9/15/00 Open-House Satsang (Discourse)

At The Feast Of Tabernacles

With

MAITREYA

Maitreya: Hello everyone. How are you doing? [speaker problem] How is everyone in the land of Internet and Cyber Community?

John (through the Internet): Hello Maitreya. I am doing fine.

Maitreya: Great John. How are you? Good to hear your voice. That was a beautiful e-mail you sent to that gentlemen. There was a lot of truth in it. We are working on the letter you received from that friend from the Baha’i people. The truth is that we did not know anything about Mr. Crème until after we reached out to humanity in 1982. After that, actually, it was one of the friends of my wife who told her about Mr. Crème. She knew about the Mission and she told Maitreyii that, “Do you know a gentlemen by the name of Mr. Crème in England who was also saying that Maitreya is going to come in 1982?” It was after we had already reached out in the spring of 1982. We said, “No. We did not know that.”

Then we started researching to see what is going on with this person and we found yes, that is true. It was not only that Mr. Crème was preaching that Maitreya was going to come in the Spring of 1982, but also he placed around a million dollars of ads all over the world and put ads in almost every capitol city in the world claiming that Maitreya the Christ is going to come in the Spring of 1982.

Actually, he was the one who called Maitreya the Christ. So we never really claimed that. Our Mission did not start in 1982 and suddenly we hear from Mr. Crème and claim, “Yes, yes, I am the one that he was claiming.” Our Mission started in 1977 in Denver, Colorado. And that is where I met Maitreyii, my wife, and I told her that I have to stay in this country and do this Mission. She asked me, “Do I have any choice?” I said, “No,” and that was it. 

We got married because I was here to finish my education and I was not finishing my education. I was reading the Koran, the Bible, the Scriptures, the Upanishads, and all those books, and I had The Greatest Sign in a rough draft, and I was writing. But Immigration was sending letters to me, “What are you doing? Aren’t you going to finish your education? If you are not, then go back home. You cannot stay here. You have not taken your com­pre­hensive examination for a year and a half. You were sup­posed to take it in six months, etc.”

So I told her, “I have to stay in this country to do this Mission,” and she said, “Do I have any choice?” I said, “No,” and that was it.

Of course, she started having visions and things like that after she met me in the center where she was living. It is a long story. I am sure you know most of it. Actually we spent one week discussing it in the first Feast. The whole week, that was all we talked about, how I became Maitreya. Because it was the first time all these people came to the Feast and only a few people had lectures. So I was one of the few speakers [laughter]. Morning and evening that is all we talked about.

So that claim is absolutely baseless that we charge outra­geous prices for our lectures and books. Actually most of our books are sold almost to the cost. The Mission has been under liability and borrowing money all along. We have not been able to get out from underneath it yet. 

Actually I have not taken one penny from whatever the Mission has earned. So that claim also is baseless. 

Those people who know me and know the Mission are very close here. They know that whatever is done is for God, and the best goes to Him and always He is first. We did not create this Mission to make money but to preach the Word of God. 

What Mr. Crème did is just exactly what John the Baptist did. John the Baptist came and claimed that Christ is going to come. Then when Christ came, he could not recognize him. He had to send his disciples to Christ and ask him, “Are you really the one?” 

It is not surprising that Mr. Crème did the same thing. He came and claimed that Maitreya is going to come in 1982, and he came. But when he came, he could not recognize him because he had his own organization, his own followers, and his own ideas of how he should come. 

That is exactly what happened to John the Baptist. John the Baptist had his own ideas about how Christ was going to come. And when he came he could not recognize him. 

So all these claims are baseless. Still that 1982 foretelling of the coming of Maitreya is a very small part of all the prophecies and the things that the Mission has fulfilled and brought to humanity. I am very unhappy when I hear the negative things happen and people are so negative and twist things around the way they really are not.

I am not making outrageous income out of this Mission. That claim has been there and actually I have a few people who are supporting the Mission with their beings and they believe in what they do and they are very close to me. If I were a charlatan they would know very soon, more than anyone else, and they would have kicked me out of here a long time ago [laughing].

So the answer is going to come. But it is good that everyone knows these things. Some of you are not so close to me so these things might affect you or if you do not know much about it, you can ask.

Actually, if you are a member of the Mission, then you have the right to ask about where the money goes, what the financial situation is, how we use your income, and all that. You have the absolute right to know what we do with the funds of the Mission.

The answer is going to come to you. I am sure you are going to send it to them. But is he going to send his answer to the Assembly of the Baha’is? Is that what he is going to do? [no answer] John, are you there? 

John (through the Internet): Maitreya, I believe that is what he plans to do. It is amazing how two men can go so far apart when we started with such common grounds. But I think he is going to take that small PS that he wrote me, to the American Spiritual Assembly.

Maitreya: That is OK. Even negative advertisement is posi­tive for us because at least people are going to say, “Who is this person that claims these things?” They are going to go to the web­site, and those who have been called for it will find out that what we say makes sense. Just like all of us who saw it felt, “Oh, it makes sense, so I am going to go and join the rest of the Mission.”

So it is OK. I am not worried about negative advertisement. Everything is there in our web site. The truth is that, this is the truth and it makes sense. And those who are really seeking for the truth will find it here. 

How can there be so many religions when there is only one God? Can God send Christianity and then send Islam and say something different in Islam than Christianity, or Judaism, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or the Baha’i Faith? If the Baha’is really want to follow their teacher, Baha’u’llah and Bab said you have to investigate, not just follow rumors, or your own feelings about an organization.

If this gentleman really wants to know about us, he should come here and confront us and say, “I am a Baha’i. I heard John saying all these things about you. What is your claim? Are you charging outrageous fees for your books and for your conference?”

Do you think $199 is too much for a week of the Feast? I would like to know. I really honestly want to know (asking a new person who was in the Feast of Tabernacles).

Guest: I never thought about it. I wanted to go and that is what it said it cost, and that is what I paid [laughter].

John (through the Internet): Well, I printed off the entire book of THOTH from our library prior to purchasing a copy. And just to print it off front and back from a library lazar printer, I think it ended up costing me well over $38 to $40. 

Maitreya: You are absolutely right. Actually, a lot of people are very surprised that we can publish and distribute a book with 600+ pages for $19. It is absolutely unheard of. The reason is that the people who are doing it are volunteers. We do not charge for ink, and paper, and the time the people spend on it. Do you know how many times we have to print that book and throw the bad prints out, or edit it? If you add all those things together, the cost of that book goes probably to $50 to $60. But we do not charge for those things.

Actually, I would like to eventually give it free, as I said. I would like to reach a point that we have our own print shop and we have the resources. I would like to see that THOTH is given away to every person, in every language, so they can read and look at it and come up with their own conclusion.

That is what we preach here. We have to each individually study and find out the truth. You should not take my word for it. If I say something that is wrong, you just say, “Maitreya, you are wrong. You are dead wrong here.” We can discuss it and see who is really the truthful.

So it is absolutely necessary to study. You have to abso­lutely research our teaching and compare it with other Scriptures. Our teaching is based on the Scriptures. 

