Pearls of Wisdom

Introduction

I

Lord Maitreya
The Coming Buddha Who Has Come
by
Elizabeth Clare Prophet

Our celebration of the presence of Lord Maitreya is profound, alive and very much quickened. Although Maitreya comes to us out of the historical setting of Buddhism, for us he is not only the Coming Buddha who has come but also the representative of the Universal Christ.

According to the traditions of Buddhism, Gautama Buddha prophesied to his disciples that after the planet had been steeped in a period of darkness Lord Maitreya would descend to earth to preside over an age of enlightenment. Buddhists today await Maitreya’s coming much in the same way that Christians await Jesus’ Second Coming.

But whereas Buddhists believe that Maitreya is coming at some future date (some put it at thousands, millions, and even billions of years from now), we affirm that the Ascended Master Maitreya has come and is here today to initiate all who qualify themselves to be his students. His chief disciple, Jesus Christ, announced the founding of Maitreya’s Mystery School on May 31, 1984 in the Heart of our Inner Retreat:

 

We are sheltered in the heart of Lord Maitreya. And he desires me, as his pupil, to announce to you that he is dedicating this Heart of the Inner Retreat and this entire property as the Mystery School of Maitreya in this age....

      You realize that the Mystery School of Maitreya was called the Garden of Eden. All of the Ascended Masters’ endeavors and the schools of the Himalayas of the centuries have been to the end that this might occur [i.e., that the Mystery School might be lowered] <1>from the etheric octave into the physical—that the Mystery School might once again receive the souls of Light who have gone forth therefrom [and] who are now ready to return, to submit, to bend the knee before the Cosmic Christ—my own blessed Father, Guru, Teacher and Friend.

      Beloved hearts, the realization of this God-goal and the willingness of Maitreya to accept this activity and Messenger and students in sacred trust to keep the flame of the Mystery School does therefore gain for planet earth and her evolutions a dispensation from the hierarchies of the Central Sun. For, you see, when there is about to become physical through [the] dispensation of the Cosmic Christ the renewal of the open door [to the etheric retreats of the Great White Brotherhood] whereby souls-as students of Light who apprentice themselves to the Cosmic Christ-may come and go from the planes of earth to the planes of heaven and back again, this is the open door of the coming of the golden age. [Maitreya’s Mystery School reestablished in the physical octave] is the open door of the pathway of East and West to the bodhisattvas and the disciples.

      This being so, the planetary body has therefore gained a new status midst all of the planetary bodies, midst all of the evolutionary homes. For once again it may be said that Maitreya is physically present, not as it was in the first Eden but by the extension of ourselves in form through the Messenger and the Keepers of the Flame. And as you have been told, this mighty phenomenon of the ages does precede the stepping through the veil of the Ascended Masters—seeing face to face their students and their students beholding them. <2>

 

The Buddha Maitreya Sponsors the Christ Jesus

In his dictation given February 14, 1988, Jesus spoke of Lord Maitreya as the one who had sent him in the lineage of the ancient Gurus:

 

      I, then, came into this world sent by the One who has sent me, and when I said, “I and my Father are one,” I spake of the All-Father and the living I AM Presence and of his representative, the One who should wear the mantle of Guru. Thus, the One who did send me in the chain of hierarchy of the ancients was none other than Maitreya....

      Blessed hearts, the continuity of the message of Maitreya come again is in this hour in you, not in one individual chosen apart, but through you and through that Holy Christ Flame....

      Come unto my heart and know me, then, as the Son, the “Sonshine” of Maitreya. Know, then, that my mission, going before him, even as John the Baptist went before me, was to clear the way for the coming of this Universal Christ in all sons of God upon earth. <3>

            As recorded in the New Testament, Jesus often spoke of the Father who had sent him. Of note are his words following his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, only days before his celebration of the last Passover supper. In this appeal we hear Jesus crying out, almost in desperation, for his disciples to know him as the Messenger of the Cosmic Christ, his beloved Guru Maitreya.

 

      Jesus cried and said, 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.

      I AM come a Light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in Darkness.

      And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

      He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the Word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

      For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.

      And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. <4>

      Jesus wanted his apostles to know the one he called Father as the Ascended Master Maitreya, who had overshadowed him as his Guru throughout his final incarnation. And he wanted them to know himself as the One Sent by Maitreya. For thereby they would not worship his flesh and blood but they would worship the continuity of the Word Incarnate, which was in the beginning with God and had been in Lord Maitreya and his predecessors, the Lord Gautama Buddha and the Lord Sanat Kumara, <5> as it was now in Christ Jesus.

            Furthermore, the Master wanted his own to know the Word Incarnate in him as the same “Light” that, he told John, “was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” <6>.

Jesus wanted his disciples to walk in the Light of their own Christhood while they had the Light of the Great Ones with them through his personal Messengership of the Word, lest the Darkness of the untransmuted self come upon them.

For did he not say, “He that walketh in [the] Darkness [of his own karmic condition and of his own dweller-on-the-threshold] knoweth not whither he goeth [without the Guru, who embodies the Light of the I AM THAT I AM]?” <7>

In response to Jesus’ uncompromising declaration of his oneness with the Father, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work”—which you, beloved, must also declare—“’the Jews sought the more to kill him.” <8> For not only had the Master broken their law by healing on the sabbath, but he had also said that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus’ answer rebukes their denial of his Christhood as well as their ignorance of the law of the succession of the Buddhas. He states in unequivocal terms his oneness with his Mighty I AM Presence and his oneness with his Father Maitreya, establishing the mantle and the empowerment that is upon him through the hierarchy of the Ancient of Days. <9>

 

      Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

      For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.

      For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.

      For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

      That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.

      Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. <10>

            And when at the last supper Philip said to him, “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us,” Jesus answered him:

 

      Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?

      Believest thou not that I AM in the Father, and the Father in 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: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.

      Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

      And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

      If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

      If ye love me, keep my commandments. <11>

            Here again Jesus reveals to his disciples his desire to be known as the Christ, the Avatar <12> * of the Piscean Age, the present link to the past and the future in the chain of hierarchy of the Buddhas and the Cosmic Christ.

Thus the Master would have said to his own:

“If you have seen me, you have seen Lord Maitreya, you have seen Gautama Buddha, you have seen Sanat Kumara—for each one in his turn and time has embodied the Father. And not only have you seen the personages of the Father in those who have sponsored my Christhood and my mission but you have also seen the Father as the Mighty I AM Presence overshadowing me and entering my temple:

“For I and my Father are one. <13>

“The indwelling Father—as the I AM Presence and the living Guru—dictates the words that I speak and the works that I do.

“If you don’t believe that I am in the Mighty I AM Presence and the Mighty I AM Presence is in me—if you don’t believe that I am in Maitreya and Maitreya is in me—then accept as proof the works that I do. For I of mine own self can do nothing; it is the Father in me, the Guru (the Buddha) in me, the Word in me, and the Christ (the Light) in me that doeth the work! <14>

“Moreover, he that believeth on me as the Messenger of the Father, the Guru, the Word and the Christ shall do the works that I do and greater works. Because by his affirmation of (his belief in) the Law of the One by which I live, he, through his own Holy Christ Self and Mighty I AM Presence, will also become the herald of God in this chain of hierarchy.

“And because ‘I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God,’ <15> I will sponsor you on this path of the disciples of the Cosmic Christ becoming the bodhisattvas of the Buddha Maitreya. As I AM, so you may also become. If you do not choose this calling sent to you from your Father and your God through my Messengership, then I will have failed in my mission and you will have failed in yours.”

Jesus then explained to his disciples the all-power of the Father that is vested in his name. He promised to transfer this power to his disciples by doing “whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,” that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

Indeed, the only way the Son can glorify the Father on earth is by his Word and Work being manifest and multiplied through his sons and daughters. And the name Jesus Christ is that Way. He has taught us that when we invoke the power of Almighty God “in the name I AM THAT I AM Jesus Christ,” the Light of his Causal Body is made accessible to us as his disciples. Since Jesus Christ is the foremost sponsoring Ascended Master of all who follow the Christic and Buddhic paths, it is through his name I AM THAT I AM Jesus Christ that his disciples may also invoke the powerful intercession of Lord Maitreya, Gautama Buddha and Sanat Kumara.

Therefore when calling upon the name of the Lord, chelas of the Word Incarnate who desire to achieve oneness and communion with the sponsoring Gurus of the ages of Taurus, Aries, Pisces and Aquarius always preface their prayers with the pronouncement of his Sacred Name in the full acclaim of his sponsors, saying: “In the name I AM THAT I AM Jesus Christ /LordMaitreya/Gautama Buddha/Sanat Kumara.” And in so doing, these chelas establish the thread of contact with Hierarchy, as Above, so below.

The all-power that God gave, in heaven and earth, <16> to his only begotten Son in Jesus Christ at the conclusion of his Galilean ministry he makes accessible to you through your Mighty I AM Presence and Holy Christ Self because you confess that Jesus is Lord. <17> This confession is your acceptance not only that Jesus is the incarnation of the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world, <18> but also that he is the incarnation of the Word, which was with God and which was God in the beginning. <19> That Word is the I AM THAT I AM. Thus, when you confess and you accept that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Saviour, you are affirming that he is actually the embodiment of the Mighty I AM Presence.

When the disciples of John the Baptist said to Jesus, “Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?” he answered them by witnessing to the works of the Mighty I AM Presence through him: “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” <20> For he knew that they had come seeking confirmation that he was the One Sent to be the incarnation of the I AM THAT I AM.

This is the real reason why Christians call Jesus “Lord”Lord (with large and small capital letters) is used to translate the Hebrew Yod He Vau He, or Yahweh, the I AM THAT I AM. Because New Testament writers did not comprehend the magnitude of Jesus’ incarnation of the (cont)"> <21> * and “Master.” And rightfully so, for he confirmed it to his disciples, saying, “And so ‘I AM.’” <22> This is why all the world should acknowledge him in the hour of his Second Coming as his disciples acknowledged him in his Advent, in the words of Thomas: “my Lord” and “my God.” <23>

Not because he ever proclaimed himself to be the exclusive and only Son of God, nay. But because in acknowledging the Lord and the God of Jesus (as the Father would have them do), the world will thereby be acknowledging the potential of that same Lord and that same God to be also in themselves.

Therefore this acknowledgment of “all the fullness of the Godhead” dwelling bodily in Jesus <24> is the first step we must take on the path of personal Christhood, whose goal is likewise the embodiment of the Word, the I AM THAT I AM,by ourselves and by every disciple of the Cosmic Christ.

This incarnation of the Word is accomplished through the self-humbling of the sons and daughters of God after the example of Christ Jesus. Their practice of discipleship in imitation of Jesus’ initiatic path must be based on their acceptance of their coequality with Jesus through the mind of the Cosmic Christ: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” as Paul said.

The apostle, who wrote to the Philippians of this calling of the true disciple in Christ, said of his own experience on the path: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die [unto the lesser self] is gain.” <25> Personally tutored by Jesus, Paul knew the goal of his Christhood to be “Christ alive within me—his Mind, his Body, his very God Presence, my own.” Therefore his message to the Christbearers at Philippi would be:

 

      Let this mind [or mindfulness] be in you, which [is in the Christ of you even as it] was in [the] Christ [of] Jesus:

      Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

      But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

      And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

      Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every [earthly] name:

      That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

      And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. <26>

            If you would receive the blessing of the “all-power in heaven and in earth,” which Jesus desires to impart to you through the same path of initiation whereby he received it from Lord Maitreya, your request must be made in the name of Jesus according to the will of the Father under the law of God out of your desire to glorify the Father in your Sonship.

For you can attain Sonship in your age as Jesus did in his, and as the great Gurus did before him, only by fulfilling the law and the prophets <27> who have gone before you and by glorifying—i.e., amplifying—the Light of the Father and the Son (and the Holy Spirit and the Divine Mother as well) in your temple. Thus shall your God dwell in you bodily and thus shall all men know that you are a servant of the Light even as that Light is the servant of all who have served the Light before you in the chain of hierarchy.

This chain is unbroken because chelas of the Word Incarnate

 have believed in the Sacred Name I AM THAT I AM

Jesus Christ/Lord Maitreya/Gautama Buddha/Sanat Kumara

 have called upon the Sacred Name I AM THAT I AM

Jesus Christ/Lord Maitreya/Gautama Buddha/Sanat Kumara

 and have embodied the Sacred Name I AM THAT I AM

Jesus Christ/Lord Maitreya/Gautama Buddha/Sanat Kumara

Therefore, the chelas of the Word Incarnate daily ask “in the name I AM THAT I AM Jesus Christ/Lord Maitreya/Gautama Buddha/Sanat Kumara” that the Father may be glorified in the Son, that the Mighty I AM Presence may be glorified in the Son of man <28>, that the Guru may be glorified in the Chela, that the Buddha may be glorified in the Bodhisattva, and that the Christ of Jesus may be glorified in the Christ of his Disciples.

The chelas of the Word Incarnate know that anything they ask that is according to God’s will, desiring to glorify God in their body and in their spirit, <29> the Lord will do it if they ask it in the Sacred Name I AM THAT I AM Jesus Christ/Lord Maitreya/Gautama Buddha/Sanat Kumara. And they manifest their love for Jesus Christ by keeping the commandments that he has given them, which have been handed down in the unbroken chain of the hierarchy of the Great White Brotherhood.

For all of these reasons and many more that my overflowing heart can neither speak nor write, I adore and I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. Amen.

The Religion of the Ascended Masters
and the Second Coming of Christ

 

Therefore, through the Sacred Heart of Jesus the Christ, the foremost disciple of Maitreya in the Piscean age, let us enter the path of the Coming Buddha.

As the Ascended Master who holds the office of Cosmic Christ and Planetary Buddha, Maitreya teaches us the same path of individual Christhood leading to the attainment of Buddhahood that he taught Jesus more than two thousand years ago.

The instruction we receive from the Ascended Masters for the perfecting of our souls in the disciplines given by the avatars of the ages of Taurus, Aries, Pisces and Aquarius come to us under the banners of Lord Maitreya and the World Mother.

The dictations of the Ascended Masters embody the mysteries of the Universal Christ spoken by Gautama as long as he walked the earth in the Light of his God unto the hour of his ascension from Shamballa after his passing in Kushinagara, India, circa 483 b.c.; and by Maitreya as long as he walked the earth in the Light of his God unto the hour of his ascension in 531 b.c.; and by Jesus Christ as long as he walked the earth in the Light of his God unto the hour of his ascension from Shamballa after his passing in Kashmir at the age of 81 in a.d. 77.

Throughout our ministry we have demonstrated the eternality of the message of the everlasting gospel we have set forth by comparing it with the Old and New Testaments, the Nag Hammadi library and other Gnostic writings, Buddhist and Hindu texts, the scriptures of the world’s religions and the oral and written traditions of mysticism embraced by the saints of East and West.

The chief cornerstone of every age is the Inner Christ and the Inner Buddha, “the same yesterday, today and forever.” <30>It is the work of religion to teach successive life-waves how to contact, how to realize and how to become that Inner Christ and that Inner Buddha. That their souls might attain reunion with the Holy Christ Self and the Mighty I AM Presence day by day unto the conclusion of the course of their incarnations on earth is the goal of our lifework.

We should realize that the departure in modern Buddhism from the original teachings of Sanat Kumara, Gautama Buddha and Lord Maitreya is as great as is the departure in modern Christianity from the original teachings of Jesus Christ. Our mission, therefore, is to build upon the foundations of Truth that have been laid by the avatars of all ages, using the progressive revelation delivered through our Messengership by those who have ascended through the disciplines of the Christic and Buddhist paths, which are one.

Let us who would embody the Teaching therefore be wary of those who attempt to “muzzle the mouth of the ox” <31> by confining the Ascended Master Maitreya, in his current discoursing to his disciples, to their interpretation of the letter of the law without the spirit. <32> These fundamentalists would put the World Teachers in a framework of Buddhist doctrine and history that may not necessarily conform to Gautama’s or Maitreya’s original intent or their message for the New Era. Therefore, let us not allow the scribes and the Pharisees of our day to critique the World Teachers’ progressive revelations and say, “Well, since they’re not in the scriptures and they don’t fit the ancient writings and prophecies and we’ve never heard of them, they must not be true!”

We must understand that as each two-thousand-year dispensation is based on the last, so it brings with it another revelation of the person of the Deity with which the evolutions of the planet may identify. And because in each dispensation there remain areas of incomplete knowledge of the Law, elements of the old dispensation are inevitably superceded by the larger world view that comes with the new.

