthy and good. With a ‘Dharma boat’ [the ark of the Law] he saves all of the Mother’s children, and those who depart from the world see their dear Mother.” <30> Gautama teaches in The Sutra of Assembled Treasures that the Dharma boat is the means that a Bodhisattva employs “to rescue those sentient beings who are drifting and drowning in the vast stream of samsara.” As we learn from this sutra, Gautama instructed his Bodhisattvas that in order to succeed in their rescue mission to save not only the souls of others but their own souls, they must quickly embody the fullness of the Dharma and themselves become the Dharma boat. In this sutra Gautama addresses a Bodhisattva whose name is Universal Light about the components of the Dharma boat: “Universal Light, suppose a person tries to cross the Ganges in a poorly built boat. With what vigor should he row the boat?” Bodhisattva Universal Light replied, “World-Honored One, he should row it with great vigor. Why? Because it may collapse in midstream.” The Buddha said, “Universal Light, a Bodhisattva who wishes to cultivate the Buddha-Dharma should exert himself twice as hard. Why? Because the body is impermanent and uncertain, a decaying form which cannot long remain and will eventually wear out and perish; it may disintegrate before one benefits from the Dharma. “[A Bodhisattva should think,] ‘I will learn to navigate the Dharma boat in this stream [of samsara], so that I may ferry sentient beings across the four currents. I will ply this Dharma boat back and forth in samsara to deliver sentient beings.’ “The Dharma boat which a Bodhisattva should use is made for the purpose of saving all sentient beings equally. Its strong, thick planks are the immeasurable merits resulting from the practice of pure discipline; its embellishments are the practice and the fruit of giving; its beams are the pure faith in the Buddha-path; its strong riggings are all kinds of virtues; its nails are patience, tenderness, and thoughtfulness. The raw wood is the various ways to enlightenment, cultivated with vigor, taken from the forest of the supreme, wonderful Dharma . . . “Concentration serves as the helmsman, while insight brings the true benefit. The boat steers clear of [the reefs of] the two extremes . . . .Being able to deliver sentient beings in the ten directions, he proclaims, ‘Come aboard this Dharma boat! It sails on a safe course to nirvana. It ferries you from the shore of all wrong views . . . to the shore of Buddhahood.’ “Thus, Universal Light, a Bodhisattva-Mahasattva should learn everything about this Dharma boat.” <31> Lord Maitreya spoke of his mission to save the children of the Light for the Mother in a dictation given March 24, 1985: "I come that you might hear my voice and know that all of my offering on the path of the Buddha is in the love/reverence of the Mother and the Mother’s burden to reclaim her own—to find them again, to wash them clean, to make them whole, to heal their bodies and therefore to prepare food for soul and body and mind. "The great longing of the Mother to once
again draw to the heart of God all who went forth has thus become,
self-acclaimed, the burden of all Buddhas. And therefore we are
the comforters of the Mother. We are the comforters of the Mother
and we speak through her lips the ancient wisdom. "I AM Maitreya in the heart of the I where
the cross of the T is the formation of a Mother’s heart.
I AM the Rey of the Mother’s Light manifesting within you."
<33> Thus he gives us the key to the inner meaning of his name. Maitreya: Ma—the universal sound intoning the Mother Flame; I—the I or Eye signifying the Identity of the Guru as the individualization of the Mother Flame; T—the sign of the cross signifying the path of initiation of each disciple of the Cosmic Christ; Rey—the ray of the Mother’s Light manifesting in you; A—as you are the seed of Alpha (the alpha particle). We know from our study of Gnostic scriptures that White Lotus beliefs closely parallel the teachings of the Christian Gnostics, who believed that divine messengers or redeemers had been sent from the realms of Light to tell the children of the Light that they are not natives of this world and to call Home those on earth who had the “seed of Light,” or the divine “spark,” but were ignorant of their divine origin. In the Gnostic text called the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, Christ says: “I am a stranger to the regions below. <34> . . . When I had come to my own and united myself with them, and [them with] me, there was no need for many words, for our insight was with their insight, for which reason they understood all that I said.” <35> This echoes the theme found in Jesus’ discourse on the Good Shepherd and other passages from the Book of John: “I AM the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine . . . My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me . . . Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are one . . . I have given them thy Word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” <36> In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is recorded as saying that the elect will “find the Kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return . . . If they say to you, ‘Where did you come from?’ say to them, ‘We came from the Light.’ . . . If they say to you, ‘Is it you?’ say, ‘We are its children, and we are the elect of the Living Father.’” <37> To secure the safety of his own during their sojourn in samsara the Living Father placed a replica of himself, the Mighty I AM Presence, with each one of us to live with us and in us as our “God with us,” i.e., Emmanuel. Jesus testified to the Father’s Presence with him: “He that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone.” <38> In the beautiful Gnostic poem “The Hymn of the Pearl” we find a great parallel to the White Lotus portrayal of the Eternal Mother’s call to her children to return Home. This poem is contained in the Acts of Thomas. It describes the sojourn of a prince who was sent forth by his parents to Egypt to capture “the Pearl that lies in the Sea . . . by the loud-breathing Serpent.” His parents promise him heirship in the kingdom when he accomplishes this mission. But the prince, partaking of the food of the Egyptians, enters into the sin of forgetfulness and its consequent karmic state of nonawareness. He forgets that he is a king’s son, forgets his assignment, and sinks into a deep sleep. The king and queen become very concerned and write their son a letter. It is a call to his soul to remember his origin and purpose. The letter flies in the form of an eagle, alights beside the prince, and turns into speech. As he recounts in the poem: “At its voice and the sound of its winging, /I waked and arose from my deep sleep. / Unto me I took it and kissed it; / I loosed its seal and I read it. / E’en as it stood in my heart writ, / The words of my Letter were written. / I remembered that I was a King’s son, / And my rank did long for its nature.” <39> The prince lulls the serpent to sleep by chanting over him the names of the king, the queen and his brother, whereupon he rescues the Pearl, returns to his Father’s kingdom and receives his reward. “The Hymn of the Pearl” is a story that takes place through a number of incarnations of the soul, who, having descended from the etheric octave, loses the memory of his origin and mission and merges with the realm of sleep. Answering the call of his Divine Parents, he emerges as the awakened one, redeems himself and his soul, becomes the saviour of his brothers and sisters who have met the same fate in “Egypt,” finally returns to his Home of Light and fulfills the ritual of the ascension. On October 4, 1987, following my reading of “The Hymn of the Pearl” in New York, the Ascended Master Lord Himalaya told us that this Gnostic poem was the story of our own souls. He said: "Awake, I say! For I AM Himalaya. And I have attended your comings and your goings in and out of incarnation unto your Causal Body, unto the farthest depths of the astral and physical planes. I say to you, beloved, according to the path of initiation outlined in 'The Hymn of the Pearl' (that is truly based upon an ancient Lemurian text known by Jesus), your [soul’s] evolutionary spiral has continued too long in and out of earth consciousness. "Blessed hearts, you have, as it were, a momentum on a sine wave that is not ascending. You have become accustomed to earth’s merry-go-round and have forgot that the purpose of the sine wave is to get off the merry-go-round and to enter the spiral that leads as a coil of fire directly to the heart of Alpha and Omega." <40>
The Redemption of Christ In “The Hymn of the Pearl,” as in
other Gnostic texts, the redeemer himself is shown to be in need
of redemption. This theme is foreign to the orthodox Christian
view of Jesus. The Gnostic Tripartite Tractate says of Christ:
“He too . . . , the son, who was appointed as a place of
redemption for the all, was himself in need of redemption, in
that he had become man.” In the apocryphal Acts of John,
Christ sings the hymn: I will be saved and I will save. Amen. I will be redeemed and I will redeem. Amen. <41>
Thus we glean from Gnostic works that Jesus came under the Law and that he, too, walked a path of overcoming, just as we learn from Buddhist writings that Maitreya and all the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas had to walk a carefully outlined path of initiation to gain their goal of enlightenment. It is interesting to note that the Christian concept of Jesus as God, fully perfected, is based solely on one incarnation, the final one, in which he comes to earth as the Anointed One. We must understand the law of reincarnation and realize that Jesus’ soul, like ours, has lived before in many lifetimes, in which he was not perfected. Following is a sampling of some of these: Up until some twelve thousand years ago, Jesus had had previous incarnations on the continents of Lemuria and Atlantis. In one embodiment he ruled Atlantis during an age of great enlightenment when more than 50 percent of the population were fully clothed in their Christhood. In the Genesis account of Adam and Eve, Jesus was righteous Abel, a keeper of sheep, whose offering was accepted by the Lord. But when Cain, a tiller of the ground, brought his offering and the Lord did not respect it, he rose up in anger and slew his brother Abel. When Eve conceived and bore another son she called his name Seth: “For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” And when to this Seth there was born a son, Enos, it is written: “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.” <42> Thus, through the rebirth and the renewal of the spiritual seed of Christ in Seth, the sons and daughters of God once again had access to the Mighty I AM Presence by means of his mediatorship. And outside of Eden the Guru-chela relationship was carried forward through the centuries by those who sustained the devotional tie to the Lord God Maitreya by obedient and enlightened love. This Seth was the reincarnated Abel—our Christ Jesus come again to insure the Christic lineage of the Guru Maitreya in the descendants of Adam and Eve. More recently we see our Lord in the Old Testament as Joseph (c. 16th century b.c.), the favored of the twelve sons of Jacob, remembered for his coat of many colors, by which he became the envy of the rest. Though persecuted and sold into slavery by his brothers, Joseph became the pharaoh’s governor and saved his family and all of Egypt during seven years of famine. Jesus was also embodied as Joshua (c. 1300 b.c.), the successor of Moses and great warrior (in the tradition of Sanat Kumara <43>) who led the Hebrews into the promised land. He was David (c. 1010-970 b.c.), the king who united the Israelites into one nation and the psalmist whose heart’s communion with the Lord deeply touches our own. We see him as the prophet Elisha (c. 9th century b.c.), who performed miracles and healings in the shadow of his great Guru, Elijah. After Elijah’s ascension, Elisha received his Guru’s mantle and smote the waters of Jordan with it, saying, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” <44> In this path of soul evolution that Jesus walked, we see that he was given the challenges of the path of the Bodhisattva, not as an exception to the Law but as an opportunity to exercise his free will. As he had affirmed his will in heaven, so he would now confirm that will on earth, saying, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” <45> Jesus came into his final incarnation having passed many initiations throughout his Eastern and Western embodiments; yet he retained the small percentage of karma that was required for his mission, which he balanced by the time he left Palestine at age thirty-three. It is the teaching of the Ascended Masters that so long as an initiate is unascended, no matter what his level of attainment, he is subject to the law of karma and must submit to the path of initiation under the lineage of the Buddhas and the Christed ones of the Great White Brotherhood who are his sponsors. Even as the redeemer must be redeemed and the saviour must be saved, so the one who would be Guru must first be chela. Jesus recognized in John the Baptist his Guru Elijah, who had “come again” <46> to prepare the way of his chela. The Messenger who was sent before the face of the Lord <47> preached the baptism of repentance in all planes of earth wheresoever the Saviour would go to save the lost sheep of the House of Divine Reality. <48> As Elijah, John had ascended into heaven. Under ordinary circumstances those who have passed through the ritual of the ascension do not reembody. But, for the mission of preparing the way of the one who would receive his mantle, the Guru descended to earth. Not only was John the Baptist endued with the Holy Ghost at birth but he came into incarnation as an Ascended Master, hence Jesus’ remark: “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.” <49> John the Baptist in turn bowed to the Light of the Word in Jesus and said, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” <50> By this, John affirmed the law that when the chela is ready to assume the mantle of his Guru, the Guru withdraws to higher octaves. Thus, on earth John the Baptist’s mission and mantle would henceforth decrease proportionately as Jesus’ mission and mantle would now increase under Lord Maitreya. Maitreya was the Guru of both Elijah and Elisha, both John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. However, Elijah preceded Elisha in the order of hierarchy, and this precious relationship was retained by John and Jesus from childhood on, even though Jesus was the one chosen to be the Avatar of the Piscean Age and John was chosen to ascend before him to hold the balance for his mission from octaves of Light. The occasion of Jesus’ baptism by John in Jordan is further illustration of the submission of both John and Jesus to the law of the Guru-chela relationship and the rituals of redemption: “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness [i.e., all right uses and ordained rituals of the law]. Then he suffered him.” <51> Buddhist teachings reveal that Gautama and Maitreya also were required to fulfill the whole law. They, too, had previous embodiments in which they had to overcome shortcomings as they walked the path of initiation before earning their Buddhahood. There are hundreds of stories, called jatakas, about the incarnations of Gautama and his disciples that describe how they fulfilled or fell short of fulfilling the requirements for Bodhisattvahood leading to Buddhahood, at times even sacrificing their own lives to save others. These jatakas, told by Gautama to his disciples,
are in a sense the parables of Buddhist lore. Lama Govinda describes
their significance in the culture of the East: The jatakas are the divine song of the Bodhisattva ideal in a form which speaks directly to the human heart and which, therefore, is not only understandable to the wise but even to the simplest mind. Only the all-too-clever will smile at them indulgently. Up to the present day the jatakas have not lost their human appeal and continue to exert a deep influence upon the religious life in all Buddhist countries. In Ceylon, Burma, Siam, and Cambodia crowds of people listen with rapt attention for hours when Bhikkhus during the full-moon nights recite the stories of the Buddha’s former lives, and even in Tibet I have seen tears in the eyes of sturdy caravan men when, sitting around the camp-fire, [they listened as] the Bodhisattva’s suffering and sacrifices were retold. For these people the jatakas are not literature or “folklore” but something that happens in their very presence and profoundly affects their own life. Something that moves them to the core of their being, because it is ever-present reality to them. <52> "You may read these stories that I told
so long ago. They are in the collected writings of the Buddha
that are published even today. They must be read symbolically.
