Vol. 32 No. 30 - Elizabeth Clare Prophet - July 23, 1989
The Messenger Stumps New York
3
The Message of the Inner Buddha
“Some Will Understand”
Wesak Lecture May 20, 1989
Shamballa
Retreat of the Lord of the World
Shamballa is the ancient home of Sanat Kumara and Gautama Buddha. It was originally built for Sanat Kumara, hierarch of Venus, who long ago came to Earth in her darkest hour when all light had gone out in her evolutions, for there was not a single individual on the planet who gave adoration to the God Presence or the Inner Buddha. <1>
Sanat Kumara, accompanied by a band of 144,000 souls of Light, volunteered to keep the flame of Life on behalf of Earth’s people. This they vowed to do until the children of God, who had been turned away from their first love by fallen angels, would respond to the love of God and turn once again to serve their Mighty I AM Presence.
Four hundred who formed the avant-garde went before Sanat Kumara to build on an island in the Gobi Sea (where the Gobi Desert now is <2>) the magnificent retreat that was to become for all time the legendary Shamballa. This retreat, once physical, was withdrawn to the etheric octave, or heaven-world, in subsequent dark ages.
Gautama Buddha was the first initiate to serve under Sanat Kumara, hence the one chosen to succeed him in the office of Lord of the World. On January 1, 1956, Sanat Kumara placed his mantle on Lord Gautama, whereupon the Chela par excellence of the Great Guru also became the hierarch of Shamballa. Sanat Kumara, retaining the title of Regent Lord of the World, returned to Venus and to his twin flame, Lady Master Venus, who had kept the home fires burning during his long exile. There he continued his service with the Great White Brotherhood and the advanced evolutions of his home star on behalf of planet Earth.
In a dictation delivered on May 25, 1975, Lady Master Venus announced that as Sanat Kumara had kept the flame for Earth, now she had come to “tarry for a time on Terra” to “dedicate anew the fires of the Mother.” She said, “I release a fiery momentum of consciousness to arrest all spirals that would take from humanity the fullness of their divinity....See how mankind respond to the flame of the Mother as they responded to the light of Sanat Kumara.”
On New Year’s Eve 1976 Gautama Buddha prophesied the future transfer of the forcefield of his retreat to America. He said America “is indeed the place where all shall return to the cause and core of [the] Dharma ([i.e.,] the Teaching) and the Sangha. For here we will transfer Shamballa, here we will transfer that City of Light one day. [But for] now it will be the implementation of a secondary forcefield, the Omega aspect of Shamballa, as the Alpha aspect remains positioned where it is.”
On July 4, 1977, Sanat Kumara said that
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the Cosmic Council and the Lords of Karma have granted and decreed that I might be allowed to tarry on Earth, in Earth, for certain cycles of manifestation for the absolute return of freedom into the hearts of the Lightbearers of Earth.... I place my body as a living altar in the midst of the people Israel, <3> and in that body temple is the original blueprint, the [soul] design for every son and daughter of God and the children of God who have come forth. For it is the desire of the Cosmic Virgin that none of her children should be lost, none of her sons and daughters. And thus I join the Lady Master Venus, who has been tarrying with you these many months; and we together, focusing our twin flames in the Holy City, will stand for the triumph of that Community of the Holy Spirit that must be manifest as the key to the release of Light <4> in this age. |
In a dictation given July 4, 1978, Sanat Kumara told us he was manifesting that night in the physical spectrum “and I am anchoring in this very earth plane the full weight and momentum of my office as the Ancient of Days, <5> such as I have not done since our coming to the Place Prepared at Shamballa.”
In 1981 Gautama established his Western Shamballa over “the Heart” of what his devotees call the “Inner Retreat.” On April 18, he said, “From Shamballa I arc a light. I would establish the ground of the Ancient of Days....In this hour I contemplate—note it well—the arcing of the flame of Shamballa to the Inner Retreat as the Western abode of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas <6> and the Bodhisattvas-to-be who are the devotees of the Mother light.”
So the ‘yang’ presence of Gautama Buddha remains at that point of Shamballa in the East in the etheric octave over the Gobi Desert and his ‘yin’ presence is in the West in the etheric octave over the Gallatin Range in the Northern Rockies focused at the Heart of the Inner Retreat.
Our summer conferences are held here in this beautiful island valley on the 33,000-acre Royal Teton Ranch in southwestern Montana. This is the “Place Prepared” <7> for the return of the flame of Shamballa in the Aquarian age, truly the “Place of Great Encounters” where chelas return to “the Heart” of their Great Guru, Sanat Kumara. This is that place which the disciples of the Lord of the World have secured through this activity of the Great White Brotherhood that I represent.
Bordering on Yellowstone Park, this cathedral of nature is the physical coordinate of the Western etheric retreat of the Lord of the World. Here we contemplate the mysteries of the Inner Buddha and the Inner Christ and lend our threefold flames to anchor in this hemisphere the forcefield of Shamballa.
The kingdom of Shamballa plays a central role in Tibetan Buddhism. Author Edwin Bernbaum writes that the sacred texts of the Tibetans speak of Shamballa as
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a mystical kingdom hidden behind snow peaks somewhere north of Tibet. There a line of enlightened kings is supposed to be guarding the most secret teachings of Buddhism for a time when all truth in the world outside is lost in war and the lust for power and wealth. Then, according to prophecy, a future King of Shambhala will come out with a great army to destroy the forces of evil and bring in a golden age. Under his enlightened rule, the world will become, at last, a place of peace and plenty, filled with the riches of wisdom and compassion. The texts add that a long and mystical journey across a wilderness of deserts and mountains leads to Shambhala. Whoever manages to reach this distant sanctuary, having overcome numerous hardships and obstacles along the way, will find there a secret teaching that will enable him to master time and liberate himself from its bondage. The texts warn, however, that only those who are called and have the necessary spiritual preparation will be able to get to Shambhala; others will find only blinding storms and empty mountains–or even death.... In addition to describing the kingdom in great detail, Tibetan texts give a mythical history of Shambhala that begins with the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama....According to these texts, just before the Buddha passed away he taught the Kalachakra Tantra to Suchandra, the first important king of Shambhala. Suchandra, who had come to India for this instruction, took the teaching back to his kingdom north of the Himalayas and wrote it down. A line of six kings is supposed to have succeeded him, followed by a second line that will total twenty-five, preserving and teaching the Kalachakra in Shambhala. Each king is said to live for a hundred years and to be the incarnation of a particular bodhisattva found in the Tibetan pantheon. According to prophecy, the second line of kings, known as kulikas, will culminate in Rudra Chakrin, the Wrathful One with the Wheel, who will come out of Shambhala to defeat the forces of evil.... Tibetans believe Shambhala still exists today as an earthly paradise from which will issue the golden age of the future. The Dalai Lama, the exiled ruler of Tibet, feels that the kingdom has a material existence in this world, but that one must reach an advanced level of spiritual attainment to find or recognize it. Other Tibetans see recent events, in particular the destruction of much of Buddhism in Tibet and elsewhere in Asia, as indications that the future king of Shambhala will soon come out of his hidden sanctuary to defeat the forces of materialism and establish a golden age of spirituality.... An old story tells of a young man who sets off in search of the mythical kingdom. After crossing many mountains, he comes to the cave of an old hermit, who asks where he is going. “To find Shambhala,” the young man replies. “Ah! Well then, you need not travel far,” the hermit says. “The kingdom of Shambhala is in your heart.” As the story suggests, for many Tibetans Shambhala lies hidden as a state of mind that must be awakened so that the kingdom can be found in the world outside. <8> |
Maitreya’s Mystery School
At the same time that Gautama Buddha became Lord of the World and hierarch of Shamballa, promotions in hierarchy came to Lord Maitreya, who assumed Gautama’s position of Cosmic Christ and Planetary Buddha, and to the Masters Jesus and Kuthumi, who jointly filled the vacancy in the office of World Teacher left by Maitreya.
