I Want To See The Buddha.
The Great Adi Shakti introduced Kash to the Enlightened One. Kash bowed to the empty space in front. Shri Buddha was invisible! There was no one before him. But Kash knew that the Great Soul was sitting directly in front of him, and not on the left or right, as his palms and fingertips detected very strong vibrations flowing profusely from Him.
He meditated for 49 days. During this time he was tempted and tormented by the Lord of the demons (Mara.) He called up floods and thunderbolts, feasts and women. Siddhartha realised that he had failed to reach enlightenment before because he had sought and desired it. When he had ceased to desire he reached it.... He was now 35 years old. His search had taken him 6 years. He traveled throughout India teaching of his discovery." (www.lapraik.com)
According to Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri Buddha said our life is like a river. On this side of the river is the ordinary life we live. It is a life of samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth, empirical existence, social development, economic growth, the march of history and civilization. On the other side of the river is timeless reality, the kingdom of heaven in the transcendental sense of the word. Some people through their spiritual development cross the river, experience transcendental reality and come back to tell their fellow human beings about the other shore and to help them get there. Still others cross the river, experience the treasures of transcendental reality, and discover that both shores are interconnected and interdependent. There is no dualism, no complete separation. These people come back armed with the power of the divine and with a clear understanding of the purpose of the ultimate reality. They understand the ultimate purpose is to develop something on this shore. They come back to inspire others to build a divine kingdom on this shore, transforming human society into the perfect image of the transcendental reality. This becomes their purpose and is the true goal of the evolutionary mysticism. It is the balanced spiritual ideal: attaining mystical experience and also having an evolutionary perspective regarding life. Through this we grow true to the kindred points of eternity and time, of heaven and earth. 1
In early 1994 Kash was told to obtain permission from Shri Mataji to visit Shri Buddha. (Unfortunately, this date was not recorded.) He raised his kundalini, began meditation and instantly reached the Sahasrarapadma, the 1000-petalled Lotus. He bowed to the Great Divine Mother sitting on Her golden jewel-studded Throne. Greetings were exchanged.
Kash then expressed his desire to see Shri Buddha. The Great Divine Mother agreed. She got down from Her Throne and stretched out Her Hands towards him. Kash came forward, put his palms above Her open palms and found himself levitated off the ground.
They then started traveling at stupendous speed across enormous mind-boggling distances and universes to reach the Pureland where Shri Buddha resides.
This Pureland of Great Bliss is on such a vast scale, so greatly distant from our ordinary reality, our flesh eyes can never behold it. It is not something that can be beheld physically. It is so vast; its scale is incommensurate with any kind of scale we know that it is beyond the possibility for our senses to perceive. It is so far and vast, so completely beyond our abilities to measure. We can see stars and travel to the moon, but we will never be able to appropriate to the reaching range our senses the actuality of Land of Great Bliss. It is that vast and distant from our ordinary thinking and perceiving. In that sense, it cannot be reached by any material means. However, our own minds, when purified, when stripped of their faults, when returned to their own primordially pristine condition can directly experience the reality of the Pureland of Great Bliss. The way to perceive the Pureland is through the mind, not through the senses. 2
Soon Shri Mataji and Kash reached the Pureland of Amitabha where Shri Buddha was sitting all alone in deep meditation.
They walked a short distance and sat down before Him.
The Great Adi Shakti introduced Kash to the Enlightened One. Kash bowed to the empty space in front. Shri Buddha was invisible! There was no one before him.
understanding went to China
from India with the monk
Bodhidharma (above) in the
first century AD. This school
was called the Chan, meaning
meditation. Bodhidharma
(Bodai Daruma in Japan)
emphasized the importance of
meditation and direct personal
experience.
But Kash knew that the Great Soul was sitting directly in front of him, and not on the left or right, as his palms and fingertips detected very strong vibrations flowing profusely from Him. This Spiritual Energy informed him the exact spot where the invisible Shri Buddha sat. In his own Sahasrara this Cool Breeze was assuring him that Shri Buddha, even though invisible, was before him. A self-realized child was demonstrating the spiritual senses now available to all humankind and awakening them to this New Consciousness of the Millennium.
Shri Mataji then requested for meditation. All three of them raised their Kundalinis and, with their open palms resting on their knees, went into Sahaj Samadhi.
Kash experienced a very ecstatic state of Nirvana as the intense free-flowing Paramchaitanya engulfed him from head to toe. Wave after wave of Celestial Bliss continued flowing through his spiritual body, saturating him with inexpressible joy. This thoughtless state was beyond any description. Time ceased to exist. Duality became an illusion. Nothingness was Nirvana! Emptiness was Joy! Oneness was Bliss! It was the state of Shunyata!
After a undeterminable period of meditation Shri Mataji must have either tapped Kash on the shoulder or called out his name, and Nothingness became Consciousness.