It is not that I sat there and said, “I am going to write a book based on the Scriptures.” That is how it was revealed. It is based on the Scriptures. And it absolutely matches every other Word of God that has come to humanity. It is not something that I created.

Actually, no man can sit and write a book that is so like a puzzle. That is one of the things I was wondering when I was writ­ing THOTH and putting it together, and it was coming to me how they go together. I was wondering, “Who is ever going to under­stand it?” It is such a complex and interrelated book that probably it is going to take hundreds of years, people discussing it, writing about it, and eventually getting some idea of how integrated it is.

So it is absolutely ridiculous to say that I just claimed in 1982 that I am the one that Mr. Crème was talking about. It was in the process of being revealed for 5 years before, until it was ready and we eventually reached out to humanity in 1982.

OK, what else are we going to talk about tonight? Of course, tonight usually is the open Satsang. We invite people to come and join us from the community. This is open to the com­munity to come and join us. We did have some people come before but apparently humanity is very busy. 

One of the things in the Mission is that the number is not as many as everyone expected, including you [pointing to a guest]. But we have good people. We have very dedicated, good solid peo­ple. Actually, apparently if you are not a very good, solid, dedi­cated person you usually do not stay around long. Probably it is so different than anything else that you have seen in your life that either you have to be openhearted and accept it, or you say, “Well, this is not for me,” and you run away.

But we have reached thousands, and hundreds of thousands of people who know about us. Actually, there are around 70,000 something people who have gone to our web site. Of course, it is not all different people. Some people come back to the web over and over again. We have reached a lot of people out there and they are aware of us. I have invited other religions to come and join us but they have not come.

But the number to us is not important. It was important in the beginning. Actually, it is important in the beginning. Anyone who came to the Mission it was important to them and they want to have more people in the Mission. I do too, but I am not attached to it anymore. The most important thing is to get quality people.

We know that we have the truth. We really have found out that what we have here is the truth. If you find that, then who cares what the rest of humanity feels or thinks? If you know you have the truth, yet if no one comes to see that, if not even one Soul is in the Mission, I still believe in what I teach or have received. So to me really the number is not important but my own belief in what I have received.

I believe that everyone should be like that. Everyone should take it as their own Revelation that God sent it to them. If they see, “Yes, it makes sense, it is the truth, I believe in it,” then who cares if it is two people, ten people, fifteen people, or one million people? It does not make any difference.

Of course, that does not mean that we are not reaching out. Actually, our outreach is for the whole of humanity. It is not for just America, or South America, or Asia, or Africa. Every person on earth has to hear at least once what The Greatest Sign means.

You know what The Greatest Sign stands for and means?

Each new person who comes to the Mission I explain The Greatest Sign to them because what is the duty of a Messenger? The duty of a Messenger is to give the Message. That is what I feel that my duty is, to give the Message to every person, to every indi­vidual who comes in contact with us. So every new person who comes to the web site sees The Greatest Sign and the Message. 

Whoever comes to these meetings or our Conference Room, the first thing we do is to explain The Greatest Sign to them so they cannot come later and say, “I never heard about this Greatest Sign.” When the time comes and God asks you, “Did you hear about The Greatest Sign?” They say, “No.” He says, “Oh. No, you did. Remember that day you came to the Conference Room on the web site of Maitreya and he told you about The Greatest Sign and how the seven seals are open: the awakening of the spiritual forces, the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth, sacrifice, surrendering and submission, universalism, how you be(come) an Elect, and eventually bring the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth?” 

Can anyone imagine that anyone can sit down and write these things and claim that it is from God? Can you imagine someone just sitting down and writing THOTH? Can you imagine it? Is it possible?

Audience: The Greatest Sign, that is impossible for just a man to bring The Greatest Sign.

Maitreya: I worked one week on it, after I had received it in order to draw it as it is now. Actually, I had it on a sheet of paper when I met Sarah-ji. That is all that I had. The middle was a Swastika and there were the seven seals and the end was another Swastika, and that was all I had from The Greatest Sign. 

Three of us came together and rented a house in the moun­tains. I decided, “OK, I am going to sit down and make the draw­ing of The Greatest Sign perfect the way it really should be.” I spent one week, almost day and night, and made how many designs? I made hundreds of designs, different ways, and looked at it this way and that way.

Sarah-ji: For the Swastika.

Maitreya: Yes. I was trying to make the Swastika look less like a Swastika because there is so much negativity against it. It would not lend itself to what I was trying to do. Eventually, after one week, on Sunday, I eventually finished The Greatest Sign.

For instance, I drew The Greatest Sign with the petals orange, or the petals white, or many different colors, and many different ways. Eventually, on Sunday afternoon, I said, “That is it. I got it.” 

We had a sitting room and there was a large picture case window in front of it. It opened to a valley and a big mountain was in front, kind of a big hill. I put it on the altar, which was right in front of that window, and we just stepped back and looked at it. As we were looking at it, the sky suddenly became cloudy, and it hailed, a very strong hail. Big hailstones started coming down and then it stopped and suddenly there wasa double rainbow right in front of the window at the top of The Greatest Sign. It just gave us all chills. It was WOW. I said, “Well that is it, guys,” and they agreed.

Maitreya: That was in 1979 that The Greatest Sign was completed. We looked at it and we accepted it. After that we started printing them and continued writing. I would write what­ever I had received and Sarah-ji would type them with, what was that?

Sarah-ji: A manual typewriter.

Maitreya: An IBM Selectric typewriter. Then I would change something such as a couple of sentences. She would have to type it all over again. 

So half of the Mission is on her shoulders. So she is a great gal and she has really helped the Mission, and God loves her a lot. I love her too. She did so much, so much for the Mission.

 So it is just not 1982 that we came up with the Mission. It started in 1977.

Sarah: I was thinking about what has been prophesied for this Revelation in terms of persecution. I do not think it has been prophesied that there would be a lot of persecution for belief in this. Maybe that is the reason it was revealed in a country where freedom of religion is allowed.

Maitreya: No, not at all, actually. This time we are sup­posed to be the victorious ones. We are the people who are going to obtain the victory.

Eventually God is going to be victorious. As Scripture has said, it is going to be a sword coming out of his mouth, and that means with the Word of God. We are going to fight, not with the sword this time but with the Word of God. 

Why? Why can we fight with the Word of God and win? It is because we have explained so many things that have not been explained before, and no one knew the meaning of them before this Revelation.

If you read our teachings, it clears confusion, which is like a cloud in heaven that covers the Light. A lot of people think cloud is really that Christ is going to come in the middle of the clouds in the sky and is caught with the clouds and his followers also will be lifted to the clouds where he is. Cloud, however, means confusion. 

Sometimes the preacher says, “You are going to see, some­day you are driving and one person is going to go to heaven and the other one still will be on earth.” I always thought, what a chaos [laughter], with all those accidents [laughter]. So they think what? They think he is going to come in the clouds in heaven. 

