Noor opens Feast:
Sal-Om all. How are you all doing? How
did you like the service, if you came? You
feeling the energy? It is good, yeah?
Nice to see everyone here.
Unus and Niama in Turkey are here with us in
Sprit. They wanted me to let us all know that
they would be here if they could, but the time and
the circumstances, it just does not make it
possible. But they are here with us in Spirit
and they will be celebrating the Feast also in
Turkey. So we have a little stronghold there.
Let us begin this welcome and officially open the
Feast by taking a moment of silence, closing our
eyes, and becoming One, not by trying to become one
with each other, but all becoming One with the
Spirit, and so we are made One. Bring all our
focus on the center of The Greatest Sign,
He who Is and Is All. [Silence]
Let us make a joyful week in His Service.
Sal-Om all. Welcome to the 23rd Feast of
Tabernacles as celebrated by the Mission of
Maitreya. The first one was in 1989.
We have come a long way since then, in 2011.
And we are now in, I guess, the fourth round of
celebrating, because we celebrate one seal each
Feast and we are now on the fourth round of this,
the Second Seal in the fourth round.
Welcome to the Feast. The Feast will mostly
be online this time, and we hope that all of you
will be celebrating it in your own areas, and if you
can and if it seems Godly, join us with the services
that we will be doing as well. We set up what
we think is a pretty nice service, and a pretty nice
set of events this year that should hopefully bring
everyone together and help us increase, help the
Spirit in us increase and the ego decrease.
To open the Feast, we should begin by remembering
why we celebrate it and what it is. What is
the Feast of Tabernacles? Why do we celebrate
it?
The answer to that can be found in
THOTH, as
everything else, which explains to us that in
chapter 23 of Leviticus in the
Bible, God commands
the Holy Days and Feasts which He expects humans to
follow over the course of the year. There are
seven of them, and they are the only Holy Days and
the only holidays commanded by God. There
should be none other.
But, of course, this is not a Commandment with no
reasoning, not an angry God that just tells you to
do things and you should do them without
understanding why. The reason is that most
man... or all man-made holidays are focused on
glorifying the self, or the individual, or the
humanity, and increasing the false ego, whereas all
of God's Holy Days are created in a way that focuses
the self on God.
Since all of human suffering and the entire
reason the universe needed to be created was because
the false ego exists, that illusion that we are
separate from God, anything that focuses on the
false ego will lead to destruction and ignorance,
and anything that focuses on God and brings the
focus away from the self and that false ego leads to
salvation.
So these Holy Days are created to help us -
Sabbath is for man. They should be followed
because they will accelerate our spiritual progress
and as a sign of obedience to the Lord, as we are
His people.
There are seven Holy Days that were commanded to
be celebrated in Leviticus, and the Feast of
Tabernacles is the seventh. As it explains in
THOTH, I will
read it from
Feasts and Holy Days of the Lord, which is in
Essays 1, Tablet 14
in THOTH, it
says:
10 - The fifteenth day of the seventh month shall
be the Feast of Tabernacles and for seven days there will be a
feast. On the first day a
holy convocation, and
no servile work.
11 - After seven days of feasting, a
Sabbath on the
eighth day, a
holy convocation. It
is a solemn assembly, with no servile work.
Unlike the other Holy Days that are commanded in
Leviticus 23, which talk about... they are asked to be
solemn. On the Passover we focus on the Lord passing
us over. It is a time of self-examination and
control, and sort of discipline, and the same with
the other Holy Days. But the Feast of Tabernacles is
a time of feasting, celebration, a joyful time.
So do not be solemn but be happy, be joyful. Let
that Joy and Spirit come through. It is a time
to have fun in the Spirit of God, in a Godly Way,
and feel that side of God also.
God clearly wants those who are the Children of
Light, the Children of Israel, to follow these
Feasts and Holy Days, this most Holy Day or Holy
Week 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.
We talk about the Children of Light because each
year we celebrate, or we focus the Feast, on one
Seal of the Seven Seals in the Eternal Divine Path
and The Greatest Sign. And this year we focus on the
Second Seal.
What is the Second Seal? The Second
Seal is The Plan, the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth,
the Godly system that has been revealed that will
unify humanity and accelerate the progress of all, the system which is based on the
Communities of
Light and whose main message is brought by the
Children of Israel, the Hebrews, and the Old
Testament.