As we enter the New Era with the Teachings of the Ascended Masters as our guide to the individualization of the God Flame, we see a most unfortunate resistance to change on the part of the orthodox hierarchies of both Christianity and Buddhism as well as the other world religions. And nowhere is this resistance more evident than in the attitudes toward the Coming of Christ or Buddha.

For example, as Christianity carries forward the two-thousand-year prophecy of the Second Coming of Christ, so Buddhism adheres to a lore and a history that has been recited for twenty-five hundred years concerning the coming of Maitreya. This waiting for the future coming of the Christ Jesus or the Buddha Maitreya with their disciples and bodhisattvas has created a vacuum of spiritual ignorance.

No Christ or Buddha is in embodiment, they say, therefore darkness covers the land. But this darkness is circumstantial: it occurs not because Christ or Buddha has not yet come, but because people are either too dense to be aware of the indwelling presence of Christ or Buddha or out of self-ignorance they deny the present possibility of God coming into their temple.

Thus Paul queried Christ’s followers at Corinth, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” <33> Evidently they didn’t! But they were no less informed than are some Christians and Buddhists today.

Gautama and Maitreya likewise affirmed the indwelling Spirit of God when they taught: “The indwelling Buddha...is by nature bright and pure, unspotted,...hidden in the body of every being like a gem of great value that is wrapped in a dirty garment,...and soiled with the dirt of greed, anger, folly and false imagination....All beings are potentially Tathagatas <34>....The road to Buddhahood is open to all. At all times have all living beings the Germ of Buddhahood in them.” <35>

The great cataclysm of spiritual darkness that has come upon earth in ages past and present is, in fact, the result of the acceptance of the false prophecy that the seed of Light is not planted in the soul, that the divine spark is not kindled, that God has not entered the temple of man, that the Spirit of God does not dwell in his offspring and that the Christ or the Buddha has not yet come to quicken the spirits of the dead. <36>

This procrastination of the incarnation of the Word is a lie that is sown throughout the world’s religions. Judaism, in rejecting the Christ of Jesus, has denied Christ’s incarnation in world Jewry today and postponed Messiah’s coming any time soon. Islam reveres Jesus as a true prophet along with Abraham, Moses and Mohammed but denies that any of these four were “incarna­tions of God.”

Most Muslims place their hopes both in the Second Coming of Jesus as the Messiah and in the coming of a madhi, or “divinely guided one,” who will usher in a short period of justice and peace. They say that this golden age will be followed by a decline leading to the Day of Judgment and the end of the world. Zoro­astrianism also awaits a saviour (saoshyant) who will lead the forces of Good in a final battle against Evil during the end times.

So where is the religion that proclaims that the Second Coming of Christ has already taken place? That religion is right here. And it is the religion of the Ascended Masters. These adepts who occupy the higher octaves of earth’s schoolroom teach their chelas that the First Coming of Christ is in the avatar of the age and the two-thousand-year dispensation at hand. Christ’s Second Coming, they tell us, is in his “bodily” descent into the temples of the disciples or bodhisattvas who follow that avatar in his teaching and example and receive the initiation of the incarnate Word.

In the ages of Pisces and Aquarius, the disciples and bodhisattvas who do realize the Universal Christ individualized in the person of their beloved Holy Christ Self therefore mirror the archetypal Christhood of the avatar Jesus or Maitreya in their individualization of the Word. And we believe and we are witnesses that the only begotten Son of the Father has indeed come to us “full of grace and truth,” <37> first in the person of Jesus Christ or Lord Maitreya and second in the person of our beloved Holy Christ Self.

Moreover, when we shall have attained to this level of Christ Self-realiza­tion, we shall also recognize the Ascended Master Jesus or Maitreya or both standing before us in their “Second Coming.” Thus, those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, <38> let them greet their Lord without because they have first known him within.

In his 1989 Thanksgiving Address Jesus explained that “the so-called Second Coming has occurred and recurred” and that from November 23, 1989, unto the end of the age of Pisces, “I shall have appeared to everyone on every plane of this Matter house...”

 

      I AM Christ, thy Lord. I come to receive my brides.

      O my souls, thou who art the mirror of the Divine Image of my Self and thy Christ Self to all the world, know, then, that all the world does see that Christ Image as at inner levels I touch everyone. And every eye does see me face to face and in the mirror of thy souls—thou who hast prepared and truly polished the mirror of self [so] that the weary traveler or the doubter or the one gone astray or even those who champion the cause of Evil might look into your soul, beloved, and see the true image, the Divine Image out of which all sons and daughters of Light were made. Take thee to thyself this solar image. Take to thy Self my Self.

      I come, then, in the appearance prophesied <39> and I come again and again and again, my beloved, for the so-called Second Coming has occurred and recurred. So understand, beloved, that I am in the earth as foretold and I am here to fulfill the prophecy that every eye shall see me. <40>

      Blessed hearts, I have called you to be my own, my disciples, my apostles. I have called to you to be the Christ. <41>I have called, beloved, that the multiplication of my Body, which is broken for you, <42> might be that my Electronic Presence should move in the earth through you and that my Sacred Heart upon your sacred heart might amplify that threefold flame and that open door of the heart whereby through us, one upon one, my Self superimposed upon [your self], the souls of earth might enter into the path of discipleship unto the same fulfillment of the Law that you yourselves are realizing and have realized in some measure.

      The hour is come, beloved, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear my voice and they that see me shall live. <43>For to see the true image of Christ, even with the inner eye, is truly the quickening, the resurrection. It is to take unto oneself that image; for what the eye beholds of me, beloved, is instantaneously stamped upon every cell and atom of being.

      Let it be so, beloved, for all must choose to receive the Christ of the heart, Jesus of the Sacred Heart, and to live, else in seeing [him] they may choose to deny that Christ and [thereby] instantaneously commit their souls to outer darkness. <44>

      Beloved, the denial of the Christ in oneself, when that Christ does come as I AM come to enter the temple, is sudden death to that soul. <45>[For] though the body may continue to [have life and to] move about [until the life force is spent and death does overtake it], the soul that has [with finality] denied Christ has denied its own Immortality, its everlasting Life and, alas, its reason for Being, [hence any possibility for continued existence].

      This is why the Second Coming of Christ is an apocalyptic event, beloved. For in the First Coming [of the avatar of the age] the opportunity to choose to be or not to be was given: to embrace the Light or not to embrace it. And two thousand years, beloved, [and, in truth, many aeons prior to my Advent] were given to all inhabitants of these several worlds to choose to be in Christ the fullness of everlasting Life and the fountain of youth and of resurrection’s flame to all. Therefore in the end [of the age of Pisces] that Second Coming does denote for many final choices, [even for the fallen angels whose time is up]. <46>

      Blessed ones, they pay me lip service. They pretend to look to the coming kingdom and their entering in as the goal of life, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. <47> They are the seed of Satan sown <48> in the Body of Christ and in the churches of the world. When they see me, beloved, face to face, they reject that Christ and that Light. They deny [my Second] Coming [though they have trumpeted it loud and long; they deny my] Person and, above all, [they deny] the Divine Image that our Father-Mother God has placed in you all.

      [It is because the Second Coming is also for the judgment of the seed of the Wicked One that it is written: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” <49>]

      Now, therefore, as the seed of Satan move up and down the earth, so I come. And I come until spring and beyond, up to the moment of the prophesied end of the age of Pisces. <50>And from now unto that hour, beloved, I assure you that I shall have appeared to everyone on every plane of this Matter house and on other worlds whose time has also come for my Second Appearing.

      This, then, must precede, even as some consider it must follow, that moment when there is the dividing of the way, and the hour of the dividing of the way on a planetary scale, where such Light does become incarnate in all who choose to be that Christ and [to] enter the ritual of the alchemical union, and where such Darkness descends as to result in the second death of souls. There, beloved, is alchemy. There, beloved, is world chemical­ization.

            Lord Maitreya explained the significance of his Coming in his dictation given January 2, 1988, affirming his descent into our hearts

 

      Being the Coming Buddha, then, I am come into your temple. Just as there is prophesied in the West the Second Coming of Christ, so there is prophesied in the East the Coming of Maitreya. The significance is the descent of the Buddha who is [the] Cosmic Christ into your heart. It is not delayed. It is ready.

      I AM here, beloved. I would enter. As the chamber is emptied and then filled again, emptied and then filled again by the fire breath of illumination’s flame, know that in your process of processioning through the inner canyons of being, mounting, then, the spiral staircase to the heart, I am with you, and in a moment of recognition [we experience] the divine awareness of we two in the heart of hearts communing. <51>

            Maitreya promised in his dictation given December 11, 1988, that he would come to stay in the hearts of those who would prepare him room:

 

      Our mission, then, [is] to connect the line of our heart to the hearts of those who have built a fortress as the abode of Maitreya, waiting for my Homecoming. Blessed ones, I will enter the hearts of those who have prepared me room and I will say to all that this promise extends for long, long time into the future.

      I give you almost unlimited time to do this. And I say the completion of the necessary crystal structure of Light is not something that is accomplished in a day or three months. It is the result of long dedication, the purity of Light and the pure qualification of the crys­tal-clear stream of the River of Life that allows this crystal fortress to be built.

      Thus, upon its completion I, Maitreya, enter the heart and enter to stay. For, beloved, I would be there as a presence to assist you by example, by vibration, in externalizing your own Holy Christ Self somewhat after the pattern of my own Buddhahood. <52>

            This teaching parallels Jesus’ words: “I AM in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” <53>

When a disciple asked him: “Lord, how wilt thou manifest thyself to us?” Jesus” answer revealed not only the law of the indwelling Son but also that of the indwelling Father: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” <54>

Even though this is the promise of the avatars East and West, in both Buddhism and Christianity we find the prophecy which states that an age of spiritual darkness and malaise must first come to the world as well as to the human spirit in order for the Messiah to appear. Now, that is not how it has to happen, although that is often how it does happen in the sequence of historical events.

We would not be here today offering our prayers and dynamic decrees for world transmutation if we believed that earth’s evolutions were bound by this prophecy of planetary darkness as a necessary antecedent to the Second Coming.

We believe that the warning of impending calamity is given so that by free will the sons and daughters of God can take action to mitigate the prophecies and astrological portents of negative world karma. These actions include our invocations to the violet flame and our constructive, enlightened exercise of free will in service to Life according to God’s will.

We also believe that Christ’s Second Coming is not necessarily a function of the times, nor of time and space, but of the readiness of the soul. For it is written: “When the pupil is ready the Teacher appears.”

And so, if we cannot turn back the cycles of world karma—because the world is not ready and because the Wisdom of God therefore does not allow it—we can at least be instrumental in turning back the cycles of our individual karma. No matter what else happens to the planet, we can experience the golden age in the microcosm of our own consciousness.

Our beloved Archeia Hope gave us this important message on January 2, 1987:

 

      O blessed hearts, do you know one thing that you have absolute and complete control over? It is this—that the golden age can manifest in this hour where you are! Where the individualization of the God Flame is in you, the golden age can already be in session and [in] progress in your aura....

You need no longer speculate, “Will the golden age come to earth?” [But you can say,] “It is here in me. That I know, O God. It is where I am, and more than this I cannot even desire. For I am with Hope filling Cosmos with my golden age.” <55>

            In our own aura, in our own forcefield, we can experience the highest octaves of Light; we can attain samadhi or nirvana and we can enter the golden ages that are now in progress in etheric octaves and on other systems of worlds. What’s more, if we choose to qualify ourselves, we can dwell in consciousness in what Buddhists call the Tushita heaven, where Maitreya is instructing his bodhi­sattvas.

Whereas these initiates can’t wait to be reborn on earth with the Coming Buddha so that they can achieve salvation under his tutelage and become messengers of his Dharma, the greatest hope and desire of Maitreya’s devotees on earth is to become worthy enough—through good works, confession of sins, chanting of holy scriptures and mantras, and meditation—to be reborn in Tushita heaven.

In studying the elements of historical Buddhism, we should remember that Maitreya is not so relevant to us as a past Bodhisattva or a future Buddha as he is gloriously relevant to us as a very present Ascended Master in our midst having full Buddhic powers and attainment, which he may transmit to us through teachings and initiations.

In truth, as the records of akasha reveal, Maitreya has worn the mantle of the Buddha since the hour of his ascension in 531 b.c. In a holy, holy ceremony at Shamballa, attended by a multitude of Ascended Masters and heavenly hosts, the Blessed Maitreya was crowned Buddha by the Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara. Maitreya’s ascended twin flame, who had been waiting for him in octaves of Light until he should complete his incarnations on earth, stood to the right of Sanat Kumara during the sacred ritual while Lady Master Venus stood to Sanat Kumara’s left.

The Light that poured forth from the Great Central Sun on that never-to-be-forgotten occasion opened the very heavens and anchored in the earth the glory and praise of the entire Spirit of the Great White Brotherhood upon the birthday of “the Coming Buddha who has come” to earth from Venus for the salvation and enlightenment of many. And the Light of that day and hour remains at Shamballa as a testimony to the Victory of our Lord in our behalf. For the Law attests: What one Son of Light can do, all Sons of Light can do. And so the Light of Maitreya’s Buddhahood has been multiplied by the Causal Bodies of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who have since received their initiations at the City of Light. <56>

Therefore, in the golden pink glow-ray of Shamballa and the splendour of the Buddhas, let us claim the truth of the Buddha Maitreya’s presence with us and walk the earth with the image of Maitreya emblazoned in heart and head and hand. We can hold the image of Maitreya in our third-eye chakra even as Kuan Yin wears the figure of the Amitabha Buddha on her crown. For we who have received so great a salvation from our beloved Maitreya must affirm: “My Teacher, my Friend, my Guru Maitreya lives within me and I AM his representative where I AM. And as I AM the Compassionate One filled with the wisdom of wise dominion in my life, as I AM in congruency with the will of God—I AM THAT I AM Maitreya!”

The moment we postpone Maitreya’s Coming or his presence with us, because we’re preoccupied with our human existence—even if we only postpone it for five minutes—we have engaged in the lie of procrastination that displaces the Planetary Buddha and the Cosmic Christ where we are.

Those who believe the lie of procrastination of Maitreya’s Coming are also subject to various false-hierarchy teachings concerning his Person and his Path, all of which place Maitreya and the kingdom of God somewhere else than where you are. For instance, Benjamin Creme, who claims to be a representative of Maitreya, announced in May 1982 that Maitreya had entered the modern world in 1977 and was living in the Pakistani community in southeast London.

Creme says that Maitreya, whom he calls “the Christ,” has begun to appear publicly, speaking on world problems and his mission. <57> He also claims that in 1988 Maitreya appeared at a church in Kenya, addressed worshipers in Swahili and performed healings; and he has even produced a purported photograph of the event. <58> According to Creme, this Maitreya will one day identify himself in an international television broadcast in which he will communicate telepathically with all people on earth in their own language.

Creme teaches that Maitreya is concerned with political, economic and social problems and that he will show humanity how to “create a civilization based on sharing, co-operation and goodwill, leading inevitably to world brother­hood.” <59> The energies that Maitreya will release into the world, says Creme, “will lead eventually to that desired state of fusion and synthesis which will be the keynote of the Aquarian age.” <60>

He says that Maitreya’s first priority is to solve the problem of world hunger and starvation by promoting the principle of sharing through the redistri­bution of the world’s resources as the key to salvation. According to Creme, there will be a future world government of federated independent states with the United Nations Assembly as its international legislative body.

Creme’s premise and conclusion are erroneous. His flesh-and-blood Maitreya is not the incarnation of the Cosmic Christ; and his socialist salvation through a one-world economy runs counter to the law of the Planetary Buddha. The Ascended Masters teach what Jesus Christ, Lord Maitreya, Gautama Buddha and Sanat Kumara have all taught their disciples: “Every man shall bear his own karmic burden,” <61> which is to say, “Every man shall bear his own economic burden,” even as every man shall bear the responsibility for his own Christhood and his own Buddhahood.

The redistribution of wealth is the procrastination of the path of individual initiation leading to salvation under the lineage of Maitreya. This false guru’s brand of salvation is the same old doctrine of the Serpent in the Garden’salvation by World Socialism (that is, by the neutralization of the law of karma), which says that if you eat of the fruit of the false gurus of a one-world economy, “Ye shall not surely die.” <62> Yet World Socialism, also known as World Communism, is the death of the human spirit. Thus saith the Lord God.