They must be read with understanding and above all with the Ascended
Masters’ teachings as a basis." In one of these jataka tales Gautama is portrayed
as having had greater compassion than Maitreya when they were
embodied together as brothers. As Gautama recounts the episode: In aeons long past, aeons beyond recall, there was an emperor in this world by the name of Mahayana who had a thousand kings subject to him. He had three sons: the eldest, Mahanada, the middle son Maha-deva, and the youngest, Mahasattva. From childhood the youngest son was of a loving and compassionate nature and thought of all beings as his only sons. Upon a certain occasion the emperor, his ministers, and his wives and sons went to the forests and mountains to divert themselves. The princes went into the woods to explore and saw there a mother tiger who had given birth to cubs and was so exhausted with hunger that she was on the point of eating her young. The younger brother said to the others: “Brothers, this mother tiger is starving and going to eat her own offspring.” When the elder brothers agreed that this was so, the younger brother asked: “What would the tigress eat?” The elder brothers said: “She eats freshly-killed meat and drinks blood.” The younger brother said: “Who could give his own flesh and blood in order to save her life?” To which the brothers replied: “Who, indeed, could do so difficult a thing!” The younger brother thought: “For long I have been wandering in the round of birth and death wasting life and limb, and through attachment, anger, and ignorance have brought forth no merits. For the sake of the Dharma I should have entered the field of virtue. Now, in order to bring about merit, I shall give my body to the tigress.” As they were returning, he said to the two elder brothers: “You two go on ahead. I have something private I want to do in the woods. I’ll come back to you in just a moment.” Going back to the tigress, he lay down in front of her, but the tigress was unable to open her mouth to eat. The prince then took a sharp stick and pierced his body. When the blood flowed the tigress licked it, [she] was then able to open her mouth, and [she] ate the prince’s body. <53> At the conclusion of the story, Gautama reveals that Maitreya was the elder brother Mahanada, Manjushri was the brother Mahadeva, and he himself was the youngest brother, Mahasattva. <54> In contrast to this story in which Maitreya was
not yet willing to sacrifice his life, another jataka relates
how Maitreya did just that in an embodiment as the powerful emperor
Sankha. In this tale Maitreya gives up his kingdom, “impelled
by the joy of contemplating the Buddha,” in order to go
alone on foot in search of the perfect Buddha Sirimata. The jataka recounts: During the first day of [Sankha’s] journey on foot, the soles of his feet split open, for they were tender due to luxurious upbringing. On the second day they began to bleed; on the third day he was unable to walk any further. Then he went on his knees using the palms of his hands as support. Going on the fourth day in the same manner his knees and palms bled, at which the Emperor Sankha thought: “I should go on my chest,” so he began creeping on his chest. Impelled by the joy of contemplating the Buddha, even though (sorely) afflicted he surmounted the great suffering and pain. ...The Exalted One Sirimata, the Worthy Perfect Buddha, surveying the world with his All-knowing Knowledge, seeing his mighty effort, thought, “This Sankha is certainly a Buddha-sprout, a Buddha-seed [i.e., a bodhisattva]; on my account he endures great pain.” As the story goes, when Sankha finally arrived at the feet of the Buddha he asked the Teacher to deliver a discourse that would bring him peace. After the Exalted One had taught him about nirvana, the emperor requested that he stop his discourse, saying: “Should the Exalted One teach the Dhamma further, I have no suitable offering to make for it. The offering that I have is just sufficient for the Dhamma already taught.” . . . . . . The Emperor Sankha said to the Exalted One Sirimata, the Worthy Perfect Buddha: “ . . . I too among all bodily parts would pay homage to your doctrine with my head,” and he began severing his neck with his nails . . . Having spoken thus, “May this help the attainment of the All-knowing Knowledge,” he cut off his head with his nails . . . The head was severed from the neck in the presence of the Exalted One as in homage to the Dhamma. <55> The jataka goes on to explain that by this offering Maitreya fulfilled one of the requirements on the path of the Bodhisattva known as the perfection of giving and was reborn in the Tushita heaven as a deity. Maitreya teaches that what one man has attained all men may attain. In other words, the Great Law is no respecter of persons. <56> All pure sons of God have a threefold flame, through which they may create their creations out of the flame of the Father, through which they may preserve their creations out of the flame of the Son, and through which they may seal and thereby make permanent or destroy (i.e., transmute) their creations out of the flame of the Holy Spirit. And that is our daily freewill choice.
Make Your Decision to Fulfill Your Destiny On July 3, 1988, Alpha and Omega spoke to us about our own Homecoming and our Victory: "It is time to make your decision to fulfill your destiny, for I have come! I have come to call you Home and to enumerate the requirements for your Homecoming, and [foremost among them] is to rescue every Lightbearer on earth, every child of God marked by the Lord your God for the Victory. Thus, let not a day pass that you do not intensify the endeavor and show to yourself some good gain that should please our hearts immensely." <57> Even on the Path, and perhaps especially on the Path, people are in an almost half-awakened state. They feel secure that they have found their teacher, found their mantra, found a means to improve their abilities. Some who have never truly embraced the disciplines of the Path use unlawful techniques for the control of self or others, such as playing cassette tapes with subliminal messages that are not audible or comprehensible, thereby programming the mind to this and that by what amounts to autohypnosis. These techniques are used to achieve the inordinate desire of self-mastery for personal gain by persons who are unwilling to bend the knee before the Law, the Teaching or the Guru. All kinds of techniques are packaged and offered for those who want to bypass their karma and be popular, healthy, wealthy or whatever. You can even join an Eastern cult that says if you give such-and-such mantra you can get anything you want in this world! So when people find these techniques of a pseudoreligious nature, they believe they have somehow beaten the game of ordinary mortals, who must suffer this and that element of their psychology or karma—until the karma for their karma-dodging descends, that is. Thus, by taking whatever detour suits their fancy, people procrastinate their reunion with God on the path of individual Christ Self-mastery. But what they are really doing is postponing the day of decision to fulfill their destiny. And what destiny is it? It is our fiery destiny. It is our soul’s ascent to the Mighty I AM Presence. It is the conscious engaging of our minds and hearts in the mighty work of the ages—the balancing of our karma and the slaying of the dweller-on-the-threshold. <58> It is our soul fully awakened and multiplying the Word and Work of the Lord wherever we are. It is the conscious entering into the Path, and our willingness to sacrifice and surrender on a path of selfless service, our willingness to experience the pain and the bliss of all levels of our reality and our unreality as the Lord God does ordain it. Think of it. Here is the Father-Mother God, Alpha and Omega, who could have said anything to us on this momentous occasion of their address, saying with the full power of their presence, “It is time to make your decision to fulfill your destiny, for I have come,” as if we needed to be reminded that we have not decided to fulfill our destiny. We are the Keepers of the Flame gathered in the Heart of the Inner Retreat, certainly not unaware of our fiery destiny, certainly believing in our hearts that we have made that decision. What Alpha is telling us is that we have not qualitatively made a decision that has a sufficiency of desire, one-pointedness, determination, resolve and fearless compassion to be counted as a decision. Our decision is not counted as a decision until we are fully engaged with all of our forces, human and divine. And we are not fully engaged until we decide 100 percent that we want to slay that dweller-on-the-threshold of the not-self, i.e., the synthetic self of our human creation. We can’t want heaven when we still want to keep a piece of the pie of the karmic self. We have to want to have that dweller bound hand and foot and in chains and encaged in that lower level of being. And the proof of our wanting to do something is that we do it! We simply set everything else aside and we do it. So in making the decision to fulfill our destiny we must take the time to sit down and examine our desires one by one. Examine your goals. What do you want out of life? Ask yourself the question and then answer it. Then take note whether or not your desires and the energy it takes to fulfill them are taking up an inordinate amount of your lifestream. If so, your decision to fulfill your destiny is worth nothing because you haven’t made the decision to free up enough energy out of your subconscious and out of the daily allotment of energy God gives you to fulfill that destiny. You’re taking up too much of the energy God has given you to preserve the old self with its wants and its whims, and there just isn’t enough left over to fulfill your destiny day after day. It’s like the space shuttle taking off. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to launch; and so it is with the soul. We have to summon all of our forces to act on the decision we have made to fulfill our destiny now. You must look at the warring in your members <59> and decide this day, in the name of Alpha and Omega, that you will become the Buddha by the shortest route and not the longest. Because short and long are conditions of time and space, and there’s no guarantee as to what the condition of our time and space will be in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. So Jesus said, and Maitreya said through him, “Walk while ye have the Light.” <60>The real meaning of this is: Work on your karmic potential while you have the Light incarnate with you in the person of the living Guru. Work while you have the dispensations of the Great White Brotherhood and the Ascended Masters as your sponsors. Work while you have the gift of the violet flame and the dynamic decrees and the protection of Archangel Michael and the hosts of the Lord. Work while you have the Lost Teachings of Jesus Christ, Lord Maitreya, Gautama Buddha and Sanat Kumara in hand, that you may become an initiate of the Inner Christ and the Inner Buddha. Give it your very best, and when you want to come back to this plane, for God’s sake, come back as an unascended master and not as a karma-bound fool!