But THOTH explains, heaven means Pure Consciousness. It is a state of being, it does not really mean the sky is going to open up. And cloud means confusion. Where do you find that? In the Bhagavad-Gita it clearly says, “When the confusion comes and the morality is low, My Spirit will arise on earth and it will bring a new teaching, strengthen the teaching that has already been on earth and again will establish God’s Kingdom on earth, or truth on earth.” So we can see right there the explanation for a lot of people who did not know it. It is right there explained so clearly.

 Or what is the end of time? Some people think the end of time means God comes and sits in a chair over there and says, “OK you go to hell, you go to heaven.” Really the end time means, a new age is coming, the Golden Age is coming. The old age is fin­ished and the New Age, the Golden Age, based on the Commu­nities of Light and the Eternal Divine Path, is fast approaching. 

How much joy is here this week together? It is just a small sample of the Communities of Light. Just imagine that you have this kind of life every day, and six couples come together. And believe me you do not have to work very hard. If six couples really share their resources with each other, you can live very well and take care of everything easily. 

Just imagine not only six couples living together but your older parents also living with you who are taken care of. And your children are taken care of by your parents. So the six couples can go to work, very little, and have a lot to share with one another. Your parents are comfortable. Your children are comfortable and taken care of. And now you are connected also with the rest of the community, the Communities of Light (COL). It is going to create such a wonderful, relaxing life without being afraid if your children are going to be abused or misused, or if your parents are going to be put in a nursing home that no one knows who is going to take care of them.

 They are finding so many nursing homes that have so many problems. They are not really taking care of the old people. They have sores. They have a lot of disease. No one is really there tak­ing care of them because they are left alone by themselves.

So, the Communities of Light are the answer. Also in the Communities of Light everyone will have more time to meditate. You will spiritually progress too. You do not have to work 10 or 12 hours a day. 

So we have the answers to a lot of questions and a lot of things that have not been explained. With these teachings, these things have been explained and are being explained more and more everyday. The only thing you have really to do is to educate humanity, reach to them and tell them what it means. 

We do not have to pick up the sword. We do not have to confront them. We do not have to fight with them, but educate them, and educate ourselves, first, of course, to know the Mission and its material so we can tell them what the truth is. Then, eventually, many people like us will see the truth and say, “Yes. It makes sense. I want to join.” 

As our number increases we will reach the critical point. I am sure everyone knows about the critical mass. When the critical mass reaches the critical point, we will prevail. It is just like if you have plastic underneath the water in a pool. If you continue putting bubbles underneath that plastic, it reaches a point that if you put one more bubble, that plastic comes up to the top of the pool water. 

It is the same thing. If we increase our numbers more and more, we are going to reach a point that our critical mass will flip the balance and we will be able to change the earth easily. But you can see the number is important. Prophet Muhammed said the number is the hand of God. And that is true. The more num­bers we have, the more outreach we have, the more people will join, and so on.

But we are looking for real people who really believe in this Mission, who are dedicated, and can reach out with their hearts. Not just reach out because I told them to. Reach out because they want to. 

Actually it is wonderful to see people reaching out, people we did not even know. That is wonderful. When I heard that you took The Greatest Sign to the Himalayas, that makes my heart sing. I never met you before. I never knew you before, but The Greatest Sign is in the Himalayas.

Or John comes and writes about the prophecies that are wonderfully put together. Or Ishvara takes care of the web site and puts the schedule up. Or each of you, Tahirah put the ads in the magazines, and the T-shirts that Shakti did, and the people are wearing those. As I said if each of us do a little, a lot gets done. 

As our numbers increase and dedicated people join us, it will reach a point that we can talk to Christians, to Jews, to Moslems, to Hindus, to Buddhists, etc. I have come under the name of the person they expect to come. All of them, not any of them particu­larly, but all of them, are called to come and join us. 

So we are not going to be persecuted, hopefully, at least not physically. We already have been persecuted mentally and emo­tionally by the people who have no idea of what they are talking about. And then they say things that are not true. That hurts more. If they say something that is true, it does not hurt. We have done it. It is OK. So I am guilty. But if you have not done it and someone comes and accuses you of something that you have not done, that hurts. You really feel that it is unfair of a person who is judging you without base.

They at least can come and ask us, look at us closer, and then if you really find something that makes a case, then say it. But just going and researching a couple of days and coming up with all these accusations is not fair. It is not a good thing that people do unfair things for their belief or whatever they are attached to. So it is good to let the people know that it is not true and defend ourselves with all our might. But we are not going to get into useless argument.

Actually, according to our teaching, we have to rejoice, not to argue but rejoice. In THOTH even it says that if someone starts arguing with you too much, just say, “Look. This is the teaching. This is the Revelation. I gave it to you. If you want it, fine. If you do not want it, you go your way and I go my way. I leave you to God.” Go to the next person. Do not argue with anyone. We are not here to argue. We are here just to give a new Revelation, the Truth. 

If they want it, fine. Now you have a choice. You can accept it and say, “Thanks God,” and go your way. You can take it and say, “Thanks God,” and go preach it to other people. You can say, “Thank you, God, I want to help more.” You can say, “Thank you, God, I want to give my life to this.” So you have the choice from just taking it and saying it is a good idea, I like it, or you can take it absolutely and say, “I want to become a sannyasin. I want to become a teacher of the Mission. I want to dedicate my life to this cause.” It is up to you what you want to do. 

What is your calling? What has God called you for? Just look at your life. “I was growing up and I was thinking that I will preach God’s Word. Now God’s Word is here. Then I have to go and preach God’s Word.” “I am here to get married and create the Communities of Light, and invite other married people to join me and create an environment that sannyasins can come, stay with us, and preach the Word of God.” So it is a possibility from doing nothing to absolute dedication to the Mission. 

I was worried about how to continue the Mission. OK, I am getting old. I am getting around fifty some years old and pretty soon sixty and then seventy, eighty, one hundred, one hundred twenty, one hundred fifty [laughter]. But anyway I have never seen a Prophet lives very long. 

The only Prophet who lived very long was Buddha. Buddha lived around 80 years. He was actually a reformer, mostly. He came to reform Hinduism because the Brahmins had become too powerful. They had forgotten about God and they became god themselves. 

That is the problem with most of the religions, that the preachers replace God Himself. You go to the priest and the priest says that that is what God wants you to do. But really what the priest says is what he wants you to do.

Or a Mullah comes and says, “God says if Solomon Rashti said something about Islam, cut his head off.” That is not what God is saying. God does not cut anyone’s head if they said some­thing bad about Him. It is the Mullah’s idea that he is saying these things.

The same thing happened to the Brahmins. The Brahmins became so powerful, and it was taught that if the Brahmins say this, everyone should give them everything they wanted. 

So the Brahmins replaced God, and Buddha came to destroy that kind of system. That is why he said, do not worry about God and Brahma, etc. Just work on yourself. 

Then the preacher says, “We are God’s representative,” and what do they do? They enslave you. That has happened to every religion. The preachers become the power instead of God. Maybe that is why Baha’i said, “We do not need any preachers, and we do not have any preachers.” 

We have to educate people that they should not take the preacher as God Himself. Some people say, “You are a cult.” I say, “No, we are not a cult,” because what is a cult? A cult is when the person who brings the message becomes more important than the message itself. That is when a cult is created.

