Unus opens Feast: Sal-Om everyone.  This is the 2009 Feast of Tabernacles, celebrating the Seventh Seal.  We pay our salutations to the Divinity within you and welcome everyone to the Mission's 21^st celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles.

Let us take a moment together to pause, close our eyes, quiet our minds, become still, bring God to the Center, and know He is the Greatest!  Become One and become unified.

For those of you who are joining us for the first time and may not be familiar with the Feast of Tabernacles as celebrated by the Mission of Maitreya, each year we focus on a different Seal or Message of God in The Greatest Sign.  This year we will focus on the Seventh Seal, which is reaching the Goal, Pure Consciousness.

There are seven Feasts during the year, and according to the Calendar of God, the Feast of Tabernacles is the last one of the year, the seventh.  The previous Feasts or Holy Days are usually quiet and sober.  The Feast of Tabernacles, however, is a joyous celebration of the energy of God on earth at Its Greatest!  The Messiah is here!  Listen to Him and know His Message!  No one goes to the Father except through the Christ, and it is the Christ, as the Seventh Angel (Maitreya GIWH), who reveals everything to humanity.  This is the salvation for humanity!

Every Feast of Tabernacles has been a celebration of God's Holy Days according to the Will of God as you can read in the Bible, Leviticus, chapter 23.  If you want to know more about the Feasts, you can read THOTH, Essays 1, Tablet 14, "Feasts and Holy Days of the Lord" (http://www.maitreya.org/FILES/THOTH/ESSAYS1.HTM/Essays1-14.html).

During these eight days, we focus on God and glorify Him.  This year we will learn more about the Seventh Seal, Pure Consciousness.

Pure Consciousness is the state in which the power of the three gunas over the consciousness is overcome, and the consciousness in its pure form (pure intuition) beyond the mind (ego) is realized.  Then the oneness with God (universe) is complete, and there would be no Maya left.

Pure Consciousness is the same as Christhood, Christ-Consciousness, State Of Enlightenment, and Being Divine.  Divine means: God-like, supremely good.  That is the goal of life: to Be(come) Divine (Pure Consciousness).

God is in the state of Pure Consciousness or perfect awareness with control over the three gunas in the universe.  Also whoever reaches this state (by His Grace) will gain complete awareness with perfect power over the three gunas of his consciousness and with whatever other power the Lord gives to him.

Whoever overcomes will become His son (Revelation 21:7).  He becomes in His image (a son is in the image or likeness of his Father).  Such a consciousness is in Pure Consciousness, one with The Father, and the son of God  (a god).  He himself becomes a center and nucleus for those who recognize the truth (God) through him.  He radiates the qualities of God.  By his example he becomes the way and the truth, and whoever follows His ways (the Eternal Divine Path) will reach The Father (the Truth, The Light).

However, the true radiating nucleus of the Universe and the controller of all is The Father (God), and it is He who unifies (as The Greatest Sign shows, even in the state of Pure Consciousness, the unit consciousness is under the control of the Father).  But because each unit consciousness goes through different experiences, each will become unique in itself as an individual, at the same time be a part and parcel of God (All).

In other words, God (universe) is all, and each individual is specialized through his experiences.  God can manifest Himself with special qualities through each individual with different expressions.  The total of the individuals (in all levels) with their qualities together manifest all the qualities of God.

Reaching Pure Consciousness is not attainable by Mystical Paths and practices (meditation, chanting, etc.) alone.  It is attainable by following the Eternal Divine Path.  By creation of the Communities Of Light based on the Eternal Divine Path, we can create an environment that many people can reach this state the fastest way possible.

Therefore, we will all carry these understandings beyond this short time we are together.  Then each of us will become a center that the Communities of Light will manifest around.  The more such centers we create, the more Communities of Light will be built. The faster we accomplish creating enough Communities of Light to bring the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth, the sooner humanity will be guided into the Golden Age.  Therefore, let us all understand these truths and become one with them.  The sooner it is done, the better.

