Lokesh just received the following news re Maitreya Ishwara. . Many of us oldies knew Bhaskar personally in Pune one, certainly a renegade! I also “sat”with him in his incarnation as a self declared enlightened one. He considered he arrived at sometime in the nineties as I recall, when meditating in the Himalayas. I liked the quality of his silence personally, and enjoyed sitting with him in various places, including Keats Library in Hampstead, Belsize Park Library, and in some hotel with a swimming pool about 10 minutes cycle ride from the Pune ashram in 2000. I never went to any of his small communes in NZ, but I hear they followed a Pune one programme, and he always recommended Osho meditaitons, etc. (Parmartha)
from Lokesh:
For those who knew Maitreya Ishwara (previously known as Swami Anand Bhaskar), I just heard from his son Chaitanya that Maitreya dropped the body in Christchurch hospital NZ around 2 hours ago. I heard unexpectedly from Chaitanya yesterday that Maitreya had just had major heart surgery and there were other health problems, although the doctors didn’t know what caused it. Apparently, he had been unwell for 2-3 months and admitted himself to hospital on Monday. After surgery, his blood pressure wasn’t reponding to the drugs and he passed away. Although I hadn’t seen Maitreya for over four years I’ll always be grateful for his help on the path. Maitreya became an Osho sannyasin in 1975 and did a lot of meditating with both Baba and Samdarshi during the 1990′s. God Bless.
I haven’t seen Maitreya in some years and I was suprisingly touched upon hearing this news. We go way back to the early days in Poona One, when we worked side by side as individual therapists in the ashram.
Maitreya was quite an extremist in the sense that if he went for something he went all the way. And such was the case with his search for spiritual enlighenment. Last time I saw him he was radiating a powerful field of meditative energy. He gave me his first book, which I was not particularly impressed with. Too much personal bullshit for it to have been written by a man who was claiming to be enlightened. Nonetheless, he was a rebel who stood up for what he believed in, even if he might have been somewhat misguided and delusional at times. Maitreya introduced many to the world of meditation and in my books that is something I can find no fault in. I trust his passing from this world was a peaceful one and that now he is one with that which he spent so much time seeking…the light that illuminates the world.
Background early biographical info was requested of sannyasnews:
here it is:
Maitreya (Wayne Anthony Unsworth) was born to a middle-class English family in Widnes, Cheshire. In his autobiography, he describes his young self as a shy and sensitive boy who was shocked by violence. Later, like so many teenagers in the 1960s, he became heavily caught up in rock music and turned rebellious. In 1964 his family migrated to New Zealand where he joined a rock band as a drummer, wore long hair and became popular with girls. At age 16 he left school and became a full-time musician, touring the country with his band. Under the influence of the band’s leader, he was drawn into committing petty crimes for the thrill of it and ended up in borstal. Several troubled years followed during which he was in and out of prisons and experimented with LSD. While life behind bars brought some shocks, it also provided a sanctuary and gave him the opportunity to read spiritual books by such authors as J. Krishnamurti.
As Maitreya grew into his twenties he was drawn to India and, after a long journey through Australia and Southeast Asia, arrived in Calcutta in 1975. He saw this as a pilgrimage, a search for spiritual sustenance and teaching. After casting around in some other directions, he came across a book by Osho and made his way to Osho’s ashram in Pune. He was to remain a close follower of Osho for many years spending much of his time at the ashram but also making trips to Europe and other places, often with his girlfriend of the moment. In later years Maitreya was also with Osho in Rajneeshpuram, the ashram that Osho created in the U.S.A. near Bend, Oregon. However he left in 1984 before it fell apart, disillusioned with what transpired there, although not with Osho himself. After travels that took him to New Zealand, Japan and Tibet, Maitreya once again joined Osho who had reestablished his ashram in Pune, and Maitreya was there when he died in July 1990.
Other than hearing or reading about Maitreya, I have no personal interaction with him, yet whenever a sannyasin from Osho’s lifetime leaves the body it creates some emptiness in the heart.