The teaching of the true Guru is that by the flame of Charity all noble sons and daughters of God are expected to give freely of the loaf of Christ’s Bread, even as they have freely received. Caring for the poor in body, mind and spirit is the true Dharma of all initiates of the living flame of Love, regardless of their religious label.

We shall not surely believe that the coming of such a one as Maitreya is confined to a single flesh-and-blood body; this doctrine is calculated to put us in a state of idolatry of that one, and of ourselves as being among the privileged enlightened few who know him. We shall surely understand that as it is prophesied that the days of karmic travail shall be shortened for the elect, <63> so we need not wait 30,000 years or 56,740,000 or 5,670,000,000 years (numbers juggled in Buddhist lore) to discover Maitreya in our midst.

We need to separate the chaff from the wheat in all of the world’s religions!

On December 31, 1985, Lord Maitreya said:

 

      Thousands upon thousands of Buddhists and other Lightbearers have waited for this opportunity of my opening of the Mystery School. Yet so few have understood the darkness of the false-hierarchy impostors who say, “Lo, Maitreya is come here. He is come there. He is in embodiment. He is giving messages through me.” <64>

            In his May 31, 1984 dictation announcing the founding of Maitreya’s Mystery School, Jesus exposed the false-hierarchy teaching on Maitreya’s coming and explained what the dispensation of Maitreya’s advent in the dawn of the Aquarian age means to each one of us:

 

      Beloved hearts, I tell you that those stories that have gone forth through Benjamin Creme regarding the coming of Maitreya in a certain individual are not true but of the false hierarchy. And they are designed to discredit and preempt the true coming of Maitreya in succession, as has always been [the case] in the hierarchical evolution of the ages of planet earth.

      When I was in embodiment, I was the presence of Maitreya. As much of Maitreya as could be delivered to the people, he delivered through me. And it was a mighty work and a mighty delivery that has sustained millions these two thousand years.

      In this hour, because of my ascension and the acceleration of Lightbearers, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these—greater works than these—shall he do!? <65>

      Thus, in the dispensation of the presence of Maitreya as the Coming Buddha who has come at the dawn of the Aquarian age, you realize that the greater works expected also means that the Law expects a greater portion of Maitreya and myself to be delivered in this age through this Messenger and through the many disciples worldwide who keep the flame and in some cases are empowered beyond that power which was held by the apostles. This, beloved ones, is due to the turning of worlds and the turning of cycles. Thus, not necessarily by achievement but by the wind of the Holy Spirit in your sails, by the momentum of the Great White Brotherhood with you do you deliver the presence of Maitreya to the world. <66>

            Inasmuch as cosmic law has allowed exceptions to the rule that Ascended Masters do not reembody, it is possible that the Ascended Master Maitreya may reincarnate with his bodhisattvas in the future as the Coming Buddha who will embody and propagate the Dharma of the New Age. According to the Ascended Master El Morya, if the world enters a golden age, Maitreya may decide to incarnate five hundred years after its commencement.

But we also know that a Buddha, whether ascended or unascended, may choose to appear in a tangible form to selected lifestreams. Thus, without reincarnating, Maitreya might be seen walking and talking with his disciples in his Ascended Master Light Body, which he may precipitate to the etheric level for those who can see him at that level yet whose karma binds them to the physical octave.

Considering how widespread are the false-hierarchy teachings on Maitreya, I would remind you that the students of the Ascended Masters have gone to a great deal of personal inconvenience, in fact we have troubled ourselves greatly, to set aside this Royal Teton Ranch as the “Place Prepared” for the coming of the Buddha Maitreya and his hosts and his Mystery School. We have secured a property, we have moved ourselves and, in order to have time for our daily decrees and to champion this cause and this Church Universal and Triumphant, we have put away the things we used to do.

Now, having come thus far in well doing, we must not so easily surrender our net gain of the incarnation of the God Flame where we are. Have we come to this sacrifice so that the true religion of the Divine Mother—as taught by all of her Sons, including Gautama, Maitreya and Jesus—could be on earth, only to be fooled by the prevailing misconceptions of the world’s religions that are coming along in this Dark Cycle of the Kali Yuga? <67>

We who have lived for so great a salvation must truly live for it; we must demonstrate it and not forego the last full measure of our cup of victory by giving in one inch to this argument whereby the Second Coming of Christ is denied to all but one Son of God! It is the lie of the time-space procrastination of Christ’s coming, whether it be his first, second, third or fourth, into our temple!

Whatever you decree is now. Whoever and whatever an unascended master is, your potential to become one is manifest in your Holy Christ Self now. For as you become more and more of your Christ Self and your Christ Self becomes more and more of you, you are becoming an unascended master!

The approximation is up to you. Time and space are not. Karma is maya <68> and illusion. Your Holy Christ Self knows this and is therefore free. It remains for you to see it and be free. And when you do, your soul will merge with your Holy Christ Self in the initiatic ritual of the alchemical marriage and you the Christed one will walk the earth as an unascended master.

Once you have balanced 51 percent of your karma, you may choose to ascend at the conclusion of this life or to reembody again and again, increasing your Christhood as you pursue the path of the Bodhisattva on earth. When you do elect to enter the ritual of the ascension, you may be received and initiated by Serapis Bey at the ascension temple of Luxor, Egypt. <69>

Then, fully anointed of the Light of your Mighty I AM Presence, you the Christed one will rise (i.e., accelerate in vibration) to the level of the I AM THAT I AM. And the Son will merge with the Father. And the Father will merge with the Son. And you will know the full God-realization of the mantra “I and my Father are One.” For having fulfilled the Light of the unascended master here below through your Holy Christ Self, you will now have fulfilled the Light of the Ascended Master Above through the God-Reality of your Mighty I AM Presence.

Thus, as Above, so below, with God all things are possible in the Eternal Now.

Whoever and whatever God is (and you know who and what your God is), he is your Mighty I AM Presence with you now. And ultimately, whenever you choose to know it, he is your Ascended-Master God Reality!

Furthermore, your God is your Eternal Teacher.

And it is written, “Though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction [i.e., karma and soul testing], yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.” <70> Therefore look for the promise to be fulfilled, look for your Teacher and your eyes shall see your Teacher, who is your God.

Therefore when you say, “I AM THAT I AM,” claim your Godhood and be it! Claim the mantle of your Mighty I AM Presence and walk the earth in robes of righteousness. And if you feel yourself straying from that matrix, take that whip that you whip your horse with and whip yourself and your four lower bodies back in line.

That’s all any of us can do when we—re trying to change an imperfect mold. We just have to keep on keeping on, and keep on self-correcting. And just because we got out of alignment with our Holy Christ Self yesterday, we shouldn’t convince ourselves that our God is not with us today. If we aren’t going to accept the Second Coming of Christ into our temple “yesterday, today and forever,” then we might as well go join the orthodox believers down the street—about fifty miles down Highway 89 in Livingston, Montana—if that’s what we want to believe!

We who have the Truth that is worth giving our lives to must be that Truth in action, because if we don’t become it, it will not endure beyond our life span. Nobody will remember our teaching if we haven’t realized it within ourselves and demonstrated it in our lives.

We are living in the Eternal Now at a very crucial moment in the planetary cycles; and in this slice of eternity we have determined to make our mark in time, in space. And so today we accept the fusion of our beings with the Christ who is Jesus, the Christ who is Maitreya. “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation,” Paul cried. <71>Because we don’t have any other time but now! We don’t live yesterday, we don’t live tomorrow; we only live today.

Gautama Prophesies the Advent of Maitreya

Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and
look behind the Ranges—
Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and
waiting for you. Go!

Rudyard Kipling

To know and to become Maitreya today, we need to seek and find him in the historical context. While Buddhist texts illumine the character and role of Maitreya, there is no substantive biography of this Bodhisattva become Buddha. Unlike Gautama Buddha, whose historicity is not disputed and whose life story is chronicled in many Buddhist writings, there are no historical dates related to events in the life of Maitreya.

Some writings do describe previous incarnations of Gautama, Maitreya and other bodhisattvas and their interactions with each other. And there are many sutras (discourses of the Buddha) in which Gautama instructs various bodhisattvas, including Maitreya. But these dialogues take place in a spiritual plane that transcends time and space.

As far as Maitreya’s relationship with Gautama during the Buddha’s final embodiment, except for a few noncanonical works where Maitreya is identified as a disciple of Gautama named Ajita, there is no other reference to Maitreya as a contemporary of Gautama. And apart from the Ajita stories, the works that contain Gautama’s prophecy of Maitreya’s future Buddhahood do not indicate that Maitreya was in embodiment at the time Gautama made that prediction.

 The Ascended Master El Morya has stated that even though the revelation of the specific dates, places and associations of Maitreya prior to his ascension in 531 b.c. would settle much speculation on the subject, it is not the appointed time to release these facts to the world.

Buddhist texts record that Gautama Buddha prophesied the decay of Buddhist doctrine followed by the advent of a future Buddha who would restore the true teaching and establish the next golden age. In the Cakkavatti-Sihanada Sutta (The Lion-roar on the Turning of the Wheel), a Buddhist work written in Pali <72>, Gautama predicts that when man’s life span is eighty thousand years,

 

      he who is named Metteyya [Pali for the Sanskrit Maitreya], the Blessed One, shall arise in the world, that Saint, that fully-en­lightened One, who knoweth all and leads the righteous life. Auspicious He, World-Knower, incom­parable Charioteer of men who would be tamed,...just as now I have myself arisen in the world, that Saint, that fully-enlightened One...He shall teach this world and the world of Gods, also the realm of Death and the world of Gods Supreme, all beings, both monks and Brahmanas alike, as well as Gods and men, by His own powers sublime realising His knowledge; just as I do now teach this world and the world of Gods...He shall proclaim the Teaching pleasant in its beginning, pleasant in its middle, and pleasant in the end thereof, and shall make known its spirit and its letter: in its perfection and in all its purity He shall proclaim the holy life, just as I myself have done and do. He shall gather round Him a following of monks that number many thousands, just as I have gathered round me a following of monks of many hundreds. <73>

            In another Pali text, the Anagata-Vamsa (History of the Future), Gautama’s disciple Sariputta questions the Blessed One about who should succeed him:

 

And He that cometh after Thee,
The Mighty One, the Enlightened One,
Say, Lord, what sort is He?
How I long to know it surely!
Thou who seest, tell it me!
To the elder questioning,
Thus the Blessed Lord replied:
“I will tell thee, Sariputta.
Do thou list what shall betide.
In this auspicious period
There have been Leaders three”
Kakusandho, Konagamano
And Kassapo the Guide;
I am the fourth, Buddha Supreme.
Metteyya yet shall be
In this auspicious period,
While yet the end we bide;
Metteyya, All-enlightened One,
Supreme on earth is He.” <74>

            A Thai Buddhist scripture called Phra Pathomsomphothikatha contains another prediction of the Future Buddha.In this text Maitreya is portrayed as the disciple Ajita, whose name means “the invincible” or “the unconquered.”

 

      [Gautama] called Ananda, [one of his chief disciples,] and asked him to fetch his alms bowl. Addressing the congregation of the great disciples, he said, “Disciples, do not carry this alms bowl of the Tathagata; let this young Ajita carry it.” He then threw it up in the air,whereupon the alms bowl disappeared into the clouds. At that point Sariputta obtained the permission of the Buddha to retrieve it and floated up into the air to find it but returned empty-handed. All the other great disciples also tried to recover it, each equally unsuccess­ful.

      Then the Tathagata commanded Ajita to bring back the alms bowl. Ajita realized that he lacked the miraculous power to fly, but with his heart filled with joy, he made an asseveration of truth: “If I am leading the holy life as a novice in order to attain the Enlightenment which can destroy the Four Deadly Floods...then may the alms bowl of the Tathagata descend into my hands!”

      Instantly, the alms bowl descended and, as if it were a sentient being, declared to the assembly of the elders: “I did not come into the hands of the mahasavakas [great disciples], but I come to the novice monk, because he will become not a savaka, nor a paccekabuddha [a “private Buddha,” i.e., one enlightened for himself alone], but a sammasambuddha [perfect Buddha, a fully enlightened one].”...Then the venerable Ananda, perceiving the smile of the Buddha, inquired as to the cause, and the Buddha replied: “Lo! Ananda, the novice Ajita will become a lion among the Jinas, a Buddha by the name of Metteyya in this bhaddakappa [auspicious aeon].” <75>

            Many Buddhist texts contain variations of the legend that Mahakasyapa, a disciple of Gautama Buddha who took over the leadership of the Sangha <76> after Gautama’s 7passing, is in deep meditation inside a mountain awaiting the coming of Maitreya so that he can pass him Gautama’s robe. Karen Brock summarizes this legend in her article “Awaiting Maitreya at Kasagi”:

 

      Sakyamuni [Gautama Buddha] instructs four of his disciples, Mahakasyapa, Kundopadhaniya, Pindola, and Rahula, not to enter nirvana, but instead to remain in the world until Maitreya appears. “You must wait for my Law to come to its end, then you may enter nirvana.” Sakyamuni particularly singles out Mahakasyapa and predicts that he will go to a mountaintop (unnamed in the text) in Magadha, central India, where he will remain until Maitreya ascends the mountain with a host of disciples to find the arhat in his mountain cavern....

      Another description of Maitreya’s encounter with Mahakasyapa appears in Sutra on Maitreya Attaining Buddhahood. Maitreya with his retinue goes to Vulture Peak (Grdhrakuta) and climbs up to the top of Mt. Fox-spoor, which rumbles from top to bottom. He then presses both hands to the side of the mountain in a gesture resembling that of a cakravartin opening a city gate. The mountain opens to reveal Mahakasyapa, whom Brahma anoints with fragrant oil to awaken him from his trance. Bending down on his right knee, Mahakasyapa hands Maitreya the robe from Sakyamuni that he has preserved, while telling Maitreya that Sakyamuni entrusted the robe to him as the latter was about to enter nirvana. After all assembled have paid their respects to Mahakasyapa, the arhat flies into the air, where he undergoes several transformations before he disintegrates into ashes and enters nirvana at last. <77>

Maitreya’s Kindness

 

The name Maitreya is taken from the Sanskrit word maitri (Pali, metta), meaning “kindness,” “love,” “benevolence,” “friendship,” “friendliness” or “goodwill.” Thus Maitreya has been referred to as the “Loving One” or the “Friendly One,” the embodiment of all-encompassing love.

In the Gandavyuha Sutra, which has been described as the “Pilgrim’s Progress” of Buddhism, the young pilgrim Sudhana charac­terizes Maitreya as “the venerable compassionate Maitreya endowed with a great loving heart and undefiled knowledge and intent on benefiting the world.” <78>

Maitri is one of the principal Buddhist virtues. The Metta Sutta describes this quality of “loving-kindness?:

 

      He who is skilled in welfare, who wishes to attain that calm state [nirvana], should act thus: he should be able, upright, perfectly upright, of noble speech, gentle and humble.

      Contented, easily supported, with few duties, of light livelihood, with senses calmed, discreet, not impudent, not greedily attached to families.

      He should not pursue the slightest thing for which otherwise men might censure him. May all beings be happy and secure, may their hearts be wholesome!

      Whatever living beings there be: feeble or strong, tall, stout or medium, short, small or large, without exception; seen or unseen, those dwelling far or near,those who are born or those who are to be born, may all beings be happy!

      Let none deceive another, nor despise any person whatsoever in any place. Let him not wish any harm to another out of anger or ill-will.

      Just as a mother would protect her only child at the risk of her own life, even so, let him cultivate a boundless heart towards all beings.

      Let his thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world: above, below and across without any obstruc­tion, without any hatred, without any enmity.

      Whether he stands, walks, sits or lies down, as long as he is awake, he should develop this mindfulness. This they say is the noblest living here.

      Not falling into wrong views, being virtuous and endowed with insight, by discarding attachment to sense desires, never again is he reborn. <79>

            Maitreya’s Mystery School is known as the Place of Great Encounters, and the greatest encounter a disciple of the Cosmic Christ can hope for is the encounter with Maitreya. And the greatest result one can have from such an encounter is to realize that the Christ of Maitreya is one’s True Self. How so?

Maitreya holds the office in the hierarchy of the Great White Brotherhood of representative of the Universal, or Cosmic, Christ; and that Christ individ­ualized is none other than our Holy Christ Self. Thus, when we encounter Maitreya we see personified in him, more than in any other Master, the mirror image of our Holy Christ Self, who is after all our True Self. Conversely, when we behold our beloved Christ Self face to face, we see the image of Maitreya reflected in this our individualization of the God Flame.