For more information on The Plan, much
more information, the system that Maitreya has
brought, we encourage you to read the book by
Maitreya,
The Plan.
Or, of course, you can attend the several events
that will be... there will be
two lectures, one recording by Maitreya or reading
from Maitreya from him about The Plan, and another
lecture by a disciple, over the course of this
Feast.
So all those who are interested in learning more
should come to these, and we will discuss those
later.
To understand The Plan and the system, you can look
to the Second Seal in The Greatest Sign and see what
it is: The Star of David, the six-sided symbol. And you can look to the symbolism of that.
The six-sided symbol can be broken into two
triangles: The triangle upward and the triangle
downward. The triangle upward represents the system,
the Godly system on earth, man reaching up to God.
The triangle downward represents the Laws and
Grace of God present throughout that system and the
Godly Justice, God reaching down to man. Neither is
complete without the other, but both together
provides the best system possible to govern humanity
and lead to progress for all.
I am going to read something briefly from one of
Maitreya's Satsangs, or one of his writings:
The twelve tribes of Israel had a system -- the triangle upward
--
which Moses brought to them. They had a very deep spiritual
understanding of God's Plan and God's Law -- the triangle downward.
So they had the system (), and they had the Laws and Grace of God
(). They were reaching up to God
and God was reaching down to them. That is why they created
the Communities of Light. They became the Children of Israel
-- the Children of Light. Knowing Self will be accelerated in
these communities because you will have the time, support, and
understanding of others to be able to meditate to know God and
become One with Him.
(From Thus Speaks Maitreya On Communities Of
Light, section
Communities Of Light)
That leads into the second part of
the Second Seal, which is that this Godly system,
the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth, is based on the
Communities of Light. What are the
Communities of
Light? They are communities based on the
Eternal
Divine Path, communities in which people follow
God's teachings, God's Laws, the same teachings that
the Children of Israel followed and were given when
they were the Chosen People, but, of course, much
more expanded and even further explained now that we
have the full truth in the Eternal Divine Path.
Why do we want Communities of Light? What do they
give us? Why did God Command? Why is this a part of
the Eternal Divine Path? The answer
is that you progress much more quickly in a
community together than you do individually, alone.
That is true both individually and collectively.
Individually it is much easier to think you are very
good when you are living alone. It is much harder to
see the problems that you have. When you live in a
community with others, you have jagged edges, and
those jagged edges rub against each other and cause
friction, and violence, and conflicts, and problems,
arguments, divorce, all of these things. But those
things allow these problems to be made aware. You
will never know you have a problem until it surfaces
and becomes a problem for you. The Communities
of Light allow that to happen. So living
individually might be an easier life, but it does not
provide you spiritual progress in the way the
community does.
It also accelerates the progress of all because we
are helping each other to progress spiritually. We
work together, we live in a community.
And God does not want the salvation of individuals,
He wants the salvation of the world and the
universe. Indeed, those who try to reach salvation
by themselves will be spued out of His Mouth, will
not be allowed.
So we can see that the Communities of Light is an
essential and very necessary part of God's Plan. It
allows us to live more easily together in terms of
physiological and safety needs, as we can share and
work together, pool our resources, and live easily
off of them. It accelerates the spiritual progress
of everyone. And it provides the base for the
Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth.
We work toward creation of the Communities of
Light, to create an environment where many people
reach Pure Consciousness. It is a collective march
together. You cannot go there by yourself. I cannot
go there by myself. He cannot go by himself. We go
together.
The Communities of Light are based
on the units of 12, six couples. Again, that will
be discussed in more detail if you attend our events
later in the Feast.
This teaching comes from the
Children of Israel, the Hebrews, as mentioned
before. They had the system, to an extent. God
took them as an example of choosing a people to be
His people and create communities under His Laws. I will read something quickly from
Maitreya:
What is a tribe? It is a
community, isn't it? The number twelve,
for the twelve tribes of Israel, is similar to
the base of twelve in the community, or the
number twelve in the twelve disciples.
Who is the thirteenth? The thirteenth
is God Himself. Christ came with twelve
disciples. Who was Christ Himself?
Christ was the number thirteen, wasn't he?
Twelve plus one makes the thirteen.
That is why in the Communities of
Light we also base the community on
twelve people, six couples. Who is the
thirteenth? God! When they sit
around the round table, each couple representing
one sign, who is in the center? God is in
the center. So they always have God's
presence in their endeavors, in their decisions,
in their unity. In whatever they do, God
is with them and their decisions are based on
His Guidance.