A Portrait of Maitreya as the Hemp-Bag Bonze Another portrait of Maitreya, which took shape in China in the tenth century, is that of the plump, jolly, pot-bellied Laughing Buddha who is known as the Hemp-bag Bonze. A “bonze” is a Buddhist monk. This endearing figure is often depicted sitting and holding a sack, with happy children climbing all over him. Some Buddhists say that the children Maitreya is playing with represent arhats (adepts, perfected saints). Statues of the Laughing Buddha can be found in most temples in Taiwan and have made a comeback in mainland China. He is usually the first image one sees inside Chinese Buddhist temples, his smiling visage greeting all who enter. Tour guides in China explain that Maitreya manifests in this unhandsome form so that people will concentrate on his teaching rather than upon the beauty of his being as portrayed in earlier Buddhist art. Scholar Kenneth Ch’en says that the Hemp-bag Bonze is mentioned in “a number of works in the Chinese canon, where he is always described as having a wrinkled forehead and a protruding belly left uncovered.” He is said to have been a native of Chekiang province who was well liked because of his jovial nature and uncanny ability to predict the weather. Ch’en writes: When he was seen wearing wet sandals and scurrying for shelter, rain was expected; but when he slept on the market bridge in a squatting posture, his head resting on his knees, then good weather was expected. One feature of his appearance singled him out—he carried a hemp bag wherever he went. Into this bag was deposited whatever he received, and for this reason the bag became an object of intense curiosity, especially among the children. They would chase him and climb all over him, and force him to open his bag. On such an occasion he would place the bag on the ground, empty the contents one by one, and just as methodically put them back into the bag. The expressions attributed to him were all enigmatic and exhibit [Zen] characteristics....Once a monk asked him about his bag; he replied by placing it on the ground. When asked what this meant, he shouldered the bag and went away. Once he was asked how old the bag was, and he replied that it was as old as space.
This bag demonstrates the mystery of space and the miracle of space under the dominion of the Buddha. Its timelessness shows the Buddha’s mastery of segments of eternity, hence eternity itself, through the flame of Mother. Ch’en continues: Because of his popularity the people were only
too willing to believe the stories that he never died. All such
stories pointed to the prediction that he was the Future Buddha
in the flesh. Once people were amazed when they found him lying
in the snow, unaffected by it. On another occasion a friend found
him bathing in the river, and discovered that he possessed the
third or wisdom eye on his back. Surprised by this, the friend
exclaimed, “You are a Buddha!” whereupon the Hemp-bag
Bonze silenced him and warned, “Do not tell anyone.”
. . . “The big belly is capable to contain, it
contains all the In this potbellied figure one is able to see the representation of a number of Chinese life-ideals. The huge protruding stomach and the hemp bag denote prosperity and a wealth of material goods, for only a rich person would have enough to eat and be fat. The reclining figure is indicative of the spiritual contentment and relaxation of one who is at peace with himself and the world. Finally, the large number of children usually surrounding him are illustrative of another Chinese virtue—a large family consisting of many children. When these features are combined with the genial appearance of the figure, as if he were full of mirth and friendship, then it is easily understood why he has been so enthusiastically received by the Chinese. When the Chinese look at him, they see not just a Buddhist deity but also a good representation of many of the things after which they aspire. <61> Author M. Conrad Hyers has some additional insights into the character of what he terms this “incognito appearance of Maitreya.” He writes: According to legend [he] refused the designation of Zen master, as well as monastic restriction, and instead walked the streets with his sack over his shoulder . . . Sometimes, in fact, he is pictured sitting inside his sack (his only home) peering impishly out . . . Like an Oriental Santa Claus, he was the merry sage with a twinkle in his eye who had rediscovered the wisdom and freedom and laughter of little children. Whenever he met a fellow Zen devotee, he is reputed to have extended his hand, saying in childish fashion, “Give me a penny.” Or if anyone would suggest that he return to a temple or monastery, or more formally instruct others in the Zen path, he would again reply, with an air of innocence, “Give me a penny.” [The Laughing Buddha] represents, therefore, the Zen goal of recovering on a higher plane the spontaneity and naturalness and playfulness . . . of the child . . . [He] symbolises the wisdom of children. He is not a little like the commonly ignored image of Jesus who pauses to play with the children, despite his disciples’ dismay, or who sets a little child in the midst of his all-too-earnest followers with the declaration: “Unless you turn and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” <62>
The Conviction of the Era of Maitreya Now I would like to take up the teachings on Maitreya given to us by the Ascended Masters in this century. Helena Roerich, amanuensis for El Morya and other selected Masters of the Great White Brotherhood, wrote of Maitreya in Foundations of Buddhism: The new time of the Era of Maitreya is in need of conviction. Life in its entirety must be purified by the flame of achievement.... The dates are approaching. The Image of Maitreya is ready to rise. All [of] the Buddhas of the past have combined their wisdom of experience and have handed it on to the Blessed Coming One. <63> In this mystery of Maitreya we understand that in order to experience the Era of Maitreya we must have the conviction that it is at hand. We must have the conviction that as we are one with our Holy Christ Self, so we are one with Maitreya, who as the Universal Christ is personified in our Holy Christ Self. Our life must be purified by the flame of achievement, achievement through the Holy Christ Self and the Holy Christ Flame. Then we will have the conviction of the Era of Maitreya. We will experience that Era as we contain it, even as we experience the kingdom of God as we contain it. Where is the Era of Maitreya? Do not look “Lo here! or lo there!” for behold, the Era of Maitreya is within you. <64> In a letter from 1935, Madame Roerich writes of the significance of the coming of Maitreya, whom she refers to as the “Lord of Shambhala.” The reign of the Lord of Shambhala does not
imply that He will come and take part physically in the last battle;
this is the mistake that the most ignorant of Buddhists make.
The Lord of Shambhala, according to the most ancient chronicles,
will fight the Prince of Darkness himself. This battle, first
of all, takes place in the subtle spheres; whereas, here the Lord
of Shambhala acts through his earthly warriors. As for Himself,
He can be seen only in the most exceptional cases, and certainly
would never appear in a crowd or among the curious. As for his
[manifestations] in a Fiery Image, this would be disastrous for
all and everything, as his aura is charged with energies of tremendous
power.<65> In another of her letters she says: In her book Woman we read: Each Lord has His keynote. The Epoch of Maitreya proclaims the Woman. The manifestation of Maitreya is linked with the confirmation of the Mother of the World, in past, present and future. <67> On November 22, 1976, Lord Maitreya, dictating through me, had this to say about his long-awaited coming: "Come now, come now, be joyous in that buoyant flame. For I AM Maitreya and I AM happiness—a Buddha of happiness, a chela of happiness, a friend of happiness. All these thousands of years they have called me the Coming Buddha, and I have been coming and coming and coming, and at last I AM here! "I AM come! I AM the Buddha of the Aquarian
cycle." Gautama Buddha also spoke of the Coming Buddha in his November 8, 1981 dictation, delivered at the Inner Retreat: "Perceive, then, the coming of the Mother always as the sign of Lord Maitreya. For we have a saying: If the Mother be in our midst, can Maitreya be far behind?Far nearer than the far-off worlds is the emanating Light of Maitreya. "Thus, indeed have you renamed the mountain “Maitreya Mountain.” <68>For it is the sign of the rising spiral of his coming, as earth herself rises in the form of the mountain to praise his blessed feet, that he might have the place wherewith to alight—and there to meditate over the Heart of our Inner Retreat for the coming of the pilgrims who would become, by discipleship, the messengers of Maitreya. <69> "Messengers of Maitreya are we, one and
all, sent to bear his Teaching, the same Teaching that has been
taught by Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha. It is the Teaching
of the Divine Mother. We teach it best by embodying it and by
our example, and then by explaining that example and how others
can be it too." On July 2, 1984, Maitreya said that he had placed a focus of himself in the lotus posture in meditation upon Maitreya Mountain as “a sign raised up to all the world that in the West the Saviouress is come and the Universal Mother may once again transmit the teaching of Maitreya through her instrument and servant.” <70>
As I told you in Introduction I, on May 31, 1984, Jesus announced the dedication of the Heart of the Inner Retreat and the entire property of the Royal Teton Ranch, our international headquarters in southwestern Montana, as Maitreya’s Mystery School. <71> The Mystery School of Eden, located on Lemuria near where San Diego is today, was the first Mystery School on planet earth. And Maitreya, referred to as the Lord God in Genesis, was its first hierarch. On April 6, 1985, Justinius urged chelas of the Word Incarnate to consider the significance of the coming of Lord Maitreya and the reestablishment of his Mystery School today. "The great moment of his coming signifies a turning in the age and an unleashing of his Causal Body that does contain the formula of the path of the Bodhisattva for all who would unite with him in love and receive the fruit of the Tree of Life, [which is] the initiation of [everlasting] Life in the heart [chakra], as well as the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." <72>