We will be a Community of Light during the Feast of Tabernacles.  We will celebrate one Seal of The Greatest Sign each day.  For example, we will celebrate the first seal Sunday, October 4^th, the second seal, Monday, October 5^th, and so on. The Seventh Seal, however, is always celebrated on Saturday.

We will perform spiritual practices such as meditation, chanting, dancing, doing The Reminder, prayer, study, etc.  We are a community together and we will be a Community of Light, the Children of Light.

The schedules for this whole Feast are posted on our website (have a look at the menu "Join Us" and "Feast of Tabernacles": 2009 daily schedule).  Maitreya will be with us for some live sessions, noon to 2 PM MST, to answer your questions in an attempt to further clarify this new Revelation from God, on Sunday October 4^th and Tuesday October 6^th.  We ask that each of you prepare your questions and send them to: questions@maitreya.org (Note: please review our Questions Policy before sending questions, but also understand that these Feast sessions are an exception and Maitreya is more lenient about the questions He will answer in them).

On the evening of Thursday, October 8th, we will have a live talent show at the beginning of the PalTalk session.  Everyone is invited to share a talent.  Let us know how you would like to participate.

Finally, why do we celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles?  Though this question has been answered in many ways over the years through our announcements (posted on our website), through the welcome talks that have been given, etc., again we will share here why we celebrate this Feast. 

First, it is the Seventh Feast in each year that God demanded to be kept forever (Leviticus, chapter 23).  It is the symbol of the end time (the last Feast of the year) and the return of the Christ (The Messiah).

In earlier announcements for the Feasts of Tabernacles we could read: God clearly wants those who are The Children of Light (The Children of Israel) to follow these Feasts and Holy Days.  Let us gather together to celebrate these most Holy days of the Lord, and let it be a sign that we are truly The Children of Light.  The Mission of Maitreya is the fulfillment of many prayers and expectations. Through the truth that has been revealed to us, we will return to God's Ways. The word "Tabernacle" means a place of worship such as a Temple.  The Temple (Tabernacle) that Maitreya has revealed to be built is another sign of the Unity of All religions of the world.  The time is right and the grapes are ripe.  Come; join us and Maitreya in this dawn of the Golden Age that many have longed to be a part of for eons!

We now invite you to share with others your testimonial about the Feast of Tabernacles or the Mission of Maitreya..

 

Testimonials:

Keyosha:  Sal-Om everyone.  I would be more than happy to start us off this evening with my testimonial. 

It started quite a while ago.  Actually it was at a time that I knew Ananda Ma, and she was my first spiritual teacher.  She went by the name of Dolores back then, and had a group called Meditation Unlimited.  That was how I got into meditation.  I kept up with the group in meditating and spiritual things, etc.

One day I went to visit her in Orange Springs, Florida, and she told me that the Messiah is here.  I thought, "This is crazy," because I was not looking for the Messiah.  I had never heard of the name Maitreya or anything like that.  She told me how her friend David Bent had found Maitreya in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and that the Messiah was here.

So what I had learned to do was to go within, in meditation, and ask the Lord when something maybe seemed unbelievable.  And that is what I did.  I closed my eyes and I meditated, and I said, "Lord."  I talked to God and I said, "Is that true that the Messiah is here?"  And I got this incredible resounding, "Yes!"  So I listened very closely after that. 

I received The Plan and read The Plan.   From there I began to communicate with the Mission and received some beautiful letters from the Mission and from Maitreya.  The relationship deepened until eventually it came to the point where I came and moved to New Mexico, and lived at the Mission for approximately 17 years.

Anyways that is a very short, sweet, and brief testimonial of how I found the Mission.  I was very lucky that who I listened to telling me that the Messiah was here, happened to be someone in tune with God and knew what they were talking about.

And now I have my true Spiritual Teacher, Maitreya.  So thank you all, Sal-Om.

 

Unus:  Well, since no one else is picking up the microphone maybe I should go ahead and talk about how I found the Mission a little bit.