(From Thus Speaks Maitreya On Communities Of
Light, section
The Chosen)
So in this Feast of Tabernacles we celebrate this
part of God's Plan, the Second Seal, and understand
how, "The Communities of Light are the salvation of
humanity, physically, mentally, spiritually,
individually, and collectively."
Indeed, Maitreya wrote an essay in
THOTH that says
that, "The only issue is the formation
of the Communities of Light. All other issues are
the effect, not the cause" (Supplements,
"The
Only Issue"). Focus on creating the
communities and everything else will take care of
themselves.
So it is very important. It is important to
understand and it is important to implement, and it
is our primary purpose at this time.
We are here
to celebrate this and understand it, in the context
of the rest of Maitreya's teaching, of course.
The Communities of Light will only work if you
sacrifice, if you surrender and submit to the Will
of God, the Third Seal and the Fourth Seal, if you
become a universalist and have one government, one
world, one humanity, not separated by countries or
race or creed. It all works together, but today, I mean this
Feast, this week, we focus on understanding and
celebrating this Seal as a part of the whole.
So welcome, welcome to the Second Seal Feast. If
there are any questions about the Communities of
Light and the Second Seal, [pause] you can ask them
later [laughter], you can ask them at the lectures
that will be provided for the events.
Now let us go to a more mundane topic, which is
the schedule for this year's Feast in celebrating
this Second Seal, in celebrating this Holy Day, this
Holy Week.
We have developed a schedule here locally that we
are going to broadcast the majority of online, so
everyone who would like to is welcome to join us. I
am going to go through it briefly to make sure
everyone understands all of the parts, and clear up
any confusion.
During the Feast we celebrate one Seal each day
in a way that the Seventh Seal is always on Sabbath,
Saturday - in the larger scheme we focus on the
Second Seal, and for each day we also focus on these
individual seals, understand them, and glorify them.
If you would look at Day 1
- from that page that I linked
to, the Index, if you click
on '1st Day.' The
schedule is pretty similar each day so I am just
going to briefly go over what happens on a day to
make sure that it is understood.
This is all in
Mountain Standard Time (MST) or actually Mountain Daylight
Time (MDT) since we are currently in Daylight Savings
Time, so you will have to transfer that to whatever
local time you are in to be able to join us.
But starting in the morning at 5:30 AM on
Paltalk
we will be broadcasting a service, similar to the service we had this evening. Then at 6:30 we will be
having a THOTH reading.
We have selected the THOTH readings to be based on
the Second Seal so we will be starting in
Children
of Abram (Abraham) in
THOTH, and if we finish that
book we will move on to The House of Judah (Jews),
both related to the Second Seal. These readings
are assigned, so please check and see if you are
assigned to any of these readings if you
volunteered.
Then we have an hour of innercise. Innercise is
those activities that relate to the chakras, the flow
of energy in the body, the glands, and awakening the
inner body, the ethereal body, strengthening the
spiritual, the inner spiritual awareness in the
body.
The main example is yoga, and indeed we have a
guided class for men and a guided class for women
that are provided on the website that anyone can use
if they would like more help in this section.
That can be accessed by clicking the link on the
schedule: "(see our
guided classes)," if you click
that you can go to it.
Other examples, if you would
like to do those, are tai chi or similar martial arts
practices, and many other things from all over, from
the Mystical Paths all over the world. Any of these
would be fine.
Then we have two events every day, one in the
morning and one in the evening.
In the midday we do The Reminder. Then after the
second event in the evening, we again have a
THOTH
reading. These are assigned as well, and they are
related to the Seal of the day, but it is reader's
choice. The reader chooses what they would like to
read based on the Seal of the day.
Then we have a
Pilates routine or similar practice,
which is: Pilates is a combination of exercise and innercise. Another example is martial arts.
Then we have service again, and in the
evenings we have freeform readings from the
teachings. Everyone is welcome to come on
Paltalk and read whatever they like for however long
they would like and just enjoy the teachings.
That is the basic schedule for each of the days. It follows that general idea. All of this is
broadcast on Paltalk, every single thing I said
here. You can join us for every single one of
these, either on Paltalk or, for some events, on
GoToMeeting.
If you would like more information about those,
there is a link again in the schedule, "-Broadcast on
Paltalk-". If you click that, you will learn more. And where GoToMeeting is listed it also has a link.