Coming for the fulfillment of the eternal flame of Shamballa on May 31, 1984, Jesus announced in a dictation delivered in the Heart of the Inner Retreat that his Guru, Lord Maitreya, was
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dedicating this Heart of the Inner Retreat and this entire property as the Mystery School of Maitreya in this age.... I would tell you of our great joy and of the meaning of the securing of this place for the Mystery School. 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 from the etheric octave unto the physical–that the Mystery School might once again receive the souls of Light who have gone forth therefrom, 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 dispensation of the Cosmic Christ the renewal of the open door 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. This is the open door of the pathway of East and West, of the Bodhisattvas and the disciples. This being so, the planetary body, therefore, has 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. |
The Retreat of the Divine Mother over the Royal Teton Ranch
On December 15, 1985, Sanat Kumara announced the opening of the door of the Temple of the Divine Mother in her retreat in the etheric octave over the entire area of the Royal Teton Ranch. Rejoicing in the unveiling of this vast center of Light above that “Place Prepared,” the Regent Lord of the World said:
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The Mother has waited long for the coming of the Buddha out of the heart of Shamballa. She has waited long for your coming. And she does hold the balance of ancient civilizations that have occurred, both on Lemuria and Atlantis and those long forgotten upon this continent as well as in other areas of the earth. This great and vast temple of Light, beloved, has been prepared over aeons. It is the place of the gathering of the culture of all nations and peoples. It is the place of the drawing together of many lifewaves. Therefore minister to them, understand them, feed them the teachings of the path of their own [soul’s] resolution, their own [soul’s] calling, and their own [soul’s] tradition. In the heart of Lady Venus, who keeps the flame of Mother Earth with you, the flame of the Divine Mother of Love does abide. Thus Venus, initiator with the Holy Kumaras of [your souls on] the Path of the Ruby Ray, does position herself in this hour in the [etheric] Retreat of the Divine Mother over this Ranch, arcing her heart’s love to the retreats of the earth, to the Goddess of Liberty, and to every soul who must journey there. |
Gautama Buddha
Keeper of the Threefold Flame in the Hearts of Earth’s Evolutions
Speaking of the great service Lord Gautama renders to all life in his office as Lord of the World, Maitreya said on January 1, 1986:
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The Lord of the World does sustain the threefold flame in the evolutions of Earth by a filigree light extending from his heart. This, then, is the bypassing of the individual’s karma whereby there is so much blackness around the heart that the spiritual arteries or the crystal cord have been cut off. The comparison of this is seen when the arteries in the physical body become so clogged with debris that the area of the flow of blood becomes greatly diminished until it becomes a point of insufficiency and the heart can no longer sustain life. This is comparable to what has happened on the astral plane. So Sanat Kumara came to Earth to keep the flame of Life. And so does Gautama Buddha keep this threefold flame at Shamballa and [he] is a part of every living heart. Therefore, as the disciple approaches the path he understands that its goal is to come to the place where the threefold flame is developed enough here below [within his own heart] that indeed, with or without the filigree thread from the heart of Gautama Buddha, he is able to sustain life and soul and consciousness and the initiatic path. Beloved ones, this step in itself is an accomplishment which few upon this planet have attained to. You have no idea how you would feel or be or behave if Gautama Buddha withdrew [from you] that support of the filigree thread and the momentum of his own heartbeat and threefold flame. Most people, especially the youth, do not take into consideration what is [the source of] the life that they experience in exuberance and joy. |
Of this gift, Gautama himself had said on December 31, 1983:
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I am very observant. I observe [you] by the contact of my flame through the thread-contact [I maintain] to the threefold flame of your heart–sustaining it [as I do] until you pass from the seat-of-the-soul chakra to the very heart of hearts [the secret chamber of the heart] and you yourself are able by attainment to sustain that flame [and its] burning in this octave. Did anyone here ever recall himself igniting his own threefold flame at birth? Has anyone here ever remembered tending [its] fire or keeping it burning? Beloved hearts, recognize that acts of love and valor and honor and selflessness surely contribute to this flame. But a higher power and a higher source does keep that flame until you yourself are one with that higher power–your own Christ Self. Therefore all receive the boost of my heart flame and impetus. And as that light passes through me from the Godhead, I, therefore, perceive many things [about you and your everyday life] that you might think beyond mention or notice of a Lord of the World who must be, indeed, very busy. Well, indeed, I am! But I am never too busy to notice the elements of the Path presented by parents and in families and communities and in the schoolrooms of life everywhere. For I make it my business to see to it that some element of the path of initiation, moving toward the heart of Jesus and Maitreya, is a part of the life of every growing child. |
On March 31, 1988, Sanat Kumara said:
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I have come to you, beloved, because you have need of me; and I quicken your memory, for you may recall that when we did leave our home star, Venus, I did make that promise to all who would keep my flame: “I will come when you need me even though you know not that you have need of me.” |
Referring to the Retreat of the Divine Mother, where Lady Venus keeps the flame of Mother Earth and from which she arcs her flame of love to the etheric retreats of the Great White Brotherhood throughout the world, Sanat Kumara continued:
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I stand therefore at the gate of the city, this City Foursquare, beloved, and I shall place and retain my Electronic Presence here for the alignment and realignment of yourselves with my Son Gautama Buddha, with my Son Maitreya, with [my Sons] Jesus and Kuthumi.... May you have the vision, then, of so many Lightbearers and souls who yet require the quickening; and may you know that as you are quickened through our Holy Communion, so in you there is a heart of fire that can be a signal, mountain to mountain, across the chains of the ranges of the earth until all on earth who once knew me as Sanat Kumara shall know that again the fire is kindled and that I am in my retreat. For this is the Western Shamballa, coordinate of the place once prepared for me and all of us. Thus, out of the East and unto the West we fulfill the whole calling of our coming. |
When you sit in meditation in the Heart of the Inner Retreat, you find yourself transported into the octaves of Light. By your soul’s attunement with the Inner Buddha you contact Lord Gautama and then Sanat Kumara and you can sense, or even see, if your spiritual sight is opened, the starry bodies of the Bodhisattvas in what Buddhists call the Tushita heaven, or what the Ascended Masters call the etheric octave. You join them as they meditate in a diamond formation around the Electronic Presence of the Lord of the World, who is seated on his sapphire-blue lotus throne in the Western Shamballa.