In his July 2, 1984 dictation, Maitreya spoke of Jesus’ journey to the Far East, during his so-called lost years between the ages of thirteen and twenty-nine, and of Christ’s mission to redeem those who had departed from the Mystery School. He also described what was in store for his chelas at his Mystery School come again: "My beloved, I welcome you as I welcomed to my heart long ago the youth Issa, your Jesus, when he came to the Himalayas and touched the fire of Tibet and knew the ancient lamas and found me. <73>For I was the one promised and known of him even before birth, as the entire drama of the mission of the avatar of the Piscean age was, of course, premeditated by God and directed from above. "Sweet Jesus, the strong, when he said to his parents at the age of twelve, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?' <74> he spake of the Teacher, the eternal Guru he must go and find. [He must] go to the East and, as all such saints, receive the anointing from the lineage of his descent. "Thus I unveil to you the real mission of the Saviour, so truly stated by the apostles, for the redemption of the twin flames who took up the path of the Tree of Life in the ancient Mystery School and were turned aside by the cunning of the serpent philosophy, which was the philosophy of the fallen angels who were determined to subvert the Light [of twin flames] and misdirect the great gift of God [to all generations who would come after them]. " . . . Thus, the mission of Jesus was to go back to Eden, yet the Motherland was long gone. [Therefore he came to Shamballa.] And he came to the ancient repository of the tablets of Mu and the writings of Maitreya and Gautama and Sanat Kumara. He came for the redemption of those who had been turned aside [from the law of the Divine Mother] and to restore [to them] the [true] path of discipleship [under the Cosmic Christ]. "Such a perfect one was he that the Ancient of Days determined that as much of the path of the Mystery School as the Great Law would allow should be demonstrated by example in his mission. The testing of that mission and his ability to sustain those initiations in [the] outer [world] were the subject of our training sessions during his eighteen years in the Orient. " . . . My beloved, with what great joy I receive you here as I received the youth Jesus! For the dispensation is truly opened and I may begin anew, taking those who have apprenticed themselves before the Darjeeling Master and Saint Germain and the Great Divine Director, those who have disciplined themselves by the Law of Love before the living Christ. "Indeed, indeed, you must acknowledge him the Saviour of your life, for he is! He restored to you the contact with your own Christ Self and [he] is here today to increase that spark or even ignite it again if, by your words and your works, you may be rotated one hundred and eighty degrees to face the living Son of God. "If you cannot see the Saviour in him, I cannot teach you; there is nothing else. He has taught my teaching. I would take you from [that level] and beyond. You can never save so much as a bumblebee if you do not see the glory of that life . . . For he was and is God incarnate, truly in the unique sense that God raised him up as the example but never in the exclusive sense that all could not follow in his footsteps. "I AM Maitreya come again. The cycles move with great rhythm. Vast ages turn and the door opens. Thus I tell you as the headmaster of the school that I am truly ensconced, and physically so, by the grace of this body loaned to me. And I commit myself to your heart as God has committed himself to me, that I will deliver to you in these months and years and decades, truly, the personal teaching that is the requirement for you not merely for the ascension but for the highest attainment of your soul prior to that ascension whereby the gift of [your] attainment might be the offering on the altar of humanity." <75> "Therefore be ready, for thou shalt meet Maitreya in the way one of these days. Accept, then, the invitation to be trained at the retreats of the Lords of the Seven Rays, <76> for they do prepare your souls for the Great Initiator. "Maitreya is that one. And I come that you might have the aura of the Holy Spirit to receive him again. For many of you he was the last initiator from divine realms that you have seen. [You saw him] in the Mystery School known as Eden, upon Lemuria, not far from this place. "Thus, in ancient times you and your twin flame did know the opportunity to receive that initiation. Yet you were lured away—lured away, then, by false teachers, cunning serpents who crept in, fallen angels, to tear you from your love tryst with the Beloved and with the blessed Guru Maitreya." <77> "Maitreya has come. He has set up the Mystery School, choosing the Royal Teton Ranch as the place for that Light. He has come to call ancient souls, twin flames, back to where they left off [in their] initiations on the continent of Lemuria. Here was the Mystery School. Here was the opportunity. Here it is born again. "Do not fear and do not withdraw when Maitreya recounts to you at inner levels what are the requirements of the return to this opportunity. It comes once in many thousands of years. And each and every one who hears my voice in these rooms—you must know that you are here because you need this initiation in order to be effective [in service] with your twin flame and to make your ascension. " . . . Thus we are come. Thus we place ourselves at your service. May you know the meaning of having access to the Ascended Masters through Maitreya, Gautama, Jesus and Sanat Kumara—the Lion, the Calf, the Man and the Flying Eagle. <78> So these are the symbols of the ones who hold the divine office [on the Path of the Ruby Ray] in the four quadrants. So let your heart be opened to the Mysteries of Christ. And do not deny them before you have tasted of the nectar of thy Christ Self." <79> This is why the Ascended Masters have sponsored our Community of the Holy Spirit at the Royal Teton Ranch. Here chelas of the Word Incarnate study and put into practice the mysteries of the Universal Christ delivered to us by Sanat Kumara, Gautama Buddha, Lord Maitreya, Jesus Christ, by the Buddha Padma Sambhava, the initiator of our twin flames in the lineage of the Ruby-Ray Buddhas, and by all of the Ascended Masters. Here souls who have heard the call of Saint Germain and El Morya dedicate themselves in the Guru-chela relationship to the unfoldment of the inner potential of the Christ, the Buddha and the Mother Flame unto the goal of the ascension through the disciplines of the path of the Bodhisattva. This “Place Prepared” for the Coming Buddha and his Mystery School, for his bodhisattvas and all who would study under him, is the physical coordinate of the Western etheric retreat of the Lord of the World. Gautama Buddha established his Western Shamballa over the Heart of our Inner Retreat at the Royal Teton Ranch on April 18, 1981: "We bow before the Ancient of Days whose Light shineth out of the East. And unto the West we come. " . . .y the Light of devotion of the Lord of the World, the Saviouress is come unto the West—long prophesied—out of the West Wind. And in the very heart of her children’s longing—the very heart of her children’s longing, I say—does she come forth in this hour. And leading the children who greet the Mother is Maitreya, bearer of the banner of the World Mother. "From Shamballa I arc a Light. I would establish the ground of the Ancient of Days. "Sanat Kumara comes in the flame of Mother, for he is the God of the South. Therefore let him appear, even as I appear as the God of the West. The living Christ, eternal Christus is come, the God of the East. And unto Maitreya the mountain is given—for he sits as the one, as the Buddha whose time is come. For the one is present and the others take their positions that he might be in the forefront of life. Thus I have commanded, 'Give forth the teaching of Maitreya, God of the North, <80> emissary of the emissary of Brahma.' "Now therefore, my beloved, in this hour I contemplate—note it well—the arcing of the flame of Shamballa to the Inner Retreat as the Western abode of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas and the Bodhisattvas-to-Be who are the devotees of the Mother Light. " . . . I come, then, for the arcing of the Light of Shamballa unto the Inner Retreat. " . . . Go be where I AM! For the Inner Retreat is in the heart of the Mother . . . Come to the place where the Buddha and the Mother are one." <81>
"Make no mistake, beloved, we count this place as a true and living Sangha of the Buddha, for all the elements required for such a Sangha be present." <82>
"I dedicate, therefore, this Inner Retreat as the Place of Great Encounters where each one might come to encounter the Lord God Almighty, his own I AM Presence, Sanat Kumara, Gautama Buddha, Lord Maitreya, and the Lord Jesus Christ. "Blessed hearts, souls encountering Truth, souls uniting one with the other, forging a union, forging a nucleus, forging a magnet for transition into the New Age: when have we ever seen re-created [the Community of] the original seed of Sanat Kumara gathered together in one place, not merely for human companionship but for the understanding of the components of the capstone and the components of the heart of America? "[When have we ever seen them] understanding the rising of the soul, disengaging from the dissonance of the world, from its momentum of war and bloodshed, oppression, and the clouding of the mind by tyrants? When have we ever seen gathered together, in the numberless numbers of thousands, the Body of Light [the Sangha of the Buddha] of planet earth? "Blessed hearts, it has been many centuries. And the world has not yet seen what can be accomplished by the great gathering of the elect." <85> I
The Sangha is primarily the community of those who, by virtue of their immediate or remote approximation to Enlightenment, stand in spiritual relation to the Buddha and dwell spiritually in His presence. It is the community of those who, through their relationship with Him, are also spiritually related to one another. The Sangha is the Buddha’s spiritual family. In the Nikayas [the collection of sutras of the Pali canon] He is indeed represented as telling His disciples: “Ye are mine own true sons, born of my mouth; heirs of the Dhamma, not heirs of worldly things.” Centuries later the same theme finds beautiful expression as a trinity consisting of the Buddha as Father, the Dharma as Mother, and the Sangha as Son. <87> Sangharakshita explains that the true spirit of the Sangha is found in the Bodhisattva ideal: In the Bodhisattva, Buddhism finds its highest expression and its ultimate meaning. The Bodhisattva is indeed the meaning of human life, even the meaning of existence . . . In terms of Western thought, the Bodhisattva principle is the principle of perpetual self-transcendence.... ...By the Spiritual Community—the Order—we mean a group...of truly human individuals who have Enlightenment, the Path, and the Spiritual Community itself as their ideals or who, in traditional Buddhist language, Go for Refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Of this Spiritual Community the Bodhisattva is the spirit, even as the Spiritual Community is the expression, at least to some extent, of the Bodhisattva principle in the world. It is the Bodhisattva who, from the Beyond which is within, as well as from the Beyond which is without, leads the Spiritual Community on the Path to Enlightenment. The Bodhisattva always has led and always will lead. We see him in the jatakas as the hero, the being who represents the point of self-transcendence within each group or class of beings. We see him always taking the lead. In some of the great Mahayana sutras we see him establishing what is known as the Pure Land, or ideal environment for the pursuit of the spiritual life. We see him as Avalokiteshvara, Lord of Compassion, whose eleven faces look down upon the sufferings of sentient beings in the eleven directions of space, and whose thousand arms are outstretched to help. We see him as Manjushri, Lord of Wisdom and Eloquence, who with his right hand whirls above his head the flaming sword of knowledge, that cuts asunder the bonds of ignorance, while with his left he presses the book of the Perfection of Wisdom to his heart. We see him as Vajrapani, <88> Lord of Might, whose blazing thunderbolt cuts through the obstructions of the cyclic order of conditionality and opens up the way for the progressive order. We see him—we see her—as Tara, Lady of Salvation, who delivers from all dangers, temporal and spiritual. In fact, we see in the Bodhisattva the Glorious Company of Bodhisattvas, who are the Spiritual Community in the highest sense, of which our earthly Spiritual Community is a pale and indistinct reflex. We see him—we see them—as embodiments of the Bodhisattva principle, key to the evolution of consciousness, individual and collective. <89> On November 21, 1976, Lord Maitreya spoke of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha: "Take refuge, then, in one another. For each of you is the Church and each of you is the Community, and the refuge is a refuge of Love, a place where you can go and find the necessary sustaining of your soul, your body and your mind. "So Hierarchy has come to the West and you are blessed. Hierarchy has come to open the door of the heart of the East. How wondrous it is that those whom we call can have a physical place to come to [where they may] find our radiation and our teachings. "O bhikkus, receive our Light from heart and head and hand. Above all, become the Teaching of the Buddha. For when you have become the Dhamma, as the Path and as the Teaching, you will be one with us and you will find yourself assimilated by that Greater Self. You will find yourself on the path to the ascension. You will find yourself imparting the Teaching as a flame. " . . . Wisdom is the flame that makes life bearable in samsara, in the veil of illusion where maya is the great teacher. So Wisdom is the sustaining grace. It is the bubbling fountain of joy, it is hope, it is exaltation, it is Light and Light’s dimension."