So let us quickly go over what events there will be. On
day 1, which is tomorrow, we are going to have
the lecture by Maitreya that he gave at the 1990
Feast of Tabernacles about the Second Seal. We only
have the recording for half of this lecture, the
second half, so for the first half we will be
reading the transcript, which is linked from the
schedule, and in the second half we will listen to
the recording.
On the second day we will have the first
lecture of the Feast, on The Plan by Unus. If you
are interested in The Plan you should come to this.
Then in the evening our event will be a teaching
session of proper methods of Mission practices. This
is something new that we have never done before, and
what it will be is a review of the proper methods of
doing Mission practices, such as The Reminder. We are
going to go over the proper movements. Even if
you think you know how to do The Reminder, you
should come to this because Maitreya has added some
smaller things within it to further purify it and
make it even more powerful. So you should come to
this to learn these new things.
Then we will go over Kirtan, recommendations on how
to sing, and dance, and chant, and then Tandava and
Tandavi, which are two newer practices Maitreya
recommends. Tandava is for men, and Tandavi is for
women, to control sexual desire and also lead to
either strength for men or grace for women, and many
other benefits. We are going to demonstrate and
explain how to do both of these. This is something
that not many people know either, so if you are
interested, we encourage you to come.
Then we will be going through some yoga asanas,
especially those people have questions about, so if
you have questions about yoga, if you have questions
about a specific posture, or how to do it in
general, breathing, please come. Unus will be taking
care of that and he is a certified yoga instructor,
remember that he is the owner of three yoga centers
in Turkey, so he is very good. He can answer your
questions very well.
After these, we will be going through these for
sure, and anything else you have questions about in
terms of the Mission teachings and the
Mission
practices: The Rosary, the meditation process, if
you have questions about pronunciations of words in
THOTH, Sanskrit
words, anything like that, please come and ask, and
we will answer. That should be
great.
That will be in GoToMeeting, both the
lecture on The Plan in the morning and that in the
evening will be in GoToMeeting so that we can use
the webcam and other things to show these.
On the third day we will be having a discussion
session, which is also something new that we just
started this Feast. It is not exactly a lecture, it
is more involved, it is more of a discussion back
and forth and all can get involved and talk about
it. It is similar to the
MOM Meeting, you could say.
This discussion will be about how the current
activities in the Mission will lead
to final manifestation of the system and The Plan -
some
examples are
project managers, creation of the
centers (the BeyondMind centers in Turkey) and other
things. Unus may also use this time to finish
his lecture if he has not finished it in the first
session, but we will also have this discussion, if
there is time. That will be on GoToMeeting.
Then in the evening will be my lecture on, God's
Prophets: How have we treated them?
The fourth day, we will have
Maitreya's first
Question and Answer session. Maitreya will be
available for two times this Feast to answer
questions. It is the only time of the year that he
does this, that he is available to the public for
answering questions, so it is a very rare and great
honor. If you would like to ask a question, you
should e-mail it to us now, beforehand.
Maitreya
will answer any question e-mailed to him before
questions asked in the room, and if you e-mail it to
him, he will be able to provide a better answer as
he will have time to meditate on it. And, he would
prefer it that way. So if you have a question for
him for these sessions, the one on day 4 or the one
on day 6, e-mail them to us now.
You can e-mail
them to us at any of our e-mail addresses:
questions@maitreya.org
,
Mission_Of_Maitreya@maitreya.org , and we will receive
them (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).
Then in the evening we will have a discussion
session, on that day, day 4, we will have a
discussion session on: The current food and farming
systems - the problems, the solutions, etc.
The fifth day is the Sabbath. On the evening of
the Sabbath during the Feast, we usually watch a
video. This year the Mission has picked Food, Inc.,
which is a movie, a documentary about
the Western food system and all the problems with it
and how terrible it truly has become. So we suggest,
if you would like, that this is a good movie you
could watch, and if you look on the schedule on day
5, we have two links to where you can find it. One
of them is free, the full version is available free
to play on the website. It is not the most... it is
not the best website, so do not click anything else.
You might wind up with some spam or something. But
if you click just on to play the movie you should be
just fine, and the full movie is there. If for some
reason it gets taken down - we found it free
somewhere else and it disappeared - then you can
find it on Amazon, but you will have to rent it or
buy it for about $3 or $10. But it is online there
as well. It is a great movie, it is very, very
informative. We encourage you all to see it.