Yesterday I left the Inner Retreat to descend six thousand feet to New York. I came from a spring blizzard in the mountains near Electric Peak that whitened everything in sight. The magnificent trees and the landscape were covered with a moist snow clinging to every branch and twig until I thought I was in a fairyland of Nature’s kingdom. The blue sky, the piercing rays of the dawn enlivening Mol Heron Creek and revealing a billion sparkling crystals everywhere–it was at once a send-off for the New York stump <9> and the sending of my soul into realms of Light forgotten.
And so from this white fire core of the Western Shamballa I bring you the Divine Mother’s devotion to the Buddha; I bring you the radiation of this land of light and whiteness that spills over into the physical Place Prepared. For it is truly the place that has been prepared for thousands of years for this hour’s culmination of the many cycles of our souls’ evolution. The Place Prepared is the point of the soul’s encounter with Shamballa by way of Maitreya’s Mystery School—by way of the Heart of the Lord of the World.
I am grateful for your presence here so that together we may provide the chalice to receive the Wesak dictation of Gautama Buddha. Some of you have journeyed across America and from Europe just to be here for this occasion. I am heartened by your dedication to our precious Gautama and I know that you have responded directly to his heart’s call.
In addition, I am especially happy to be with you so that I can correct the age-old misconceptions concerning the Inner Buddha and the Inner Christ, which we find in both the East and the West. Such misapprehensions of the Law of the One that have divided those of every faith must be taken up by us. We must know, for our God desires us to know, who is Buddha, who is Christ, who are we, and what is the power of the divine spark of consciousness that God gave us to ignite our own God potential.
The Temptation of Gautama:
To Be or Not to Be the Buddha
For those who have never been told the old, old story of Gautama and his supreme love for humanity, and for those who do not remember their souls’ ancient love for the precious Buddha, let me tell you of both.
Our Lord was born Siddhartha Gautama in northern India around 563 BC on the day of the full moon in the month of Wesak. He was the son of the head of the Shakya clan and a member of the Kshatriya, or warrior and ruler, caste.
On the fifth day following his birth, 108 Brahmins were invited to a name-giving ceremony at the palace. The king summoned eight of the most learned among them to read the child’s destiny by interpreting his bodily marks and physical characteristics. Seven agreed that if he remained at home, he would become a universal king, unifying India, but that if he left, he would become a Buddha and remove the veil of ignorance from the world. The eighth Brahmin declared that he would definitely become a Buddha, renouncing the world after seeing four signs–an old man, a diseased man, a dead man, and a holy man.
The child was named Siddhartha, which means “One Whose Aim Is Fulfilled.” One whose aim is fulfilled! Let us also claim it by the power of the I AM name. Let us know that we will fulfill our fiery destiny in this life in the name of our own Inner Buddha and Inner Christ. Let us say together:
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I AM the One whose aim is fulfilled! |
When you say, “I AM,” the first person of the verb to be, you are saying the name of God. It is in one sense the Western equivalent of the Eastern Om. By the name of God you give power to your affirmation and it is fulfilled according to the law of God. And so if you say, “I am sick, I am unhappy, I am in want,” and all those negatives people heap upon their heads as ashes of self-mourning, you will also fulfill that decree because you are the arbiter of your destiny. You have free will and you can co-create with God, using his name, I AM, to qualify his light/energy/consciousness for good or for ill.
And so the king, concerned about the Brahmins’ predictions and the possibility of losing his heir, did all he could to shelter his son from any contact with pain, suffering, sickness and death. He surrounded him with every conceivable luxury, including thousands of dancing girls and three palaces. At sixteen Siddhartha married and continued his princely existence, but despite his father’s efforts he was restless and dissatisfied.
He came to the turning point in his life when he was twenty-nine. On four journeys he saw the four signs: a decrepit old man leaning on a staff, a pitiful man racked with disease lying on the ground, a corpse, and finally a yellow-robed monk with shaved head and a begging bowl.
Moved with compassion by the first three sights, Siddhartha realized for the first time in his life that earthly existence was subject to old age, disease, and death. The fourth sight signaled to him the possibility of an alternative to succumbing to the human condition. Inspired by one man’s renunciation, one man’s holiness, Siddhartha was determined to discover the cause and the cure for human suffering.
After he returned from his fourth journey, he left his wife and newborn son in the night to take up the path of a wandering ascetic. He exited the world he knew to enter a world he knew not. The Buddha-to-be went in search of the most learned Hindu sages of the day and soon mastered all they had to teach him. His soul yet unfulfilled, he set off on his own. He settled in a wooded grove near the village of Uruvela and with a group of five ascetics practiced severe austerities for almost six years.