I think it started a long, long time ago.  But I will focus on just a couple of years back about how I found the Mission.  I think it has been three years.  I found the Mission after I came back from the United States to Turkey to help my family, my parents, with some financial problems and health problems they were having. 

I spent around seven and a half, almost eight, years studying in the United States, in San Diego, California.  I studied many things.  I studied business and also psychology.  Like the first twenty-seven years of my life, it was all searching, but searching for what, I did not really know.  I was not specifically searching for something but something that made sense that gave me peace, explanation, and also spiritual uplifting.

I was finding that I liked to do many things, like I liked sports.  I liked reading, intellectual understanding of things but at the same time spirituality and understanding that side.  But nothing was feeding my curiosity.

So after I came back from the U.S., I was finding a very different environment over here in Turkey that I totally like had forgotten and could not understand at first.  So I was asking..., well, I was asking God in fact, what is this?  What is going on?  What is this world?  What am I to do here?  Why am I here?  And what is all this mess?

Because I came back here to help my parents but then I found out like, how in fact I am the one who needs help to find my direction in life, really, and understand these things.

One day while going through these discussions with my parents, with myself, I was just so frustrated, so I left home and started to go for a walk.  I was taking like long walks because that was the only environment that I had a little bit of peace at that time.  

I was walking one of these days and at that time I knew the Golden Age would come, from the New Age, astrology, and all those kind of studies that I had been through.  Also, I found out about Share International.  I found out about Maitreya.  I even knew – I read a book about Maitreya, a Buddhist book.  So I knew things like that.

I knew Maitreya or a New Age will come and Maitreya will be the One that will initiate it, or start it, or help it come true.  But I did not know why, when, how, and all those things.

And I was asking God, especially that day, I desperately, I am trying to glue all these things that I understand.  I just have to leave myself to God.

I had a good experience there while walking.  I stopped, and sat there and meditated.  Then I had this joy and very exciting feeling with me.

So I came home with that good excitement and peace.  But at the same time my heart was like beating so fast.  I just lay down for a little bit so that I could keep breathing, so that I could calm down.

I think when I laid down I almost fell asleep.  I felt that a question just popped into my mind or as if someone just told me, "How come you never searched Maitreya in the Internet?"  Because I had searched everything and I had looked through everything but that was true, I had never searched, like I had never typed "Maitreya" in Google or some search engine and looked for it directly.

I opened my eyes.  I was so excited.  I started the computer and typed "Maitreya" in the search engine.  I was very surprised that the first thing that came on the search engine list was the Mission of Maitreya.  It was so exciting that I think I was on the computer for like twelve hours or something straight.

I could not believe Maitreya was already here.  I could not believe how wonderful the teachings were; they made the most sense. 

I read The Plan.  That was like, "Oh, this is it."  I sent an email to the Mission, wanting to be a part of it.  It was very exciting and still is, reading the teachings and everything.  I thank God for that every day.  It is wonderful!  It is unbelievable in fact that Christ is here, Maitreya is here, and the Kingdom of God is coming to earth again.

Thanks God that I am least playing a little bit of a part in this and experiencing all this.  So it is still amazing.  I think it has just been a little bit more than three years, and it is just growing.

So all thanks to God and Sal-Om everyone.

 

 

TruthSeeker:  I just Googled the name "Maitreya" on the net when I first came to the Mission because I used to be studying with the Masters of Wisdom.  They always talk about Maitreya, Maitreya; Maitreya being the Initiator.  They refer to Maitreya as the Teacher of teachers.

So I said, "Let me Google it one time."  And when I did I found the Benjamin Creme Maitreya and the Eternal Divine Path.

When I Googled Maitreya and went to the Eternal Divine Path site, then I started reading, and then I went to PalTalk and they said I could speak to Maitreya.  So I came in and I started asking questions about the Bible because I have a Christian background as you know. 

When I started asking questions,...He never really said anything wrong, He never said anything contrary to what I had learned or what I was studying with the Masters of Wisdom.  He answered quite a few questions from the Bible. 