What am I saying? I am saying, “No, do not be attached to me. This body is going to leave. It is not going to be here forever. When I am dead, I am dead. But the Spirit behind it is going to be here. God is going to be here forever.” 

I am connecting you to God and the Message is more important than the Messenger. So we are not a cult. We are the Messengers and we do not have a cult mentality at all.

And what does a cult do? They take the children from their parents and they disconnect them from their family. They say their family is no good. It is not our teaching at all. Actually, we encourage you to be connected to the family, help them out, and help your parents. 

We would love to have your parents connected to us and believe in what we believe. We do not want to disconnect them at all. Of course, they are pretty old. They have their set-ups, their ways. It is hard to change old people to a new set-up.

I even was not able to change my own parents to accept this new revelation. My mother believed a little bit. She came and stayed with us for six months. She was starting to understand a little bit. My sister was very touched, very touched with the Mission and what we say. She is very pleased. She is one of my defenders now in Iran.

So they are touched but even my sister was afraid. She wanted me to come and visit her in Iran but she said, “When you come there do not say that you are a Prophet or anything.” It is because they do not believe that anyone is going to come after Prophet Muhammad, which is not true.

Sarah ji: I just wanted to pass along what Maitreya’s sister said. She was in a taxi in Iran, and there were a couple of people also in the taxi to go to another place.

Someone asked her where she was from and she said, “Shahrasar,” which is one of the villages in Taleghan Province outside of Tehran. That is where Maitreya’s family is from and where he spent many summers. And then this person said, “Oh, did you know that the Mehdi (Messiah) is supposed to come from Taleghan?” [sounds of amazement]

Maitreya: So God was preparing her before she came. Actually, well, as you remember, I wrote to you, John, that that village is called Sherhrogan in Taleghan Province but the village that my grandparents were priests in is Shahrasar, which sounds like Shamballa. You know, Shahrasar and Shamballa? It almost has the same rhythm, Shahrasar and Shamballa.

They told my sister that they are expecting their Mehdi to come from that area. That is another prophecy if you want to con­sider it. I do not know how important it is but that is another piece that can be added to God’s confirmation of our Mission.

It is an incredible Revelation. It is an incredible thing that has been fulfilled for humanity. All of us are connected to it and we have to realize what God has given to us in this moment of human history. We see all the signs that say, “Yes, such a Revela­tion should come and it has come.”

Also it shows that God exists. That is what I asked when I was a kid, “You show me God, and I will believe in Him.” They could not do it. But God showed to me that He does exist because He said He was going to do these things and He has done them.

Of course, I have no doubt anymore, God does really, really exist. But we have to impart this Revelation in the purest possible way to humanity so we can bring them by our words and our teachings and our understandings and our dedication to the Mission and make them realize what is happening here.

What is happening here is that the last Revelation from God has come to humanity. It has unified all the religions of the world, fulfilled all the prophecies, and God’s mystery has finished. So we are very lucky people that we have the last Revelation from God.

There is no mystery left. If you have a mystery left, it is probably you asking me to prove that God exists. That is probably the only thing you have to prove to yourself. Does God exist? The proof is that He said that My very existence is the proof that God does exist. God said that He is going to do this, He is going to send this Messenger, that He is going to open the book sealed with the seven seals (Revelation, chapter 5), and open the seventh seal uni­fying humanity, and give the way that reveals the mystery of God.

God does exist. These things all happened, didn’t they? In this Mission it has been proven that all these things happened. Therefore, the conclusion is that I have no choice but to accept that God does exist and He is The Spirit. 

We cannot see Him. But if we really meditate and progress in our spiritual progress, we will experience Him. And when we experience Him there is no doubt and we will be left knowing that God does exist.

Believe me, 99% of humanity really does not believe that God exists. That is why they do all these terrible things to each other and to their own lives. If you truly believe that someone is looking at you all the time, and that you will be judged for your actions, then you have no choice but to be on your best behavior, and you do not do the things that humanity does to one another. You real­ize, “Oh, God is looking. If I do some bad thing to that person God will know and I surely will pay for it.” 

Or the person who goes and kills another person, he abso­lutely does not believe in God. If he believes in God, he knows that God is looking at him when he is doing that. He looks to see if there is any camera there. You do not need a camera, God is looking! There is the all-present God all the time.

So if we really believe in Him then we do not think we can probably say things we do not really believe, because God knows our hearts. When we say we believe in the Mission, “Yeah, I am dedicated but I am not going to do anything about it. I am just going to pretend that I am dedicated,” then what? You think God does not know your heart, really what is in your heart, really in your heart? He does. 

As I have said many times, you have to be honest first with yourself, really, really honest and look at yourself honestly. Am I honestly understanding what Maitreya is talking about? Do I honestly say that which is truthful and correct, or am I still saying things that are my desire to be what I say but I am not there yet?

So it is a Path of purification, a Path of complete truthful­ness to yourself. And we eventually have to create a world that is based on this truthfulness. In that world where the Kingdom will come. God will manifest Itself in all levels.

There is a story about the American Indians. When they first came to this land a person by the name Maasauu came and brought the religion of the American Indians to them, and he told them that they have to continue it by the stories from father to son and son to son etc. So their religion of that Great Spirit, all came from Maasauu, which is very close to Messiah. And they are even waiting for Maasauu (Messiah) to return.

Then they came to him and said, “You become our leader, because we do not really have any leader, so you should become our leader.” He said, “No. You are not ready for me yet. You are not completely pure that I become your leader.” So he refused to accept their offer.

That is how the Kingdom is going to come. We have to purify ourselves and get ready for His Leadership, for God’s Kingdom, for His Spirit, to really manifest on earth.

So each of us has to really look very deeply in ourselves and purify ourselves. And all these things, these tools are given: the Reminder, meditation, chanting, dancing, all this is to bring a deeper understanding of ourselves and a unity in the community. And where can we purify ourselves faster, in the community, or in our own house, or apartment?

Audience: In the community.

Maitreya: In the community. Even this week we were together, probably you saw things in each other that you can improve that you had not seen before. Or you saw yourself in a situation that you felt, “Well, I can improve myself a little more.” 

In the community, after a while, the people do not have any barriers or politeness with each other. They tell you right to your face that, “Hey, look, shape up. If you do not shape up, we cannot live with you.” So maybe a week is not enough [laughter]. But if you get together a couple of years, you learn your lessons fast. 

It is not bad. If I have shortcomings and someone tells me, I have to thank them, “Thank you. I did not see it myself.” How can I improve? How can I become a better person? Because that is what the spiritual progress is, isn’t it? Spiritual progress is to reach a point that you do not have to lie. You do not have any­thing hidden.

I do not have anything hidden in my life. If anyone wants to come and search me or go to my room and search and search the organization, I do not have anything hidden. That is why I am not afraid of IRS or anyone to come here and see what happens to all this money we make in this organization [laughter]. Sure, come here. It is all open. I will tell you where the money comes and where the money goes and all that. Or my own life. And I do not do it for anyone else. I do it for myself or God.