Every seeker who came to Osho is a braveheart, to leave the craze of white collar job and go for some unknown and untried thing called sannyas is surely an act of courage.
Salute to all those who took the challange.
Shantam, many of us who ‘joined up’ in the early days were so young we’d barely had a ‘proper’ job, let alone the respectable career-type niche you seem to imply!
Plus the hippies, the drop-outs for whom conventional work was not something on their agenda…
Then there were the significant number, including myself, who were simply looking for a way out from being dysfunctional, a condition that had previously more or less ‘disqualified’ them from any sort of so-called ‘good job’.
I guess a fair number belonged to more than one of these categories, many to all three.
So, beware of sentimental myth-making, Shantam, far from everyone took as noble a path as your good self, sir!!
I think quite a few of the older first generation sannyasins, say born between 1930 and 1940, did have careers before joining up.
But as you say SD, many of us (I was born in ’50) were too young and dysfunctional to have had careers.
I wonder if there were simply too many of us in the baby boom generation, and that is why. Not enough careers to go round for everyone. Or maybe the schools were very bad and crowded in the post-war years.
I often think our generation was a war generation.
Our parents were brutalised by the second world war. And then we grew up under the shadow of nuclear annihilation–we were bound to react in some way
In 1974 when I arrived in Poona there certainly were many westerners already there, but none of them, Shantam, were blue or white collar workers with careers. It was a wild type of time with all sorts of Western outsiders, I can’t remember bumping into anyone in sannyas I would call “straight” until about early 1977. I remember it clearly. He was a Probation Officer from England!
This utube gives you a taste
The video cannot be shown at the moment. Please try again later.
Maitreya describes his own process of enlightenment as below, some might say it sounds like a tall story, others that it feels like the real thing.
“Quest for truth began in 1971. On 1 January 1991, after a five-year detour into hedonism, Maitreya got his wake-up call. Interest in the outer world evaporated and the pull inside took over….
He did dynamic meditation every morning and participated in hypnosis trainings and therapy groups for six months. Witnessing started to happen effortlessly and spontaneously. In July 1991 he began intensive meditation with Shambu in Ibiza. Maitreya had never even seen another master in his 16 years with Osho, other than one day spent with J. Krishnamurti in Ojai, yet the silence of Shambu pulled him like a moth to the flame.
Three months of intensive meditation and powerful initiations prepared him for meeting Poonjaji in Lucknow. During the fourth satsang, on 26 October 1991, the first satori happened with the help of Poonjaji’s energy and with single-pointed enquiry into the source of mind.
The satori lasted for four months. The main difference between a satori and enlightenment is duration. While a satori lasts, you experience a taste of truth. But the return of the ego was a major disturbance and surprise. The dive from bliss to fear is deep and excruciatingly painful.
The disturbance continued for 20 months, a long dark night of suffering. Yet the fading memory of the satori kept pulling him back to the eternal fire of Now, which slowly but inexorably burned off the shroud of fear.
After a long period of deep meditation, the veil parted again. On 26 October 1993 in Bombay, Maitreya met Ramesh Balsekar and the second satori occurred during an intense verbal exchange about advaita. Again this beautiful taste of freedom faded after three months, but this time no fear or darkness returned.
Now the pull to make freedom permanent consumed Maitreya. He witnessed life with equanimity, knowing well that only the intense fire of silent awareness could help.
Following a further two years of meditation and silent retreat in the Himalayas with Samdarshi and Baba, the ego finally dissolved. On 26 October 1995 in Byron Bay there was a huge jerk in the belly as the psychic knot of the ego separated from him and dissolved in divine light.
Maitreya had been fooled twice by satoris that lasted for months and seemed to be genuine awakening. This time he kept quiet about his experience; he wanted to see if his enlightenment was really permanent.
Meditation continued with expanding consciousness, love and bliss for another twenty months till the third-eye explosion in Dharamsala on 10 June 1997.
With this penultimate opening came an unexpected miracle for an agnostic meditator: direct verbal contact with Source, the first stage of God-realization.