It is, therefore, when we embody the same desires, the same longings, the same compassion, the same kindness that Maitreya embodies that we can best realize that the Christ of Maitreya is the Christ of our True Self.

I know many kind chelas on the Path, but now and then I find very earnest chelas who are so in earnest that they forget to be kind. They don’t have time to be kind. They don’t have time to care. And they don’t have time to be compassionate. They think they don’t have to—as if it were a matter of choice! What a pity. They have missed the point of being the chela on the Path. <80>

Since the principal virtue of Maitreya is kindness, then if we would be his chelas, it is kindness and caring that we must embody; and we must seize the sword of Maitreya to slay that unkind and uncaring dweller-on-the-threshold in ourselves as well as the forces of anti-Buddha and anti-Christ abroad in the world.

There are two aspects to Maitreya’s kindness: the yin, which is the quality of sensitivity to the needs of all life and of extending oneself to fulfill those needs, and the yang, which is the steady, even presence of the quality of harmony that allows the God-mastery whereby we may respond to those needs in a practical, compassionate way.

 When we talk about the kindness of Maitreya, we’re not talking about the simple concept of the “milk of human kindness.” And yet Maitreya’s kindness does not exclude that down-to-earth human kindness that sees a brother’s need and supplies it. It includes it, it embodies it, and it goes beyond it—because that kindness must also be concerned when one’s fellow creature becomes all too self-concerned and in sympathy with himself, so much so that he forgets that the ultimate kindness is to move up the ladder of initiation and shed some of the snakeskin of that very human kindness.

Truly the kindness of Maitreya teaches you to move on to a Christ awareness of caring more for the salvation of your soul (than for your creature comforts or those of another) that you may in turn be able to care for the ultimate salvation of the soul of a planet.

So from the simple acts of kindness that Boy and Girl Scouts learn in helping other people we move on to a kindness that leads to the liberation of the soul from the not-self with all of its wants. So long as we, in the name of human kindness, continue to cater to the wants of the not-self, we are in fact depriving the soul of the true experience of Maitreya’s kindness.

The kindness of Maitreya is not as easy as it looks because as soon as we desire to embody kindness toward the bodhisattvas, the Lightbearers and the Ascended Masters, we must take on the burden of opposition to that Light sent by those who desire to destroy it and to destroy those who embody it. We must also bear the opposition to that nascent Light that is about to come into manifestation in the children of God whom the Ascended Masters sponsor on earth—lest, for want of our kindness, that Light should be aborted in these little ones by the enemies of the Light.

So kindness becomes the wielding of the sword of Maitreya in defense of those who are about to meet the Cosmic Christ in the Place of Great Encounters but are waylaid on the way. At this point human kindness is not enough—only “divine kindness” will do. We must slay the dragons that (if we did not take our stand against the not-self) would assail the purity of disciples and their right to become the bodhisattva.

Here to assist us in this activity of the two-edged sword of Maitreya are the Five Dhyani Buddhas: Vairochana, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha and Amoghasiddhi. <81>The Five Dhyani Buddhas give us our initiations on the five secret rays. They are great Cosmic Beings from starry heights. Although they have never embodied on earth, the Five Dhyani Buddhas, responding to an increasing fervor of the chelas who invoke their Ruby Ray action, have recently come closer to earth than ever before.

Under the Divine Mother, the Five Dhyani Buddhas, Maitreya and the World Teachers, we study the art of kindness, both human and divine, as an all-encompassing science. It includes healing. It includes teaching. It includes serving to set all life free from the illusions of maya and karma.

It also includes severing the Real from the Unreal within the human psyche. This requires a certain regard, a certain noncritical, nonjudgmental attitude toward life. To remain noncritical of fellow disciples on the Path while discerning the error of their ways, but to have the courage to offer the gentle word for their self-correction is the gift of Maitreya’s kindness. It is one thing to have the discrimination of the Christ, to know the Real from the Unreal as well as the difference between relative good and evil, but it is quite another to convey the love that separates the chaff from the wheat without injury to the soul.

If you are so fortunate as to have this gift of nonjudgmental discernment in hand when you enter the Sangha, you must remind yourself that you will be tested. As a matter of fact, you’re going to be tested even if you don’t have the gift! But you can acquire it by balancing your threefold flame. And Saint Germain’s Heart Meditations are just what you need to help you in your daily effort to achieve that balance of Power, Wisdom and Love. <82>

And you’d better do it, for you have arrived at the place where each one’s human creation comes up regularly for transmutation, where aggressive mental suggestions, if you let them, will amplify in your mind everyone else’s faults to keep your attention off your own. And, of course, here in the Sangha your carnal mind will amplify in you all of the wondrous piety and wise benevolence you see radiating from yourself, especially in comparison to the dullards of the world, in whose presence it doesn’t take much sheen to shine!

So we see that expressing the kindness of the Buddha can be an hourly test of our Christ discrimination that we must be willing to pass. This is why we recite the Ten Vows of Kuan Yin as the expression of our godly desires. These desires should fill us full like a Thanksgiving dinner. There should be no room left for anything after the pumpkin pie. These vows should be all of our desiring and all of our desiring should contain these vows. Achieving this is the supreme state of maitri.

The desire to marry and have a family and to build one’s house, to have a career or to serve in the Community or to publish the Teachings of the Christ and the Buddha for this age, all these may be legitimate desires based on one’s position on the karmic ladder and on the initiatic ladder. But one must not forget to take stock as to when the fulfillment of any one of these desires (or the manner in which one fulfills them) will be the digression that takes one away from his lawful level of acceleration on the spiritual path.

If you’ve got natural talents you were born with, momentums of attainment you’ve brought with you from past lives, it’s easy to step down a rung or two on the ladder and still excel above your peers. But you know in your heart of hearts that when you step down you’re no longer in competition with yourself and your own past efforts and you’re not transcending yesterday’s achievements. And if you aren’t, then you aren’t doing enough, given your potential; you aren’t fulfilling the requirements of the law of your karma for your lifetime. And if you aren’t living up to your Christ potential, you aren’t being kind or caring to yourself or to your God!

The desires of the devotee expressed in the Ten Vows of Kuan Yin are not only all-infilling but also soul-satisfying. And you need to know that when fulfilled, these vows deliver much more than what is written on the printed page. They are all-encompassing. They include the God-Self realization of all of the goals set forth in the Teachings of the Ascended Masters, including serving at inner and outer levels with your twin flame and realizing that very special path of personal Christhood under the Lords of the Seven Rays.

You know, we chelas (often unwittingly) hold on to a lot of leftover desires—cobwebs and things we’ve tossed in the attic or the basement—rather than sorting through them at the moment, getting rid of what we know we’ll never use and giving away those things that are worthy of giving away because a brother or sister or a child has need of them and we can very well do without them.

If we don’t process the day’s doings, the day’s ideas, the day’s energies every day, we leave accumulations of unresolved thoughts and feelings to stack up in the subconscious like old newspapers. These records steal from us the sparkling fresh water of Life that descends over our crystal cord. Thus we pour our new wine into the old bottles <83> of our old desires so we don’t have “the spirits” when we need them for a one-pointed concentration on our goals.

This is why we give the vows of Kuan Yin as mantras, affirming our desire and then making our desire our vow to be, to do, and to transcend at last the matrix of the lesser self. Kuan Yin’s vows express our highest hopes and the best of our striving. This is what we truly want out of life. In thus being kind to our True Self, we will deliver the ultimate kindness to every part of Life! Being our True Self, we will help every soul and rock and tree and leaf and blade of grass to realize its Divine Matrix.

Vows are anchors we cast into the deep of our Higher Mind. Then when the storms of life rage and yesteryear’s thoughts and feelings surface to pull us this way and that, the vow and the mantra hold us to our inner resolve.

This is why we take vows to begin with. A vow is a commitment to God. In response to that vow the Lord summons his hosts of angels to reinforce our free will to keep our vow, to strengthen us through all trial and temptation, and to liberate us from addictions and dependencies and enslavements that make us believe we desire “all these things” more than we desire to fulfill our vows.

Our vows enable us to fulfill the kindness of Maitreya every day. By them we are becoming the living flame of Maitreya where we are.

Vows are useful, else God and man would not have invented them.

The Ten Vows of Kuan Yin
for Our Discipleship under Maitreya

 

The vows of the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin are especially useful because they take us along the path of the Bodhisattva ideal, which leads to union with the Buddha Maitreya.

A bodhisattva is “a being of bodhi, or enlightenment” who is destined to become a Buddha but has foregone the bliss of nirvana with a vow to save all children of God. Geshe Wangyal defines bodhisattva as “‘Offspring of the Conqueror.’ One who has vowed to attain enlightenment for the sake of all living beings. The term bodhisattva refers to those at many levels: from those who have generated aspiration to enlightenment for the first time, through to those who have actually entered the Bodhisattva path, which is developed through the ten stages and culminates in enlightenment, the attainment of Buddhahood.” <84>

The name Kuan Shih Yin, as Kuan Yin is often called, means literally “the one who regards, looks on, or hears the sounds of the world.” According to legend, Kuan Yin was about to enter heaven but paused on the threshold as the cries of the world reached her ears.

Let us also pause on the threshold between earth and heaven. And let us pursue our path to the eternality of the Cosmic Christ through the mercy and compassion of Kuan Yin extended from our hearts to every part of Life. To that end let us recite the First of the Ten Vows of Kuan Yin, <85> who is the facilitator of our oneness with the Buddha Maitreya.

Hail, Greatly Merciful Kuan Shih Yin!
(give three times)

 

I desire/I vow to quickly know the entire Dharma!

 

NA-MO TA PEI KUAN SHIH YIN
[NAH-MO DAH BAY GWAN SHE(R) EEN]

YÜAN WO SU CHIH I CH’IEH FA
[YÜEN WAW SOO JE(R) EE CHEE’EH FAH]

 

(give 108 times)

            Why are we giving these vows as mantras? It is because they express and embody the true desires of our souls. By reciting these vows we clarify what is most important to us in life. And we empower the fulfillment of our vows with the science of the spoken Word. The recitation of the vow coupled with our desire to fulfill it displaces all lesser desires.

We say to ourselves, “I would like to do this, I would like to do that, I would like to do the next thing.” There is nothing wrong with our desiring to do any of these things except that “these things” occupy time and space and energy, all of which are limited. And we ourselves are a limited edition—a front and a back cover, a beginning and an end. And when you become a historical figure in somebody else’s history book, hopefully you’ll have three dates inscribed by your name: b., born such and such a date; d., died such and such a date; a., ascended such and such a date. And all of your comings and goings in space will be marked by those time lines.

So we say, “Yes, I would like to do all these things, but I only have so much time, so much space, and so much energy allotted to me in this life. It’s a lump sum of ‘money.’ It’s my inheritance. How shall I spend it? What do I really want to get out of this slice of eternity?”

Well, first I desire to quickly know the entire Dharma. But after that I’m not so sure. So in our uncertainty we seek the Teacher who will tutor our souls. When the pupil is ready, the Teacher Kuan Yin appears! Out of the East, God as Mother comes to teach us the law governing the fulfillment of God’s desire within us. The Blessed One mercifully recites to us the steps and stages of right desire that will qualify us for initiation on the path of the Bodhisattva. She teaches us to desire our desires and to vow our vows in this order:

Second, I desire to soon attain the eye of perfect wisdom; Third, I desire to quickly save all sentient beings; Fourth, I desire to soon attain the good and expedient method which leads to full enlightenment; Fifth, I desire to quickly board the prajna (wisdom) boat; Sixth, I desire to soon transcend the ‘bitter sea’; Seventh, I desire to quickly attain good discipline, the stability of meditation and the way of the Buddha; Eighth, I desire to soon scale the mountain of nirvana; Ninth, I desire to quickly realize the unconditioned; Tenth, I desire to soon unite with the Dharma­kaya. <86>

As we affirm our desire in our spoken decree, we qualify the crystal-clear stream of God’s Light/Energy/Consciousness, which flows perpetually through our crystal cord, with the matrix of our desire. And this matrix is thereby “stamped” on all of our chakras. Our decree, empowered by our desire, becomes an internal momentum. It propels us. The mantra moves us even when we are thinking of other things, because by our free will we have established our priorities, we have set our sail and we are charting our course by the compass of our desire.

Therefore our decisions are based on those foundations we have laid whereby every day the Universal Christ is the chief cornerstone <87> of our building. The mantra recites itself within us as we sustain a momentum of regular devotion to that Universal Christ. And so the mantra transforms us from within. It becomes a molecule of God’s Light/Energy/Consciousness that glows and grows in the subconscious, displacing all lesser desires as it consumes them—by our free will.

The mantra is the Word of God. Hence it is God in action in our worlds; it is the most efficacious means of resolution between the human and the divine natures. When we love and adore our God through our mantras and offer them in purest supplication with no desire of self-gain, they restore our souls to our original oneness with God. As such, the mantra is our bridge to soul freedom and the light in the Summit beacon that illumines our way across the astral sea (samsara).

Kuan Yin takes on as her personal disciples those who are willing to take these Ten Vows in preparation for their discipleship under the World Teachers, Jesus and Kuthumi, who drill candidates for Maitreya’s Mystery School in the fundamentals of the path of personal Christhood. For you must embody a certain measured percentage of your Holy Christ Self before you may be taken on as the chela of the Buddha Maitreya or the Buddha Gautama.

Hence, Christic initiation is a prerequisite to Buddhic initiation. And Jesus is our Saviour who, with Kuthumi, has saved our souls so that we may enter the highest path, following their example all the way to the gate of the City of Light. But look again, for these beloved World Teachers have also attained to their Buddhahood and thus they are fully empowered to take us all the way to the throne of Shamballa, East and West!

Having followed their lead footprint by footprint, you are saying when you take these vows, “These ten steps are the most important steps in my life. I want to live my life in fulfillment of these vows. To that end I will be part of the Sangha, the Community of the Buddha worldwide. I will be part of the Mystical Body of the Universal Christ on earth and in heaven. I will enter and ensoul the Path and the Teaching. I will be a chela of the Buddhas Jesus and Kuthumi, until I become a chela of Maitreya, until I become a chela of Gautama, until I become a chela of Sanat Kumara. And I will serve to further the end of these goals for myself and all fellow bodhisattvas.”

If you desire to be a chela of the Immortal Buddhas, you may make application in this wise, according to the instruction of Mother Mary:

 

      My beloved Lord and Guru of earth’s evolutions, please consider my application to be your chela on the Path through Maitreya’s Mystery School that I, too, might achieve the place of the bodhisattva on my first of the twelve lines of the Cosmic Clock where my lifestream does show acceleration, aptitude and a certain attainment.

      Therefore, my Lord, consider this my plea and the offering of my lifestream that I might become a chalice and day by day increase [my momentum of Light on] the lines of [my Cosmic] Clock, that I might carry your flame and therefore be worthy to stand at your side when you petition the Cosmic Council for dispensations for earth’s evolutions or the Lightbearers or another member of Hierarchy.

      I submit this my application and my proposal that I be taken on as a chela under your office and in the heart of the Western Shamballa, that thereby in so doing I might alleviate planetary suffering and provide another reason why the Lords of Karma and the Cosmic Council might consider your prayers for the blessing of mankind and the receipt of beneficent graces to the benefit of earth’s great goal [of freedom] and the golden age of Aquarius. <88>

            As an adjunct to your chelaship, by reciting the Ten Vows of Kuan Yin—and determining that their fulfillment will take precedence over all lesser commitments in your life—you are shortening the distance between your heart and the heart of Kuan Yin. Hence, because Kuan Yin’s heart is the door that opens to the heart of all Buddhas, your oneness with her heart shortens the distance between your heart and the heart of the hierarchy of Buddhas, worlds without end.

Moreover, when you are living the Ten Vows, they become a single all-encom­passing Vow—the statement of your singular reason for being. In this unity of the One, you are also becoming the Dharma. And by and by you are the Vow, you are the Dharma. And then you may be your own refuge even as you provide the refuge of the Law for all sentient beings. And this is the path of the Bodhisattva and the meaning of becoming the Buddha.

The Dharma Is Our Refuge

Now, therefore, let us take up the Dharma. The Dharma is the Teaching, but it is the Teaching that is embodied. When we speak of the Dharma we are speaking of the all-embracing Presence of the Buddha himself, whose Life is an emanation of the Teaching. We too can become the living Dharma as we embody the Teaching. So then, the Dharma is seen as one’s duty to be one’s highest self. One’s highest self is the Buddha. It follows that when one truly embodies the Dharma, one embodies the Buddha.