The sixth day, in the morning we will be
doing a community service. We encourage everyone, in
their own area, to find something that they can do
as selfless service, from knowledge, that you can do.
This is a great part of spiritual practice, and also
getting out there and helping the community is good
for all.
Then in the evening we will have Maitreya's
second session, Question and Answer session.
So again, if you have questions. And be aware that your
questions will not be answered unless you are in the
room. You must come to these sessions to have your
questions answered, if you ask beforehand. They will
not be answered if you are not there.
The seventh day... ah, that is interesting. Shirin said that if you subscribe to NetFlex
you can also find Food, Inc., that movie, under
documentaries.
And actually if you subscribe to Amazon Prime, which
is a service that Amazon offers, it is free on
Amazon as well. So if you have any of those, that is
another way to get that movie. It is a very good
movie, it is worth watching.
Finally on day 7, the day before the last day of
the Feast, we will be having our regular trip to the
Jemez Mountains here. But the greater meaning is to
have a vision quest: To go to someplace quiet and
meditative in your area and have a quest for vision,
for true understanding.
It is a Native American idea that when the child
wanted to become a man, they would have to go off
and be alone until they had a vision. Then they
would come back as an adult.
We find this to be a very beautiful idea, and we
encourage all... in fact, there is a Satsang by
Maitreya, in this Satsang Maitreya requests everyone
to have a vision quest, to truly go and have a quest
for Vision: To let God give you the Vision of this
Mission. It is in the Satsang. So I would
encourage you to read it and go on a vision quest
during this day and see what God will reveal to you.
That evening we will have the Spiritual Stories
Night. This is usually the Talent Night in previous
Feasts but we decided to try something else this
Feast. So for this night we encourage everyone to
find something, some stories, some jokes, that teach
beautiful spiritual lessons, and share them with the
rest. Some of the examples are shown on the
schedule, example links to stories, laughter, and
facts, which are already on the website, such as
Mullah Nasruddin, and many of the stories that have
been submitted.
So go use Google, Google it up, and see what you can
find. Find some beautiful stories and bring them to
share, and we will all share them together and be
enlightened by that.
Finally on the 8th day it is the Holy
Convocation, the last day of the Feast, and we will
be having the rounding. If we had enough people,
what the rounding would be is a repeated service
over and over again constantly throughout the day of
chanting, constant chanting, people meditating while
others are chanting, and it would be an amazing
time. Since we are so small at this time, what will
happen is, we will have a regular service in the
morning as the other days. After that, chanting,
straight chanting, will start playing in the room
for the whole day. So any time any of you feel
inspired to chant that day, do the HOSH Mantra, the
Kirtan, just join the room and there will be
chanting. And that will occur until the evening
service.
Finally after the evening service we will be
having the candle ceremony, which is a time in which
we take unlit candles and light them from a lit
candle at the foot of Maitreya's chair. It is
symbolic of taking... of receiving the Light Maitreya
has given to us, and then having that Light to
spread to the world and place on top of the hill and
provide to others.
It is a very powerful, symbolic ceremony, and we
welcome everyone to do something similar in their
own areas, or at least feel that symbolism there.
That is what we have planned for our Feast.
Of course, these are not rigid rules. This is just
what we have come up with to provide a great week of
Spirit and worshipping God in Joyfulness. None of
these... God did not command any of these, but they
are great. So do not get too rigid, but they will
help all greatly if you come.
Are there any questions about the schedule, anything
I did not cover, anything that is unclear? [silence] Then we welcome you all to the Feast. May you all
enjoy - may we all enjoy. May God be with us, if it
is His Will.
As has been in previous Feasts, we will now open
up the room to testimonials given, if one would like
to give a testimonial of how they received the
Mission and came to the Mission. Or, if you are just
filled with the Spirit and just want to say
something devotional, please go ahead.
I wish we had more new people. We have kind of
already heard all the stories like ten times.
But,
that does not make them any less beautiful. So I
will now open up the room to testimonials. Thanks
God, and Sal-Om everyone. Welcome!
Testimonials:
Tahirah: Sal-Om everyone. I hope the sound is coming
over good. Thanks God for good sound. Thanks Noor,
thanks God for your welcome. What a beautiful warm
welcome and explanation of our Feast for this week. I am just looking forward to being in the Joy of
this celebration of God's Holy Days.