For instance, in a marriage there should not be any infidelity between the couples. You should not do it because you are afraid of your wife or husband. You should not do it because you do not want to do it, because God said, “Do not do it.” Period. 

That is how we should be. We should do it because God told us to do it. Then we feel the freedom. Then we feel, we see, how free we become. You do not have to lie at all. Even you can tell your partner, “I am not doing it for you, I am doing it for God.” Also your partner will feel very comfortable because he or she feels you are trustworthy. It creates a great relationship between a husband and wife.

These are the gems of the truth that all of humanity has to be told. We have to work on ourselves because I know in everyone there are things to improve.

I started doing self-analysis when I was around 13 or 14 years old. I became very interested in psychology, and I eventually read a book called, Self Analysis. It was talking about how to write about your own dreams and psychological problems.

For instance, you decide to give a lecture, and you go to the lecture and you just mess the lecture up. You do not do a good job at all. And then it says, “Sit down and say, ‘Why did I do that?’” Then you remember, “Yes, three days ago also I was going to talk in front of a couple of people, and I messed it up. Oh, yes, a week ago, two years ago, five years ago, the same thing happened.” Eventually as you go deeper and deeper you realize the same pat­tern happening all the time. You realize that, “Oh, yes, because anytime I wanted to talk, for example, my parents shut me down. So I learned not to say too much.” 

Of course, then I did not believe in reincarnation. Now I know that some of the psychological problems have nothing to do with this lifetime. You have to even go to previous lifetimes. Probably I am afraid of being crucified, huh [laughter]? 

It is something we have to do ourselves, to meditate and go deeper. Even go through a situation. You have a desire for some­thing. Close your eyes, “OK, I am going to fulfill that desire through my meditation.” Just go through it and look after it is finished, “So what? It did not mean anything.”

You have a desire, for instance, for having a motorcycle, to ride it all over New Mexico or United States. Just imagine, if you have the motorcycle you have to change the oil, you have to be a mechanic [laughter], your engine is going to go, and you might get in an accident. The motorcycle is the most dangerous vehicle. So after a while you say, “No, I do not really want it. It is just a shal­low desire.”

If you really get to the bottom of any worldly desire you will see that it is really not worth it. Then you say, “The only desire that is good is Godly desire.” 

As someone was saying the other day, there was a person who never really considered the Ten Commandments. And one day he said, “OK, I am going to follow the Commandments for a while.” He did. And then he realized, “WOW. It is such a freeing life when you follow the Ten Commandments.”

So the Ten Commandments are not for God. These things are not for God. He does not need any of them. He can do what­ever He wants. Do you think it is going to affect Him if you do not follow His Commandments? He is beyond all these things. He is sitting completely detached. He is like the observer of the Uni­verse. He just observes us, like enjoying how foolish we are, just sitting and looking at our foolishness.

It is for us, that He sends His Revelation, and He says, “Cre­ate the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth.” Still He does not want to be King, He is the King anyway. Whether we like it or not, if we read THOTH, He directed the history. Didn’t He? He really cre­ated everything we read in history.

Who brought it to this point? Who is the King? Isn’t the King the one who does things and makes the decisions and imple­ments them? So He is already the King. We really do not have to make Him a King, He is already a King. The only thing is, when the Kingdom Of Heaven comes, who is going to benefit? We do. 

God and His Revelation and His Word is not for God, it is for humanity and humans. We are the people that He sent this to for our own good. So if we follow the Fifteen Commandments, who is going to benefit? We are going to benefit.

If you do the Reminder, are you doing the Reminder for me? No. If you do it for me you are not going to benefit. I am not going to benefit either because I do not care [laughing]. But if you do it for yourself, now just imagine in one week how much your mind is directed to God more in this week together then or when you are out there in the world without the support of the commu­nity. It is your call. It is your judgment. You judge yourself how much it affects you when you are doing this together. 

I guess this lifetime God made it very easy for me that I should not be attached to the result of my actions. It is not really up to me, I only have to give the Revelation to people, and it is up to them to follow it. So I am not really attached to any of these. Maybe that is why so many people are not here because I was very unattached about it. So they left and I said, “OK, bye, bye.” And they probably did not like that. Indeed, if I am attached then we may have a cult. Since we do not force anyone into the Mission, we cannot be a cult.

So it is all for us. God does not need us to create the King­dom Of Heaven On Earth. He does not need us to create the Communities of Light. But we will because it is engrained in us, because we have been meditating on this for lifetimes, because we have dedicated our lives before even we came to this life that we will do His Will. 

Actually you cannot resist The Call. For one year, before I started the Mission, I kept telling Him, “You have got the wrong man. I am not the one.” But eventually He got me. I realized that I have no choice but to do His Will. 

That is what I feel for people who come to the Mission, if they are called to do this Mission, they have no choice. They have to come to the Mission and join this. If they have a choice, they do not belong here. I did not have any choice. I had to do this Mission. So will those who will help me on this. 

We have to say these things to humanity. We have to teach them how wonderful God is, such a splendid, wonderful Being that it is impossible for any human to imagine what it means.

I had a dream when I was in Colorado Springs. His Love is so incredible that no human love ever even comes close to it. It is absolute Love, absolute fulfillment. If you experience it once, no earthly love can ever be compared with it. It was absolute ecstasy. I cannot explain it as there is no word for it, really, in any lan­guage. It is probably a million times greater than the best mother who loves her child. It is incredible.

I hope all of you experience that Love and Oneness with Him. And if you do, you absolutely become detached from everything in the world and worldly things.

So this is it. We have talked about it for the last twenty years. Actually, I feel I have already said everything. I am just mumbling tonight. What do you call it?

Audience: Rambling [other words being offered but cannot hear well].

Maitreya: I used to have a lot to say but now I am waiting for people to ask me something to say because I think twenty years of saying things covers almost everything, doesn’t it? I feel that everything has been said. There is nothing that we did not cover.

Is there anything, any topic in the Mission that we did not cover? 

Guest: About meeting your wife, I never heard those stories [laughing].

Maitreya: You would like to hear it? You did not read the writing, “How I Became Maitreya”?

Guest: Yes, on the web site.

Maitreya: Ah, OK. Yes, well. I was in Mississippi when I received - - well actually I was in the university, I was working for my BA degree. Well, the problem is, you cannot say one thing, it goes back and you have to go back to Ananda Marga and what happened there and all that [laughter]. I came from Iran and all that.

I was working for my degree and this stream of conscious­ness was coming to me. And so I was not able to concentrate on my studies and education. For example, I was sitting in the class (I was studying business administration so it was about business management, hierarchies, and all of that). So the professor was talking about the hierarchy in organizations and suddenly I remembered, “Oh, this looks like the triangle upward in the Sign of Solomon, or the Jewish Sign, triangle upward, triangle downward.” And suddenly it was revealed to me that, “Ah, the triangle down­ward is the Spirit of God. The triangle upward is organization, and the triangle downward is the Spirit of God.” And I started thinking, “That is how the true organization should be, because if an organi­zation does not have the Spirit of God in it, it becomes anti-organi­zation and that should be, that sounds like an organization that really brings God’s Spirit into it, therefore, it becomes a Godly organization.”