Gautama gave this same teaching to his disciples in the months prior to his passing. The Mahaparinibbana Sutta records his words:

 

      Be islands for yourselves, be refuges for yourselves! Take no other refuge! Let the Dhamma [Dharma] be your island, let the Dhamma be your refuge! Take no other refuge! <89>

      An ancient commentary to another Buddhist text, the Maha­satipatthana Sutta, explains:

      The Dhamma is called ‘self” (atta), because, in the case of a wise one, the Dhamma is not different from himself and because it pertains to his personal exis­tence. <90>

            The Dharma is a way of life. The Dharma is our reason for being. It is our Path, our Teaching, our Life. We fulfill the Dharma in the Sangha. The Sangha is the community of disciples who not only surround the Buddha but who are the logical and loving extension of his aura into the physical octave. They serve his special mission to the planetary lifewaves while reinforcing one another’s discipleship.

The goal of the Sangha in its entirety is to embody the totality of the Dharma, even as it is the goal of each individuality in Buddha to embody the Dharma in part until he is perfected. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

 

      For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away....For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I AM known. [Even as I am known in the I AM THAT I AM.] <91>

            Only thus will the world know the Dharma. Even so is the Mystical Body of God, worlds without end, the Incarnation of the Word and Work of the Lord.

The Three Stages of the Dharma
The First Stage: The True Doctrine

 

It was said that after the Buddha’s passing the Dharma would go through cycles of decay until it would finally be extinguished. This idea, writes Professor E. Zürcher, “was later elaborated into a scheme of “three stages,” each of which was to last several centuries”:

 

      The first period...is that of the “True Doctrine,” during which the principles preached by the Buddha are known and practised in their pristine purity. In the second phase, that of the “Counter­feit Doctrine,” religious life is more and more undermined by heresy and immoral practices, in which not only the laity but also the sangha itself indulge. In the end, when even the semblance of religious life is gone, the world will enter the dark “Final Age of the Doctrine,” and be lost in sin and injustice, until, after an immense span of time, the true Dharma will be revived by the next Buddha, [who is Maitreya]. <92>

 

The Second Stage:
Heresy and Immorality under the Counterfeit Doctrine

 

What are the heresy and immorality of the second stage of the Dharma, that of the “Counterfeit Doctrine?” And what are the heretical and immoral practices in which laity and Sangha alike indulge, by which they squander the Light/Energy/Consciousness they need to embody the Dharma?

Morality is a doctrine or system that defines principles of right and wrong conduct. Concepts of what is moral and what is immoral differ according to religious and ethnic customs and the times. But our own definition of morality is taken in the context of the Sangha—how devotees of Christ and Buddha ought to behave within a spiritual community and outside of it. From the standpoint of the spiritual path, moral and immoral practices are defined as those that either enhance or detract from the goal of the spiritual life, which is avowedly the soul’s union with God. The morality of a devotee is expressed in his service to life and in his daily devotions by which he aspires to achieve the goal.

These must be accompanied by righteousness, which the Ascended Masters define as the right use, or the right application, of God’s laws in every area of life and such virtues as trustworthiness, truthfulness, constancy of heart and loyalty to the highest principles of honor, justice, mercy and compassion.

Likewise, immorality is, broadly speaking, the unlawful release, or qualification, of God’s Light/Energy/Consciousness through any of the seven chakras. Any act (including thoughts, feelings and motives) in which you are wasting, squandering or compromising God’s Light/Energy/Consciousness at any level—conscious, subconscious or unconscious—can be considered immoral.

This Light/Energy/Consciousness is the gift of your Divine Father and Mother to you, bestowed through your Mighty I AM Presence and Holy Christ Self. When the Light/Energy/Consciousness of our God is held in balance in the seven chakras, in our soul and in our four lower bodies, we are becoming the temple of Alpha and Omega.

Each of your seven chakras is the focus of one of the seven rays that represents a plane of heaven corresponding to the sphere of your Causal Body of the same color and ray. When you keep your lamps, i.e., chakras, trimmed as did the wise virgins, <93> all who come to you will drink of your Buddha bowl. You will be able to give them to drink of Christ’s cup of the water of Life from that specific chakra and ray according to their need, that they might be restored to a measure of wholeness.

They may be weary and need strength. They may need healing. They may need joy. They may need comfort or a listening ear. They may need self-knowledge and not know it. Whatever the need, there will flow from you the balance of God’s Light/Energy/Conscious­ness to supply it.

Not to be prepared to give the gift is immoral.

Not to be able to supply the needs of another is immoral.

Not to have enough oil for your lamps when the Bridegroom cometh, this is immoral.

Not to have the guts to pay the price of your karma, but to expect another to pay it for you, this is immoral.

Not to have the courage to live or to die for the cause of Truth and Freedom, this is immoral.

And to fail to trust in the Lord, the Mighty I AM Presence, with all thy heart but to lean to thine own understanding, to fail to acknowledge him in all thy ways or to allow him to direct thy paths, <94> this is immoral.

This is my understanding of immorality as taught by Christ and Buddha.

I judge not people’s private practices per se; but I say if your practices involve the waste, squander or compromise of the sacred fire by any means and thereby take from you your lawful, moral gift that is yours to give to sentient life, then you must see them as immoral before your God. You have compromised your reason for being.

Hence, the “new morality,” with its “I’m-all-right-Jack” attitude, fails to embrace the motto “I Am My Brother’s Keeper.” Instead of being a “be-attitude,” this attitude of non-beness is the hallmark of the second stage, the Counterfeit Doctrine.

Religious life is undermined when people become lax in their use of the sacred fire and evolve new levels of morality or immorality to accommodate their absence of dedication to the path of enlighten­ment. The goal of the path—union with God—by definition can be attained only by the raising of the sacred fire from the base-of-the-spine chakra to the crown chakra. Thus the highest morality required of this path and the one who follows it is devotion to the Father and to the Mother. This involves the resolution of one’s psychology, especially in regard to one’s human parents as well as one’s Divine Parents, and the conservation of the precious life-force.

What is heresy? Heresy is dissent or deviation from the established truths of the founders of the world religions sent by God to deliver his law and his grace for a people and a religious dispensation. Today things have gone so far awry that often church doctrine and dogma itself is heresy, whereas those who challenge its falsity by their witness to the truth of the One Sent, the Messenger of God who bore the original revelation to earth, are labeled heretics!

Heresy as I see it is the inability to hold to first principles on the part of those who no longer have contact with the lawgivers, prophets, and avatars, the Christed and Buddhic ones. Because of their immorality they are not able to hold in their chakras the balance of the Light and the God consciousness that was held by the founders.

And then we hear about the immoral and heretical practices of today, whether by those who follow the false gurus in Tantric Buddhism or Hinduism or any of the world’s religions, including some among the Christians who do not adhere to Christ’s most fundamental message, which says: Don’t worship me, worship the Christ that is the Light and the True Self of you and me.

What is heretical and immoral about them? They set themselves up as religious idols to be worshiped and then they proceed to waste, squander and compromise the Light/Energy/Consciousness of God by perverted sexual practices and other perversions of the sacred fire in any of their chakras.

They preach sex cloaked in religion. They promise you the kingdom, but they can’t get you there and they can’t get you back. They themselves don’t enter in and they prevent you from entering in <95> by their heresy and their immorality. These blind leaders of the blind <96> are filled with demons so that if you look into their eyes you are pained by the spirits of pride and religious fanaticism peering back at you who have invaded and completely taken over their temples.

What is heretical and immoral about that? Well, they have become not the temple of the Holy Spirit, not the messengers of the founders of their religion, but temples full of foul spirits, ravening wolves and dead men’s bones, as Christ said. <97>They have nothing to give but hollow and high sounding phrases and human sympathy (for they have not Christ’s flame of compas­sion); and so they play “Christian” rock at their altars, which is straight from hell, perverts the Word and violates the Holy Ghost. And the Light is not raised up in them; therefore they are spiritually impotent, having not the power of God to “draw all men unto me.” <98>

They speak not with the authority of the Word of Christ, of Buddha, of Moses or Mohammed, of Zarathustra, Confucius or Lao-tzu. They have espoused a ministry but they cannot minister. “Clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.” <99> And what they do give, a heretical doctrine that justifies their own immoral behavior, has caused people to lose faith in their God, to become agnostics, to be disillusioned, or to go the same way of the indignity and immorality of the false pastors, thinking they will attain the kingdom of God.

The apostle Jude called such apostate teachers “ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness...walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advan­tage....These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.” <100>

So, then, our standard of immorality and morality is entirely apart from the dos and don’ts of the world. But of necessity it embodies the principles of the Ten Commandments, the law of the prophets, the Golden Rule and the sermons of Christ and his apostles, the Tao of Lao-tzu, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path of Buddha, and the Wisdom of the Divine Mother East and West that has been set forth in every age for spiritual communities. And yet our standard embodies not only laws of the letter but laws we fulfill by the grace of the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit of the Lord, which is upon us, empowers us to be one with the Father and the Son, and one with the Divine Mother, and therefore to be satisfied in living the laws and first principles of our faith.

The Third Stage: The Final Age of the Doctrine

So we see that in the third stage, the Final Age of the Doctrine, even the semblance of religious life is gone and the world is lost in sin and injustice. All the Light (of the Christic, Buddhic, or God consciousness) has gone out of the vessels of religion. And the Dharma waits to be revived by the coming of the One who will once again embody it.

Don’t look hither and yon to see if you can see him. Don’t wait around to see if he is coming. Look to yourself. Just say to yourself, “That could be me,” and start embodying the Dharma step by step, day by day, a little at a time. You may not be the embodiment of the Cosmic Christ yet. But if you don’t start eating the loaf of the Dharma crumb by crumb, you won’t have it in you to recognize the Buddha Maitreya when he does come—whatever the guise.

Maitreya’s Vow to Be the Keeper of the Dharma
and the Restorer of the Lost Teaching

 

The Buddhist text called The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti describes Maitreya’s vow to be the Keeper of the Dharma and the Restorer of the Lost Teaching:

 

      The Lord Sakyamuni said to the bodhisattva Maitreya, the great spiritual hero, “I transmit to you, Maitreya, this unexcelled, perfect enlightenment which I attained only after innumerable millions of billions of aeons, in order that, at a later time, during a later life, a similar teaching of the Dharma, protected by your super­natural power, will spread in the world and will not disappear. Why? Maitreya, in the future there will be noble sons and daugh­ters,...who, having planted the roots of virtue, will produce the spirit of unexcelled, perfect enlightenment.”

      “If they do not hear this teaching of the Dharma, [if the chelas of today do not teach it as messengers of Maitreya,] they will certainly lose boundless advantages and even perish. But if they hear such a teaching, [if the chelas of today teach it as messengers of Maitreya,] they will rejoice, will believe, and will accept it upon the crowns of their heads.” <101>

      “Hence, in order to protect those future noble sons and daughters, you must spread a teaching such as this!”...

      The bodhisattva Maitreya said to the Buddha,

      “Lord, the beautiful teachings of the Tathagata [the Buddha] are wonderful and truly excellent. Lord, from this time forth, I will...defend and uphold this attainment of unexcelled, perfect enlightenment by the Tathagata during innumerable hundreds of thousands of millions of billions of aeons!” <102>

            Ask yourself if you are ready to vow to be the keeper of the Dharma and the restorer of the Lost Teaching. Ask yourself, “Who else will do it if I do not do it?” Well, if you don’t do it, it really won’t matter who does, because the only benefit you’ll ever get from the Dharma is from being your own keeper of the Dharma and your own restorer of the Lost Teaching. And when Maitreya comes and does it, it’s so you can be his chela and do it for your own self—and for millions of other selves as you break the Bread of Life.

It’s about time all of us faced these realities and stopped looking for a vicarious atonement through a Saviour that’s coming—lo, here! lo, there! <103>Yes, let’s face reality and let’s face it without the heresy of neglect—the gross neglect to be the Christ where I AM, to be the Buddha where I AM. And if you take the vow to be the keeper of the Dharma and the restorer of the Lost Teach­ing—and do it—will you not encounter Maitreya on the wave because you are on the same wavelength?

Do you have a greater desire than this in your life? Is there anything you can think of right now that you want more than to meet Maitreya on his mountain? Is there an experience you want more than to meet Maitreya face to face in the wilderness of the Inner Retreat? Ask yourself the question, Is there anything in my goal orientation today, anything I desire of which I would not say, “Forget it. Just let me see Maitreya on the mountain?”

Maybe not everyone would give anything to have the encounter with Maitreya, but I happen to know you pretty well and I think the majority of you would. Well, it’s not far from you. Become the Christ of Maitreya or a percentage thereof and he may choose to reveal himself to you face to face. You might even wake up one day and find that you are seeing him in everyone you meet—everyone you meet smiling or growling back at you.

I tell you that it is imperative that you accept this prophecy of “the spirit of unexcelled, perfect enlightenment” as speaking of you and your children in your time. Because if you don’t, you will be guilty of the dastardly sin of procrastination that says, “Who me? Not I, Lord. One greater than I will come who will be the fulfillment of this prophecy.” And, as I said before, what good is it going to do you if somebody coming after you fulfills this prophecy? If you’ve come and gone by the time your Buddha is scheduled to arrive, well, you see, he didn’t fit into your schedule because you didn’t really want to bump into him.

Procrastination is an avoidance technique that many who preach the future coming of Messiah have practiced. They get to do anything they feel like doing according to their own situation ethics, situation morality and situation doctrine. And then they tell you that when Messiah comes they’ll be saved. And they promise you that if you’ve followed them and their ethics and their heresy and their immorality, you’ll be saved too!

Well, when Messiah comes there’s gonna be a showdown! And that’s why they really don’t want him to come, because their game will be up. But you see, Messiah has come again and again in his own. But because the Sanhedrin and the councils of the Nephilim could always point the finger at the flawed sons and daughters of God, they could crucify Christ afresh and put him to an open shame. <104>These are the same ones who crucified our Lord and murdered the saints and the prophets. Not the Jews or the Moslems or the Christians—no, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the fallen angels incarnate who move among them all as false Christs and false prophets.

To deliver a people and an age from these betrayers of the Word and Work of the Lords Gautama and Sanat Kumara, Maitreya is convinced that he will fill all time with the Teaching, not time strung out but time now—time that is not only a slice of eternity but all of eternity that he claims as his own. But he is also concerned with the future, as he says:

 

      “In the future, I will place in the hands of noble sons and noble daughters who are worthy vessels of the holy Dharma this profound teaching. I will instill in them the power of memory with which they may, having believed in this teaching, retain it, recite it, penetrate its depths, teach it, propagate it, write it down, and proclaim it extensively to others.

      “Thus I will instruct them, Lord, and thus it may be known that in that future time those who believe in this teaching and who enter deeply into it will be sustained by the supernatural blessing of the bodhisattva Maitreya.”...

      Then all the bodhisattvas said together in one voice, “Lord, we also, after the ultimate liberation of the Tathagata, will come from our various buddhafields to spread far and wide this enlightenment of the perfect Buddha....May all noble sons and daughters believe in that!”

      Then the four Maharajas, the great kings of the quarters, said to the Buddha, “Lord, in all the towns, villages, cities, kingdoms, and palaces, wherever this discourse of the Dharma will be practised, upheld, and correctly taught, we, the four great kings, will go there with our armies, our young warriors, and our retinues, to hear the Dharma. And we will protect the teachers of this Dharma for a radius of one league so that no one who plots injury or disruption against these teachers will have any opportunity to do them harm.” <105>

            Thus it has ever been that the true teachers of the Dharma and the members of the Sangha have been assailed by those who would deny them their freedom of religion to teach and study and practice the Dharma, to embody the Dharma, to dedicate a land to the Dharma, to convert a cosmos to the Dharma! And thus it has ever been that the legions of Light have come to the aid of the aspiring ones and the true teachers of the Dharma.

Maitreya to the Right and Manjushri to the Left of Gautama

As the transmitter of the Dharma, Maitreya is often depicted in Tibetan iconography as the Bodhisattva to the right of Gautama, representing the head of the path of enlightenment by “extensive deeds” or “magnificent deeds” of love and compassion. To Gautama’s left is Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom, who is the head of the “profound view” stage of the path of enlightenment. Manjushri is an Ascended Master and a great sage to whom we may appeal.