As you said, we probably each heard our stories
so many times of how we came to the Mission and met
Maitreya. So I won't repeat all that again and
it's been all the beautiful, beautiful love, the
beautiful love that is in my heart for Maitreya and
for this Mission that has been there from day
one and
still is there, if possible even greater.
I am just very thankful and just want to again just
share the thankfulness of being here to share in
these teachings that Maitreya has brought to us.
There is so much to be done, I know that, and so
many people to touch, and to get the Mission and
God's Plan put in Its place on the earth. As
Maitreya has always reminded us, it will happen and
these beginning days are blessings.
So the Feast, as you said Noor, is a celebration and we
receive it in Joy. And I feel this Joy at this Feast
so much, and just give thanks for it and sharing
with everyone.
So this just keeping it short and quick. Thanks God. Thanks God again!
Keyosha: I could go ahead now if my sound is coming
through good. Just checking if there is good sound. Mine will be short and sweet as well. Thanks God for
good sound.
You know, while I was sitting here in between the
service and the beautiful welcome that Noor gave for
this Second Seal for this Feast of Tabernacles,
Maitreya was giving Satsang online here in the room. And he was just saying something that hit me and I
just knew I had to say this in my testimonial: That
this teaching just makes sense.
It goes through my being to the very core. It is the
only thing I have ever found in this life
religious or spiritual that just makes sense.
And in addition to that, that it makes sense, it is
for everyone. No one is left out. It is for the
whole universe.
So coming back life after life, whatever it is we
have to do to bring everything back so that God's
Body is fully Lightened and there is no darkness,
and the universe is just gorgeous and shining,
whatever. What a blessing! What a blessing to be a
part of it.
I just thank God so much that I even found this
and that I have the responsibility of passing this
on to other people. It has become easier and
easier for me to do that as I have been with the
Mission longer.
So never fear for those who may be starting out. Just stick with it. I think it will become even easier for me in the
future. As our Spirit changes, as we purify more by
following the teachings, God sends what needs to be
sent through us to those that we come in contact
with.
Anyway, that is it. Just thanks God!
Noor: Thanks God, Keyosha. It relates to something I
was thinking of saying, which is: Maitreya has said
that when you come to the Mission, first you
understand it with your mind, then you understand it
in your heart, and finally you proclaim it with your
mouth.
And it almost could seem like you could have three
testimonials, each person, of each of those three
times, because each of it is sort of joining the
Mission in a different way and being baptized in a
further extent.
Because two years ago, the first Feast that I
celebrated with the Mission where I truly was with
the Mission, I said that I
understood it, I had to go
and research each little section and answer all my
questions mentally in my head, and that I thought I
was a Vipra, an intellectual, because that is the
way I understood it, I was all brain. And I think
that is still true, I think I am a Vipra, but the longer I am with the
Mission the less it
becomes, the less I feel, when I speak about it or
when I think about it, the less I feel it in my
head, and the more I feel it in my heart, and the
less it is about thinking, and the more it is about,
IS, if that makes sense.
So it almost could be a second testimonial that
eventually it clicks, not just in the head that,
"Yes, it makes sense," but also in the heart in such
a deep way that the chatter of the mind disappears.
And once the chatter of the mind disappears then it
becomes easy to proclaim it with no fear or doubt or
problems. I am still working on that part.
So hopefully in a couple of years I will have my
third testimonial to give.
Sarah: Hello, I do not know if my sound is OK. Could
you let me know if my sound is OK? Good sound. Thank
you.
Well Sal-Om everyone, it is great to see you all. Sitting here listening to the welcome I could just
imagine us at the first Feast of Tabernacles. Do you
guys remember that? 1989.
We had never done it before. It was a new idea. And
it was chaotic. We had so much to do. We had to cart
the big Greatest Sign over to the
Madonna Center, and we were... we had to rent a truck to bring
everything over to the Madonna Center so we could do
the Feast. We had no idea what we were doing. We had
these menus with all this food.
And we opened the Feast and there was such an
energy. It was amazing. We all looked at each
other and said, "Oh my heavens, this is amazing." God's Spirit was with us. It was just blessed.
That whole week never, it never changed, it was just
blessed the whole time. I guess everyone that
was there in the room, I guess, they all agree.
That has been 23 years ago and we are still
small. We are still pretty quiet. Not a lot of
people have heard about us yet. But it is true. It
is true.
There is nothing that is not true in this Mission. This
Mission is amazing. The teaching is amazing.