He bowed to Shri Buddha and thanked Him. The Awakened One bowed back.
Kash stood up and followed the Divine Mother back to the Land of Eternal Light.
After arriving he asked permission to leave, and bowed to Shri Mataji. As he closed his spiritual eyes the Reality of his Self in the Pure Land instantly became the illusion of himself, along with billions of fettered humans, toiling in this endless samsara on Earth.
Meanwhile his father was waiting in the living room to know what had transpired, which was by now a daily routine. There were also many questions to ask about these mystical journeys.
After a while he realized that Kash was taking too long to come out of the meditation room to explain about his experience. This was unlike him.
So, after a few more minutes of waiting, he went into the meditation room.
He found his son lying in a fetal position with mouth slightly open, still in bliss.
His father questioned him, inquiring if he did see the Buddha. There was no answer.
After a few times of questioning Kash finally opened his glazed eyes and barely mumbled that he did, an effort that took considerable concentration. He whispered a few times, "The vibrations are too much, the vibrations are too much, the vibra . . .," before lapsing into a spiritual coma again.
There was nothing his father could do. He just eased the limp limbs of his hapless son into a comfortable sleeping position, arranged the pillows and comforters under and around him, closed the room door, and left.
After about an hour Kash finally managed to get up and stumbled out of his room groggily, swaying ungainly like a drunk. The Celestial Bliss was still flowing from him, eyes shimmering with spiritual light.
He lurched onto the living-room sofa and crashed onto it, explaining that he still could not steady himself as the mystic experience had really intoxicated him.
Kash was undergoing symptoms typical of deep mystical experiences. Others had been witnessed enduring the same:
"Over a period of about 22 years, beginning in approximately 610, the Quran was revealed to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. The earlier revelations were received in trance states that caused the Prophet to groan, cry out, and shiver so intensely that he often covered himself with a cloak, and they were frequently accompanied by headaches and severe muscular tension. Later he became more accustomed to these states of deep absorption. 3
(Over the next few weeks Kash also became more accustomed to these states.)
Kash later described to his father all that he had witnessed with Shri Buddha. He ended his narration by saying that after he had bowed to Him, the Awakened One bowed back.
His father was puzzled. Shri Buddha was invisible; so how did Kash know that He had bowed back?
Kash replied that as Shri Buddha bowed there were strong vibrations going down from his own forehead till the chest, stopping there momentarily, and going up again. Kashs spiritual senses acknowledged that the Enlightened One had bowed down, and then put His head up again. Moreover, in the Spiritual Heaven all of them are extremely courteous and respectful. Thus, the question whether Shri Buddha bowed back or not does not arise.
But the vibrations from Shri Buddha were just too strong on the first day, compared to other Divine Beings. The only other time he felt the same intensity of vibrations was when he met Shri Krishna for the first time. This happened after the Blue Lord was invited to join in the morning meditation with Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi and Her Son, Shri Ganesha.
During the initial months of meeting the Adi Shakti and various messengers in his own Sahasrara (Kingdom of God) Kash at times had headaches and stomach cramps. He often slumped straight from meditation into sleep, at times for an hour or two, before he could get up. Even then he would be groggy and that effect sometimes last as long as 24 hours. There were even times that he had to miss school. Over subsequent visits Kash was able to absorb the vibrations without any side effects.
Note: Prajnaparamita, the wisdom (prajna) that has reached (ita) the other shore (param) is the wisdom that leads to complete awakening.
QUOTES OF SHRI MATAJI
The Joy of the Sahasrara is called as Nirananda since long, since ancient times called as Nirananda or Nirmala-ananda. So many call it as Nirmala-ananda or Nirananda.
That Joy is the Joy that you enjoy even when you get crucified. That Joy is the Joy that you enjoy even when you get poisoned. Even on your death-bed you enjoy that Joy. That Joy is Nirananda.
Shri Sudha-sagara-madhyastha Devi
U.K. July 31, 1982
Sudha-sagara-madhyastha (61st): She is in the centre of the Ocean of Nectar. She is the abode of Bliss. It is the Bindusthana of Sri-Chakra also the Dvadasanta, from where nectar is said to flow through al the nerves of the devotee, if he has Her Grace. Sudhansindhor Madhye (Saun-Lah-8).
"I don't know how many of you have read of Buddha's life and how ultimately He achieved his Enlightenment. I don't know how many of you have really seen the Buddhists or have met them; those who call themselves Buddhists. As in every religion all of them got lost into some sort of a fundamental disease because none of them got Realization, and that's why everybody established their own styles of religion. Even you can say that Tao of Lao Tze also ...