During this period of intense striving, Mara, the Evil One, approached the Bodhisattva, trying to find a way to dissuade him from pursuing the road to Buddhahood. As Gautama became more and more lean and haggard from his sacrificial life, Mara taunted him with the words: “Why do you struggle? Hard is struggle, hard to struggle all the time.” <10> This is the story of their encounter as recorded in the Lalitavistara Sutra:
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O monks, during the six years that the Bodhisattva practiced austerities, the demon Papiyan followed behind him step by step, seeking an opportunity to harm him. But he found no opportunity whatsoever and went away discouraged and discontent. Concerning this it is said: There in the pleasant forests and woods, among thickets lush with vines, to the east of Uruvilva where the Nairanjana river flows, Namuci [Mara] approaches the one who applies himself to renunciation, striving zealously for perfection, firm in his valor. Namuci approaches, speaking sweetly: “Sakya son, arise! What need have you to weary yourself? Life is most valuable for the living; in living, you will practice the Dharma. The living can act in such a way that their deeds do not bring sorrow. You are weak, discolored, defeated; death approaches—death which has a thousand parts while life has only one. “Great merit comes from giving alms and making fire offerings when one can. What can you do by renunciation? Sorrowful is the path to renunciation, difficult the submission of the mind.”... The Bodhisattva replies to Mara: “Papiyan, ally of those gone mad, you have come out of self-interest alone. You have not the slightest concern for my merit. O Mara, whoever is truly interested in virtue would speak like this: “‘I do not think of immortality, for life assuredly has death as its end. Yet I will not turn back for I am practicing brahmacarya.’... “...I abide with purpose, effort, and contemplation, and because I dwell like this, I have obtained higher perceptions and feelings. I have no concern for my body or life. See the pureness of my rigor! Firm in my purpose and effort, I have wisdom as well. In this whole world I see no one who could move me from my endeavor! “Death which steals the vital breath is better than a miserable life in the town. Death in combat is better than the life of the vanquished. Though he takes no pride in the victory, only the hero can conquer an army. The timid do not succeed. “Soon, Mara, I will overcome you.... “...My wisdom will destroy your army, as water destroys the unbaked vessel of clay. I will act with understanding, for my mind is established in mindfulness, and I have meditated well on wisdom. But your mind is set on wickedness; so what can you accomplish?” At these words, Mara Papiyan, confused, humiliated, and full of resentment, at once disappeared from that very place. <11> |
The Temptation of the Chela:
To Attain or Not to Attain God-Self Mastery
And of course the person of the Evil One will come to tempt you when you decide to displace the unreal self with the Real Self. Hasn’t he come already? Maybe you didn’t recognize him. Maybe you thought you heard yourself saying to yourself, “Why should I struggle? God did not intend me to struggle.” Well, that’s not you talking to yourself, that’s the devil talking to you. Those are the words the fallen angels whisper in your ear. They say, “Take the broad way, the easy street. No need to struggle. Life should be a bowl of cherries–and if it isn’t, then there’s something wrong with your religion or your guru.”
But the mighty work of the ages is to attain self-mastery, and God-Self mastery, day by day, right while one is bearing and balancing one’s karma. To be successful at it you have to become a career son or daughter of God. To stand, face, and conquer self and karma takes all of your strength and will and mind. It takes complete concentration. It takes self-discipline. It takes an unselfed love for God that grows and grows with each trial and testing of our souls.
For only Love can win the prize. Because to be your Real Self in this world means you are going to have to go against the tide of your past karma and the entire momentum of your human consciousness and creation. What’s more, you’ll be challenged by the whole world and its momentum of the human consciousness and creation. Because you’re no longer going downstream with the people trends, you’re going upstream with the God trends!
And therefore the Tempter comes to tempt you to usurp the authority of the LORD God in the Mystery School. This LORD God appears in the person of Lord Maitreya, the Great Initiator of the members of the Sangha <12> of the Buddha. In wily words of serpent logic, the false guru, that fallen angel, that archdeceiver of souls, comes to you with his proposition. And he will not leave you alone until you banish him by the authority of your Inner Buddha and your Inner Christ–in the name I AM THAT I AM.
As the Genesis dialogue between Serpent and Eve went, this is what he’ll say to your soul:
“Ye shall not surely die if you eat of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [if you unlawfully take the fruit of initiation into the Sacred Mysteries before you have earned the grace to receive them by the hand of Maitreya], for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. <13>
“No need to struggle; you can be fully enlightened without (apart from) the Guru and without (apart from) the path of initiation and without (outside of the circle of) the Sangha of the Buddha and without (in ignorance of) the Dharma (the Teaching, based on the fundamental principle To Be one’s Real Self) which the Guru (the LORD God) keeps promising to initiate you in but never does.”
In the Genesis myth the woman took the bait. She represents the soul, who is the feminine counterpart of one’s self, descended from the masculine Spirit of the I AM THAT I AM.
Through serpent’s logic she saw “that the tree was good for food,...pleasant to the eyes and...to be desired to make one wise.” Therefore, she took the fruit and ate it, and she gave it to her husband and he ate it with her. And their eyes were opened. <14>
If you allow him, the false guru will initiate you, the soul who is chela, into the duality–the two-eyed vision–of relativity; he will come in the night to steal your soul away from the true Guru. And once you lose your soul’s virginity in the trap of the slipping, sliding scale of relative good and evil, you’ll never get out of the dark dungeon of duality except by the Right Hand of God extended to you through the living Guru.
But if you endure the temptation to give your light and allegiance to this falsity of falsehood, the true representative of the Lord God will greet you at the dawn of soul (solar) illumination. You will be ready for the true Guru and he will appear!
Maitreya is the One Sent. Yes, he who is known as the Great Initiator will spare you the long dark night of your soul’s spiritual blindness in the labyrinth of your karmic creations in duality.
For you see, O beloved and noble chela of the will of God, there are but two alternatives outside of Eden: toiling in one’s karma by the sweat of the brow under the false gurus (the seed of Satan) and the taskmasters of the world, or entering the path of service to all life through the Guru-chela relationship under the aegis of the Great White Brotherhood. All must choose, and all do choose; though the outer mind seems to know it not, the soul knows and the soul is making choices day by day.
And so, if you choose to be the servant of the LORD God and to be restored to the Mystery School of Eden through the One who is also cherished as the Great Intercessor, this Lord Maitreya (his name means “the Loving or Friendly One”) will come and he will initiate you into the mysteries of the Inner Buddha through the All-Seeing Eye of God. He will restore your soul to the immaculate conception of your original Oneness in God; he will raise up the Light of your twin flames made in the Divine Image of Elohim. The real Guru will open the third-eye chakra whereby you shall have the single-eyed discrimination of the Christed one, <15> knowing the Real from the Unreal.
The Soul’s Preparation to Meet the Tempter
If one is to follow in the footsteps of Gautama and Jesus, one must be prepared for the visit of the Tempter: prepared with knowledge, knowing oneself as the chela, knowing the Guru, and able to recognize the earmarks of the anti-chela and the anti-Guru. One must know and tend the flame of the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. One must have ready answers for the Tempter’s testing of the soul. And one must understand that God allows this testing that we might demonstrate our love for him and him alone.
This love, this cherishment that our souls bear for our God who is Guru, is the cosmic force that makes us one in the I AM THAT I AM. This Love, which is truly our God with us, is the unbeatable force that swallows up the serpent’s tail (and all of his tall tales!) and all that is anti-God, anti-Buddha, anti-Christ–all that would assail the souls of God’s children worlds without end.
And so it is the prayer of the World Mother that you may pass every test, by Love!