Many times when I was praying by myself and I just went to the Bible, I was lead to read certain parts of the Bible.  Then I asked Maitreya about them and He confirmed them.  That is when I knew I had found the Messiah.

I was surprised because I really did not think that I would be living and hearing and seeing the Christ.  That is how I came to the Mission.  Also I am still surprised at the fact that most of the Christian world, most of the religious folks in the world are waiting for the Messiah, and the Messiah is here and they do not realize it. 

So I guess no one – they are waiting for Him but they are not looking for Him.  That is the conclusion that I have come to.

 

Unus:  I think that is a good conclusion:  They are not really looking for Him.  That is the problem, or they have some expectations.  

 

Sarah:  Thanks God for everything that everyone is saying.  It was a beautiful welcome.  It was very beautiful, Unus, very wonderful.

Today I had a chance to sit down and I was looking through THOTH,  I love to do that sometimes.  I just take THOTH and kind of just page through it to remember all the different parts of it.  And I was going through all the Essays and Supplements, and there is so much there.  It is just amazing all the different subjects that are covered.

I ended up landing on the one, "New Year, Passover, and Other Symbols".  It was talking about the different periods in a person's life.  After the age of 49 pretty much is when you are ready to go to God because you are finished with your family, and you are finished with the worldly things.  Then it is time to completely go to the Spirit.

That is just so great.  I am ready to just go to the Spirit.  I feel like the purpose of my life has been fulfilled.  I came to earth to serve Him.  That is what I always prayed for when I was young.  

I wrote poems when I was young, way, way before I met Maitreya that I wanted to serve God, "Please let me do Your Will," and, "Please let me write for You."  And my wish came true.

I do not think that we can ever forget that we are building a tomorrow.  We are building the next generation.  We are building the next world that will be a world of peace, unity, and goodness for everyone.  Sometimes it is so dark out there that we forget that, that is what we are doing.  

I can feel so satisfied because now I know that is what my purpose was, and I feel like my purpose has been fulfilled.  Now I can just go to God because I am a little bit older than 49 [laughing]. 

And to see my son, to see Isaac or Noor come to the Mission, to come home from college and say, "All I want to do is go to God."  Oh my golly, that is so satisfying!  Oh my heavens, what else could a mother ask for except that her son could choose to go to God?  You just cannot imagine how fulfilling that makes me feel!

So I think we always have to remember what we are here for.  I can go back through my life and I can think that everything that happened in my life was for a purpose and God was guiding me with, as Maitreya-Ji said one time, "With a Mighty Hand," God was guiding me, to learn how to type when I was in high school, to learn about biology and to do the profession that I do in order to support the Mission, and to learn about gardening so that we could have good food.

My life has been so Blessed, and I am so thankful.  Even if I become so forgetful, even if I become as my mother (my mother has Alzheimer's) I can have joy in my heart because I know that I helped the purpose of this creation.  I was a part of the pioneer force of the purpose of creation, and that is so satisfying.

I never thought that I would have such a purpose in my life.  When I was young and I was searching, and I wanted to know what I was here for, I never dreamed that it would be this expanded, that it would be this much.  I can only praise God and give so many thanks to Maitreya because that is where it came from.  Glory be to Thee, Glory be to God, and Praise God!

And I just wanted to say one other thing.  I did not realize that my son has a split personality because he is in the room twice.  He is in Noor EDP and he is Noor M.  So I am very glad to see that [laughter].

Anyway, love to all of you.  Sal-Om!

 

Unus:  Thanks God.  Thanks God, Sarah-Ji.  That was wonderful, straight from the heart.  Wonderful!  Great to hear all that.

And I definitely agree how unbelievable and wonderful this is and how probably, hopefully you will look back at these times and see how perfect it all is, how God is guiding it, and it is wonderful.  So yes, thanks God.  I thank God.  I thank Maitreya.  Like you said, it is probably like every other second for giving purpose, bringing purpose to my life, for making sense, understanding of this world, and why am I here. 