Professor Robert Thurman writes:

 

      One of the most common icons in Tibet is called the “refuge field,” which presents the Buddha Shakyamuni in the center of a host of Indian, Tibetan, and supernatural teachers. To Shakyamuni’s left is Manjushri, at the head of the lineage of the “profound view” stage of the path of enlightenment, and to his right is Maitreya, at the head of the lineage of the “magnificent deeds” stage of the path of enlightenment. Beneath Manjushri sit Nagarjuna and Aryadeva, at the head of the historical teachers who maintained the unbroken succession of this tradition of critical philosophy. Beneath Maitreya sit Asanga and Vasubandhu at the head of the succession of ethically oriented philosophers. The Buddha in the center of this icon represents the unification of both these lineages, so no ultimate dichotomy is intended by the separation of the two. There are, however, different persons on different stages of the path at different times, and different teachings are elaborated for their benefit that emphasize either wisdom or compassion.

      The team of Maitreya and Manjushri, heading the two main branches of the great tree of this philosophical tradition, assure that the balance never goes too far in either direction. <106>

 

Roles of Maitreya’s Coming

Maitreya, the Coming Buddha, the Future Buddha, plays many roles in the various Buddhist traditions throughout the Far East. Not only is he the guardian of the Dharma but he is also an intercessor and protector, a guru who personally initiates his devotees, a messenger sent by the Eternal Mother to rescue her children, a Messiah who descends when the world is in turmoil to judge the wicked and save the righteous, and last but not least he is the Laughing Buddha.

All these descriptions are the many faces of your Holy Christ Self. When you visualize your Holy Christ Self, visualize the appropriate personification of Maitreya as the Guru above you. For instance, Maitreya, as well as Jesus, serves you in the role of confessor, as does your Holy Christ Self.

Professor Jan Nattier writes that in Central Asian texts “Maitreya is explicitly involved in the process of the confession and expiation of sins.” <107>Why should he be? Because he desires to shorten the distance between your soul and your Mighty I AM Presence. This is likewise the function of the Divine Mediator, your Advocate before the Father, your Holy Christ Self.

Thus, when the day is over, do not neglect to confess your sins (whatever you believe to be a sin) to your Holy Christ Self or to Maitreya. Call on the law of forgiveness, repent, i.e., go and sin no more, <108>  and be willing to give to your beloved I AM Presence a violet flame penance for the alchemy of world transmutation in the form of dynamic decrees; then actively render service to the Sangha to balance whatever wrongs you may have inflicted on any part of life.

Go to sleep with the peace in your heart that comes from acknowledging to your Lord the error of your ways and your desire to make amends. Sign off from this waking world with a prayer of profound regret in having offended God in anyone, in having hurt or burdened any part of life, determined that the Light of God shall infill you and strengthen your resolve not to repeat the mistake. And lastly, accept the overshadowing of your guardian angel, who will help you to “go and sin no more.” Then have a sweet and peaceful sleep knowing you have at least begun the process of resolution and resolve.

We need such resolution before we go to sleep each night, and that is why some recite the prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” I don’t think this is a prayer we should give to children because children never think about dying before they wake, so why introduce that fear into their trusting little heads?

But as adults we can and ought to say that prayer because we want to have confessed and repented of our misuses of God’s Light before we lay down our body to sleep and before our soul takes its nightly journey to the retreats of the Ascended Masters. It is a matter of tidy record keeping to conclude one’s day as though one had concluded a lifetime, to make one’s peace with God and man, to seal it, and to be reborn again in the morning, recharged for another day of loving life free. You may even get so weary of confessing your sins that you will simply stop sinning!

So the Confessor, the Intercessor, the Divine Mediator, the Advocate—this is someone we need. And that is why God gave his “only begotten Son” (the Universal Christ individualized in our Holy Christ Self), that whosoever believeth in him should, through his mercy and compassion, not perish but have everlasting life in the victory of the ascension. <109>

Another role of Maitreya reflects his wisdom—as well as his skill as a communicator of wisdom—in the language of the heart and in the erudition of the mind.

Nattier notes that Maitreya was a patron saint of commentators. His aid was sought by Buddhist scholars in India and China who needed “help with difficult scriptural passages....As the next Buddha, Maitreya was regarded by these doctors of the law as an unparalleled source of information on difficult doctrinal issues.” <110>

In Korea Maitreya took on roles that in China were normally ascribed to Kuan Yin. He is known as the bestower of children, sons in particular, and is worshiped as a protector of sailors. <111> In Japan some look to Maitreya as the mediator in relationships between men and women <112>—the unifier of twin flames through the Universal Christ and his image and likeness in man and in woman.

In some villages along Japan’s coast it was believed that Maitreya would come with a fleet of ships carrying gold and grain. <113> This is the significance of Maitreya’s Causal Body, the abundant Life of the Universal Christ. In East Asia securing an abundance of rice and grain signifies a happy and prosperous future. One Buddhist text in Thailand ends with the blessing “May he who eats the rice become as wise as Phraa Mahosat [an incarnation of Gautama Buddha] and as patient as Phraa Mettai [Maitreya].” <114> If you’re on the macrobiotic diet, your rice may very well do that because it is so center­ing—but not without your devotion to the Christ!

Author Alan Sponberg describes Maitreya’s universality in Buddhist tradition. He writes:

 

      Along with the figure of Gautama himself, Maitreya is one of the few truly universal symbols occurring throughout the Buddhist tradition, one holding a role of importance in Theravada as well as Mahayana cultures. Unlike that of the historical Buddha, however, Maitreya’s role, though pivotal, remained relatively underdefined and open-ended. In every Buddhist culture Maitreya is a symbol of hope, of the human aspiration for a better life in the future when the glories of the golden past will be regained. That much remains constant in all the varied instances of the Maitreya cult....Equally striking, however, are the elaborations of that core theme, the variety seen in the different guises in which we find Maitreya playing out his role as guarantor of the fu­ture. <115>

            Maitreya is preeminent in this hour because his Causal Body holds the key to the New Era and the New Age. In that sense, he is the Guarantor of the Future. In his dictation of March 24, 1985, Maitreya invited us to blend the golden spheres of our Causal Bodies jointly held:

 

      It is a secret (yet no secret, for I tell it) that the signifi­cance of the coming of Maitreya is that my Causal Body holds the key to the golden age long awaited. Thus, there must be made room in the inn of life in Matter for my Causal Body....

      We must be in the mountain for the lowering of the Causal Body that is the key to the golden age. And then we must blend the golden spheres of our Causal Bodies jointly held. For this is the meaning of the Guru-chela relation­ship!...

      Little by little, build the kingdom of God until you, with me, our Causal Bodies one, become the mutual and joint key to this golden age. <116>

 

            But if we are far from Maitreya vibrationally, will we be there in consciousness when he ignites a new age? Will we know when it happens? How many people who were contemporaries of the founders of new ages recognized them at the time? Very few.

Sponberg continues:

 

      We find him portrayed at times as a diligent bodhisattva cultivating the path to enlightenment on earth and later as a celestial bodhisattva resplendent in his heavenly abode in Tusita. At times he appears as an otherworldly object of individual devotion and contemplation, at others as the militant leader of political extremists seeking to establish a new order here and now....

      Perhaps no other figure in the Buddhist pantheon combines both universality and adaptability in the way that Maitreya does. <117>

            Of course, Maitreya is the epitome of the universality that we see in the Great White Brotherhood. We can look at any Ascended Master and any angel in heaven and we can see a glint of Maitreya.

He is considered by his devotees to be the exemplar of the Bodhisattva path. As I mentioned earlier, the term bodhisattva means “a being whose essence is enlightenment” or “one who is intent on achieving enlightenment.” Enlightenment is awareness. Enlightenment is not human knowledge. It is awareness of the circumference of the lower self and the higher self and the middle self—the three levels of being that are depicted in the Chart of Your Divine Self—and more: It is the containment of God.

The Buddhist philosopher and sage Nagarjuna, in his book written around the second century, defined what a bodhisattva is:

 

      The essential nature of all Bodhisattvas is a great loving heart, and all sentient beings constitute the object of its love. Therefore, all the Bodhisattvas do not cling to the blissful taste that is produced by the diverse modes of mental tranquilisation, do not covet the fruit of their meritorious deeds, which may heighten their own happiness....

      With a great loving heart they look upon the sufferings of all beings, who are diversely tortured in Avici Hell in consequence of their sins—a hell whose limits are infinite and where an endless round of misery is made possible on account of all sorts of karma [committed by sentient creatures]. The Bodhi­sattvas filled with pity and love desire to suffer themselves for the sake of those miserable beings.

      But they are well acquainted with the truth that all those diverse sufferings causing diverse states of misery are in one sense apparitional and unreal, while in another sense they are not so....

      Therefore, all Bodhisattvas, in order to emancipate sentient beings from misery, are inspired with great spiritual energy and mingle themselves in the filth of birth and death. Though thus they make themselves subject to the laws of birth and death, their hearts are free from sins and attachments. They are like unto those immaculate, undefiled lotus-flowers which grow out of mire, yet are not contaminated by it.

      Their great hearts of sympathy which constitute the essence of their being never leave suffering creatures behind [in their journey towards enlighten­ment]. <118>

            Buddhists teach that Maitreya mastered the initiations of the Bodhisattva path in his past embodiments and is thus worthy to become a Buddha. Most appropriately, he is called Maitreya because he attained the samadhi called maitra, <119> meaning “compassion.”

The samadhi of compassion—think about that. Think about being perpetually in the samadhi of compassion. Give it a try. You may be surprised at just how long you can sustain the vibration of compassion.

It is important to remember that Maitreya faced testings and trials on this path just as we do today. In fact, one scripture records that he did indeed have shortcomings that he had to transcend. In the Lotus Sutra the Bodhisattva Manjushri tells Maitreya of a Bodhisattva who had eight hundred pupils. Among them, says Manjushri, “was one who was slothful, covetous, greedy for gain and clever. He was also excessively desirous of glory, but very fickle, so that the lessons dictated to him and the reciting done by him faded from his memory as soon as they were learned.”

He then tells Maitreya: “He who then...was so slothful, was thyself, and it was I who then was the preacher of the law.” <120> The moral of the story is that somewhere in the tracks of the historical self, the lesser self leaves off where the higher self begins.

The Personal Encounter with Maitreya

A pivotal element in the religious devotion to Maitreya is the disciples’ goal of the personal encounter with the Master. The Gandavyuha Sutra, mentioned earlier, is one of the most well-known Buddhist texts illustrating an aspirant’s encounter with the Bodhisattva Maitreya. The young seeker, Sudhana, embarks on a long pilgrimage in search of enlightenment and visits various Bodhisattvas, each of whom sends him to another for additional instruction. An entire chapter of this sutra is devoted to Sudhana and Maitreya’s meeting. Maitreya instructs the young seeker in the law, and in his presence Sudhana’s spiritual vision is opened. Professor Padmanabh Jaini summarizes this momentous encounter:

 

      Following Manjusri’s command, Sudhana had traveled all over the South (Daksinapatha) and had visited more than fifty kalyana-mitras [“noble friends”] in search of instruction in the Bodhisattva path. Finally, he arrived at Samudrakaccha, probably a port city, where Maitreya was residing in a gabled palace called Vairocana­kuta­lamkara-garbha. He approached Maitreya and sang his praises in 55 beautiful verses, calling him the eldest son of the Jina, the “anointed one.” Maitreya received him with honor and instructed him in the bodhisattva career in no less than 121 verses. At the conclusion of his speech Sudhana respectfully addressed Maitreya:

      ‘the Noble Maitreya has been proclaimed by all the Buddhas to be the one who will attain to Buddhahood after only a single rebirth. Such a person must have passed through all the stages of a bodhisattva, must have fulfilled all the stages of a bodhisattva, must have fulfilled all the paramitas [specific virtues that must be perfected by a bodhisattva];...he is anointed for omniscient cognition....May he please instruct me: How should a bodhisattva conduct himself in following his career?”

      Then Maitreya praised Sudhana for his aspirations, took him to the gate of his gabled palace, opened its gates with a snap of his fingers, and led Sudhana in. By the majesty of Maitreya’s resolution Sudhana was able to see instantly all the halls and chambers of that great palace. He witnessed in a trance state the place where Maitreya had first conceived the thought of enlighten­ment and saw the numerous Buddhas under whom he had practiced the paramitas. He also saw the place where Maitreya had initially attained mastery over the Maitra­samadhi, which earned him the name Maitreya....

      He then saw those places where, in the course of his manifold transmigra­tions, Maitreya had been born as a cakravartin king, as Sakra, the king of gods, and the place where he would be reborn, namely, the Tusita Heaven. He also witnessed the extraordinary scenes of Maitreya’s birth in Jambudvipa out of the petals of a lotus flower, his first seven steps as an infant, his youth in the harem, his renunciation, his self-mortification followed by his partaking of food, his approach to the bodhi tree, his victory over the forces of Mara, his enlightenment, and finally his turning of the Wheel of the Law at the request of Brahma. When Maitreya realized that Sudhana had had the vision of the entire bodhisattva career of the future Buddha, he withdrew his magic power, snapped his fingers, and awakened Sudhana from his trance....

      [Maitreya told Sudhana] that after his death he would “display” his rebirth in the Tusita Heaven in order to bring to maturity both the gods of that abode and those who would arrive there later through the inspiration of the Lord Sakyamuni. He assured Sudhana that, in the company of Manjusri, he would see Maitreya again after the latter had attained Buddhahood. Maitreya then bid Sudhana farewell and directed him to return to Manjusri for further instructions. <121>

The nine gifts of the Holy Spirit are the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, diverse kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues. See Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Lords of the Seven Rays:  The Mirror of Consciousness, Book One, pp. 5-20.

Tushita is the realm where the Buddha-designate, the Bodhisattva, waits until his last rebirth, when he is to be the Buddha for that age. The Buddhas Dipankara (Sanat Kumara) and Sakyamuni (Lord Gautama), it is taught, reigned over the gods in Tushita when in the past they held in succession the position of Lord of the Tushita heaven. It is believed that while Maitreya holds this position Tushita is no longer a realm occupied solely by divine beings but a heaven whose portals are opened to his devotees on earth.

The teaching of the Ascended Master Maitreya today is that he tutors the bodhisattvas in their Tushita abode in the twelfth level of the heaven world. Only bodhisattvas or those of advanced attainment in the hierarchy of the Great White Brotherhood may enter this level of the etheric plane.

So, as we embody the Ten Vows of Kuan Yin and they become the motivating principle of our lives, by and by we may become bodhisattvas and thus earn the right to frequent the Tushita heaven in our finer bodies (during sleep or samadhi) prior to the soul’s passing from the screen of life. Here we may meet the worthy bodhisattvas who are looking to be reborn with Maitreya, as we have said, so that they can become messengers of his Dharma and attain salvation.

Apart from this, Maitreya maintains his etheric retreat over Tientsin, China, southeast of Peking. <122> With Lord Gautama he also teaches students seeking to graduate from earth’s schoolroom at the Eastern and Western Sham­balla <123> and at the Royal Teton Retreat.

 

Commenting on the accessibility of Maitreya in Tushita heaven, Alan Sponberg writes:

 

      Maitreya is of this world even now, dwelling in a realm that is much closer to us than is obvious to the Western observer with a rather different concept of what a heaven is. Tusita Heaven, Maitreya’s abode until he is born once again among humans as a Buddha, is no remote, transcendent paradise. It is very much a part of this world system, one of a series of connected levels of existence, and not even the highest of those levels at that.

      In Buddhist cosmography these realms are so inter­connected, in fact, that the skilled meditator moves easily among them in the exercise of yogic techniques. Much of the attractiveness of Maitreya as a cult figure stems from the fact that he is accessible to the aspirant, through meditative trance and through rebirth—even now, long before his awaited advent as the next Buddha. Even more than Sakyamuni, Maitreya has been seen, in this sense, as a Buddha for the present, for those of this world and for those in even the most desperate of times. <124>

            Maitreya’s devotees want to be reborn in Tushita heaven to personally receive teachings from their Guru because they know that the personal encounter with him will accelerate them on the Bodhisattva path. Though a legitimate aim of all chelas of the Ascended Masters, this desire is also somewhat of a procrastin­a­tion. Because, unless you know better, this dream of a future paradise with Maitreya may lull you into the sleepfulness of not saying, “I can know Maitreya right here and now, right where I am in physical embodiment. Furthermore, my soul can rise to the etheric plane and consciousness of my own Christed being, where I may encounter Maitreya face to face.”

To fail to affirm this is to tie in to the pernicious tendency of the human to postpone, for whatever psychological reason, the great encounter with Maitreya. And this tendency follows us, or we follow it, through the world’s religions, as I’ve already said; because it’s not a question of doctrine but one of personal psycho­logy—an absence of deep inner resolution with the person of the Christ, the person of the Buddha.