Above all, one must greet the Tempter with the threefold flame of the Holy Trinity blazing brightly on the heart’s altar. One must embody adoration to God, together with the wisdom of his law. One must bear the powerful sword of the Sacred Word and wield it to defeat the Tempter’s black magic as he attempts to weave about the soul a magnetic spell of spiritual blindness through self-love. In anticipation of this encounter with the fallen angels the soul must prepare and be prepared by the representative of the Cosmic Christ as if for final exams at Maitreya’s Mystery School.
O chela of the will of God, beware! For when he comes the Tempter will seek to catch you off guard.
Appealing to your residual spiritual pride, he will say: “If thou be the Son of God [if thou would be the Bodhisattva], command these stones be made bread. [Use your powers as you will to demonstrate your control of matter in defiance of the Lord God and his path of initiation].”
Appealing to your residual self-idolatry, the Tempter will say, “If thou be the Son of God [if thou would be the Bodhisattva], cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. [Go ahead, cast yourself down in defiance of the heavenly hosts, compelling them to save you from your follies entered into in violation of God’s laws; go ahead, show yourself mightier than the Law of the Lord!]”
Appealing to your residual lust for power, the Tempter will take you up into an exceeding high mountain and show you all the kingdoms of this world and their glory. Then he will offer you the world for the price of your soul, saying, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. [If you will abdicate your Sonship, forgo your joint-heirship with the Lord Christ by turning over to me your divine spark, and let the sacred fire of the Mother fall down, I will give you not only the kingdoms of this world but all wealth and all power to seduce souls to do your bidding.]” <16>
“Will you be ready, beloved, when the Tempter comes?” your Jesus implores. “Will you remember all things whatsoever I have taught you and the example I have given you? Will you speak to Satan the words that I spoke to him in the wilderness and thereby vindicate the soul of Eve and your own?”
I, your Messenger, also beseech you: from out the threefold flame that bears you witness before your God, will you not tell the Tempter the three answers to the three temptations that our Sweet Saviour, who lived and died for us, told him–
“It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God!
“It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!
“Get thee behind me, Satan! for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” <17>
Before Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, he had fasted forty days and forty nights. This was his period of ascetic preparation much like Gautama’s six years of austerities. When the Tempter came he taunted Jesus: “Go ahead and eat, turn the stones to bread! Eat!”
Like Gautama, Jesus was hungry. Yet in the face of so great an initiation, nor Gautama nor he would be moved. Their desire was for the Word of God, and by this Word they would live. Each initiate would break his fast when he would. In the face of so great a Mission both chose to meet the Tempter and dismiss him before seeking restoration of soul and body to fulfill their life’s calling.
Thus remember well, O chelas of the will of God, neither Master would sell his birthright for a mess of pottage. <18> Nor should you. They would eat when they were ready to eat. And so should you.
The object, O soul of Light, is to pass one’s initiations. Thou who art the disciple on the path of personal Christhood (Bodhisattvahood) must know that your initiations will surely come because you are the beloved of God. And they won’t be easy, for our God is not an indulgent God and he knows the measure of the stature of the Buddha, the Christ within us. He calls us to that stature and we must rise to the occasion.
In the very teeth of testing and trial, when mind and memory faileth, you must know that the encounter with Serpent and his seed is the hardest thing you are ever going to have to deal with in this or any lifetime. You must, then, see before you, beloved, only the victory, only the prize, only the Guru.
Therefore, to be prepared to meet thy God and thy Tempter, it is well to engage in spiritual exercises and self-denial. It is well to know the meaning of sacrifice, to be well versed not only in the scriptures East and West but in the process of soul surrender to God’s will. One must be able to slay the selfish self when it is the need of the hour and to serve the needs of Community with an all-consuming love when that is the need.
This is the best means I know to resolve one’s personal psychology; and the resolution of the soul personality in relationship to all others is a prerequisite to being a candidate for Christhood (Bodhisattvahood) and therefore to receiving the temptations of the Tempter which, when successfully endured, are followed by the initiations of the representative of the Cosmic Christ, Lord Maitreya.
Once the Tempter had met his match and more in the persons of our Lords Gautama the Buddha and Jesus the Christ, he fled; and these Pure Sons taught their disciples the Middle Way of leading a full and balanced spiritual yet very practical life while meeting the responsibilities of the Dharma. The call of the Dharma is the duty to be one’s highest self in action and to deliver the path of the Guru-chela relationship by teaching and example, that others might follow in one’s footsteps to become the Son of God, to become the Bodhisattva.
The Final Temptation before Enlightenment
By the end of his six years of self-denial Gautama had become so weak as a consequence of his bodily mortifications that he fainted and was believed to be dead. After recovering he realized the futility of excessive and prolonged asceticism and abandoned his austerities to seek a path of enlightenment apart from all others, whereupon his five companions deserted him.
Gautama explains to his disciples in the Lalitavistara Sutra why he had come to this conclusion:
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Then, monks, it occurred to the Bodhisattva: “There are sramanas [ascetics] and brahmins who in times past, present, or future, harm themselves by tormenting their bodies, causing great misery and pain. The tortures and great sufferings they experience are not good. ...”Though their actions and attainments are much greater than the highest teachings of ordinary men, they do not bring the highest wisdom into view; they are not on the route to Enlightenment. This is not the path that will bring about the disappearance of future births, old age, and death.... ...”On a path where one becomes exhausted and weak, one cannot manifest complete Enlightenment. And if, moreover, I approached Bodhimanda, [i.e.,] the Seat of Wisdom, with strength of knowledge and wisdom, but with a weakened body, I could not devote my last existence to compassion. And truly such is not the path of Enlightenment. Therefore, only after taking nourishment and regaining strength in my body will I approach Bodhimanda.” <19> |
According to tradition, Gautama remained alone in Uruvela, accepting food from the villagers and regaining his health. One day as he sat beneath a banyan tree to meditate, a woman named Sujata, who had promised to make a special food offering to the deity of the tree if she bore a son, presented the rich rice milk she had prepared to Gautama. Following this strengthening meal he bathed and seated himself beneath a fig tree, vowing not to move until he had attained enlightenment.
Gautama was sitting beneath his own Mighty I AM Presence, his own Inner Buddha, and his own Holy Christ Self, his own Inner Christ. He would not be moved from that meditation, that communion, that oneness until he should finally discover the cause and the cure for human suffering. The tree became known as the Bo tree, an abbreviation for bodhi, or enlightenment, and the place was named the Immovable Spot.
While Gautama sat in meditation Mara again confronted him with temptations. The Evil One sent his three voluptuous daughters to seduce Gautama. His armies assailed the Bodhisattva with hurricanes, a flood, flaming rocks, boiling mud, a storm of deadly weapons, hideous hordes of demons, and total darkness.
