Question and Answer Sessions With Maitreya

09/27/2010: Listen - Read - FTP

Topics Covered:

1. Has Maitreya given any prophecies about how we will be able to recognize His 2nd and 3rd incarnations? Will it be a similar situation to what happened with Bab and Baha'u'llah, or will Maitreya need to die before his second incarnation can be born?

2. What is the Mission's teaching on divination methods such as the Chinese I-Ching (Book of Changes), tarot, runes, etc.? Are divination manuals valid ways to know God's Will / receive His Guidance? The Bible seems conflicted on this. In Leviticus 19:26, God commands: "Do not practice divination or sorcery." But in Genesis 30:27, Laban says to Jacob, "I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you." Does God give guidance to individuals through divination?

3. So divination is not part of the mystical paths?

4. What is the reason for God's prohibition against Mystical Paths in the Bible?

5. There is very little mention of Taoism in the Mission although the Yin-Yang symbol in The Greatest Sign is Taoist in origin. Were Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu avatars or prophets?

6. Can divination be used in a Godly way? i.e. by praying to God first for guidance?

7. Do the 8 signs of the Taoist ba-gua represent 8 existing primal forces in the universe? (i.e. Mountain, Lake, Fire, Water, Wind/Wood, Thunder, Earth, Heaven.) Do these eight forces have anything to do with the 8 petals of the Lotustica in the Seal of Pure Consciousness?

8. I thought that God's prohibition against divination was temporary.

9. Does the Mission of Maitreya believe that Hindu/Vedic mystical philosophy (with its 7 Chakras, 3 Gunas, etc.) has more truth than other Mystical Paths such as Taoism (with its 3 Dantiens, 8 forces, 64 Hexagrams, etc.)?

10. Was there ever a time in the history of the universe when the goal of life was to individuate and create separate egos that felt separation from God? Was this ever God's Will at the beginning? Did God ever send prophets to teach unit consciousnesses to individuate and separate themselves from their God-awareness in order to become more focused in the physical world?

11. Why have you said that it is against God's Will for us to merge back into Him?

12. Will sannyasins have full voting rights to select leaders in the KOHOE, or only married people? Will sannyasins be allowed to become political leaders (like married people can)?

13. Are sannyasins allowed to get married later in life if they find a partner?

14. Why did God command that we not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material (Leviticus 19:19)?

15. Why did God command that we "not cook a young goat in its mother's milk" (Exodus 23:19)?

16. Why does the God of the Bible and the Koran sometimes refer to Himself as "We" and "Us" if there is only ONE GOD? (For example, in Genesis 1:26 God says, "Let US make man in OUR image.")

17. Is it O.K. with God for us to work with mantras such as "Om Namah Shivaya," "Om Aim Saraswatyai Namah" and "Om Sri Maha Lakshmyai Namah" so long as we realize that God is one?

18. Are other mantras that do not specifically mention the name of a guru permissible? Such as "Om I bow to the all-pervading essence"

19. Why have all the prophets in The Greatest Sign been men (i.e. Noah, Buddha, Abram, Esa, Muhammad, Bab, Baha'u'llah, Baba, Maitreya)? Why no female prophets?

20. Why has God always been traditionally referred to as a "Him" in the Bible?

21. Can you please explain the following passages from the Koran:

    "Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other ... . Good women are obedient. ... As for those whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart AND BEAT THEM" (emphasis added) (Koran: Women, 4:34) (does God condone domestic violence by men as a solution to marital problems?).

    "If any of your women commit a lewd act ... confine them to their houses till death overtakes them or till God finds another way for them" (Koran: Women, 4:14-16).

    "If you wish to replace one wife with another, do not take from her the dowry..." (does God condone a double-standard here?) (Women 4:20).

22. In that culture they were guardians over women, of course. Does this have anything to do with the belief in Native American cultures that the sky is Father and Earth is Mother? I.e. Father is unmanifested and women represent the manifested world?

23. Can you please describe in scientific or meteorological terms what exactly happened when God "rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah" (Genesis 19:24)?

24. Why does the God of the Old Testament seem to NOT have a universal perspective? For example, God says in Exodus 23:22-27, "I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you ... the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites ... I will wipe them out. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. ... I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter."

25. Did God really command the Jews to go kill men, women and children of other groups and steal their land and valuables from them (for example see Joshua chapter 6)?

26. Would killing a 3 month old infant help that baby to progress in the future?

27. When the children of Israel found a man gathering firewood on the Sabbath, Moses decided to stone him to death at God's command (Numbers 15:32-36). Did Moses do the right thing? Did the punishment fit the crime, and is this proper justice?

28. If God can raise a prophet in every village, then why didn't He do that instead of telling Muslims and Jews to go kill lots of people around them to spread God's message? Couldn't God have prevented a great deal of unnecessary suffering by simply sending lots of messengers instead of lots of warriors?

09/26/2010: Listen - Read - FTP

Topics Covered:

1. What is the proper way to observe no servile work on the Sabbath? Should it be viewed as no work and not to ask others to work in any form as well?

09/23/2010: Listen - Read - FTP

Topics Covered:

1. How should we view the parts of Baba's teachings that are not mentioned in our Sixth Seal, such as some parts of PROUT, microvita, Neo-humanism, his writings on the history of India, the history of Aryans, herbal remedies, etc.? They are given by a Prophet of God, but they are not a part of his main message in The Greatest Sign.

2. In the meditation process, we imagine ourselves expanding to become One with the earth, but we then imagine moving through the universe, even though we are really One with the whole universe as well. Why is this? Also, when the blue light becomes white, are we visualizing that happening in the whole body (all chakras), or just the sixth, or will this become clear when it is truly experienced?

3. Maitreya-Ji, you were talking about feeling, being one with God and feeling it, and yet other times we do not sometimes. Is it the state of the world that makes us sometimes not feel that way? And how can we turn that around when we do not feel connected? You get so discouraged by seeing what is happening in the world.

4. In chapter 11 of Revelation in the Bible, it repeatedly mentions two witnesses, two olive trees, two candlesticks, etc. In Revelation of the Revelation, you explain that this refers to two Prophets that have come repeatedly to bring Revelations to humanity. Do these two Prophets relate to the two Plans of God, the Eastern Mystical Paths and the Judeo-Christian teachings? When Baba and you were both alive, were both Prophets on earth at the same time?

5. How does compassion feel? What to do if compassion brings sadness?

6. Could you say that empathy is compassion from ignorance, maybe? Or are they totally different?

7. What would compassion from ignorance or passion be? Would compassion from ignorance be trying to see the situation of another person clearly, but seeing it wrongly, and then making wrong actions to fix the problem based on that? And then compassion from passion would be, I guess, skewing the situation in a way that gets you something, or something like that?