So the professor was talking about organizational structure in an organization and I would be gone with these thoughts. I was out of the class. I was somewhere else thinking about these things, etc. Eventually I finished my courses. Then I had to take my comprehensive examination. But who was reading about the comprehensive examination? I was reading the Koran, I was reading the Bible, and I was going to the library reading Bud­dhist books, or Hindu writings or things like that.

So I decided to go to Chicago. I had a cousin there with his wife. I thought, “I am going to go there one week clear my mind and come back so I can concentrate on my education.” I went there and the first night I was there his wife said, “Let’s go see the Baha’i Temple tomorrow.” We went to the Baha’i Temple, and that was it. That was the story of how I saw the vision about all those things that I was reading and receiving, they became connected to create The Greatest Sign.

After I received The Greatest Sign, I even traveled all the way to Virginia Beach. I went to the Edgar Cayce Foundation there, to their library. I wanted to know about these signs coming to me, what meaning do they have? So I went there and bought some of their books on symbols, and I realized, “That is fantastic. The things I received really have a deep powerful meaning.”

Anyway, after one year and a half of fighting this idea of unifi­cation of religions and The Greatest Sign,I eventually said, “OK.” I realized that I had no choice. I was in Ananda Marga then. That is another organization, the Path of Bliss. So I said, “OK. I am going to go to Denver. They know me.” I was there for four or five years and all of them, most of the Margiis, knew me there. So I said, “I am going to go there and maybe I will find a couple of them who understand what I am talking about. We will come together and start the Mission.” I did not know anyone else here in the United States.

So I dropped all the education and everything, and I went to Denver. After I told a couple of Margiis (people in Ananda Marga) what I am going to do, apparently they talked to each other and it eventually went to the top of the organization, and I felt they all became cold. I was receiving cold feet from them after a couple of weeks there.

I moved out and at the same time, anywhere I went I met these Preemies. Preemies were the followers of Guru Maharaji, the 16-year-old guru who came from India. He was big news for a while in the United States. He came at the same time that TM came to the United States in the middle of the ’78, ’79. 

I just bumped into these Preemies right and left. And they were talking to me about the Holy Word. And that is when I had The Word, The Holy Name. My meditation and mantra changed to The Holy Name. And they were telling me about this Holy Name. I said, “Well, maybe these people have The Holy Name. If they have it, I am off the hook” [laughter]. I do not have to do anything. They already have it.”

I said, “OK, I am going to get initiated with them and see what they have.” So I started going to their Satsangs, and mixing and mingling with them. Eventually I said, “OK, I want to get initi­ated.” They said, “Well, if you want to get initiated, you have to say that the guru is greater than God.”

That was where I drew the line. No one is greater than God. Not even the guru. The guru is just to connect you to God, not to connect you to himself. Actually that is when you find who is a false teacher. A false teacher connects you to himself. The true teacher connects you to God. That is the difference.

So, of course, I did not know that then but still I felt very uncomfortable with that idea of claiming that the guru is greater than God. I said, “No. Forget it. I do not want your initiation.”

Then I heard that there was another organization that one of teachers of the Divine Light Mission (which was the Guru Maharaji, organization), one of the Mahatmas, had split from him and opened a center called, the Self-Realization Center. I said, “OK. I will go to check these guys out to see what they have. Maybe I can find out if they truly have The Word. I had heard that he used the same mantra that Guru Maharaji revealed. So maybe I could get it from him and see, and maybe he does not want me to claim that he is greater than God.

So I went to that organization. A gentleman, Steve, came down and we talked for a while. He said, “Why don’t you come for Satsang, Wednesday?” Anyway it was Wednesday or Thursday. That day I went there, and Mahatma came and gave Satsang. I sat there and after he finished I just walked away to go home. Sarah-ji ran after me and asked, “Do you want to come for dinner on Fri­day?” And I looked at her eyes and two black eyes looking at me. I…

Sarah-ji: That is because we were in the room meditating and there was this tunnel of light between us and I had never had an experience like that before [laughing]. “Oh my golly, what is this all about here?”

Maitreya: She had already started having some experiences about me, seeing the light, etc. And I just looked at her eyes and I said, “Sure, I will come.” I went to my roommate and told him I was going to marry that lady in a couple of months. He was an American, named Rodney. He said, “Are you crazy? You Iranians come here and you think the American women are just going to fall all over you [laughter]?” And all that. “They are not like that. It is going to take a couple of years. You cannot marry her.” Two months later we were married [more laughter].

And of course, she had some experiences. We went out one night, I think, a date kind of thing. It was just to get to know her a little more. Then I took her to a park and showed her The Greatest Sign and said, “That is what I have to do.” She said, “Do I have any choice?” I said, “No.” That was it. We were married a month later. And we have been married since.

And I think that was an arranged marriage [laughter]. Americans say, “What are these people in India and the Middle East, they have all arranged marriages?” What is bad about it? In the community two people have been grown together and it is a Godly marriage. 

If you base your marriage on God, almost any two people can marry each other successfully. You do not have to be each other’s sweetheart and spend a couple of years together and be compati­ble, etc. Why do you want to be compatible [laughter]? When he is focusing on God, and she is focusing on God, they are compatible because their focus is not on each other. That is because you never can become one physically, but you can become one spiritu­ally and that only happens when you are focused on God. Then you are one, and you have no problems.

Of course, a relationship needs a lot of work. There are two people. Two different people are trying to be close to each other. They have to work it out, there are some compromises that have to be made, and some understanding has to be created. But if you meditate together and concentrate on God, those things become very small. 

You just give up and say, “We can work this out together because we have a greater purpose to be with each other, to create the Communities of Light, to have a center that the other people come and feel wonderful about our relationship, the relationship between us and our child, and our children in the community. We have to give up our egos for this wonderful Mission. So that greater purpose completely melts the other smaller purposes, and the smaller things are no longer important. And you become one.

She is from a different culture. I am from a different culture. But we are still successful in our marriage because it is based on God. Of course, I can say that because I was westernized when I was in Iran. It was not a cultural shock for me. When I came here it was at the time of the Shah and everything was going toward westernization. That is one of the reasons the Mullahs did not like it because all their set ups were changing.

I can say that I felt very comfortable in this culture. I might have been here before! It was not that big a shock, but still we were raised in two different backgrounds. But we got along fine because we were doing the Mission together.

Of course, she is a very good girl and that is why we get along. She is better than me [laughing]. But that is really an arranged marriage, because God wanted this to happen, and it happened. And that is why it works. 

So base your marriage and relationship on God, not on each other. Otherwise, it is not going to work. Well, we talked about that before many times. No two people can come and become one. It is impossible. But two people connected to God, can become one.

Sarah-ji: Well, you know, when you showed me The Great­est Sign the first time, I had no idea what you were talking about. I had no idea. But all I knew was that it was an answer to my prayers. That is all I knew. 

Now, I think I understand a little bit [laughter].