Maitreya’s Offices in Hierarchy
Sanat Kumara came to Earth from Venus long ago in Earth’s darkest hour to keep the threefold flame of Life on behalf of her people, when the Cosmic Council had determined that no further opportunity should be given to humanity—so great was their departure from cosmic law and their desecration of Life. One hundred and forty-four thousand souls from Venus volunteered to come to Earth with Sanat Kumara to support his mission. Four hundred who formed the avant-garde were sent on ahead to build the magnificent retreat of Shamballa on an island in the Gobi Sea (where the Gobi desert now is). Assuming the office of Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara resided in this physical retreat but he did not take on a physical body such as the bodies we wear today. Later it became expedient to its protection that Shamballa be withdrawn from the physical plane to the etheric octave. After this took place, Sanat Kumara embodied as none other than Dipankara, the Lamp-lighting Buddha. In Buddhist tradition, Dipankara walked the earth to save souls and prophesied that the ascetic Sumedha would become the future Buddha Gautama. <90> Dipankara (literally “kindler of lights”) is believed to have been the first of twenty-four Buddhas who preceded Gautama. He is portrayed together with Gautama and Maitreya as one of the Buddhas of “the three times”—past, present and future. Gautama was Dipankara’s student before his incarnation as Prince Siddhartha when he became the Buddha. He and Maitreya spent time between embodiments at Shamballa and received training there, both when it was physical and after it was removed to the etheric plane. Lord Maitreya spoke tenderly of his chelaship under Sanat Kumara in his dictation of December 4, 1980: "There is a sphere of light within my own soul that represents the path of my chelaship under the Lord Sanat Kumara. Hand in hand Gautama and I would go through meadow and forests, climbing to the heights of the Himalayas—not in search but in surrender unto the Eternal Guru, the Everlasting Star, that Light whom we knew as the very Person of heartbeat. "We would follow the beating of our hearts
to its logical conclusion in the heart of the Ancient of Days
where so many devotees have found succor and a flame and the place
of rest in preparation for going out once again on the path of
initiation—that is, initiation according to this world and
all that it contains—[that comes about through the encounter
with] the crosscurrents of lifestreams and races and fallen ones
and types of personalities that are the antithesis of the Godhead."
<91> In a ceremony held at the Royal Teton Retreat <92> on January 1, 1956, Gautama succeeded Sanat Kumara in the office of Lord of the World and Maitreya succeeded Gautama in the office of Cosmic Christ and Planetary Buddha. Lord Maitreya passed the mantle of World Teacher to the candidates for that office, Jesus Christ and Kuthumi, who, as I have said, are Buddhas in their own right. When Sanat Kumara placed his mantle on Gautama Buddha as Lord of the World, he assumed the title of Regent Lord of the World. Sanat Kumara then returned to planet Venus and his twin flame, Lady Master Venus, who had held the flame on Venus during his absence. In a dictation given May 25, 1975, Lady Master Venus announced that as Sanat Kumara had kept the Flame for Earth, she had now come on a special mission to “tarry for a time on Terra” to “dedicate anew the fires of the Mother.” Sanat Kumara announced on December 15, 1985, “the opening of the door of the Temple of the Divine Mother and her Inner Retreat” in the etheric octave over the entire area of the Royal Teton Ranch. In that hour Lady Venus positioned herself in this “vast center of Light” that had been “prepared over aeons.” <93> Since that time Sanat Kumara has come in several dictations to anchor his presence in our midst and has promised that he and Lady Master Venus would stay with Earth until the plan of God is fulfilled. Speaking of his office of Cosmic Christ, Lord Maitreya said in his March 24, 1974 dictation, “I focus the consciousness of the Cosmic Christ for every particle of matter.” <94> On July 1, 1978, the Ascended Lady Master Portia defined the office of Cosmic Christ as “the very embodiment of the combined momentum of the Christ consciousness of every individual soul evolving in the Matter cosmos.” Lord Maitreya gave to the world an understanding of his office as Cosmic Christ in his October 14, 1973 dictation: "I represent to you Father when you are reaching up to become the Christ. And when you become the Christ, I represent to you Brother in Christ. And when you are seeking to raise up the Feminine Ray, then I provide the complement to that Feminine Ray as the action of the Holy Spirit. And when you manifest the Holy Spirit, then I appear as the Bride arrayed in white. And so, you see, the mastery of the [consciousness of the] Cosmic Christ is [the accomplishment] of the [mastery of the] four points of the City Foursquare and of the four sides of the four lower bodies. And thus, the mark of the Cosmic Christ consciousness and of one who has attained it is that you become all things to all people." <95> "The holder and the beholder of the office is Maitreya, the Great Loving One, the Buddha Who Has Come. His Dharma is sacrifice. His virtue is diligence to all in the discipleship of discernment and discrimination—mind and heart for determined action. He . . . teaches the art and the science of the balance of karma and the transmutation of energies misqualified through the perfecting of the heart." <96> Sanat Kumara revealed in these Pearls that Lord Maitreya is one of the four hierarchs of the Ruby Ray, who serve as initiators of the souls of the Lightbearers on the Path of the Ruby Ray. These initiations take the chelas of Divine Love on a course of soul-mastery on the ruby cross through the lessons of sacrifice, surrender, selflessness and service as they are charted on the 1/7 and 4/10 axes of the Cosmic Clock. As El Morya pointed out in his July 5, 1985 dictation quoted on page 46, the four Ruby Ray hierarchs occupy the offices of the Lion, the Calf (or the Ox), the Man and the Flying Eagle. Wearing the mantle of the Man, Jesus Christ initiates us in the virtue of surrender on the one o’clock line under the hierarchy of Aquarius. Wearing the mantle of the Lion, Lord Maitreya initiates us in the virtue of sacrifice on the seven o’clock line under the hierarchy of Leo. Wearing the mantle of the Calf, Gautama Buddha initiates us in the virtue of service on the four o’clock line under the hierarchy of Taurus. Wearing the mantle of the Flying Eagle, Sanat Kumara initiates us in the virtue of selflessness on the ten o’clock line under the hierarchy of Scorpio. In these same offices, the Ruby Ray hierarchs also teach soul-mastery in the four quadrants of the Cosmic Clock as they stand on the 12/6 and 3/9 axes, holding the balance of the cosmic cross of Power formed thereby as well as the threefold flame for each quadrant. Lord Maitreya as the Lion holds the flame of God-Power on the twelve o’clock line under the hierarchy of Capricorn, governing the etheric (fire) quadrant. Sanat Kumara as the Flying Eagle holds the flame of God-Harmony on the six o’clock line under the hierarchy of Cancer, governing the water quadrant of the emotions. Jesus as the Man holds the flame of God-Control on the three o’clock line under the hierarchy of Aries, governing the mental (air) quadrant. Gautama as the Calf holds the flame of God-Reality on the nine o’clock line under the hierarchy of Libra, governing the physical (earth) quadrant.
On December 31, 1985, Lord Maitreya announced that his twin flame had come forth from nirvana (where she had been since the birth of Christ) to join him, as he was to say in his New Year’s day dictation, in “a mighty work for this age.” <97> Maitreya also explained his role in the reuniting of twin flames who were with him in the Lemurian Mystery School. And he magnanimously invited all students of the Ascended Masters to apply to become his chelas. He said: "The world is waiting for Maitreya and Maitreya’s co-workers and servants. And they are also waiting for my twin flame, whom they know not. Thus, out of the octaves of nirvana she has descended in a golden orb of Light. And you will see how this presence of my beloved will multiply my action in your behalf. "Now see the great teams of conquerors. You have called to them. They are here! And if you see them not, watch how you will develop your spiritual senses by divorcing yourself from the world of drugs and sugar and marijuana and alcohol and nicotine. "Beloved, I long to see you free, and we are determined! And the presence, then, in this golden sphere of [the] Causal Body of Light of my beloved does arc the presence of the Lady Master Venus in that Retreat of the Divine Mother unveiled over the Inner Retreat so that Camelot, in this city of the angels of the Christ and the Buddha [as well as of Mother Mary], shall have that ray and that Light of my divine counterpart. "And you will know the truth of Maitreya. And you will receive the initiations individually from my heart daily if you but inscribe a separate letter to me this New Year’s Eve addressed to your Mighty I AM Presence and Holy Christ Self, to me and to my beloved twin flame. "Then, beloved, you may apply to become my chela, my initiate. And watch well, for I AM determined to accept almost as many who call upon me, rather to give you the initiations and let you eliminate yourselves than to eliminate you without giving you a clean white page in 1986 to begin anew where you left off on Lemuria. "And I tell you, you did leave me in Lemuria and I come to claim you again! And you may determine to move forward, for I will bring you to that point of the union, whether inner or outer, of twin flames as only my office can accomplish. For it is my office that was violated by twin flames [in the Garden of Eden], and therefore you [who left the Path under my tutelage] must receive that reuniting through me." <98> "'I and my Father are one' [is] the mantra of the protection of the Guru-Chela relationship that I gave to him, the Son of man. I and my Father are one! When you speak these words, the lineage of your [Ascended] Masters is with you, the Electronic Presence of Jesus is upon you, your own I AM Presence and Christ Self [are there], and I AM instantly there. For Jesus would have you call him 'Brother' and me 'Father.' And I agree, for it is a reminder that he is not so far above you but at your side, even though many of you have known him as Father. "Thus, you see, the 'I and my Father are one' mantra is actually a call. It is a call you may give in time of danger, chaos, confusion, accident or illness or any need, as long as you have the perception that the Call cannot and will not fail and as long as you have the understanding of who is Father. The Lord God Almighty is Father and his emissaries to whom he has given the mantle of his I AM Presence to teach mankind are Father. Thus the “I and my Father are one” mantra uses the I AM name to confirm the bond of our oneness. "By cosmic law I cannot fail to answer the call of this mantra. The only variation in my answer is in your vibration. For though I may be with you, you may not feel it until you have quelled the turbulence of your emotions. Thus, our oneness becomes ever closer as you put on the likeness of the image of the Father that I would bequeath to you." <99> I and my Father are one. (give 5 times) As I wrote in my introduction to Book I, Jesus acknowledged his oneness with his Guru who had sent him when he declared: “He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me . . . The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me.” <100> Sanat Kumara gave Lightbearers of the world further insight into the oneness of Father and Son in the lineage of the Ruby Ray hierarchy in the first letter of his series on “The Opening of the Seventh Seal”: "As God is in me and I am in God, so I declare, I and my Father are one. And lo, I have become the Father. And the Father has become the Son through the figure-eight flow that is the design of the plus/minus interchange of Alpha in the Guru and Omega in the Chela. "Now I am the Father and Gautama is the Son. And as Gautama long ago passed the initiations of the Fatherhood of God, I bequeathed to him my flaming awareness of that Father. And lo, he declared, 'I and my Father are one!' And he became the Father and