Finally Maitreya was convinced that enlightenment was permanent. The third-eye opening had nearly melted his nervous system with tremendous love, awareness and bliss; the intensity of the ecstasy was almost too much to contain. And the awesome divine consciousness of the void was sharing its cosmic knowledge; his questions were answered and many secret mysteries revealed.
On 23 June 1997 in Delhi there was a more subtle and exquisite miracle as the crown chakra, the thousand-petalled lotus, opened completely. The opening of the seventh chakra brought full enlightenment and revealed the indescribable ecstasy and awareness of non-Being, nirvana, transcendence of the light of the witness and the extinction of all seeds of desire. “
Parmartha, the synopsis of Maitreya’s awakening sounds all very authentic, almost like a modern version of Autobiography of a Yogi. On a closer inspection there are a few deeply suspect details.
A good example would be that chap Sandarshi. I can remember when he first showed up on Ibiza. At the time Maitreya was still the part owner of a luxurious house that had one of the biggest and most fantastic swimming pools I’ve ever seen. Sandarshi gave a satsang on the roof. The two things I remember most from the situation were the pesky mosquitos and what an Osho clone Sandarshi was. Quite recently he visited Ibiza again and I attended satsang on another roof. I found the whole thing shambolic. Sandarshi had refined his image somewhat but I found the man to be a complete fake. If that man is enlightened I am Fu Manchu…and I have neither slanted eyes or a drooping moustache.
In Poona One days I was friends with a few guys who had a certain vibe about them which I now realise was the seed of wanting to be recognized as someone special in the spiritual world. Maitreya was one of them. Not so long ago Maitreya visited Ibiza and I heard about a couple of completely daft situations he was a player in…simple stuff that confirmed in my mind that the man was not as above it all as he was pretending to be.
Like Osho, Maitreya had a taste for things that only money could buy..like fast cars and Maitreya was not above a bit of jiggery pokery in order to get what he wanted.
This brings me to what I believe is an important point. Back in the sixties many people were having transcendental experiences that said, you don’t need all this material crap around you to feel blissed out, you need a certain state of consciousness. And thus for many the search for that state of consciousness began and also the search for a means to make that state permanent. Once upon a time many, like myself, believed Osho was capable of delivering one to that exalted state, and to a certain extent he succeeded…for a time. And then the rot set in.
Personally, I see no conflict in living a luxurious life whilst maintaining a raised state of consciousness. I also believe that a man or woman who claims to be enlightened but is still lusting after material things is a fake. My conclussion is based on the original motivation that got me going in a spiritual direction in the first place…if you really are in a high state of consciousness there is no need for luxurious material things because you simply don’t need them. If it happens you have them okay, but if you don’t have them and want them you are a fraud and not living in a raised state of consciousness.
On another level, there is something else I’ve noticed. Certain wealthy people radiate an aura of peace and relaxedness that can, by the uninatiated. be mistaken for some form of enlightenment. It isn’t. It is simply an external manifestation of not having to worry about money like the 99.99% percent rest of humanity.
To close this circle of enquiry I will return to the conclusion of the above synopsis of Maitreya’s enlightenment. ‘The extinction of all seeds of desire.’ In relation to Maitreya I find that very difficult to believe. He had a few seeds of desire left to contend with, not least of which was the desire to be recognized as someone special in the spiritual world. He was special, but no more special than anyone reading this right now.
Thanks for that Lokesh, a very well argued contribution.
I am not myself sure, as you know, of “enlightenment” as a concept that has much relevance to the 21st century. It’s an old Buddhist concept which seems to have given more difficulties than light.
Bhaskar (Maitreya) obviously accepted the paradigm and was arguably trapped within it. As you say he was very, very one pointed about making it…. he told me he fucked up both his knees from the very long times he was sitting on them in meditation in the early nineties, and had to have western operations to fix them.
For me, as you say elsewhere, the important thing is he brought a fair number of people to meditation, and frankly to Osho meditations, and continued to believe that such a process of body based meditation was a necessary precursor to advaita, which was his main bag.