You have to see how He first felt that one has to seek something beyond life . . . He couldn't understand how this misery has come and what is the need to have this misery. So He gave up his family, He gave up His luxuries of life everything He gave up and went in search of the Truth, as many of you have done. He would have been lost also I would say because He had read all those Upanishads, and He read all the books that were possible for Him to say what the Truth is. But He couldn't get anything.
He was a complete sanyasi in the sense that as far as the food is concerned, as far as the entertainment is concerned, everything He gave up and ultimately the Adi Shakti gave Him Realization because He was so true, and was one of the one marked for a special place in the Virata. He had to achieve that. Of course I need not tell you about His previous lives; perhaps in so many of My lectures I have already talked about it what was His previous life and how He achieved His own enlightenment about Himself.
But what we have to see about His life is that He discovered and found out that want is the reason of all the myths. But He didn't know what was the real Want, what was the pure Want, what was the pure Desire, and that's how He could not explain to people that they have to take their awakening through their Kundalini.
Shri Chunmayi Devi
Search For The Absolute, Buddha Puja, U.K. May 31, 1992
Chunmayi (251st): Of the nature of Consciousness.
ADDITIONAL QUOTES
The Buddha and God
Buddha did not deny God's existence. He denied the limited perceptions
about what that existence is.
nnn123
9/24/2006 6:35 AM
re burl's comments...
thanks for the excellent research and commentary.... but again, it
goes to semantics in India, in its theological history and etc.
The "Great God" you referred to is clearly a reference to Indra...who
is called the "King of the gods."
In Western theology there is a list of 13 archangels and that list
has a hierarchy of power. I think the more well known ones like
Michael and Gabriel are about half-way down the list. Indra refers to
the being at the top of that hierarchy. I forgot his Western name, I
know a couple of the ones near the top are Sandalphon and Metatron
(sorry, spelling may be off a bit).
What the Buddha was discussing was that even Indra, who is just
slightly shy of full liberation, still exists within the karmic
wheel. This is the same comment that Christ made about John the
Baptist - that he had no rival among men, but in Heaven was still not
a "full member" of the host of perfected beings. It is some stage of
advanced spiritual development...there is moksha (Sanskrit), which is
liberation and allows the being not to reincarnate. Then there is a
higher experience called self-realisation - I think the Sanskrit
is "siddhi." That is, so-called full "perfection."
Yes, the Buddha did mock the religion as it was practiced by
these "Pharisees" of his day - these faux ascetics. But he did not
mock the real ascetics...and it is quite a challenge, wading through
the Vedantic theological subtleties to see the differences.
And the other statements you made, about Buddha and God are also in
this context....the difference being him commenting on the limited
views about God...that is true. He is not denying God's existence. He
is denying the limited perceptions about what that existence is.
And he is going into complex Vedantic theological subtleties to do
so. One really has to be quite versed in, say, the difference between
Kali and Parvati (who are the same being) to understand the emphasis,
metaphor and illustrative value to the teaching.
That is why the phrase "Great God" seems to refer to the Supreme
Being, when those in India at the time of his teaching would
immediately recognize this as a reference to Indra.
You know, in the same way that if someone in New York referred to
the "lord" of the Yankees...they would know it is a sarcastic
reference to George Steinbrenner and not a reference to the deity
that the Yankees worshipped. One has to know the culture of theology
in India, the culture of theology in popular view in India at the
time, the culture of theology of the true ascetics in India at the
time, and the culture of the (fadistic and cult-like) faux ascetics
of the time, in that era, in India. Unfortunately, it really is that
complex to fully understand the references.
In India there is a pervasive kind of superstition based religion and
then there is, say, the priesthood's version of religion. And the
difference is like the difference between Santeria and Christianity.
It is that dramatic.
The ascetics in India have always included some "survivalist" kind of
lunatics...as well as deeply religious hermits.
The Buddha's audience was familiar with all these distinctions and
since he was speaking to them, and not a modern audience, he did not
necessarily reference everything and in great detail.
So, unfortunately, unwinding the mess of it all can be pretty
complex, that example of Indra is one of the ones that I am familiar
with. I am sure that there are hundreds which I am not, yet which
convey a far different meaning than one that can easily be gleaned
with a modern eye that does not have these references.
The Buddha was very anti-Fundamentalist, if you will. It was a
response to those crazy "survivalist" kind of ascetics, the
crazy "Santeria-like" religious practices of the common people, and
the limited and folksy kind of worship of God (like, say, some nice
church going lady in the Midwest). In his attempt to fight these
trends, he used strong metaphor and language. But he was not denying
God's existence. Then, beyond that, he was trying to pass on a very
advanced meditative attitude which did not want to "affirm or deny."
People have, understandably, taken this to mean a denial of God's
existence. But that is throwing out the baby with the bathwater and
not his intent. He was just trying to throw out "Fundamentalism,"
"survivalism," "Santeria," and "folksy religion."
From the Sermon at Benares....