This is the opposition of the sinister force to every constructive project in your life, every good that you would do for self or society–your education, your profession, your marriage, your children, your immortal destiny, and yes, your enlightenment! This is the force of the anti-Buddha and the anti-Christ that is a part of the collective unconscious of the race. And it must be exorcised from within by the chela himself in the name of his God Presence, I AM THAT I AM.
You have to wake up to the fact that there is a warfare of the spirit going on! Paul knew it. That’s why he told us to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, and to put on the whole armor of God’s consciousness. There is opposition to your fulfillment of your divine plan and it’s directed by fallen angels who will attempt to use negative personal and planetary karma against you.
Paul was referring to these fallen angels when he said, “For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but against the Sovereignties and the Powers who originate the darkness in this world, the spiritual army of [the Evil One].” <20> These betrayers of your soul and your calling in God are in physical embodiment as well as on the astral plane. And so your soul must stand strong within the flame of the Inner Buddha and the Inner Christ, else you may cave in to the carnally-minded momentums of the fallen angels in our midst. And you won’t even realize it until it’s too late!
Who is telling you today that the byword of the overcomers is “Fight the good fight and win!” <21> as Paul said and did? Who is telling you that you, like Paul, if you would be a spiritual overcomer, must also “die daily” <22> to the not-self and be daily reborn to the Real Self?
Not too many preachers I know. That’s why I’m telling you that you have to fight the good fight and win not only against your own negative karma and momentums but also against the negative karma and the ancient records of all of the evolutions of earth who have left their markings in time and space. Because if you don’t, those momentums and records will pull you down and you won’t be ready when the Tempter comes. In fact, you may not even recognize him for who and what he is; and he may succeed in seducing your soul with his subtlety.
Of the false chelas Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” And of the false guru Jesus said, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” <23>
None of Mara’s assaults or temptations moved the Bodhisattva becoming the Buddha. Nor was the Christed one five centuries later to be moved by Satan and his seed incarnate who pursued the Son of man throughout his life from birth to death to the resurrection and the ascension.
As a last resort the audacious Mara challenged Gautama’s right to be doing what he was doing. The shameless one demanded that the Blessed One get up from his seat, claiming it as his own!
And that is what the not-self of you, the antithesis of the Real Self, will do to you. He will say, “How come you’re doing what you’re doing? You have no right to be doing that. Who do you think you are, anyway? You have no right to sit under your own vine and fig tree! You have no right to enthrone the Buddha and the Christ in your heart. That’s my place.”
The tyrant ego, that force of the anti-Buddha, known as the dweller-on-the-threshold, wants to be king of the mountain. He wants to reign over you! But the pride of the fallen ones goeth before their self-destruction and their haughty spirit signals their downfall. <24>
To prove that his merit was greater than Gautama’s, Mara called his retinue to witness, and all at once his hosts of demons shouted in one mighty roar, “I am his witness!”
Remember, just as there is the anti-Guru who will challenge your right to be the chela of the living Guru, so there are the anti-chelas who will shout and roar against you, denouncing your Guru and championing their anti-Guru.
And so, like your precious Gautama, like your sweet Jesus, you, a soul of Light who descended from the throne of grace and will one day ascend back to it, have to defend your right to be doing what you are doing when you know it’s right and all the world tells you it’s wrong. You, the chela of the will of God, have to defend your right to claim your I AM Presence alone as the Master of your life and to disclaim the pseudopowers of all false gurus and their false chelas who come along and tell you you’ve been “brainwashed” on the spiritual path and so now you’ve got to be “deprogrammed” so you can be “normal” again!
So what can you do? Why, you can do exactly what Siddhartha did. He used the bhumisparsa, or earth-touching, mudra. He tapped the earth, and the earth thundered her answer, “I bear you witness!”–whereupon Mara fled.
In this statement, which was the witness of the God of the earth <25> (who at that time, remember, was the Great Guru, Sanat Kumara), Siddhartha won the assurance that forevermore the powers of Light of heaven and earth would defend the right of the Son of God to sit under his own Bo tree until he should attain enlightenment.
And so will it be for you that in the name of the Son of God, in the name of the Buddha, and in the name of the I AM THAT I AM, all the hosts of Darkness shall flee before the powers of Light of heaven and earth when you affirm your right to be who you are in God and to be doing what you are doing in his Presence. So to claim that right you really do have to know who you are and what you are doing.
Therefore, self-assured in self-knowledge, say to the powers of Darkness and to the princes (fallen angels) of this world, to the false gurus and the self-duped deprogrammers:
“I AM a Son of God. I AM working out the problem of Being, as Above, so below, seated under my own vine and fig tree. And I shall not be moved until I AM fully clothed in my God-Reality and in the right-mindfulness of my Inner Buddha and in the right-concentration of my Inner Christ, so help me, Lord Gautama! so help me, Lord Jesus!”
Siddhartha spent the rest of the night in deep meditation, i.e., samadhi, moving through successive stages of spiritual ecstasy and finally attaining his enlightenment, or awakening. This took place on the night of the full moon in the month of May about the year 528 b.c., a very short time ago, only twenty-five hundred years.
Think of it, some or all of you here this afternoon may have been in embodiment when Gautama attained enlightenment. You may have even heard him preach a sermon in the forty-five-year ministry that encompassed his mission, during which he established Buddhism as a major world religion. Yes, you may have been a part of the founding flame of the Buddha and your soul may have breathed in the very essence of his spirit that ignited a world.
The Final Temptation before the Mission
Gautama returned from his first meditation with the Four Noble Truths in hand. After that he ascended into nirvana for forty-nine days (some accounts say seven days) in the power of the seven chakras times the seven bodies of man. He was in the bliss and the enlightenment of his I AM Presence and causal body.
After forty-nine days of this focused attention on the Law of the One, the Buddha turned his attention once again to the world to which he would give the gift of his enlightenment. But before he could even preach his first sermon, our Lord found Mara waiting to confound him with one last temptation. And this is the temptation that each of us must be ready for in the hour of the Mission.
The Tempter said: “How can your experience be translated into words? Return to nirvana. Do not try to deliver your message to the world, for no one will comprehend it. Remain in bliss.”
The fallen angels know that souls of Light are safe in the realms of bliss. It is of no necessity to the children of the Light and certainly no threat to the fallen angels for us to deliver the message of enlightenment to those who are God-victorious in heaven. Here on earth, where souls have lost the way, the fallen angels are most threatened by the Sons of God and their delivery of the Message; for here, until challenged face to face by the Inner Buddha and the Inner Christ, they remain in positions of power from which they enslave the minds, the souls and the bodies of millions.