the Father in the Son, the incarnate Word, the embodied Guru, the Lamb. "Then Maitreya, the blessed, the beautiful, the bountiful Bodhisattva, beheld the vision of the Buddha, and the Buddha beyond the Buddha, as my own flaming presence revealed the parting of veil upon veil, each veil the opening of another door in heaven as his meditation parted the octaves of the first, the second, the third heaven, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh. "Thus he bowed before the gracious Gautama as the Guru who was God because he unveiled to him the God of very gods. And lo, he declared, 'I and my Father are one!' as he beheld the infinite succession of the Gurus who bore witness of worlds beyond worlds of the God manifestation. "And Maitreya became the pivot point of the path of initiation unto every chela who would know the Guru, unto every soul of the hundred and forty and four thousand who would return to the Mystery School of the Garden of Eden. "He was the embodied Guru, the Father/Son manifestation unto the twin flames of Adam and Eve and unto their children, my children, sent to earth to demonstrate the path of initiation. By the subtile serpent, Satan’s agent, the Path was set aside unto these twin flames and their offspring for six thousand cycles of life and death until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. "Then Jesus Christ was the I AM THAT I AM incarnate. He was the embodied Lamb. He was, as Archangel Gabriel has said, the messenger of our flame who became the message. <101> "By his attainment on the path of initiation under his Father, Maitreya, he became the Lamb unto the hundred and forty and four thousand. He, too, opened the door in heaven, opening the temple of understanding." <102> Jesus then asked Martha for her confession of faith, whereupon she replied: “Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.” <104>Her witness to the Christ of Jesus as the Son of God whose coming had been prophesied was also her witness that Jesus was the incarnation of the Word I AM THAT I AM. Martha’s faith in her Lord has become the foundation of every Christian’s acceptance of Jesus as their Lord and Saviour whereby they have entered into the Guru-chela relationship with the Master. On July 14, 1985, Lord Maitreya directed all on the path of the resurrection unto Christ to apply this mantra in their own lives: "Heed my word, ye ministering servants. It is the hour of the resurrection flame. It is time for the resurrection! It is time for the raising up of the sacred fire! It is time that you use the mantra “I AM the Resurrection and the Life” and then continue with the affirmation of all things in your life that require filling in. "And therefore if you have doubt you say: "I AM the Resurrection and the Life of God’s faith within me now! And I refuse to accept any alternative [to God’s faith manifest as] doubt and fear! "I AM the Resurrection and the Life of all Love within my world! And I refuse to accept its opposite or its impostors, or any human sympathy!" <105> I AM the Resurrection and the Life of my God-Victory now! I AM the Resurrection and the Life of my God-Victory now! (give 3 times)
This mantra is also used to precipitate the abundant life that is the lawful inheritance of all children of God. It is given for a full five minutes in the following manner: I AM, I AM, I AM the Resurrection and the Life of my finances (give 3 times) Now made manifest in my hands and use today! In Buddhism Maitreya is considered to be in the family of the Dhyani Buddha Amoghasiddhi. Each of the Five Dhyani Buddhas is a parent of a group of Buddhist deities. As charted on the Cosmic Clock, Lord Maitreya is our initiator in the virtue of God-Victory on the eleven o’clock line under the hierarchy of Sagittarius. Amoghasiddhi embodies the Fifth Secret Ray and delivers our initiations on this ray from the eleven-thirty line. Amoghasiddhi’s mantra is Om Amoghasiddhi Ah. Amoghasiddhi’s mudra is the abhaya, or fearlessness, mudra, which is said to assure protection; and as I mentioned earlier, Maitreya is also portrayed using this mudra. As there is no fear in love, and perfect love casts out all fear, <106> so true love and true fearlessness are one and the same divine attribute. For the vacuum of fear created by fearlessness flame is instantaneously filled by the all-power of God’s love. Thus you will remember the teaching that Maitreya’s quality of loving-kindness prevents evil and establishes peace and that those who are filled with this virtue are protected from all harm. Therefore when you form the abhaya mudra be sure to visualize fearlessness flame as Divine Love in action blazing forth from your upraised palm. You form this mudra by raising your right arm to shoulder height with the palm turned outward and the fingers extended upward. Sometimes the fingers are curved. Jesus told us to use the abhaya mudra when we call forth the true and righteous judgments of the Lord—which are always God’s love in action. Sanat Kumara has given his devotees instruction on the efficacy of this ancient mudra for the sealing and protection of the chakras “from all vibrations less than the Christ Light.” In his December 2, 1979 Pearl of Wisdom, he said: "Let those who adore God, then, through the fervor of fiery, fohatic prayer—let those who adore him in the joyousness and the boundlessness of his divine decree that they deliver as the Word of the Lord into the consciousness of relative good and evil—let those who go to the mount Sion to adore him in the meditation of their hearts’ light upon the light of God’s heart—therefore learn to seal their chakras from all vibrations less than the Christ Light registering in the Matter spheres. "The closing of the petals of the seven lotus flowers [chakras] is accomplished through the conscious determination of the will of man reinforced by the will of God. It is the thrust, ho! of Light flashing forth in the I-AM-the-guard consciousness. It is the right hand of the Christ or the Buddha stretched forth in the irreversible initiatic Light which releases the command, “They shall not pass!” It is the creation of a cosmic forcefield of Light radiating forth in all directions from the center of the white cube within the heart. " . . . When, therefore, your attention must be directed into a multitude of matters demanding your watchful eye and skill of the hand, and by and by you feel the encroachment of random particles of effluvia pressing against your wall of Light, remember, even the policeman directing traffic makes use of the ancient mudra which universally communicates the cosmic vibration STOP! "This mental thrust of the Word is reinforced by certain physical postures during meditation and by others when one is in the active mode . . . This reaffirmation of the Word, once again drawing the lines of one’s forcefield, may be accompanied by a strong breathing out and then a deep breathing in, holding the inbreath while visualizing the seven chakras and the eighth each sealed by the Lord Buddha extending the fearlessness flame [of Divine Love] in the abhaya mudra." <107> "I AM the first and the last, the living Guru Maitreya. I am present with you and in you unto the universal idiom of the word of Victory. I AM Maitreya, Ma. I bless you by the sacrament of my life, by the sacrament of my perpetual adoration of God. Lo, I AM Alpha and Omega. I AM present with you alway. "Now speak my name silently in your heart: Maitreya. And in my name wrap the burden of your soul, the problem of the day. Wrap it carefully in my name, for I stand now before you in the Great Silence ready to receive that package addressed to me. "I AM thy healing Light. "I AM the Lover of thy soul. "I AM the Wisdom of the manifest Guru. Aum. "Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest. I AM the all-consuming Light. The all-consuming Light is my yoke. Therefore take my yoke upon you and learn of me. I will demonstrate to you the alchemy whereby thy burden shall be Light <108> and thy Light shall be a flaming sword and thy sword shall be for the deliverance of the nations. "By the flame of Saint Germain, Jesus Christ, and your own dear name written in heaven, I declare unto you, the Victory Flame is come! In my left hand I take the package addressed to me from each one of you now. And in my right hand I make my vow. And I thrust Victory’s torch and I say: Here, carry the torch of the fire of Victory and I will carry the burden of your day. "This is my promise. May you take it and incorporate it into your morning ritual. So greet the dawn and make your little package, whether small or great. Seal it with my name. My angels will take that package and give to you the torch of Victory for your day, each and every day until your ascension in the Light. "Lo, the ascension draweth nigh." Maitreya has given the persevering ones a mantra with which to victoriously meet all of their challenges. In his dictation of October 14, 1973, he said: "I AM the Initiator, testing you in the hour of victory! Shirk not responsibility. Shrink not from testing, but proclaim the Sacred Law! With rejoicing go forth to meet the challenge of fire at the eleventh hour of each day, of each year, of each cycle of fulfillment. For there I stand to welcome you, to offer you the opportunity to seal and make permanent the Victory of a cycle. And this is a testing that must come to seal all other testings of all other hierarchies each step of the way. Therefore, you can expect to greet me each day with: "Hail, Maitreya! Hail, Victory! Hail, Flame of God! "This is the call I like to hear! This is the call that will carry you through the year! This is the call that will make of us bosom friends of Light. For when I hear that call I stand forth to embrace you and to say: Now let us go forth, as hand in hand together we meet the challenge of the hour! I cannot pass your tests for you, but I can place my hand in yours and lend you the momentum of my consciousness and my flame." <109>
The Teachings of Maitreya for the Age of the
Heart Lord Maitreya has encouraged all earnest students to study his teachings systematically in order to discover the keys to “the Age of Maitreya.” On June 30, 1988, he said: "Will you not, then, first and foremost take up the study of all of my dictations [which I have released] even through these two disciples, your Messengers? Will you not search them to discover the keys of this age that is known in some quarters as 'the Age of Maitreya'? Then will you not see that all others [of the spiritual hierarchy] who have released by the Holy Spirit of the Great White Brotherhood the vast Teaching set forth have also been my Messengers—the Ascended Masters, the angelic hosts? "Can there not be even a treasure mapping of these teachings? Can there not be a choosing one by one of a single gem of a virtue to embody, come what may? Can we not be together a mass of crystalline substance as one body, one forcefield, truly endowing and instilling the consciousness of the Universal Christ to a planet?" <110> As Lord Maitreya said on March 24, 1985: "Understand that the thread of my teaching is in all teachings of the Ascended Masters; and they have been as the Bodhisattvas going before the coming of my Presence. The presence in the earth of that Light demands an extraordinary and unflinching strength and devotion on the part of the chelas who would surround me. " . . . I bring to you, then, the sense of yourself as an extension of myself (who am an extension of Gautama, Sanat Kumara) in order that your heart, beloved ones, may become as a fiery furnace, sacred and intense, in which you store Light—far more Light than that stored by those not on the Path—and become thereby truly a transformer of worlds. And by that heart, when you stand in the presence of the children of the Mother, they can no longer be the same. They must be different. They must know joy. Such is my presence in the Messenger. "If you elect, then, to have that increase of Light of the heart, pursue the teachings of the Ascended Masters in an orderly manner. " . . . Thus I say, every word of the Ascended Masters through the Messengers is in you a preparation not only for the coming of Maitreya in outer manifestation in the world but also for my coming in inner manifestation in your being.... "Beware, O children of the Sun. For I AM that Law that does deliver thee. And the means of deliverance which you have seen as the clipper ship is truly my Causal Body. It is my Eden of Light, forged, won, created to contain all of