Maitreya: She is a brave lady. She is a brave lady, really. Someone comes here and says, “I am going to change the world and this Revelation is the last Revelation and I want to get mar­ried.” You have to be very brave to jump on this and accept it! But, of course, as she said, she already was getting prepared for it. 

Audience: Maitreya, I have a question on this topic. It talks about in THOTH that when two people get married and they merge with their other parts and they become one. They find what was lost way in the beginning. But it also talks about like if you are a renunciate or a sannyasin, that eventually you come to a point where you merge with your other part. I am wondering about that. Does that mean that as you progress so much spiritually, even if you are on your own, eventually you just come into that fullness, that you feel really complete?

Maitreya: Well, each individual has the potential of becom­ing complete. You really do not need any other person to be com­plete because completion comes with oneness with God and Spirit. So that Spirit is both male and female. It is not something that you need really another person to feel complete. You will feel com­plete by yourself.

Audience: Well I guess, because the way it is worded in THOTH, it says if you are in that state that you merge with your other part. And I guess that is what I am wondering about.

Maitreya: In THOTH it is based on creation of man as male and female, and then God separated them into two parts. So it is true that the female body has more female energy in it, it has more Grace in it than the male, which is more logic. But we cannot say men are all completely logic and the female is completely Grace. You can see even men have some Grace and some females are very logical.

So it is not something that we can completely cut into black and white and say, “Every woman is Graceful and every man is logical.” But in general that is the truth, in a relative sense.

So if you really truly find your other part you absolutely feel very comfortable together and it seems you almost merge to each other. But you cannot really merge to each other because you are in the physical body. But in Spirit, of course, you become very comfortable with your partner. And if you are Godly, your work becomes a kind of a dance together. There is not much of a fric­tion between such a husband and wife. The true relationship is when two people are really dancing with each other and creating that kind of relationship.

If you are a sannyasin, most probably you have not found your other part or you do not have any part in the body so you direct your relationship with God and you merge with Him/Her/It. He completes everyone. He is everyone’s wife and everyone’s hus­band. So that is why the Sufis just love God. That is the path of Sufism. They sing to Him. They make poems to Him, and they become the lover of God.

Or with Krishna, the Gopis are 144,000, 150,000 cowgirls who are all in love with Krishna. And every night each of them has a Krishna, which dances with her and is with her the whole night, and they dance all night together. 

How can Krishna, one Krishna, be 144,000 or 150,000 Krishnas? Of course, it is really referring to our spirit within ourselves. The atman or god is the same as God Himself. 

So we can see that every person can be complete by God. But if you really have another part that has been made for you, then, you have no choice, you are just like magnets going to come together and get married or the marriage will be arranged for you as mine was.

It is a very small topic in the Mission and we really do not emphasize too much about this matter because even two people who are not each other parts, if their focus is on God, they can get along fine. As long as their focus is not on each other and they do not fall into each other’s lower nature and support each other’s lower nature and get in trouble with one another, everyone can get along with the other. If their focus is on God and higher thoughts, they can just forget and forgive the small little things, which they might not like about each other.

So it is not something black and white, let’s put it that way, OK? It is not something that you can say, “Oh, I have to find my partner. That is the goal of my life.” If any one came, “Is it my partner or not [laughter]?” “Oh, it is not.” OK, next one. It is not something that you can put all your life in one mission of finding your partner.

I was not looking for any one really, that fast, to get too close and marry but it happened. It was there. Actually I thought I was never going to marry because I did not think I would be that good a husband. I have too many things in my brain, I had to take care of. I am too busy to be creative, but God said, “No, you will marry this girl.”

So it is not something that should occupy our whole life and become a subject that really consumes our whole being of, “finding my other part.” It should be something that if it happens, fine. If it did not happen, fine. 

But if it happens, it has to be based on the Spirit and God and higher things together, because then you become one easily. You can work out problems very easily with each other, and you have a mission to accomplish together.

So bring your thoughts to a higher level and a greater thing in life. And do not be too concerned about your other part and how it is really going to work, “Am I going to marry him or her? Am I going to find him or not?” or “If I am not going to find him, I should be miserable for the rest of my life,” or “If I find him, how wonderful it is going to be,” and then you find out it is not as won­derful as you thought [laughing]. It needs a lot of work even in a good relationship.

So you will realize that you do not live in a state of a com­pletely imaginary thing that you desire a state that you feel is going to happen. It does not. A lot of, especially women it sounds like, get hurt because they already have in their minds how it is going to be. They have already figured it out how it is exactly going to be [laughter]. And it does not happen exactly as they want it. And they get hurt.

It is just like my niece. She thought she had it. She thought exactly the man she wanted, the way they are going to get together, and the way she had planned everything before they even got mar­ried. It did not happen. And she became disillusioned. She is hurt, she is hurt very badly. 

But life is not something you can plan. You have to flow with it. You have to accept sometimes that it is not exactly as you want it. Also see the signs. If I was 50 years old and I still was not married, I would say, “OK, maybe God wants me to become a san­nyasin. That is the way I am going to go.” I am sixty, seventy years old and still saying, “Where is my partner? [laughter] I am looking for him.” Just sometimes we have to accept our lot and say, “OK, this is the way God brought me to this point, I will accept my situation.”

The most important, at least to me, is to do the Mission, to understand life, to realize, “WOW, what a wonderful thing we have brought to humanity. What a wonderful thing we have been called for, the thing that even the Great Prophets desired to see.”

The Prophets foretold that when this comes it is going to be even beyond what they have already received. They have talked about it. You have to reach to that point that everything else is so mundane, so little, so small.

So that explanation in THOTH is just giving guidelines. It is not something that should become a consuming thought in our lives. But if you get to a point that you find someone who can both work for the Mission so are connected to God, and you both can get along fine. No problem at all. Get married.

Another question?

Audience: I was just wondering about the Sannyasin part, how they merge. 

Maitreya: Sannyasins, they merge with God. They eventu­ally say, “Forget it, I am not going to look for a partner.” Or, they already know that they are sannyasin. They feel that they have been born for a greater purpose than having a wife or husband and being in a relationship and having children, etc.

It is not easy to have a child. You have to raise them. You have to help them. You have to look after their homework, do math with them and listen to their music and some of it does not sound very good [laughter].

Do not think it is easy to be married and have children and all that. It is a lot of work. Not only do you have to have a rela­tionship with your wife, you have a relationship with your son, with your parents, and your wife’s parents. It is a whole package. 

But if you are a sannyasin, you do not have any of those. You are absolutely free. You can concentrate completely on God and do His Will. You do not have any wife to create a relationship. You do not have any children to worry about them and nurture them and bring them up and educate them and eventually let them go when they are ready to go. You are free, you are absolutely with God. You should have nothing at all left for you but God. That is all there is for you.

You reach the point that you realize that you do not have any partner, and it is not going to happen. You tried very hard, but it did not happen. You say OK, “I accept my situation.” 

Accepting your situation is the beginning of freedom. When you do not accept your situation, then you are going to fight it, unless your situation is in such a way that it is interfering with your spiritual progress. Then you have to do something about it. You have to say, “OK, this situation with my wife and with my child is really affecting my spiritual progress.” 