So it is very exciting.   It is not a walk in the park but still... Oh the clock goes again so I will shut up [his clock was making noises].  Thanks God!

 

Noor:  Sal-Om!  Is my sound coming through all right?  OK, Sal-Om!

Well, I do not see how I cannot go after that, so, or at least half of me, right?  The other half is going to stay quiet [laughter].  But, so my name is Noor.  As she said – Sarah-Ji is my mother and Maitreya-Ji is my father.

So you could say that I first joined the Mission one second into my life [laughing].  Thanks God for that opportunity.

I began into this world in a position that is so Blessed.  But the Mission is all about finding it yourself; it's about proving to yourself or really, truly understanding in your own heart that this is the Truth and the Way.

Maitreya, of course, understood that so well, and He explained the Teachings to me from a very early age, from the very beginning.  All of the games that we did when I was a child, they always had the Teachings in them.  He taught me everything he could about them but He never pushed me to do... He never pushed me into it.  He always knew that it would have to be my decision and my choice to come to it, my own conclusion and realize, "This is the truth."  He never wants someone to follow Him just because they were brought up that way but because they really understand why they are doing it. 

So while he was teaching me all these things, he also let me go.  He let me go into the world.  He home-schooled me until middle school, until 6^th grade, and then I asked to go to public school or to a school with other children, because I wanted to have friends.  So He let me.

The experience of school in the world was very different from what I had been brought up with.  We all know the attraction of the world and the attraction of Maya.  The older I grew, the more I was sort of having friends, doing sports, playing computer games, and all the things that American children do, and the less I was learning the Teachings, thinking about them, and realizing their truth. 

In high school I joined debate, which is an activity where you argue two sides of a case to see who wins.  The thing about debate and the thing about the way that American schools teach you how to argue is that you argue one side for something, and then five minutes later you argue on the other side, against that thing, just a little bit later.   

The idea is to teach you how to argue.  But what it also does is it makes you feel like nothing is possibly true, if that makes any sense, because if you can argue both sides and you can win on one side sometimes and you can win on the other side sometimes, then how can you ever reach a conclusion?  So it really confused me. 

I was getting lost in this idea that supposedly you can answer all your questions through intellect, but then I would spend weeks and weeks and weekends arguing both sides of a case and winning one side and then the other side, and losing one side and then the other side.  What that ended up doing to me was making me feel like I could never know anything to be the truth.

I totally withdrew from understanding or trying to figure out the answers.  All I had were questions, essentially.  I would say that I was actually afraid to choose an answer because I could not be sure, was my feeling.

That lasted through high school.  Then I got more and more into philosophy and all of these things.  Near the end of high school I had reached the point that I just said – well, my final presentation for my class was that we could never know anything at all, ever, period, no matter what.  

At the point that you reach there, you have nowhere else to go.  It was not the answer.  It was not satisfying to me.  I went through all the arguments and it just did not – where do you go from there?  There was nothing.

After high school I rejected that completely.  It just did not make sense to me.

Maitreya and the Mission let me do what..., they let me take the path that I wanted, but it was always there.  It was always in my head.  I could see just how incredible Maitreya was, and in everything He did in his life and in my life, the way He handled situations and the power of His Words, the power of His Voice.  That always was with me.  That always stayed with me.

Once I went through as much as I could, understanding it myself and I did not find an answer, more and more I had to go back to this.  I had to.  Now that I had done all this, gone through all that, I started looking at it, really looking at it, really, really, actually reading and trying to figure it out myself, trying to understand it.

Having been in high school and college with the world with all these people for ten years or so, it is just undeniable.  There is no other way.  

I am an intellectual.  I am.  I am a Vipra, I am pretty sure.  So I had to do it that way.  I had to figure it out step by step for me.  Every doubt I had, I had to look it up and research it, find out the background, and make sure I understood it for what it was.  And there is no doubt.  Absolutely no doubt, nothing, nothing, nothing is unexplained, and any question you have can be answered.