you in the Mystery School." <111> The power of the heart conquers absolutely everything. The heart may know the significance of far-off happenings. The heart can soar, fortifying the needed links. The heart can unite itself with the far-off worlds. Test it by the transmission of the will alone and you will realize the difference in the will of the heart. Maitreya’s is the Age of the Heart! Only with the heart can one evaluate the treasures of Maitreya! Only with the heart can one understand how greatly all acquisitions, all straight-knowledge are needed for the future. <112> And all acquisitions begin with the attainment of the fire of the heart—the balanced threefold flame expanding, multiplying and intensifying its outreach daily. Thus we come full circle to the teachings we began with and the keynote of Lord Maitreya, the development of the heart in loving-kindness. On February 14, 1988, Maitreya said: "Know me, then, in kindness first expressed by you. Then the return current of that kindness expressed by another will reveal to you one of my million smiles through the friend, through the kind ones on earth, the wise ones who know that true kindness is found in the act of one who has cared enough to earn the key to open the door to successive chambers of my retreat. "Come and find me, beloved." <113> Maitreya gave us the key to the opening of the door to his retreat in his dictation of June 30, 1988. Concerning the golden pink glow-ray and the entrance to the realm of the Buddhas, he said: "I would woo you to the courts of Maitreya. Come and find me, beloved. I shall not tell where I hold court to deliver my mystery teachings in the etheric octave, for I desire those who have the magnet of my heart to find me as one would find a treasure without a map—only lodestone attracted to lodestone. "But I place in your heart, in this hour together, fire of my fire. I dip into this fire, beloved—a gold and pink and white fire—I dip into it, and in the multiplicity of my Self and Presence I place [it] into an urn (which by your leave I have already placed upon the altar of your heart)—a beautiful gold and pink and white fire. These colors merging, beloved, produce many hues. "Therefore, [visualizing this fire] as petals of roses, fiery roses with dewdrops, you shall know that when you meditate upon this fire through the call to the golden pink glow-ray, you shall be drawn unerringly to my abode. And you shall know that the requirement of approaching me by a congruency of vibration has been met by all whom you find in my abode. The golden pink glow-ray is the entrance to the realm of the Buddhas." <114> Thy Golden Pink Glow-Ray 1. I AM calling today for thy Golden Pink Ray Refrain: O Brotherhood at Luxor and blest Serapis Bey, Charge, charge, charge our being 2. Saturate me with Golden Pink Light 3. Surround us now with Golden Pink Love
El Morya says that when you seek and find the secret chamber of the heart of your own beloved Holy Christ Self and can come and go there at will, you will seek and find Maitreya’s Secret Abode. So let us conclude our contemplation of Maitreya with some mantras that will take us to the heart of our Holy Christ Self and from there to his Secret Abode: The first mantra is Namo Maitreya. In Pali it is given as Namo Metteyya. But we will say, “Namo Maitreya,” “Homage to the sacred name of Maitreya.” Namo is a Sanskrit word that is used to express devotion and reverence. It can be translated as “Hail,” “Homage to,” “I bow to,” “I make obeisance to.” Please understand and always remember that when we bow before any Ascended Master, we are bowing to the one Light of the one God within them—and ourselves. We are bowing to the kingdom of God which is within them—and ourselves. We are bowing to God who has personified himself as Lord Maitreya, as Gautama Buddha, as Sanat Kumara... We access the Light of our God by our devotions, our service and our exercise of the science of the spoken Word through I AM affirmations, mantras, prayers and decrees. This Light has also been individualized and qualified with certain virtues, powers and attainments by the saints and Ascended Masters through their devotions, their service and their exercise of the science of the spoken Word. This their collective offering to devotees on earth is accessible to those who call to these heavenly friends by name, imploring their intercession through the Mighty I AM Presence. The Call compels the Answer! Namo Maitreya (give 6 times) The next mantra is Maitri Maitri Maha Maitri Svaha. The meaning is “Loving-kindness and great loving-kindness, please grant me that, Maitreya. Maitreya, Maitreya, I will worship him.” Svaha is a Sanskrit word often used at the end of mantras, meaning “So be it,” “May I be blessed,” “May good arise therefrom,” “Worship to him,” or “Power from him.” Maitri Maitri Maha Maitri Svaha (give 11 times) Om Ah Maitreyanathaya Hum Phat Svaha. Maitreyanathaya is “he who has Maitreya as a protector” or “Maitreya, the protector.” Natha means “Lord,” “protector,” “patron,” “possessor,” “owner” and is often used in compounds with names of gods and men. Hum is one of the seed syllables for manifestation. Phat is the release of fohat, which is the concentrated energy of the sacred fire held in the chakras by the adepts. Svaha is the sealing of the mantra. Om Ah Maitreyanathaya Hum Phat Svaha. Om Ah Maitreyanathaya Hum Phat Svaha (give 10 times) Maim is the seed syllable for Maitreya. The essence of a cosmic being, chakra or principle is said to be concentrated in a bija mantra, or seed syllable. Aim is the seed syllable of Sarasvati, who is the representative of the Divine Mother as the consort, or Shakti, of Brahma, the Father principle in the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. As I have mentioned, one of the roots of Maitreya’s name is matr, “mother.” Thus Aim becomes the seed syllable for Maitreya when we add the letter M. So the mantra using Maitreya’s seed syllable is Om Maitreya Maim. Om Maitreya Maim. Let us seal this chapter of our study on the Path of the Bodhisattva by giving Maitreya’s seed syllable: Om Maitreya Maim (give 108 times if you wish)
Throughout these notes PoW is the abbreviation for Pearls of Wisdom. 1. A stupa (literally “hair knot”) was originally a monument erected over the relics of Gautama Buddha and other great saints. Today stupas are highly symbolic structures that are the focus of devotion in Buddhist monasteries or temples. Stupas may contain sacred texts and other sacred objects. One Buddhist text recounts that Gautama Buddha told a disciple that stupas should be constructed not only as monuments to the dead but as monuments to the living—to a Buddha and “a true hearer” of a Buddha. Thus the stupa is more than just a memorial for the worship of Buddhas or saints; it is a supreme symbol of the path of the attainment of enlightenment, the goal of every Buddhist. The component parts of the stupa symbolize the qualities or disciplines that produce the awakened state of mind. Eight different types of stupas commemorate the eight major events in the life of Gautama Buddha and stupas have been erected at sites that played an important role in Gautama’s life. A stupa usually has a hemispherical or cylindrical shape; the basic architectural form takes on special features in different countries throughout Asia. In Tibet stupas are called chötens, or chortens. “The three-dimensional form called chöten (‘offering container’) is regarded in Tibetan Buddhism as a symbol of the body, speech, and mind of the Buddha . . . The symbology of the chöten is based on Mahayana doctrine. The four lower levels stand for the four positive states of mind of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. A secondary pedestal on top of this has ten further levels that ascend to the middle part of the chöten; these represent the ten stages bhumi) of the spiritual development of a bodhisattva. The middle part or ‘body’ of the chöten symbolizes the awakened mind (bodhicitta) and in certain cases contains the image of a deity. Above this middle part rise thirteen umbrella shapes of different sizes; they represent various methods of propagating the Buddhist teaching (dharma). On top of these umbrella shapes is a five-petaled lotus, symbol of the properties of the five Buddha families (buddhakula) [each headed by one of the Five Dhyani Buddhas]. The pinnacle of the stupa is composed of a sun disk resting on a crescent moon, which symbolizes the cosmic grandeur of the teaching. [Above this, at the very top of the structure, there is a flaming drop]” (The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion [Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1989], p. 340). The interior ground plans of stupas of the Vajrayana school of Buddhism are designed to represent the mandala of the Five Dhyani Buddhas. The different levels of the chorten also correspond to the five elements, which are symbolized by a specific bija mantra, color and form (shape). Lama Govinda writes of the symbology of the chorten: “The cubic forms of the lower storeys correspond to the element ‘Earth’, the round central part to the element ‘Water’, the conical (gilt) upper-structure to the element ‘Fire’, the umbrella above it to the element ‘Air’. The flaming drop of the element ‘Ether’ rests on the vessel with the ‘Elixir of Life’, which crowns the honorific umbrella” (Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism [1960; reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, 1969], pp. 185-86). The stupa is also said to represent the temple of man or the Body of the Buddha. One Pali text says, “The stupa is the Buddha and the Buddha is the stupa.” Govinda explains that in some Nepalese stupas, for instance, the structure is decorated near the top with painted eyes to suggest “a human figure in the posture of meditation hidden in the stupa, the crossed legs in the base, the body up to the shoulders in the hemisphere, the head in the harmika [kiosk or altar-like structure at the top]. This also corresponds to the psycho-physiological doctrine of the centers of psychic force [chakras] which are located one above the other in the human body and through which consciousness develops in ascending order . . . The [crown chakra] is symbolized by a dome-shaped or flame-like protuberance on the head of the Buddha, and by the cone-shaped Tree of Enlightenment which forms the spire of the stupa” (Psycho-cosmic Symbolism of the Buddhist Stupa [Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1976], pp. 84-85). Author Adrian Snodgrass explains that the stupa is identified with the Dharma: “The sacred texts are the verbal embodiment of the Dharma; the stupa is its architectural embodiment. The stupa is the architectural equivalent of the scriptures . . . The stupa is seen to embody the Dharma in several ways: it is identified with the Wheel of the Law, which is the symbolic expression of the manner of the Dharma’s functioning as the Law of the cosmos; it embodies the sound of the Dharma; and it incorporates doctrinal codifications in its layout and measurements . . . “In innumerable texts the Dharma is equated with light: the Buddha’s Awakening is an Illumination, and his preaching of the Dharma is an irradiation of the worlds. The stupa as Dharma is thus a source of light; it is a Beacon of the Law, and in many places it has been a common custom to light up the stupa with a profusion of lamps . . . The stupa propagates the doctrine; it shines with the radiance of the Dharma, illuminating the four quarters. The building of a stupa is a renewal of the preaching of the Dharma. According to a Tibetan text, the stupa is built to allow all creatures to see the Buddha, to hear the Law spoken once again, and to reverence the Community (sangha) which has received the Law and faithfully transmitted its teachings” (The Symbolism of the Stupa [Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1985], pp. 366, 370-71). 2. Nicholas Roerich, Altai-Himalaya: A Travel Diary (Brookfield, Conn.: Arun Press, 1929), p. 103. 3. Christine M. E. Guth, “The Pensive Prince of Chuguji: Maitreya Cult and Image in Seventh-Century Japan,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 191, 195. 4. Har Dayal, The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature (1932; reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, 1978), pp. 227, 228. 5. I. B. Horner, trans., Milinda’s Questions, vol. 1 (London: Luzac and Company, 1963), pp. 286, 287, 289. 