As far as it does not affect my spiritual progress, or it is helping it, I am doing fine. But if you reach a point that it is interfering with your relationship with God, that is the only time you have to reconsider. You say, “Sorry, I love you guys but you are affecting my spiritual progress and we have to correct this.” This is the rule for any relationship. 

Of course, it should not be taken lightly. It should be very deeply meditated on before such a step is taken. But you have a great responsibility. When you get married you have responsibility toward your partner, you have responsibility toward your children, you are responsible for the community, and you are responsible for the decision you have made.

So marriage is a very, very responsible step when someone makes it. That is what kind of marriage in the communities I would like to have, based absolutely on Godly reasons. 

If we have such couples with the sannyasins we can create Communities of Light. We can create an environment that people can come and feel God and be god.

Does that make sense? OK.

John (through the Internet): I have a question, Maitreya.

Maitreya: Go ahead, John.

John (through the Internet): In THOTH, in The Holiest Book, the first step is to meditate and awaken the spiritual forces. It suggests that we meditate on the power of the tama guna over our Souls. How exactly would we go about doing that?

Maitreya: Very good question. The question is that in THOTH it says that we meditate on the power of the tama guna over our Souls. Actually, I gave the answer to this question in the beginning of the Satsang. I said you have a desire. What is the power of the tama guna? It is desire, isn’t it? It is one of the things that make you fall. 

Go through it in your meditation and see what that earthly desire is going to do to you and what you are going to accomplish, and how you are going to come out at the end of it. Go through it, but do not take action. Take action with your mind first. Imagine it, and go through it first. Imagine it, go through it, and say, “If I do this, I will have what I want. Now I have it, what am I going to do with it?” 

See, anything you gain, you lose something for it. It is the Law of the Universe. There is no gain that does not have a loss. If you gain a spiritual thing, you lose a worldly thing. If you gain too many worldly things, you lose spiritual things. That is why we said a balance is necessary in our lives.

We do not shy away from worldly things but we say, “Let’s share it with each other.” When we share we can do what? We can have the worldly things without the worldly things enslaving us.

We become enslaved of the worldly things, when we want everything for ourselves. But when we share, that sharing destroys the enslavement that the worldly things bring to us.

So, as I said, you want a motorcycle, for example. You get a motorcycle. But when you have desire, you are not thinking that it is going to leak, it is going to need oil, it is going to break down. You are not thinking about it at all. You are thinking about how much pleasure it will bring you. Pleasure and pain go hand in hand. But when you go through it in your meditation you realize, now that you have it, what are you going to do with it?

In the beginning you have an imagination, you are going to the mountains with it, the wind is going through your hair, you feel great, and you are in heaven. But all of a sudden the motorcy­cle starts making some noises [laughing] and you have to call the tow truck to take it to the repair shop.

Go through it. Not the good part only but also the bad part. And then at the end you will see, “Is it really worth it?” Usually, 99% of the time, it is not. You realize that you really do not want that. One desire is out. Any desire that is out, you won one. You are free from one of them. You are closer to God!

What is progress? Progress is the lack of shortcomings, isn’t it? Any shortcoming you have overcome, what happens to you? You are a little more perfect, aren’t you? If you have a shortcom­ing, and it no longer is there, are you a little more perfect than yesterday? If you are a little more perfect today, are you a little more perfect tomorrow? No one wants you to become perfect over­night. You go there very slowly but you go there if you meditate. If you do not meditate, if you do not look at yourself, you never go there. 

Another way of meditating on the tama guna, is, for example, you meditate that you are in a good mood and you think about God, you feel good about God, everything, and suddenly your friends come over. They bring drinks, drugs, and all those things that affect your brain. The next day you do not feel good at all. You do not feel God at all.

Now what happened? Before they came you were very Godly and you were very high, on God, not on drugs. Then you feel, if you are meditating on the tama guna, you say, “This is tama guna.” It took you from God and Godly thinking. What do you do, if you really meditated and you want to become perfect, what do you do? You avoid that kind of situation that affects your mind. So you are again one step closer to perfection.

That is how you meditate on the tama guna. You see how the tama guna and environment is affecting you. As you really see how things affect you, you avoid those situations. 

Idle talk: if you sit with someone and you talk about every­thing else but God and the business of the world. After a while you hate that person and that person would hate you. You become very separate from each other because idle talk comes from the first chakra, first chakra beings greater separation. You do not want to be in your first chakra. You want to be in your seventh chakra. Well, of course not the seventh chakra, because then you are not going to be in your body, so you had better stay in the sixth chakra [laughter].

So I am in the sixth chakra, fifth chakra, or fourth chakra, at least the fourth chakra where you love and are openhearted. You decide, “The next time I am not going to have idle talk anymore. I am here to talk about God or business.” Everything else is yea, yea, or nay, nay, as Christ said.

If you sit and talk idly, if you are or become more sensitive, you will realize that idle talk is not good. It will bring you down. It will bring the other person down, it brings the energy of the com­munity down, it brings the energy of the whole environment around you down, because it stimulates the first chakra.

When the first chakra is stimulated, it affects everyone. If you are not strong enough the first chakra affects you. You fall to it.

So this is the Path of the brave. We are talking about going to God, returning to the Godhead. We are talking about the bat­tlefield. You are soldiers. You are here to do a battle, a battle with your environment, a battle with yourself, a battle with the things that are within you and are affecting you. You are very brave even if you are here in the Mission because you have to face yourself.

What do you think is the scariest thing? The scariest thing is to face ourselves, to squarely face ourselves and say, “WOW, this is me? I do not want to have anything to do with him.” But if you face the unclean creatures in you, and as I said, keep them in the light for a while, those things vanish, die, go away, just like, “Puff!”

They seem scary. Actually that is why they make themselves scary, and they are scary if you look at them. But if you are brave enough to look at them, they go away, they vanish so easily. They are afraid of light. They only can exist in the corners of the dark­ness in our Souls and our being. If we look at them squarely and put the light on them, they just scream and kick and try not to be destroyed but they will be destroyed if you keep them in the light long enough.

So that is what it means by meditating on the tama guna and recognizing its affect on ourselves. 

Again, the end result is that you become honest to yourself. You really look at yourself, “Am I really doing this for ulterior motives?” Then, if you squarely look, you have to know, you will know why you were doing it. Then you have to face yourself.

Does that make sense, John?

John (through the Internet): Yes. You rock, Maitreya! [laughter]

Maitreya: What did he say?

Audience: You rock, Maitreya [the laughter increased].

Maitreya: I’m BAD! [more fuel for the fire]

Audience: And who said that the Mission of Maitreya is not cool [laughter].

Maitreya: It is the coolest ever. [laughter quieting down] I am looking for many rocks. Many, many rocks that they can go and hit the image, the image of the world, and make it to powder and destroy it. And let these rocks fill the whole earth and create the mountain, Mt. Zion.

You have something there, John. You are right, we are rocks. We are rocks. That is true. 

But one rock cannot make the mountain. We need a lot of rocks to make that mountain. [silence] 

Darshan.

Sal-OM