"As long as in these four noble truths, my due knowledge and insight
with the three sections and twelve divisions was not well purified,
even so long, monks, in the world with its gods, Mara, Brahma, its
beings with ascetics, brahmins, gods and men, I had not attained the
highest enlightenment. This I recognized."
Now, what you say is true, that the Buddha was teaching about the
weaknesses of the various religious practices of his day. However,
the above does not say that Mara (that is, say, Satan) and Brahma
(the Supreme Being) do not exist. It merely is implying that as long
as the Buddha held fast to these ideas and conceptions that were the
cultural vogue of the religion of his day, he was getting nowhere. It
is not a negation of the existence of these beings.
Just because there is a plane of consciousness in which there are no
forms, does not mean forms can't exist, don't exist and it does not
mean that God as a being does not exist.
And, in the world outside of Buddhism, we have the testimony of Sri
Krishna and all the Hindu saints, Moses and all the Jewish saints,
Christ and all the Christian saints, and Mohammad and all the Islamic
saints. And this is the testimony of thousands of people, over the
course of thousands of years, expressing the existence of God. Are
they all simply lying? Are they all simply deluded? There is
absolutley no evidence to suggest either, quite the opposite.
We can see this is the modern example of Mahatma Ghandi. He said that
he heard a voice from God which directed him when to fast and for how
long. Was he deluded? No, he was not deluded. He lived virtually his
entire life in the public eye and never exhibited any mental illness.
Was he lying? Again, his life is a shining example of some of the
most extreme honesty ever exhibited in a human being.
And, then, the assertions of all those hundreds of saints, over the
course of thousands of years.
No. The Buddha discovered the same reality that these saints
discovered, but from a different path and methodology - and he used
different language to describe these experiences. This is the
testimony of the Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna, who practiced the
paths of all the world's major religions and personally realised the
goal of them all, and testified as to these goals being the same.
And, as far as his veracity goes, he and his followers were
recognized by Ghandi. Some of the Western followers later included
Aldous Huxley, Dag Hammarskold - he had a very broad influence.
There was some mysticism in the United States in the time of Emerson
and mentions of the East. But it did not take hold. Swami
Vivekananda, of the Sri Ramakrishna mission, came to the US (and
Britain) around the turn of the century and is one of the first, if
not the first practitioner of Eastern religion to really establish a
foothold in the West. Everyone of us with interests in Buddhism owes
him a debt (and by the way, even though he was a Hindu, his favorite
saint was the Buddha).
nnn123
---------------------
nnn123
10/10/2006 1:02 PM
re questions..
How does the "supreme god" concept fit into the Buddha's insight of
impermanence?
It is about form and non-form. To attain to the state of nirvana, one
must transcend all form. You can read more about this if you read the
relationship between Sri Ramakrishna and Totapuri. Totapuri was a
wandering non-dualist monk. Sri Ramakrishna was a devotion saint, who
decided to personally practice the disciplines of all the major
religions to see if they produced the same result, including non-
dualist practices.
So, a form is a limited construction. But Sri Ramakrishna said, that
if consciousness is an ocean, if some takes a form as an iceberg,
that does not mean it is distinct from the ocean (the direct quote is
much better).
If one is meditating and trying to break through the final boundary
and release oneself into nirvana, it is there that attachment to form
becomes a problem.
People have interpreted this to mean that Buddha said God did not
exist. They are wrong.
How does the "supreme god" concept fit into the Buddha's insight of
non-self?
English words are a big problem...self can mean ego, self can mean a
subtler and higher state of consciousness...you can read more in Sri
Yukteswar's work on the similarities between Christian and Hindu
mysticism...
there is the mind, the intuitive mind, the overmind... the astral body, the casual body and then, beyond that...
the "non-self" is not a negation of soul, it is a negation of the
limited connection of ego to soul, which is not the true (or
unlimited) being.
How does the "supreme god" concept fit into the Buddha's insight of
dependent origination?
I need a scriptural reference for this, and please...at least two
pages on either side of the discussion, not just a quick quote...
If someone wants to be a theist then be a theist. Why try to fit
theism into Buddhism? I really don't understand.
The problem is, is that people meditate and gain some clarity and
think it is nirvana. Others go farther and gain some light during
meditation and think it is nirvana. Other go farther and get to a
place where they can truly transcend many negative qualities and have
light and compassion and all kinds of spiritual qualities...and yet,
it is not nirvana. The problem is that people accept limitation. They
don't try for the highest branch because they stop at a limited
experience.
nnn123
www.beliefnet.com
NOTES
1. Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri, The Essence of Spiritual Philosophy, Thorsons Pub. Group, UK, 1990, p. 200
2. His Holiness The Drikung Kyabgφn, Chetsang Rinpoche
3. Peter Occhiogrosso, The Joy of Sects (Islam), Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1996 p. 407.