Here in this world, before the princes of this world and before the children of the Light who have been trapped by their lies, we must deliver the Message. We must come down from the mountain of our meditation upon the Lord, the I AM THAT I AM. We must come out of the caves of the Himalayas. We must depart from Shamballa for yet a little while.
And we must go into the streets of the cities to set free the captives of the maya, i.e., the glamour, the illusion, and the karma, of the not-self that has engulfed the souls who are the seed of Christ. Here we must deliver the Message we have self-realized in samadhi, in nirvana. For the only Message we can deliver is the Message we have become.
Gautama Buddha was not about to be swayed by the specious reasoning of Mara. He was not about to be convinced by the liar or his lie. Some versions of this story relate that Brahma himself pleaded with the Buddha:
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Alas! the world must perish, should the Holy One, the Tathagata, <26> decide not to teach the Dharma. Be merciful to those that struggle; have compassion upon the sufferers.... There are some beings that are almost free from the dust of worldliness. If they hear not the doctrine preached, they will be lost. But if they hear it, they will believe and be saved. <27> |
Filled with compassion, Gautama replied to the Evil One, “There will be some who will understand.”
Some will understand. A thousand may deny the Message but one will understand. And that one will become the Buddha. In that rejoice, beloved. Rejoice with the Lord of the World! Rejoice with the Inner Buddha thou art becoming!
Gautama then journeyed to Benares and delivered his first sermon to his five former companions. He revealed to the five mendicants the key discoveries of his quest–the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, or the Middle Way–and accepted them as the first members of his Sangha.
Our Lord turned back the Tempter by faith in the One who had anointed him to be the Buddha, by faith in the Teaching he was sent to teach, and by faith in the Mission to save the souls of Light lost in samsara. By faith he said, “There will be some who will understand.” By faith he preached the Message for forty-five years. By faith the glory of the Guru has filled the earth. And the prophecy is fulfilled in us as in him: “For the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”strong> <28>
Author Huston Smith writes in his Religions of Man:
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Nearly half a century followed during which Buddha trudged the dusty paths of India until his hair was white, step infirm, and body naught but a burst drum, preaching the ego-shattering, life-redeeming elixir of his message. He founded an order of monks, challenged the deadness of Brahmin society, and accepted in return the resentment, queries, and bewilderment his words provoked. His daily routine was staggering. In addition to training monks, correcting breaches of discipline, and generally directing the affairs of the Order, he maintained an interminable schedule of public preaching and private counseling, advising the perplexed, encouraging the faithful, and comforting the distressed. <29> |
At the age of eighty Gautama became seriously ill and almost died; but he revived himself, believing it was not right to die without preparing his disciples. By sheer determination he recovered and instructed his cousin and close disciple, Ananda. For three more months he traveled through several villages, stopping at the home of Cunda, the goldsmith, one of his devoted followers.
According to tradition Cunda unknowingly served Gautama a meal that contained poisoned mushrooms. Gautama became violently ill. Concerned that Cunda might feel responsible for his death, the Compassionate One asked Ananda to tell Cunda that of all the meals he had eaten, only two stood out as special blessings—one was the meal served to him before his enlightenment and the other was the food from Cunda, which opened the gates to his transition. Gautama passed during the full moon of May, about 483 BC.
And so today on this full moon in 1989 we celebrate Wesak, which commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and parinirvana <30> of Gautama Buddha some twenty-five hundred years ago.
Gautama’s First Sermon
The Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path
By way of celebrating, let us take up the first sermon of Gautama following his enlightenment.
This sermon is called “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Law” or “Turning the Wheel of Truth” and it was delivered at the Deer Park at Isipatana (now Sarnath) near Benares. In it he explained that by avoiding the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification one gains knowledge of the Middle Path, or the Middle Way. Gautama preached to the five bhikkhus <31> that the Tathagata
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does not seek salvation in austerities, but neither does he for that reason indulge in worldly pleasures, nor live in abundance. The Tathagata has found the middle path. There are two extremes, O bhikkhus, which the man who has given up the world ought not to follow–the habitual practice, on the one hand, of self-indulgence which is unworthy, vain and fit only for the worldly-minded–and the habitual practice, on the other hand, of self-mortification, which is painful, useless and unprofitable. Neither abstinence from fish or flesh, nor going naked, nor shaving the head, nor wearing matted hair, nor dressing in a rough garment, nor covering oneself with dirt, nor sacrificing to Agni will cleanse a man who is not free from delusions. <32> |
When you are free from your delusions you may or may not choose to engage in those practices. They are helpful but symbolic. And if they are mere covering and we are still full of dead men’s bones, <33> then they avail nothing and only convince us we are getting somewhere when we are not.
As pertains to diet, however, thus far on my road to the Inner Buddha I have found the Unique Principle of the Yin and the Yang, which is the foundation of the macrobiotic diet, to be a sound and practical guide to balancing the daily regimen. And the macrobiotic diet I find to be the closest approximation that can be made by Westerners to the diet of the Eastern adepts. If we would attain the adeptship of the Christ and the Buddha, we should also imitate their eating habits. For then we’ll be made of the same stuff they’re made of.
I would say that in the East we have a tendency toward greater self-mortification and in the West we have a tendency toward greater self-indulgence. We do need the Middle Way. Gautama taught that this Middle Way leads to six conditions of consciousness. They are insight, wisdom, calmness, higher knowledge, enlightenment, and nirvana.
Gautama proceeded to teach his disciples the Four Noble Truths: First, that life is dukkha ‘suffering’. Second, that the cause of this suffering is tanha ‘desire’ or ‘craving’. Third, that suffering will cease when the craving that causes it is forsaken and overcome. This state of liberation through the cessation of suffering leads to nirvana, which means literally extinction or blowing out—the blowing out of the not-self. The Fourth Noble Truth is that the way to this liberation is through living the Noble Eightfold Path, or the Middle Path.