Let me make clear, however, that neither the meditative or yogic techniques described by Alan Sponberg (the easy access theory) nor the positive thinking and positive affirmations of the chelas will get you to Tushita unless you have been accepted and initiated by the Guru Maitreya as a qualified bodhisattva.

A famous story illustrating the Guru-chela relationship and the personal encounter with Maitreya is the story of one called Asanga, the fourth-century Indian master. In an account from The Door of Liberation, a collection of Tibetan Buddhist teachings prepared by Geshe Wangyal, Maitreya appears to Asanga in various manifestations to goad him to remain steadfast in his spiritual quest:

 

      Nine hundred years after the parinirvana of Gautama Buddha, Arya Asanga was born. In his youth he completed intensive studies in a monastery and in middle life withdrew to a cave to meditate. He determined not to give up his meditation until Maitreya, the Bodhisattva of love and compassion and Buddha-to-come, manifested himself openly before him. When, after three years, he had had no results, he became discouraged and left his cave. Nearby, he met a man who was making a needle from an iron spike by rubbing it with a piece of cotton. Seeing this, his patience returned and he went back to his cave and meditated unceasingly for six more years. Still Maitreya did not manifest himself. Disheartened that he had meditated for nine years without even a sign of success, Asanga again left his cave. Outside he saw how a rock had been completely worn down by single drops of water and the beating wings of passing birds. Again his patience returned and he resumed his meditation; this time for another three years. But finally Asanga despaired completely of realizing his aim, and set out on the journey to return to his monastery.

      On the outskirts of Acinta he saw an old she-dog whose hind­quarters were raw and crawling with maggots. He felt great pity for her and wanted to relieve her suffering, but could not bear to destroy the maggots. Instead, he cut a piece of flesh from his own thigh and placed it near the dog. He then put out his tongue and prepared to transfer the larvae one by one, but the sight of the wound was so disgusting that he had to close his eyes. Suddenly there was a great ringing in his ears, and he opened his eyes. Standing before him, in a magnificent, radiant light, was Maitreya. Despite his joy, Arya Asanga exclaimed without thinking, “Why did you never come to me during the twelve years I earnestly meditated?”

      Maitreya answered, “I was with you all the time, but you could not see me, because you did not yet have great compassion. If you do not believe me, carry me through the town on your shoulders and try to show me to the people.”

      Then Arya Asanga raised Maitreya on his shoulder and carried him through the town, hoping to let everyone see the wonderful Buddha. But no one in the town saw Maitreya, and only one old woman saw even the dog.

      After this, Maitreya magically transported Arya Asanga to Tusita heaven, where he stayed for fifty earth-years studying the Dharma. When he returned to India, he brought with him The Five Teachings of Maitreya, which are the central teachings of the lineage of compassion, and which are used in the Tibetan tradi­tion. <125>

            We may spend lifetimes looking for and not finding Maitreya, as Paul said, “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth.” <126>Thus we ought to remember the words “Who did hinder you that ye should not obey [i.e., acknowledge] the Truth [of Maitreya’s presence standing before you].” <127>

Christ is Truth incarnate. Truth is a synonym for Christ. Where Truth is, there is the Universal Christ—as Jesus, as Maitreya, or as your Holy Christ Self. To fail to recognize Maitreya wherever and through whomever he reaches out to us must surely reveal to us our absence of co-measurement with Truth. For all practical spiritual purposes, it is best to assume that Maitreya is with us all the while. For he is often just being himself in the many people we interact with—not perfect people, not necessarily the most magnanimous or the most loving people but just plain people who are teaching us, perhaps painfully, lessons that we are too thick, too stiffnecked, or too blind to get any other way.

 

      Maitreya makes this point in his series of Pearls of Wisdom “On Initiation”:

      Some of you know me as the Great Initiator, and you have already called to me most lovingly to be initiated on the path of attainment. But when I have come, you have not recognized me. In vain I have stood before you to initiate you in the law of energy flow....

      While you are waiting for the Second Coming of the Christ or for the Teacher from the East, make haste to receive the stranger at the gate, the children playing in the courtyard, and the tender lifestreams who are a part of your family and the family of God. How often you cast them aside or take them for granted—these precious ones who come in the name of the Lord, who come in the name of the law of your own karma! Receive them, one by one, in the Spirit of the Christ Mass; receive them in the name of Jesus the Christ and thereby have the reward of the Christed ones. <128>

            Morya’s teaching is “If Maitreya’s messenger be an ant, heed him!” I have received many an ant messenger in my life. So you be careful to receive them too because ants will always give you a certain perspective on yourself that you probably never would have had otherwise. They’ll hand you the key to problem solving that you threw away long ago because you thought it didn’t open any more doors.

When all else fails and you’re not listening, God sends an ant to instruct you. “Go to the ant, thou sluggard!” <129>The ant is the person you least expect to have anything to tell you: a nondescript sort of chap that you size up to be somewhat less of a creature than yourself—until he opens his mouth and comes out with the message.

Ants are extraordinary people! The wise always heed them. At first you may have a sense of injustice about this person who is offering you free advice.”Who does she think she is telling me how I ought to live my life!”—but by and by you come away the richer in wisdom, though you may never tell her so.

After all, the wise one said, “With all thy getting get under­standing,” <130> and get it wherever and whenever you can and through any messenger Life may send you. And if you really listen to what the proud and the lowly, the charlatan or the angel are really saying, you will get the message. And this is one of the sweetest mysteries of life on earth—that God, the Great Guru, is teaching us hour by hour.

The Buddha Padma Sambhava
His Mission, His Mantra and His Messenger

 

This introduction to Maitreya would not be complete without a presentation on the Buddha Padma Sambhava, the “Lotus-Born” One—his mission, his mantra and his messenger in the twentieth century.

The Precious Guru, or Guru Rinpoche, as the Lord Padma Sambhava is called, is revered as the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. Although much of his life and work is obscured in legend, he is thought to have been a teacher at the great monastic university in Nalanda, India, in the eighth century. He was famous for his mystical powers and mastery of the occult sciences.

In about a.d. 750, by invitation of King Thi-Srong-Detsan, he traveled to Tibet, where he helped to establish Buddhism in that country by overcoming the forces of the traditional Bon religion. He exorcised the demons that were opposing the building of the first Buddhist monastery in Tibet, known as Samye, and oversaw its completion. There he established the first community of Tibetan Buddhist lamas. Under the direction of Padma Sambhava the monks translated many Buddhist texts into Tibetan, thus enabling Buddhism to spread throughout the country.

According to Tibetan tradition, Padma Sambhava concealed scriptures containing esoteric teachings, which were discovered by chosen disciples in later centuries. The Precious Guru is believed to have made prophecies concerning the future of Tibet that are seeing their fulfillment in this day, including the Chinese Communist invasion, the slaying of the Tibetan people, the destruction of monasteries, and the desecration of sacred scriptures.

Padma Sambhava’s mantra, known as the Vajra Guru mantra, is Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padme Siddhi Hum.He is said to have instructed Yeshe Tsogyal, a princess who became Padma Sambhava’s chief disciple, that the giving of this mantra could avert “disease, poverty, warfare, hostile armies, civil strife, famine, dire prophecies and ill omens.” He said that the more times it was given the greater the benefit would be.

The Ascended Master Padma Sambhava bestowed upon me the mantle of Guru and gave me the name “Guru Ma,” meaning the Teacher who gives adoration to the Divine Mother or the Teacher who holds the office of World Mother. In his dictation given July 2, 1977, Padma Sambhava announced:

 

      I AM come in the tradition of the Ancient of Days [Sanat Kumara]. I AM come according to the lineage of the descent of Light. From the great Eternal One, I AM come....I AM the one who comes with Gautama in adoration of Mother.

      The Gurus ascended and unascended converge at the point of Light that is the descent from the point of Father to the point of Mother. In other words, precious hearts, the common meeting ground of our consciousness is the white light of Mother....

      Therefore I make known to you the dispensation of God, the Great Guru, and of all Gurus who serve to represent him—that although for many a month and many a year the Mother of the Flame has resisted the appellation “Guru,” we shall not permit it any longer. For the mantle must be upon the feminine incarnation and, because there are many changes taking place in the forcefield of earth, we must have, then, the acknowledgment of the open door of Guru through a Mother.

      Heretofore you have heard it told that the Messenger is the representative of the Gurus [who are] the Ascended Masters. Now draw nigh to me as I give you the mystery: the Mother is still the representative of the Gurus, but in the transfer of initiation—and very severe initiation of the Gurus that has been given to her—there has been made possible a more than ordinary incarnation of the Ascended Masters through your Messenger.

      It gives me, then, good joy as I am privileged to make known to you that the Ascended Masters come as a living witness to proclaim in this hour that the Guru-chela relationship can now be sustained in this octave through the flame of [the] heart of [the] Mother....

      Thus, it is clear that the law of Hierarchy is fulfilled in the age of Aquarius through the Mother....

      Much more of that [Mother] Light can be transferred when the mantle of Guru is placed upon the outer represen­tative—and when those who are around the one who receives the mantle can also acclaim that one and receive that one. For indeed, he that receiveth the Guru in the name of the Guru shall receive the Guru’s reward. <131>In this case, the reward is the gifts of the Holy Spirit. <132>

      As you adore the Cosmic Virgin through the represen­tative, let your goal be to acquire, increment by increment through your own self-mastery, these nine powers, <133> which are the key to the multiplication of the threefold flame within you....

      It is altogether fitting, then, that chelas of the Ascended Masters rejoice that in their movement and in this dispensation for the turning of the cycle of the century, there is one who will have the open door to the Ascended Masters and the unascended masters. Whether you appeal to me or to Milarepa or to Yogananda or to any of the great saints of the Western Church, you will find that if you seek the initiation and the discipline of that particular teacher or sage or saint, it will be forthcoming to you through the discipline of the Mother. <134>

            In Gautama Buddha’s dictation of November 8, 1981, which followed a reading I gave on Nicholas Roerich’s pilgrimage through Central Asia from his book Shambhala, the Lord of the World commented on Padma Sambhava’s anointing of myself as Guru:

 

      Why, then, have I selected the reading of the journeying of a soul of Light, a son of my heart, to Asia, to India, to Tibet, and to the blessed Kashmir and the Kulu Valley? I have selected this so that I might magnetize from deep within your subconscious, in the etheric plane, your own memory of the Kulu Valley.

      These are not stories, blessed hearts, of an unknown time and tradition. These are stories of your own soul’s trek there—there, where Padma Sambhava taught you and even then, in that incarnation (a.d. 750) following the coming of Jesus Christ, did anoint this Messenger to be the one who would represent him in this hour of the Inner Retreat.

      And so, you remember the dictation of Padma Sambhava. Some wondered why a relatively unspoken-of Buddha within these circles would come forth out of the very depths of nirvana to anoint our Messenger and then to give her the name “the Guru Mother”—even “the Guru Ma”—as the one who would teach the meaning of the intoning of the Ma syllable, worlds without end.

      Well, precious ones, it was because of this incarnation of your Messenger as well as other devotees in that very valley, in that very hour, in that climate—the fertile valley that in itself did hark back to the paradise of Lemuria. It was a forcefield consecrated by the Buddhas and bodhisattvas....

      Now we have selected this retreat, this cradle of the Heart [of the Inner Retreat], to lift the entire record of that episode and others that occurred in the Far East. We lift, as a stork would lift, bringing together the four corners of the garment, providing the cradle in which that Cosmic Christ consciousness already attained by you, with all of the akashic records, might be safely transported by the Great Mother Bird to this habitat, to this Place Prepared in the West. <135>

            The sustainment of the Guru-chela relationship through the mantle of Guru upon me is in the unbroken chain of hierarchy from Sanat Kumara, Gautama Buddha, Lord Maitreya and Jesus Christ to Padma Sambhava. Sanat Kumara described the descent of his mantle through this lineage in the first Pearl of Wisdom of his series “The Opening of the Seventh Seal”:

 

      The opening of the door in heaven is the descent of my mantle, my Electronic Presence. This auric emanation and forcefield is lowered to the plane of Gautama at Shamballa, who absorbs, assimilates and becomes that living Presence that I AM, he being the first ascended chela in the line of the descent of the Gurus from my own anointing to the anointing of your Messenger. In sacred ceremony, the Lord of the World transfers the authority of the mantle he has become to the second ascended chela in the line of the descent, Lord Maitreya, seated in the lotus throne in the central altar of Lemuria; for he is the personification of the Lord God who walked and talked with man and woman in the garden of Eden.

      Now that blessed Maitreya, mediator of the path of initiation, absorbs, assimilates and becomes the authority of the Ancient of Days, the dominion of Gautama, and adds to these his unique attainment on the path of chelaship under the Lord God Almighty. Now in the ritual of the anointing of the One Sent in the person of Jesus the Christ, Lord Maitreya transfers the transfiguring light of his own triune manifestation of the Word to his chosen chela, the Coming Servant who has come “in whom my soul delighteth, for I have put my Spirit upon him that he might bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.” <136>...

      The Four and Twenty Elders give praise unto the Lord I AM THAT I AM unto the day and unto the night, for the power of God that is delivered unto me this day is a deliverance unto the children of Light and the descent from the higher octaves to the lower octaves of the very presence of the Person of God through this lineal descent of the mantle. This is the meaning of the opening of the temple of God in heaven whereby I, the Ancient of Days, commissioned as the emissary of God, do stand before you first in the person of Gautama, second in the person of Maitreya, third in the person of Jesus, and fourth in the persons of the Two Witnes­ses. <137>

      As Daniel saw them, so they stand: the other two—the one, Mark L. Prophet, the Ascended Master Lanello, on this side of the bank of the river holding the crystal sphere of Spirit; and the other, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Mother of the Flame, on that side of the bank of the river holding the amethyst sphere of Mat­ter. <138>...

      I come through Gautama. I come through Maitreya. I come through Jesus Christ. And I am come in the person of the Two Witnesses, who now convey the mantra which they have become.—I and my Father are one.” <139>

            Sanat Kumara explained the significance of the office of Guru Ma in his November 4, 1979 Pearl of Wisdom:

 

      The name “Guru Ma” is the title of an office and of the mantle worn by the person or persons who hold the Mother Flame in the earth. It is a garment that has been worn before and one that will be worn again by the ever-present lineage of the Ruby Ray whose Mother Flame I ensoul in the Messenger and in the continuity of the Messengership, which ever has been and ever shall be the contact of Hierarchy with the Lord’s embodied hosts. <140>

 

      Serapis Bey elaborated on this in his January 27, 1980 Pearl of Wisdom:

 

      Guru Ma is the name given and the mantle worn by the Teacher who teaches the path of Self-realization through the Mother Flame—de­votion to purity of conscious­ness manifest in the Word and Work of the Lord and to the raising up of the Mother Light (the Kundalini) in the ascension coil. The path of the Mother leads to soul liberation through the ritual of the ascension taught and demonstrated for thousands of years by the avatars of East and West.

      The one called Guru Ma is a devotee of God who is devoted to his manifes­tation of the Mother principle of Life. The Guru Ma teaches his/her chelas the way of the Christ and the Buddha who were both devotees of the Mother Flame....

      The teachings of all true Gurus begin with Mother. They are Guru because they love Mother. The highest Guru to a planetary evolution, the “God of the Earth,” <141> is the Lord of the World [the office currently held by Gautama Buddha] because he embraces Mother and is her foremost disciple. <142>

 

            On December 25, 1985, in further witness to the mantle of Guru that Padma Sambhava placed upon me, Jesus commented on the promise of John 1:11-13, which reads:

 

      He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

      But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

      Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

            Our beloved Jesus told us:

 

      Understand, therefore, to those who believe on the name of the Son of God Jesus Christ and the Sun behind that Son and the Messenger of that Son there is given “power to make them sons of God.” There is given power to ignite in them the threefold flame....

      God therefore can raise up of these stones vessels for the threefold flame. <143>This, understand, is always the mission of the Great White Brotherhood and of every order that we have sponsored since the very earliest coming of the avatars to planetary systems of worlds. It is the igniting of a spark in the human form and figure that the soul might receive the breath of the Holy Spirit and become a living, vibrant soul—a spirit, a divine spark of Being. This is the mission of my Life....

      And we have said, “If you will follow the Path and reach that point of fiery initiation and trial whereby you stand before the Messenger, and the Messenger does receive me and receive the transmission of the Holy Ghost through me to slay that human creation, and if you receive that slaying by the power of the Word and allow the not-self to go down, then you can receive from me through the Messenger the transfer of that mighty power of the flame of the will of God, which indeed the threefold flame is.”...