That in itself is a very major unselfish act. I completely accept he also acted selfishly at times, especially as a fellow sannyasin in the early days.
People take sannyas to get something, fix something.
Goal-oriented.
We are goal-oriented people.
Enlightenment , the ultimate goal for goal-oriented people, which recedes as you move in the direction; like a rainbow, but in the process, the goal-oriented, future-oriented outlook shrinks.(The last is from personal experience. )
Mistle Bhurger made a similar point recently as I recall.
After the last article published under Maitreya’s name, I was on his website, where it was mentioned that he had enrolled himself in a three years course in some less known Hindu Ashram In South India.
Does not it show that process was still incomplete, something more was there to learn or unlearn?
As far as I know from the “Theory of Enlightenment”, once you are on that point of no return there is nothing else to learn. Read the comics, watch the movies and ask the disciples, ” Is my flight to the cosmos has gone delayed? Or make them responsible by saying, ” I am postponing my flight again and again for you guys. For me personally it is too boring to be here. Understand.”
There are lots of Maitreyas around Shantam. Are you sure you have the right one? Sounds unlikely to me of this guy.
Shantam you say, ‘For me personally it is too boring to be here.’ And I say there is nothing quite so boring as people who say they are bored. Of course you no doubt mean something higher by saying you are bored…but it is still boring and will inspire no one, including yourself. I experience many things in my life but it is extremely rare for me to say I am bored. If it happens I simply find something interesting to do, which is very easy for me. Your boredom to me comes across as a reflection of your not really living totally. All that boring stuff you rattle on about the resort has not done you much good it would appear.
I think you’ve misunderstood Shantam in this instance though, Lokesh, as those words were written as coming from ‘an enlightened one’, ie certainly not Swami S himself!
Poor old Shantam, he tries so hard, but perhaps his destiny is to be misunderstood….
Reminds me of someone, can’t think who….
Satyadeva, you are probably right.( can’t be bothered checking) When anyone tells me they are bored it is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I immediately feel the bored are a waste of time and need to get a life before they die and realize the error of their ways. To me life is precious and sacred. The least one can do is bow
down and respect it. Bored people are usually unintelligent or spoiled.
Happy Mahaparinirvana, Maitreya. You wrote a great book.
Lokesh, first you say: “Personally, I see no conflict in living a luxurious life, whilst maintaining a raised state of consciousness” and later on you write: “If you really are in a high state of consciousness there’s no need for luxurious things because you simply don’t need them.”
I find it funny that you say “luxury is allowed in a raised state of consciousness, but not in a really high state of consciousness”! And what is the difference between the two, if the one allows for luxury and the other not? For me, it raises the question whether enlightenment is about “states” or simply about being Yourself, and seeing everything as Yourself. What would then be the difference, whether you live in luxury or in poverty? So if One lives in luxury there is no for or against, it just is, the same with poverty. I realise it’s tricky to talk about it, ’cause it immediately becomes a concept.
Karima, it would seem you missed the punchline….’If it happens you have them okay, but if you don’t have them and want them you are a fraud and not living in a raised state of consciousness.’ That is of course in relation to a person claiming to be enlightened.
Posted by Maitreya’s partner Maria on FB:
Beloved Friends, Love, Maitreya has done his last breath in the Christchurch Hospital on 14.07, eight days after his birthday. I was with him, when he breathed out for the last time, so was Sada and Siddhartha. Maitreya was in Coma for 3 days, while everything possible was done to save his life. A heart surgery seemed first successful, but his body afterwards did not respond positively. The organs were severely damaged and it was quite clear, that the body would soon stop working. Fluid was in his whole system and everything tremendously swollen. Medication was given to the maximum. Despite his condition, Maitreya looked beautiful and often had a smile on his face. Consciousness was coming and going. When he did his last breath I was holding his hand. Pure divine Light radiated out of him and was his last loving gift in the physical form. I was with his body for several hours after the breath left it. It was still beautiful and shining and he had a smile on his face. Maitreya was ready to go for some time before. He had tremendous pain for 3 months and said already that this would not go on like that. He was extremely brave with his sickness and surrendered totally, ready to face whatever comes. He is so beautiful and I love him deeply. We had a very intense marriage. Divine Love has brought us together and I am so grateful to have shared so much Bliss and Love with my Beloved. In deep and eternal Gratitude, I love you my Dear, Beloved Heart forever, Maria
Very touching indeed. Thank you for posting this. I will copy it and send to his old partner on Ibiza who told me today it is only now that he realizes how close they once were. Such is life.