6. Maha Sthavira Sangharakshita, The Three Jewels: An Introduction to Buddhism (1967; reprint, London: Windhorse Publications, 1977), pp. 170-71. 7. Saint Germain, April 16, 1988, 1988 PoW, p. 404. 8. Kuan Yin, July 1, 1988, 1988 PoW, p. 475. 9. Dayal, Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature, pp. 216-17. 10. Helena Roerich, Foundations of Buddhism (New York: Agni Yoga Society, 1971), pp. 141-42. 11. Bhikshu Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism, 5th ed. (Boulder, Co.: Shambhala, 1980), p. 434. 12. Dayal, Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature, pp. 209-10. 13. James 1:27. 14. Ps. 139:7, 8. 15. “One picture is worth more than ten thousand words,” a Chinese proverb. 16. Lord Maitreya, June 30, 1988, 1988 PoW, pp. 444, 445. 17. E. Zürcher, “‘Prince Moonlight’: Messianism and Eschatology in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism,” T’oung Pao: Revue internationale de Sinologie 68 (1982): 14, 39, 40. 18. Susan Naquin, “The Transmission of White Lotus Sectarianism in Late Imperial China,” in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, ed. David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan and Evelyn S. Rawski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 257, 265. 19. samsara [Sanskrit, literally wandering through, journeying]: passing through a succession of states; the indefinitely repeated cycles of birth, misery, and death caused by karma; corporeal existence; worldly illusion; the universe of manifestation and phenomena as distinguished from the real existence which lies behind it. 20. Daniel L. Overmyer, “Folk-Buddhist Religion: Creation and Eschatology in Medieval China,” History of Religions 12 (August 1972):60. Psalm 82 gives a message that the Buddha might have delivered to the children of the Mother in the Dragon Flower Assembly. 21. Hue-Tam Ho Tai, “Perfect World and Perfect Time: Maitreya in Vietnam,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, p. 165. 22. Overmyer, “Folk-Buddhist Religion,” p. 61. 23. Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), p. 10. 24. Overmyer, “Folk-Buddhist Religion,” p. 57. 25. Daniel L. Overmyer, “Messenger, Savior, and Revolutionary: Maitreya in Chinese Popular Religious Literature of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, p. 124. 26. Ibid., p. 117. 27. Ibid. 28. You can see how the worldwide practice of abortion makes it even more difficult for the soul to find a body once she loses it in the transition called death. And you can see the mounting world karma of abortion—a karma not only for the abortion of a body but for the abortion of the divine plan of a soul; a karma for the abortion of entire karmic groups of souls who cannot complete their mission because part or all of their unit didn’t make it into embodiment. This karma is upon the entire race and it is the karma of spiritual as well as physical infertility. So with the compounding of karma, as cause begets effect which begets new causes, it is becoming more and more difficult indeed to get a new body to balance old karma. People seem oblivious to the effect of the absence of as many as 960 million souls who have been aborted worldwide since Roe v. Wade in 1973. At least 22 million abortions have been performed in the United States alone since 1973, which is equal to 8.9 percent of the current U.S. population. An estimated 40 million to 60 million abortions each year have been performed worldwide since 1973, making a total of between 640 million and 960 million. These “missing persons” will not take their place as adults in the world scheme in the final decade of the twentieth century nor will those who might have been their eventual offspring. The absence of these lifestreams in embodiment in this hour has compromised the divine plan for earth and her evolutions, and the karma created by it cannot even be calculated. We are the losers and this karma affects us all. 29. Overmyer, “Messenger, Savior, and Revolutionary,” p. 119. 30. Ibid., pp. 119-20. 31. Garma C. C. Chang, ed., A Treasury of Mahayana Sutras: Selections from the Maharatnakuta Sutra (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983), pp. 409-10. 32. Lord Maitreya, March 24, 1985, 1985 PoW, pp. 617, 618. 33. Lord Maitreya, April 19, 1981, 1981 PoW, p. 278. 34. James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977), p. 331. 35. Kurt Rudolph, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), p. 131. 36. John 10:14, 27; 17:11, 14. 37. Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, p. 123. 38. John 8:29. 39. G. R. S. Mead, trans., “The Hymn of the Soul,” in G. A. Gaskell, Gnostic Scriptures Interpreted (London: C. W. Daniel Company, 1927), pp. 49, 57-58. 40. Himalaya, October 4, 1987, 1987 PoW, pp. 502-3. 41. Rudolph, Gnosis, p. 122. 42. Gen. 4:25, 26. 43. Sanat Kumara (from the Sanskrit sanat, “from of old,” “always,” “ever” and kumara, “always a youth”) is revered in Hinduism as one of the four or seven sons of Brahma; they are portrayed as youths who have remained ever pure. Sanat Kumara is said to be the oldest of the progenitors of mankind; in the Mahabharata he is called the “eldest born of Brahman.” In some accounts he is considered to be the son of Shiva. In the Chandogya Upanishad Sanat Kumara is the teacher of the sage Narada, who learns from him that the highest truth can be attained only through true Self-knowledge. Sanat Kumara also takes on the role of the god of war and commander-in-chief of the divine army of the gods in his manifestation as Karttikeya or Skanda. He is often represented holding a spear and riding on a peacock and is sometimes shown with twelve arms holding weapons. He is said to have been reared by the six Pleiades, from which the name Karttikeya (“Son of the Pleiades”) is derived. Some works also acclaim Karttikeya as the god of wisdom and learning. 44. II Kings 2:14. 45. Matt. 5:17. 46. Matt. 11:14; 17:12, 13; Mark 9:13. 47. Luke 1:76. 48. Matt. 10:5, 6; 15:24; 18:11-14. 49. Matt. 11:11; Luke 7:28. 50. John 3:30. 51. Matt. 3:13-15. 52. Lama Anagarika Govinda, “Origins of the Bodhisattva Ideal,” Stepping-Stones 2 (January 1952): 244, quoted in Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism, p. 395. 53. Stanley Frye, trans., The Sutra of the Wise and the Foolish; or, The Ocean of Narratives (Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1981), p. 14. 54. Padmanabh S. Jaini, “Stages in the Bodhisattva Career of the Tathagata Maitreya,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, p. 59. 55. H. Saddhatissa, trans., The Birth-Stories of the Ten Bodhisattas and the Dasabodhisattuppattikatha (London: Pali Text Society, 1975), pp. 58, 60. 56. Deut. 10:17; II Sam. 14:14; Acts 10:34; Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; I Pet. 1:17. 57. Alpha and Omega, July 3, 1988, 1988 PoW, p. 531. 58. The dweller-on-the-threshold is a term sometimes used to designate the anti-self, the not-self, the synthetic self, the antithesis of the Real Self, the conglomerate of the self-created ego, ill conceived through the inordinate use of the gift of free will, consisting of the carnal mind and a constellation of misqualified energies, forcefields, focuses, animal magnetism comprising the subconscious mind. See Elizabeth Clare Prophet, November 26, 1987, “The Lost Teachings of Jesus: On the Enemy Within,” on two 90-min. audiocassettes, $13.00 (add $.95 for postage), A87097; 1983 PoW, pp. 50, 383-91, 429-54; 1985 PoW, pp. 84, 85-93, 97, 350 n. 10; 1986 PoW, pp. 199, 203, 210-12; glossary in Saint Germain On Alchemy, pp. 395-96. 59. Rom. 7:23; James 4:1. 60. John 9:4, 5; 12:35, 36. 61. Kenneth K. S. Ch’en, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 405-6, 407-8. 62. M. Conrad Hyers, Zen and the Comic Spirit (London: Rider and Company, 1974), pp. 46, 47-48. 63. Roerich, Foundations of Buddhism, p. 146. 64. Luke 17:21. 65. Letters of Helena Roerich, 1929-1938, vol. 1 (New York: Agni Yoga Society, 1954), p. 425. 66. Letters of Helena Roerich, 1935-1939, vol. 2 (New York: Agni Yoga Society, 1967), p. 62. 67. [Helena Roerich], Woman (New York: Agni Yoga Society, 1958), p. 28. 68. The mountain known in the local area as Deaf Jim Knob was renamed “Maitreya Mountain” by the Messenger. It is located on the Royal Teton Ranch and overlooks the Heart of the Inner Retreat from the southeast. 69. Gautama Buddha, November 8, 1981, 1981 PoW, pp. 499-500. 70. See p. 89 following p. 402. 71. See Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Introduction I, “Lord Maitreya: The Coming Buddha Who Has Come,” 1984 PoW, Book I, pp. 1-3. 72. Justinius, April 6, 1985, 1985 PoW, p. 285. 73. Jesus is called Issa in both the written chronicles and oral traditions of the East, where he spent his 17 to 18 “lost years,” from age 13 to 29, not accounted for in the Bible. See Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Lost Years of Jesus. 74. Luke 2:49. 75. See pp. 85, 86, 87 following p. 402. 76. On January 1, 1986, Gautama Buddha announced that he and the Lords of Karma had granted the petition of the Lords of the Seven Rays to open universities of the Spirit—courses of instruction given by the Seven Chohans and the Maha Chohan at their etheric retreats for tens of thousands of students who are pursuing the path of self-mastery on the seven rays. See 1988 PoW, pp. 287 n. 5, 544 n. 11, chart p. 438. 77. The Maha Chohan, May 15, 1988, 1988 PoW, pp. 435-36. 78. The terms Lion, Calf (or Ox), Man and Flying Eagle are used by Ezekiel and John the Revelator. The same office in hierarchy referred to by Ezekiel as “Ox” (Ezek. 1:10) is denoted by John as “Calf” (Rev. 4:7). See Ezek. 1:5-10; Rev. 4:6-8; Sanat Kumara, 1979 PoW, Book I, pp. 91-128, 201-8, diagrams pp. 136, 142, 186, 274-75. 79. El Morya, July 5, 1985, 1985 PoW, pp. 424-25. 80. Sanat Kumara, Gautama Buddha, Lord Maitreya and Jesus Christ are the initiators on the Path of the Ruby Ray positioned at the south, west, north and east gates of the New Jerusalem. See Sanat Kumara, 1979 PoW, Book I, pp. 165-71. 81. Gautama Buddha, April 18, 1981, 1981 PoW, pp. 225, 226, 227. 82. Archangel Jophiel, January 1, 1989, 1989 PoW, p. 37. 83. Heros and Amora, October 11, 1988, 1988 PoW, p. 635. 84. El Morya, June 30, 1988, 1988 PoW, p. 450. 85. Matt. 24:31; Mark 13:27; Saint Germain, July 4, 1981, 1981 PoW, pp. 360-61. 86. Gautama Buddha, May 13, 1987, 1987 PoW, p. 249. 87. Sangharakshita, The Three Jewels, p. 150. 88. Vajrapani (Sanskrit, literally “thunderbolt-bearer”) is the Dhyani Bodhisattva who belongs to what is known as the “vajra family,” headed by the Dhyani Buddha Akshobhya. According to Buddhist teachings, Vajrapani is the Bodhisattva of energy and power. In Tibetan art he is dark blue in color and is portrayed in both a benign and a wrathful form. In his peaceful aspect he holds a lotus flower; in his wrathful aspect he dispels demons and guards the Dharma by trampling the enemies of religion. 89. Sangharakshita, The Bodhisattva: Evolution and Self-Transcendence, 2d ed. (Glasgow: Windhorse Publications, 1986), pp. 21, 22-23. 90. See Gautama Buddha, Quietly Comes the Buddha, pp. 18-39; 1975 PoW, pp. 97-106. 91. Lord Maitreya, December 4, 1980, 1980 PoW, p. 359. 92. The Royal Teton Retreat, congruent with the Grand Teton near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is the principal retreat of the Great White Brotherhood on the North American continent. See 1988 PoW, p. 154 n. 6. 93. Sanat Kumara, December 15, 1985, 1986 PoW, pp. 70-71. 94. See p. 462. 95. See p. 377. 96. Sanat Kumara, 1979 PoW, Book I, p. 165. 97. Lord Maitreya, January 1, 1986, 1986 PoW, p. 195. 98. Lord Maitreya, December 31, 1985, 1986 PoW, pp. 161-62. 99. See p. 88 following p. 402. 100. John 12:44, 45; 14:10, 11. 101. Archangel Gabriel, Mysteries of the Holy Grail, p. 262. 102. Sanat Kumara, 1979 PoW, Book I, pp. 77-78. 103. John 11:25, 26. 104. John 11:27. 105. Lord Maitreya, July 14, 1985, 1985 PoW, p. 497. 106. I John 4:18. 107. Sanat Kumara, 1979 PoW, Book I, pp. 341-42. 108. Matt. 11:28-30. 109. See pp. 373-74. 110. Lord Maitreya, June 30, 1988, 1988 PoW, p. 444. 111. Lord Maitreya, March 24, 1985, 1985 PoW, pp. 619, 620-21, 622-23. 112. [Helena Roerich], Heart (New York: Agni Yoga Society, 1975), p. 50. 113. Lord Maitreya, February 14, 1988, 1988 PoW, p. 172. 114. Lord Maitreya, June 30, 1988, 1988 PoW, pp. 444-45. |
| Lord
Maitreya The Coming Buddha Who Has Come by Elizabeth Clare Prophet part 1 |
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for 140 languages by ALS |
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