      The mighty threefold flame of Life does heal all thy diseases, does bring alignment and the blueprint of Life. And that threefold flame, as the flame of the Will of God, as the flame of the Wisdom of God, as the flame of the Love of God, beloved ones, does bring you nearer to your Divine Plan and to the Divine One within you....

      I come as your Ascended Master Jesus Christ. Place your hands in mine. Trust me as the child trusts the dearly beloved parent. I will show thee this day who thou art. I will show thee thy soul, created by God in the beginning....I will show thee the Path of perfect Love.

      I have shown this Path of perfect Love to the Messenger...<144>

 


‘the Summit Lighthouse Sheds Its Radiance O’er All the World to Manifest as Pearls of Wisdom.”

Throughout these notes PoW is the abbreviation for Pearls of Wisdom.

1. In quotations from dictations of the Ascended Masters, bracketed material denotes words unspoken yet implicit in the dictation, added by the Messenger under the Master?s direction for clarity in the written word.

2. See pp. 316-17.

3. Jesus Christ, February 14, 1988, 1988 PoW, pp. 167-68.

4. John 12:44-50.

5. For biographical information on Sanat Kumara and Gautama Buddha, see 1989 PoW, pp. 419-50.

6. John 1:9.

7. John 12:35.

8. John 5:17, 18.

9. The appellation “Ancient of Days” is the title of Sanat Kumara; see Dan. 7:9, 13, 22.

10.. John 5:19-24.

11.. John 14:8-15.

12. avatar [Sanskrit avatara ‘descent’, from avatarati ‘he descends’, from ava- ‘away’ + tarati ‘he crosses over’]:  a divine incarnation.

13. John 10:30, 38; 14:9-11, 20; 17:21-23.

14. John 10:38; 14:10, 11.

15. John 20:17.

16. Matt. 28:18.

17. Phil. 2:11; I John 4:15.

18. John 11:27.

19. John 1:1, 2.

20. Matt. 11:3, 5; Luke 7:19, 20, 22.

21. In the Old Testament, the term Lord (with large and small capital letters) is used to translate the Hebrew Yod He Vau He, or Yahweh, the I AM THAT I AM. Because New Testament writers did not comprehend the magnitude of Jesus’ incarnation of the Lord God, they did not correctly write the term Lord, used for Jesus in the New Testament, as Lord, as they should have.

22. John 13:13.

23. John 20:28.

24. Col. 2:9.

25. Phil. 1:21.

26. Phil. 2:5-11.

27. Matt. 5:17.

28. The Son of man is the soul who is the Son of manifestation--the Son of the manifestation of the I AM THAT I AM--who has become through the alchemical marriage the full incarnation of the Christ.

29. I Cor. 6:20.

30. Heb. 13:8.

31. Deut. 25:4; I Cor. 9:9; I Tim. 5:18.

32. II Cor. 3:6.

33. I Cor. 3:16, 17; 6:19, 20; II Cor. 6:16.

34.Tathagata: a title for Gautama Buddha used by his followers and by Gautama when he is speaking of himself. Literally translated as “thus come one” or “thus gone one,” the word is variously taken to mean a perfectly enlightened one; one who has come and gone as other Buddhas, teaching the same truths and following the same path; or one who has attained “suchness” (tathata) or become one with the Dharmakaya (which corresponds to the Causal Body or I AM Presence), hence he neither comes from anywhere not goes anywhere.

35. Lankav­atara-sutra, in Adrian Snodgrass, The Symbolism of the Stupa (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1985), pp. 196, 197; Ratnagotravibhaga, in Edward Conze, ed., Buddhist Texts through the Ages (1954: reprint, New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 181.

36. John 5:21, 25; Rom. 8:11.

37. John 1:14.

38. Matt. 13:9-17; Mark 4:9-12; Luke 8:8-10; John 8:47.

39. Matt. 24:27-31; Mark 13:24-26; Luke 21:25-28; I Thess. 4:16, 17.

40. Rev. 1:7.

41. Jesus’ calls. 1987 PoW, pp. 269-76, 491-98, 577-82; 1988 PoW, pp. 290, 291, 294, 297, 647-56.

42. Matt. 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; I Cor. 11:24.

43. John 5:25.

44. Matt. 8:11, 12; 22:8-14; 25:30.

45. Second death. Rev. 2:11; 20:6, 11-15; 21:7, 8.

46. Rev. 12:12.

47. Matt. 7:15; Luke 11:39.

48. Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43.

49. Rev. 1:7.

50. Jesus Christ, March 26, 1989, and Archangel Jophiel and Archeia Hope, July 2, 1989, 1989 PoW, pp. 231-32, 510.

51. Lord Maitreya, January 2, 1988, 1988 PoW, p. 58.

52. Lord Maitreya, December 11, 1988, 1988 PoW, pp. 668-69.

53. John 14:20, 21.

54. John 14:22, 23.

55. Archeia Hope, January 2, 1987, 1987 PoW, pp. 79, 80-81.

56. City of Light is another name for Shamballa.

57. Update from London, Network News 5 (April 1988):1.

58. Frances Robinson, “Interview with Benjamin Creme: Artist Turned Prophet Says Christ-Buddha Is Back,” Whole Life Times, February 1989, p. 9.

59. Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (Los Angeles: Tara Press, 1980), p. 25.

60. Benjamin Creme, “Aims and Possibilities,” Share International 1 (June 1982):10.

61. Gal. 6:5.

62. Gen. 3:4.

63. Matt. 24:22; Mark 13:20.

64. Lord Maitreya, December 31, 1985, 1986 PoW, pp. 159-60.

65. John 14:12.

66. See pp. 323-24.

67. See 1988 PoW, p. 633 n. 20.

68. maya [Sanskrit]: literally illusion, deception, appearance. Something created or fabricated, not ultimately real; the impermanent phenomenal world viewed as reality; the principle of relativity and duality by which the one Reality appears as the manifold universe. The Ascended Masters teach that maya is the veil of misqualified energy that man imposes upon Matter through his misuse of the sacred fire.

69. This ritual is described in the Dossier on the Ascension by Serapis Bey, pp. 158, 175-78. See also Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Lords of the Seven Rays: Mirror of Conscious­ness, Book One, pp. 171-74; and Saint Germain On Alchemy, pp. 96-97, 361-62. It is possible to make your ascension (after the physical transition) from the etheric plane from any number of the retreats of the Great White Brotherhood or from anywhere on earth if you have the attainment. For information on the physical ascension, see the dictation given by the Ascended Master Rex on October 2, 1989.

70. Isa. 30:20, 21.

71. II Cor. 6:2.

72. The ancient Indian language of early Buddhist Scriptures

73. F. L. Woodward, “Maitri Bodhisat in the Hindu and Buddhist Scriptures,” Buddhist Review 9 (January-June 1917):15.

74. Ibid., p. 16.

75. Padmanabh S. Jaini, “Stages in the Bodhisattva Career of the Tathagata Maitreya,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 63.

76. The Community, the congregation of monks, nuns and lay devotees, the Buddha’s spiritual family

77. Karen L. Brock, “Awaiting Maitreya at Kasagi,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, pp. 222-23, 224.

78. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Third Series), ed. Christmas Humphreys (1953; reprint, New York: Samuel Weiser, 1971), p. 124.

79. H. Saddhatissa, trans., The Sutta-Nipata (London: Curzon Press, 1985), pp. 15-16.

80. See El Morya, The Chela and the Path: Meeting the Challenge of Life in the Twentieth Century.

81. Five Dhyani Buddhas. See Elizabeth Clare Prophet, July 3, 1988, “Darshan, Teachings and Dictations with Paul the Venetian and the Maha Chohan,” teachings on the Five Dhyani Buddhas, their mantras and positions on the Cosmic Clock, on 90-min. audiocassette, $6.50 (add $.55 for postage), B88104; July 3, 1989, “Teachings of the Buddha: The Five Dhyani Buddhas and the Five Poisons,” on 90-min. audiocassette, $6.50 (add $.55 for postage), B89096; 1988 PoW, pp. 489, 490, 539, 540, 556, 657-58; 1989 PoW, pp. 530 n. 12, 531 n. 22, 537 n. 3.

82. Saint Germain’s Heart Meditation I and II, delivered by the Messenger at Saint Germains request, are for the clearing, strengthening and initiation of the heart chakra and the balancing of the threefold flame. They include devotional prayers, decrees, mantras, hymns, meditations and visualizations as well as instruction and invocations by the Messenger and the opportunity for participants to offer personal prayers.

Saint Germains Heart Meditation I, given on May 3, 1987, includes specific invocations by the Messenger for the clearance of the heart chakra, the binding of the dweller-on-the-threshold, and the consuming of all burdens and records of the past that prevent the expansion and balance of the threefold flame. Instruction on guarding the heart and the perversions of the heart chakra. 93-min. audiocassette, $6.50 (add $.55 for postage), B87027.

Saint Germains Heart Meditation II, given July 10, 1988, at the Heart of the Inner Retreat, includes instruction from the Messenger on the balancing and development of the threefold flame, embodying the attributes of God, the initiation of the burning in the heart, and coming to know our own threefold flame. Meditations for journeying into cosmic dimensions of Self, for the souls entrance into the secret place of the heart, and on the soul as the bride of purity, with visualizations of the radiance of resurrections light and of Archangel Michaels sword of blue flame. A dictation by Saint Germain not published anywhere else. Meditation concludes with Buddhist mantras, including mantras of the Five Dhyani Buddhas, Padma Sambhava, Gautama Buddha, Lord Maitreya and Kuan Yin. For Keepers of the Flame only, 3 audiocassettes, 3 hr. 49 min., $6.50 each (add $.95 for postage), K89055-57.

83. Matt. 9:17; Mark 2:22; Luke 5:37, 38.

84. Geshe Wangyal, trans., The Door of Liberation (New York: Lotsawa, 1978), p. 208.

85. The Ten Vows of Kuan Yin are included on Kuan Yins Crystal Rosary: Devotions to the Divine Mother East and West released by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. This New Age ritual of hymns, prayers and Chinese mantras invokes the merciful presence of Kuan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Rosary also contains songs and mantras to the Divine Mother East and West, such as the Hail Mary, and dynamic decrees invoking the violet flame and the protection of the heavenly hosts. Cassette I: “Ten Vows of Kuan Yin,” taken from the Great Compassion Heart Dharani Sutra. Cassette II: “Kuan Yin Mantras for the Woman and Her Seed,” using sacred names, titles and mantras of Kuan Yin arranged according to the fourteen stations of the Aquarian cross. Cassette III: mantras to the “Thirty-Three Manifestations of Avalokitesvara as Kuan Yin.” 3-audiocassette album, 4 hr. 40 min., plus 40-page booklet, $14.95 (add $1.50 for postage), A88084. Booklet, $2.00 each (add $.90 each for postage) or 6 for $10.00 (add $1.10 for postage).

For further teachings on Kuan Yins Crystal Rosary, see lectures by Elizabeth Clare Prophet: “Teachings, Meditations and Mantras of Kuan Yin and Mother Mary,” April 2, 1988, foundational teaching on the “Ten Vows of Kuan Yin” and on “Kuan Yin Mantras for the Woman and Her Seed,” 3 audiocassettes, 4 hr. 10 min., $19.50 (add $.95 for postage), A88052; 3 videocassettes, 4 hr. 8 min., $49.95 (add $1.90 for postage), GP88042. “Thirty-Three Manifestations of Avalokitesvara as Kuan Yin,” May 8, July 1, October 8-9, 1988; teachings and meditations on the mantras taken from a set of thirty-three forms of Kuan Yin venerated in China since the seventh century; how to use these mantras for true spiritual healing and transmutation to overcome troublesome habits and resolve personal and planetary problems; 4 audiocassettes, 5 hr. 12 min., $26.00 (add $.95 for postage), A88068.

86. See 1988 PoW, p. 373 n. 9; 1989 PoW, p. 531 n. 21.

87. Isa. 28:16; Acts 4:10, 11; Eph. 2:20; I Pet. 2:6, 7.

88. Mother Mary, August 14, 1989, 1989 PoW, p. 584.

89. Bhikkhu Bodhi, ed., The Vision of Dhamma: Buddhist Writings of Nyanaponika Thera (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1986), p. 171.

90. Ibid., p. 172.

91. I Cor. 13:9, 10, 12.

92. E. Zurcher, “‘Prince Moonlight’: Messianism and Eschatology in Early Medieval Chinese Buddhism,” T‘oung Pao: Revue internationale de Sinologie 68 (1982):8.

93. Matt. 25:1-13.

94. Prov. 3:5, 6.

95. Matt. 23:13; Luke 11:52; Mal. 2:7, 8.

96. Matt. 15:14; Luke 6:39.

97. Matt. 7:15; Luke 11:39; Matt. 23:27; Luke 11:44.

98. John 12:32.

99. Jude 12.

100. Jude 4, 16, 19.

101. Take your thumb and first two fingers, draw them together, press in on your crown chakra and let the Light be drawn to it. Accept the teaching of the Dharma that descends from your Higher Mental Body to the crown of your head.

102. Robert A. F. Thurman, trans., The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti: A Mahayana Scripture (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976), pp. 100-102.

103. Matt. 24:23, 24; Mark 13:21, 22.

104. Heb. 6:6.

105. Thurman, Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, p. 102.

106. Robert A. F. Thurman, trans., Tsong Khapas Speech of Gold in the Essence of True Eloquence” (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 20-21.

107. Jan Nattier, “The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth: A Typological Analysis,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, p. 39 n. 17.

108. John 5:14; 8:11.

109. John 3:14-16.

110. Nattier, “The Meanings of the Maitreya Myth,” p. 29.

111. Lewis Lancaster, “Maitreya in Korea,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, p. 148.

112. Alan Sponberg, “Epilogue: A Prospectus for the Study of Maitreya,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, p. 289.

113. Janet R. D. Goodwin, “The Worship of Miroku in Japan” (Ph.D. diss., Department of History, University of California, Berkeley, December 1977), p. 11.

114. S. J. Tambiah, Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-east Thailand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 365.

115. Alan Sponberg, “Introduction,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, pp. 2, 3.

116. Lord Maitreya, March 24, 1985, 1985 PoW, pp. 621, 623, 626.

117. Sponberg, “Introduction,” p. 3.

118. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (1907; reprint, New York: Schocken Books, 1963), pp. 292-94.

119. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism (Third Series), p. 134.

120. Jaini, “Stages in the Bodhisattva Career of the Tathagata Maitreya,” p. 60.

121. Ibid., pp. 69-70.

122. Tientsin (or Tianjin) is the third largest city in the Peoples Republic of China. It is located in Hopeh Province in northeast China, about 80 miles southeast of Peking. Tientsin means literally “heavenly ford”; the city is situated 35 miles inland from the Gulf of Chihli, where several streams converge before merging into the Hai Ho (river).

123. Gautama Buddhas etheric retreat in the East, Shamballa, is located over the Gobi Desert in central Asia. In 1981 Gautama established an extension of this retreat, called the Western Shamballa, in the etheric octave over the Heart of the Inner Retreat at the Royal Teton Ranch, Montana. See 1981 PoW, pp. 226, 227; 1989 PoW, pp. 419-22.

124. Sponberg, “Epilogue,” p. 288.

125. Wangyal, The Door of Liberation, pp. 29-30.

126. II Tim. 3:7.

127. Gal. 5:7.

128. Lord Maitreya, 1975 PoW, pp. 264, 265; Matt. 10:40-42.

129. Prov. 6:6.

130. Prov. 4:7.

131. Matt. 10:41.

132. I Cor. 12:4-10.

133. The nine gifts of the Holy Spirit are the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, diverse kinds of tongues and interpretation of tongues. See Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Lords of the Seven Rays:  The Mirror of Consciousness, Book One, pp. 5-20.

134. See pp. 101-3, following p. 286.

135. Gautama Buddha, November 8, 1981, 1981 PoW, p. 500.

136. Isa. 42:1; Matt. 12:18.

137. Rev. 11:3-12.

138. Dan. 12:5.

139. Sanat Kumara, 1979 PoW, pp. 75, 76, 79.

140. Sanat Kumara, 1979 PoW, pp. 298-99.

141. Rev. 11:4.

142. Serapis Bey, 1980 PoW, pp. 15-16.

143. Matt. 3:9; Luke 3:8; 19:40.

144. Jesus Christ, December 25, 1985, 1986 PoW, pp. 112, 114, 118.