I found this reply Maitreya made to Sam (Prem Paritosh) the author of “Life of Osho” in the back pages of Sannyasnews.
It’s interesting in that Maitreya, unlike Paritosh, considered the Pune ashram authorities to be correct to ban so-called enlightened sannyasins.
http://www.sannyasnews.org/sannyasnews/Pages/Maitreya%20on%20lineage.html
Parmartha, is the link below, the offical website of “Living Buddha” gone to the other shore?
http://www.ishwara.com/
Sorry Shantam, not always clear what you mean.
The link/site you give is the Maitreya I knew. There has not been much activity there for some time as far as I can tell, now explained by the fact he was struggling with some major illness for sometime.
No one says with what he was struggling. Anyone know?
Pity to die on a Surgeon’s table, more or less. Not my own choice.
I took special interest in this last paragraph quoted by Parmartha above:
“On 23 June 1997 in Delhi there was a more subtle and exquisite miracle as the crown chakra, the thousand-petalled lotus, opened completely. The opening of the seventh chakra brought full enlightenment and revealed the indescribable ecstasy and awareness of non-Being, nirvana, transcendence of the light of the witness and the extinction of all seeds of desire.”
What I keyed in on are the words ‘transcendence of the light of the witness’. It suggests that Maitreya’s understanding was quite profound.
The business of the ‘witness’ is a key point often misunderstood. Osho generally stressed the importance of the ‘witness’, but witnessing is really only an early stage of meditation. Radical awakening is not about witnessing, because witnessing implies the subject-object split is still in place: me, the witness, observing that, the object. I witness that. Non-duality implies the dissolving of the witness-object split. Franklin Merrill-Wolff called it ‘consciousness-without-an-object’.
I didn’t know Maitreya nor was familiar with his work, but his closing comments on his inner condition is very aligned with some of the deepest teachings on awakening I’m familiar with, such as the idea of Sahaja Samadhi or what Ramana talked about in referencing the Self that is beyond all mere witnessing. (Stephen Wolinsky once put it succinctly: the ‘witness’ is merely the ego observing itself).
I think Osho emphasized witnessing because it was the best carrot to encourage people to actually sit down and practice. It does, after all, begin with witnessing, even if it doesn’t end there.
Just now have read in the Upanishads, in the end of the Tenth Khanda:
“5. With twenty-one syllables a man reaches the sun (and death), for the sun is the twenty-first from here; with the twenty-second he conquers what is beyond the sun: that is blessedness, that is freedom from grief
6. He obtains here the victory over the sun (death), and there is a higher victory than the victory over the sun for him, who knowing this meditates on the sevenfold Sâman as uniform in itself, which leads beyond death, yea, which leads beyond death.”
As I see it and understand, we are creator and fuel, awareness and love.
Beyond Enlightenment, beyond witness… we can only become what already is.
As a writer, who sometimes creates a spiritual angle in my fiction, I often go to the advaita teachers if I am looking for something profound. It is a simple task to take a sage’s words, change them a little and make them yours. Many people do that sort of thing when creating the fiction of their lives. I confess to doing that. I can be quite convincing if I want to. In the end one finds out the only person you will never convince completely is yourself. There are a few who seem to succeed, often delusional.
Happy Mahaparinirvana to Maitreya.