To elaborate further on the Four Noble Truths, dukkha is a Pali word translated as suffering, pain, sorrow, discontent, imperfection, sin, or evil; it is an out-of-alignment state. Huston Smith explains that the word dukkha’s
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more constructive overtones suggest themselves when we discover that it is used in Pali to refer to an axle which is off-center with respect to its wheel, also to a bone which has slipped out of its socket. In both cases the picture is clear. To get the exact meaning of the First Noble Truth, we should read it as follows: Life in the condition it has got itself into is dislocated. Something has gone wrong. It has slipped out of joint. <34> |
Tanha, the desire or craving that causes suffering, is a Pali word that is also translated as “thirst.” Wanting something that we do not have makes us suffer. But Gautama does not denounce all forms of desire in his Second Noble Truth. Tanha must be understood as craving in the sense of inordinate or wrong desire, self-centered desire, selfishness. It is “the drive for private fulfillment” <35> or “craving for finite existence, pleasure, and success.” <36>
Eminent Buddhist author Christmas Humphreys provides a valuable understanding of this term in the context of Gautama’s revelation of the Four Noble Truths:
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Tanha means in the first place the craving which supplies the binding force to hold men on the Wheel of Rebirth....For the passional element of this desire, the word kama is generally used, and in this latter sense desire is associated with temptation, as is shown by a Chinese version of this second Noble Truth, which is “the assembling of temptation.” In brief, desire means those inclinations which tend to continue or increase separateness, the separate existence of the subject of desire; in fact, all forms of selfishness, the essence of which is desire for self at the expense, if necessary, of all other forms of life. Life being one, all that tends to separate one aspect from another must needs cause suffering to the unit which even unconsciously works against the Law. Man’s duty to his brothers is to understand them as extensions, other aspects of himself, as being fellow facets of the same Reality. It is, therefore, not desire itself which is the cause of suffering, but “wrong” because “personal” desire. [Edmond Holmes writes:] “It is the desire for what belongs to the unreal self that generates suffering, for it is impermanent, changeable, perishable, and that, in the object of desire, causes disappointment, disillusionment, and other forms of suffering to him who desires. Desire in itself is not evil. It is desire to affirm the lower self, to live in it, cling to it, identify oneself with it, instead of with the Universal Self, that is evil.” <37> |
The Noble Eightfold Path, or Middle Way, corresponds to the seven rays and the seven chakras and to the Eighth Ray chakra, the secret chamber of the heart.
The first precept of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Understanding, or Right Knowledge. This corresponds to the First Ray of God’s Will, the Power of God and the throat chakra. When we in faith devote ourselves to the path of God’s will, we learn the right understanding and the right knowledge of his laws.
The first precept is a necessary foundation to the second, Right Thought or Aspiration. Corresponding to the Second Ray of God’s Wisdom and the crown chakra, the second precept is won through the mastery of the first. The initiations of Wisdom can only be passed through Right Thought and Aspiration as these are founded on the powerful rock of Buddhic and Christic understanding and self-knowledge in God’s will.
The third precept is Right Speech; it corresponds to the Third Ray of God’s Love and the heart chakra. Out of the heart are the issues of life.strong> <38> And out of love we must master Right Speech, for only love can be the instrument of Right Speech.
The fourth precept is Right Action, or Right Behavior; it corresponds to the Fourth Ray of God’s Purity and the base-of-the-spine chakra. We must translate purity of motive into right action, submitting ourselves also to the Great Law.
The fifth precept is Right Livelihood; it corresponds to the Fifth Ray of God’s Truth and the third-eye chakra. Right Livelihood is founded upon the application through science and religion of the seven other precepts. Right Livelihood is right only when we are centered in Truth. Your Right Livelihood comes from your pure vision and your pure seeing of who you are and what is your soul’s destiny in this life.
The sixth precept is Right Effort; it corresponds to the Sixth Ray of God’s Ministration and Service and the solar-plexus chakra. Right Effort always involves service to one another, ministration to life, caring for one another. When you are motivated by care for life your effort will always be right.
The seventh precept is Right Mindfulness; it corresponds to the Seventh Ray of God’s Freedom and the seat-of-the-soul chakra. The Seventh Ray is a ray of transmutation through the violet flame, of justice and mercy in Church and State. It is a ray of freedom and ritual in religion as well as in science; and it has application in every other field of learning and endeavor. When freedom is your goal and motive, when your free will is wed to God’s will, when you give to others their freedom under the law, you are in right mindfulness because free will is the foundation of the Eightfold Path. Only the free mind can be rightfully mindful of God’s Mind.
Finally, the eighth precept of the Eightfold Path is Right Concentration, or Right Absorption; it corresponds to the Eighth Ray of integration, symbolized in the figure eight and the eight-petaled chakra, the secret chamber of the heart. We attain Right Concentration on the Inner Buddha, Right Absorption of and by the Inner Buddha, and Right Integration with the Inner Buddha through balancing and expanding the threefold flame anchored in the secret chamber of the heart.
[to be continued]
A workshop conducted by the Messenger Elizabeth Clare Prophet on Wesak, Saturday, May 20, 1989, at the Whole Health Expo at the New York Sheraton Centre Hotel. Lecture updated for print as this week’s Pearl of Wisdom.
2. The Gobi Desert, located in central Asia, extends across southeast Mongolia and north central China.
4. The God consciousness of the I AM Presence and the Christ consciousness of the Holy Christ Self
7. Rev. 12:6.
9. stump (verb): to travel over a region making political speeches or supporting a cause. To go on the stump, to take the stump: to go about the country or before the public as a political speaker or an advocate of a cause. In early usage, one of the meanings of the noun stump was the stump of a large felled tree used as a stand or platform for a speaker; hence, a place or an occasion of political oratory.
10. P. Lal, trans., The Dhammapada (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967), p. 11.
11. Gwendolyn Bays, trans., The Voice of the Buddha: The Beauty of Compassion (Lalitavistara Sutra) (Berkeley, Calif.: Dharma Publishing, 1983), 2:399-400, 401, 402.
12. Sangha: the Community; the congregation of monks, nuns, and lay devotees; the Buddha’s spiritual family.
13. Gen. 3:4, 5.
14. Gen. 3:6, 7.
15.. The word Christ is derived from the Greek Christos, meaning “anointed”; thus the Christed one is the “Anointed one.”
16. Matt. 4:3, 6, 9.
18. Gen. 25:29-34.
19. Bays, The Voice of the Buddha, 2:402, 403.
20. Eph. 6:12, Jerusalem Bible.
22. I Cor. 15:31.
23. John 8:44.
24. Prov. 16:18.
25. Rev. 11:4.
26. 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, hence he neither comes from anywhere nor goes anywhere.
27. Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Company, 1894), p. 44.
29. Huston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1958), p. 85.
30. parinirvana: complete or final nirvana experienced after mortal death by one who has realized nirvana in his lifetime and will not be reborn on earth; the ascension.
31. bhikkhu [Pali, from Sanskrit bhiksu]: beggar, religious mendicant, Buddhist monk, one who has renounced the worldly life and joined the monastic community (Sangha).
32. Carus, The Gospel of Buddha, p. 49.
33. Matt. 23:27.
34. Smith, The Religions of Man, p. 99.
35. Ibid., p. 102.
36. Joseph M. Kitagawa, Religions of the East, enl. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), p. 159.
37. Christmas Humphreys, Buddhism (Harmondsworth, Great Britain: Penguin Books, 1951), pp. 91-92.
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