Maitreya is amazing. And we all know that.
We
have to constantly trust the Spirit, trust the
Spirit that brought us to this Mission, trust the
Spirit that guided us to be here, and always trust
that.
Noor said something about doubt. The moment you
doubt you are just down in the gutter. Just push
that doubt away and trust, trust and...
I was looking at some older letters that Maitreya
had written from 1988, 1989, and in those letters he
was talking about, "We are creating a system to
replace. When the old systems break down, the old
systems of the world break down, we are creating a
system that will replace that."
In 1989, whoever would have thought that what he
said is coming true today? We see the systems just
falling apart. We see that it is happening
now, and
this is something that Maitreya talked about, what,
thirty years ago? And it is happening. It is
actually happening.
So never forget that we are the seed, we are the
beginning of God's Kingdom on earth, and God has to
be part of the system. You cannot put Him out. He
has to be there.
So great to see you all. My love to all of you,
and
Sal-Om. Thank you.
Noor: I will just say really quickly that something I
was thinking about the other day that relates to
what you just said, Mommy. I am going to call you
Mommy. That you talk about how the doubt, our
strength is from not having doubt, it is faith.
And I think that if any intellectual or scientist ever
questions, "What is faith, is faith this useless
thing?" just tell them to look at the placebo
effect.
Do you know what the placebo effect is? It is the
effect that you give someone something that does not
do anything, it is a sugar pill, but because they
believe that it does something, it does. It actually
does.
Or there have even been cases where they give them a
relaxation pill and tell them that it is a stress
pill, or a pill that promotes anxiety, and the
people feel more anxious.
So if any scientist, any intellectual, or any
agnostic, anyone who does not understand this
teaching, asks you, "What is this faith, what is this
useless belief of faith?" just tell them that. That
is faith.
Even not faith in God, faith in a sugar pill has the
potential to change the human body at a molecular
level.
So what do you think faith in God can do?
That is it.
Ananda Ma: Sal-Om everyone. I wanted to say
something about how wonderful this Mission is and
has been. And it seems like all of you have said
what is on my heart to say. So there is not very
much left to say.
I started with knowing that Maitreya was in the
world, reading THOTH, all my answers were...
all my
questions were answered one by one through the
readings of THOTH. It was just wonderful.
This Mission is wonderful and it has always been
wonderful, and I expect it to be... just to be more
than what I see it to be today, in the years to
come.
That is it. Thank you.
Noor: There are not many other people in the room. I
will leave it open for a little longer. If anyone
else has anything else to say, go ahead.
Tahirah: I just wanted to say that I just have tears
for joy right now. I just have a very deep heartfelt
feeling, and very joyful, and so sometimes,
mainly when I get overwhelmed with joy, I cry. Tears
of joy.
Veronica, my cat, she is sitting here
too because she enjoys the Mission so much. She is
attending the Feast with me at this point. Thanks
God.
Noor: She can be the kitten of the tribe of Judah. How about that? 30 more seconds. Speak now or hold
your peace until tomorrow. Sal-Om.
Tahirah: OK, one more thing and then I am not saying
anymore. I just wanted to share that I have been
feeling very, very strong this whole week, this
whole month actually, about the Lion of the Tribe of
Judah.
I just feel that, I see Maitreya,
as the proud and strong Lion with his roar, I can just almost feel
his roar at this Feast. So I am just feeling the
energies of the Lion of tribe of Judah and am
thankful, just thankful.
Keyosha: I just wanted to take a moment too to
recognize that there are a number of disciples that
for various reasons cannot be here who also have
wonderful stories about how they found Maitreya and
the Mission, and how much this
Mission means to
them. Numbers is the Hand of God in a way, but
in a way too sometimes it is just a matter of having
to be here in Spirit. So I just wanted to take a
moment of silence for us to feel those stories as
well.
One other quick thing: Noor, you were sharing
about faith, and it brought back to me a Satsang
where Maitreya talked about faith, a question was
asked about faith. And I love the next step that he
gave in that Satsang, which is, "After a while you
just Know. It goes beyond faith and you just Know
that it is the truth."
I just wanted to share that. Sal-Om.
Noor: All right then, yes, I think we have said our
peace, it seems like. So, thanks God. Let us have a
great Feast. Enjoy! May we be with God forever. Sal-Om, and be ready to wake up bright and early
tomorrow [laughing].
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