As we all know there are many paths and every individual seeker is different. Awakening has its own ways of happening. Somehow the advaita with a shot of Zen is becoming more prominent now. But the eternal spritual journey of the East has given much, much more than that. And there are many many people who have reached the peaks of consciousness through different approaches. Osho as a spritual master clarified this in every detail possible. That’s why it’s not easy to carry the work of Osho as it’s so vast. Pune team has to have the humbleness to accept this fact. If right environment is created , if many approaches are made available, if all the enlightened people work collectively, there could be thousands of Maitreyas possible. Why we miss such a simple point, I don’t understand.
At the end ceremony of many events, firework is a must. I think in London Olympics also some spectacular display of fireworks will take place…
In a spiritual seeker’s life, is this the end point; the last achievement that thousands petals get open in crown chakra, it is light all around…I am you…you are me….all is one…one is all…
In B.A. English class, we had a poem from Aurbindo Ghosh, I liked the title, ” Is this the end?”
From Amoeba to great firework in the brain….millions of years of individual journey….The crescendo!
Hello folks… just passing by… and some comments on the Ishwara fellow. I knew him at the end of his stay with Samdarshi in Kaknal. The man had a freedom about himself, a sort of intensity..that i have seen many times in psychotics… and I was there when he had a major psychotic breakdown… I assume it is what he calls his enlightenment. He was kicked out of Samdarshi´s ashram, he was such a nuisance… really disturbed… wanting to be recognized as enlightened and really pushing for it, when it was obvious to everybody that he had had a psychotic episode. Then he started sending letters to the UN, and presidents. Not easy to be around. Then he left for Pune, I supposed. I saw him again in Pune a couple of years later and he was giving statsangs… I could not believe he had got some following. Actually, I was shocked. He had written a book that was being sold at Videotron, called something like “The last message of God to humanity”… insane, delusional. then I heard about his commune in NZ, even more surprised I was….
Madness and genius, often the same thing in my experience of human beings!
What with Osho contradicting himself about everything, and no two people with sannyas names, fellow travellers, hangers-on and leeches, ever agreeing about anything; anyone, whoever comes in this direction looking for certainty, fixed statements, around which to build a life is up the creek for sure. LOL.
As my dear old mum, who was quite an enlightened individual in her own right, often used to say to me, ‘Never forget that it is a very thin line that separates a sage from a madman.’ God bless her, she was right on the money with that one.
I wouldn’t want that kind of enlightement. Thats just me.
The idea that one can want enlightenment is a misconception, because it implies that there is something you can get and spiritual enlightenment cannot be got because there is nobody there to get it. Get it?
Getting kicked out is often a good sign. Take Osho for example, he was kicked out of America. That’s a plus in my books.
Some places became worthless because certain people got kicked out. Some places remain worthless because certain people are not kicked out.
How does being nailed to a wooden cross rank in relation to being kicked out? While we are at it, what about death by public stoning?
Tony,
One man`s psychotic episode is another`s good night out…
Just as one mans “psychosis” is another’s “enlightenment”.
If Osho had been born in say, Townsville, Texas, he may very well have ended up sharing a cell with Macmurphy from “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest”.
He obviously had religious delusions syndrome (GDS), disruptive behaviour syndrome(DBS), generalised ontological disorder (GOD), to name but a few.
Now, Mr Rajneesh, just pop these electrodes on your head for me, there we go…
pppffffttttzzzz…
Mmm, what`s that burning smell?
Oh well, there goes the “new man”….
Of course, he was born in India, so it went relatively well.
But of course, the flip side is that you do get a lot of nutters over there hurling themselves at the feet of other blatant nutters in the name of religion.
Lock ‘em up and fry their brains and whack them with a chemical cosh?
Or stick them on a throne and worship them?
I wouldn’t neccesarily stick ‘em on a pedestal, but I do like having a few nutters around….
As “horny” Robert the yddiotte said nearly 1000 years ago…
“They that are fonnysh and febill in the worldes reputacion, oure lord choosith to confound the myghty of the worlde”.