I am not saying this with a blind eye; I went through all the things that I was supposed to go through, to be "an objective intellectual."  I have that background, and it is undeniable.  The Truth comes from all sides.  That is also from this side, the way that I had to go through to do it.

I have that Base.  It can never be taken away from me.  No one can convince me otherwise.  It is just, this is it.  This is the Way.  This is the Truth.  Maitreya is the Prophet.  The prophecies are incredible.  The Teaching is incredible.  It all fits together so perfectly.

My background was different than a lot of peoples' and that is how it ended up happening for me.  But thanks God!

 

Unus:  I would just like to say, Thanks God indeed.  Thanks God, Noor.  That was great.  God is amazing, really.

 

Ananda Ma:  Sal-Om everyone.  It is Ananda Ma.  Of course, there is no way to follow that.  That was so incredible, so beautiful. 

But I found Maitreya through a friend, as Keyosha already said, David Bent.  I was looking for Him.  I had been going to meetings with Benjamin Creme of Share International.  He said that Maitreya would appear in the spring of 1982 and that he was in London.  I did not have a difficult time believing that He would appear in the spring of 1982 but I was having a terrible time believing that He was going to be in London.

And of course in the spring of 1982, his Maitreya did not appear.  They said the reason he did not appear was because the world was not ready for Him.  That did not go down very well with me because I did not think God plays games.  Humans do for sure, but I did not think that God did.

So I thought, maybe he said he was a John the Baptist, and 2,000 years ago John the Baptist recognized Christ in the beginning and then denied Him.  So maybe he does not know where the real Maitreya is.

Of course then everyone that I knew, knew that I was looking for the Christ.  Then one of my friends came to me and said, "I found someone named Joseph Emmanuel in Albuquerque, New Mexico."  Something happened inside of me, and I said, "That is Him." 

He said, "That is who?"

I said, "That is Maitreya.  That is the Christ."

He said, "You are wrong.  That cannot be possible because Benjamin Creme said he is going to come in Italy."

I said, "Well, I thought Benjamin Creme said he was going to come in London.  But I do not care what anyone says.  That is the Christ I am looking for."

He said, "Well, I am going to order His Book.  He has a Book named The Holiest Of The Holies that He has written.  I am going to get it, and I am going to read it.  Would you like to see it after I read it?"

And I said, "I would love to."  

So he finished reading The Holiest Of The Holies, and he gave it to me.

When I began to read that Book I could not believe what I was reading.  There is no way to explain this to anyone.  You have to read it for yourself.  It is just totally, totally amazing.  I had, had questions about God from when I was a child and I would ask them.  I was born and raised a Christian so I would ask the people in my church, the priests, anyone.  The answers they gave me did not make sense to me.  Something inside said, "That is not the answer."  But what was the answer?

And all those answers, which resonated with me, were in the Book THOTH.  I was totally amazed, and I just kept reading it.  I shared it with everyone in our group because I thought it was so important.  These words were Truth.

Then David asked about bringing Maitreya to Florida and would I provide a place for him to live while He was there and help Him to get the people together for the meetings.  I said I would be glad to do that.

So that happened.  Maitreya came to Florida.  He gave a few lectures to small meetings.  Then He gave another one to what was supposed to be a big meeting but due to the weather [laughing] it did not turn out to be so big.  That is a story in itself.

But anyways, I thank God that I found out the True Maitreya did announce His Presence in the world with the Book, the Scripture from God, The Holiest Of The Holies, in the Spring of 1982.  And I have been with the Mission ever since.

If anyone is not with the Mission, I hope that you will look into this further.  As Noor said, "Each person has to do it for themselves."  They have to come of their own free will.

And that is it for me.  Sal-Om everyone.

 

Unus:  Thanks God, Ananda Ma.  That was wonderful. 

I would like to ask probably another time if there is anyone else who would like to share.  Please go ahead.  If not, I think this will be a good time to end this room.  Thanks God for the Feast of Tabernacles, and I hope it will be a wonderful week of joyous celebration.

Thanks God and Sal-Om!
 

Unus, Feast of Tabernacles 2009
 

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