This post by Anthony Thompson? 16 July, 2012 at 12:47 pm:
(Unclear whether this the Anthony Thompson PHD who has sometimes posted on SN in the past. Doesn’t look like it to me).
Anyhow, Anthony writes here that ” He was kicked out of Samdarshi’s ashram…he was such a nuisance…really disturbed…wanting to be recognized as enlightened and really pushing for it, when it was obvious to everybody that he had had a psychotic episode.“
Actually, Samdarshi has acknowledged Maitreya’s enlightenment in a recent satsang in Goa, so this is clearly not accurate. In the satsang video which is posted on YouTube, Samdarshi said that only around four people who spent time with him have really been enlightened, and that included Maitreya and also Tyohar, although others had been prematurely believing themselves awakened.
According to Maitreya’s own account , his enlightenment took place whilst meditating with Samdarshi near Byron Bay in 1995.
“After another two years of passionate meditation with Samdarshi the ego finally left forever. On 26 October 1995 near Byron Bay there was a huge jerk in the belly and the psychic knot separated from him and disappeared. Maitreya had been fooled twice by satoris, this time he kept quiet about his experience. Even when Samdarshi said he had entered the fifth body, Maitreya made no comment. He wanted to see if it was really permanent.
Meditation continued with expanding consciousness, love and bliss for another twenty months till the third-eye explosion in Dharamsala on 10 June 1997.”
Maitreya’s own account of his leaving Samdarshi’s ashram can be found in his book ‘Biography of a Buddha’:
“Meditation continued with even greater intensity. Now the system had opened up beautifully except for the third eye and the top of the head. During meditation, all of my awareness would be involved in very intense third-eye energy, as consciousness did its miraculous work of opening this most powerful centre.For two months in early 1997, I meditated twice a day in Mahabaleshwar with Purnanand Baba, a beautiful soul who shares his enlightenment mainly in silence.
Every day we disappeared into the arcane realm of the sixth body, the intense cosmic fire of awareness that is the eternal witness of all.
During every meditation the third-eye drama intensified more and more, but still it did not open fully. That penulti- mate opening came four months and many meditation hours later after all human help had been relinquished.In Poona I underwent surgery on both knees to repair damage from long hours of sitting on the floor without moving.
Nowadays I recommend chairs for meditators who are uncomfortable sitting on the floor. Meditation does not appear to be afraid of chairs, and it is more important for meditators to be relaxed and keep the spine straight than to achieve yogic mastery over the body.
I returned to Khaknal in April and kept meditating alone in my room without even saying hello to Samdarshi. I felt the next step would happen only in aloneness.
One day in late spring, I met Samdarshi on the road and he invited me for a visit. I told him I no longer felt the need for any support from anyone. He agreed and suggested I move to Dharamsala to be completely away from his energy.
That felt perfect and the next morning I left Khaknal for the last time, with Samdarshi’s blessings and a sense of impending release from the all-consuming drama of the third eye.”
If He fulfils my wishes, I am his devotee. If not, I am a student, and also I am free to choose someone else too as my master.
And my wishes are not much: nice life partner, comfortable life and surely awakening!
(Backroom games in disciple´s mind).
Well, unless he was in that place where opting out of rebirth is an option then quite likely Maitreya’s back in a body already and the work goes on.
Anyone tells me they are Bodhisattva then I know they ain’t.
I have a friend who can in many ways be described as a Bodhisattva. That is, in the sense that his primary drive in this world is to help alleviate the suffering of others. He is not enlightened, but he is a very enlightened person. He has often told me he is a Bodhisattva and I don’t doubt for a minute that he is bound for enlightenment.
Nah mate, he’s a bullshitter not a Bodhisattva.
They don’t say, but you can always tell.
Ten-a-penny self-proclaimed.
There’s only one i in Bodhisatva and it aint the first person singular. By the very act of saying ‘I am ‘a’ Bodhisattva’ they negate any possible validity.
.
Proper ones – very rare.
I suppose it takes one to know one, like so much else in life.
Ananto — If someone proclaiming themselves a ‘bodhisattva’ disconfirms for you that they are in fact that, does that also apply to enlightenment for you? In other words, if a mystic proclaims their enlightenment, does that invalidate it for you? If so, you have to dismiss Osho then, because he (more than once) proclaimed his own enlightenment.
I read Maitreya’s book and have participated in a Satsang in this beautiful German village, Fritzlar, an intensive and expensive event. As it happenend there where about 10 mins. of silent satsang, sharing and then questions and answers: the very experience I got out of it was just: Maitreya IS realised but not at all a teacher. There was just no intimacy between those so few, 12 people which could easily have been, it was stiff, no answering directly to persons asking but somehow generally: he was not at all really there, not at all really interested in the very person. I left telling myself : I have to get on just by myself; here is no help at all; maybe that`s the reason for his early passing…
Salles, what is it that you use to ascertain or determine if a person is realised or not?
How much was he charging per ticket for that gig, Salles?
Realized or not: he transmitted something precious. Superb being in his presence.
Teaching is an art.
Fair point well made.
My quote is from Osho.
Who is this I claiming enlightenment?
As I said: If they are, you know, no need for convincing on their delusional part..
Those that insist they are – ain’[t.
Some folk seem to think Bodhisattva’s a job description to earn a living from.
Others are daft enough to go along with ‘em.
Each to their own.
While others think they are qualified to judge who is a Bodhisattva and who is not, using em…erm such yardsticks as someone declaring themselves to be a Bodhisattva means they are definitely not a Bodhisattva. I wonder where such a person might have picked up such a limiting concept. A Buddhist comic book? A voice in their head? The mystery deepens.
This bodhisattva probably had a bit of sympathy for the Devil….
I get a vibe of Keith Richards or Ronnie Wood, with a short back and sides,
in “Satsang Pirates of the Mediterranean.”
I guess by now, he`s just about a moonlight mile down the road….
I’ve recognized that I am not a Bhodhisattva, which could mean I am, I suppose.
See how easy it is when you really don’t try, Arpana?
“A man of Tao moves absolutely without identity”
[WTSF p. 125]
Yeah, and I still haven’t figured out how come that brown sugar tastes so good. Please to meet ya. Hope you guessed my name, but what’s puzzling you is what’s the nature of my….
Bodhisattva….!!
Is there some word or expression similar to Bodhisattva in European langauges?
I sat with Maitreya morning and night and along with Sarita helped to promote his visit to London in the summer of 2005. He was not too popular on the guru circuit and sometimes I and one other were the only ones sitting with him.
His visit was so timely because I was incredibly ripe. After spending time with Wayne Liquorman and Ramesh and doing my own intensive spititual practice I needed a bit of a final push.
Then it happened – while sitting in a Pret a Manger eating a crayfish sandwich it felt like the crown of my head was unscrewed and deep silence descended and the mind and ego dropped away effortlessly (they later luckily returned – but that’s another story). No thoughts at all and a profound deep peace.
Later that day we were in satsang and Maitreya asked what I wanted to discuss – we just looked at each other and I remained silent. His response was “Ah! Enough chit chat…” and a smile. We sat and shared silence…
Soon after I ‘popped’ he went back to New Zealand – it felt like he visited just for me – especially once all becomes self! I am massively grateful for ‘his’ presence and assistance at that time…
simon tzu.
“the crown of my head was unscrewed”
Well, there`s a surprise.
yes,
bodhitwatva
Up here in the White Highlands our word for Bodhisattva is
‘Frank’
I always loved Maitreya. Sometimes we would argue to the point of swearing at each other, other times we would just sit in silent bliss and cook in the power of now. A man with amazing humour, amazing intensity, very strong meditation and a sincere, kind disposition. Totally total. One thing about Maitreya, he was very loved by people that loved him.
Hari Om
Hi God,
Well, blow me down with a feather…
I thought you were dead.
That,s one hell of a comeback you`ve got goin’ on.
Right up there with Rocky, Santana, Bob Dylan, Elvis and Lulu…
Welcome to jackass news
A home from home….