Noor opens Feast: Welcome, everyone, to the Welcome for this Feast. And, as always, let us begin by closing our eyes and taking a moment. Father, may there be no one here but You.

[Silence]

Thanks God.

So how are you all? Doing good?

This is the 24th Feast of Tabernacles, since the beginning of the Mission. That is something to be a little happy about, is it not? And we are here to celebration the Feast of Tabernacles as God has commanded. So in this opening let us begin by reminding ourselves why we are here.

So is following the, celebrating the Feast part of following the Eternal Divine Path? It is, isn't it? It says in THOTH that:

<20>But because of the false ego of the human, man always separates himself as a self-centered entity away from the rest. <21>That is why God always had demanded from man to exalt, adore, and worship Him instead of self. Then man might dissolve his unit self into the Universal Self (God) and become Divine.

<22>That is why all activities, thoughts, and relationships of man should evolve around God and be for Him. <23>The feasts, festivals, and Holy Days also should be for Him so that man's thoughts might be directed toward its goal, which is to dissolve the self into the Universal Self and realize he is a part of the All.

<24>That is the reason why in chapter 23 of Leviticus in the Bible, God has given the days that He demanded to be kept as His Feasts and Holy Days. There should not be any other holidays. <25>Any other holidays are not Holy, because they are not from God.

<26>Also only these Holy Days which are demanded by the Lord and are in one of His Holy Books can be easily accepted in this respect. Otherwise any nation or group will insist on their own, and no other Holy Days are so directly demanded by the Lord Himself to be observed.

<27>Also the rituals and contents of these days might differ from the original demand by God. But the spirit of them will be the same as it has been intended to be. That is, to keep these days Holy, to come together in order to remember Him, share our knowledge of Him, and rejoice in His perfection, compassion, and love for us. <28>In other words, to dissolve ourselves into Him.

...

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.

(From Essays 1, Tablet 14)

So God wants us to feast for eight days. Is that so hard? Is that so hard? Humans are pretty good at that, are they not? But we do it for a purpose, to direct our attention toward God. Really, He is Feasting through us. If you can keep that ideation, then it is Godly.

Unlike other holy days, as just mentioned, the Feast of Tabernacles is a Feast. It is not solemn. It is the coming of the Lord. We Rejoice! We Enjoy! It is different and great. And that is fantastic. And as a sign of obedience to Him we Feast. So thanks God.

In each Feast, as you know, we emphasize a Seal to contemplate on and focus on in our consideration and meditation. This year, we are on the Third Seal. And maybe you guys came here to listen to a lot of information about the Third Seal that I was going to give you. But it is not going to work that way. In the Spirit of all of us coming together and becoming more involved within the teachings and taking more of an active role, as explained by Maitreya in his recent Newsbrief article, I am going to make you do it.

So the Feast is about the Third Seal. What does that mean? What is the Third Seal? What should we do in the Feast to emphasize the Third Seal? What is the background? What should we be focusing on? Raise your hand, go ahead. Or type in text.

OK, sacrifice, the Third Seal is sacrifice. Let's go a little deeper into that. What does it mean? What does it mean to sacrifice?

 

Sarah-Ji:  I think it would be really nice to hear you guys' voices. Since we are not together in one place, I would love hearing your voices again.

  

Noor:  I have suddenly become blind. I can't read. Sorry.

  

Unus:  Sal-Om, Sal-Om everyone. Welcome to the Feast, all of you again. Thanks God for the good sound by the way. Thanks God for this opportunity.

Yes, this Feast is about the Third Seal and it is about sacrifice, sacrifice for a greater ideal, sacrifice for establishing the Communities of Light, and sacrificing for bringing the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth.

And the great example is Christ. Esa the Christ sacrificed his life for this ideal.

Thanks God once again.

 

Noor:  What else? I agree with Sarah-Ji, take the mic, guys. I see a lot of good answers down there [in text] but it is the Feast. Come, Come.

 

Tahirah:  Sal-Om everyone. I agree with Sarah-Ji, it is so nice to hear your voices already, Noor and Sarah-Ji and Unus. It is nice to hear our voices as we share this Path together.

And speaking on sacrifice, the Third Seal, it also means to give of ourself, to let our ego just fade away a little bit so we can become physically, mentally, and spiritually in our highest selves, not being self-centered, and working toward bringing the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth in all areas of our lives, beginning with our own self.

And of course what we do affects those around us. So we each need to be an example to others and first of all an example to God.

 

Keyosha:  I hope my sound is coming through good. Thanks God for good sound. Cause I was having computer trouble, that is why I checked.

I also think of sacrifice and utilizing the First Seal and the Second Seal which is, they all kind of run into one another... With meditation, it gives us a chance to look at ourselves. If we can't even see where we are selfish, which I know sometimes I, all of a sudden I see something and I think, WOW, that was so selfish. But until you see it you really can't do anything about it.

So the meditation, the First Seal of knowing thyself comes in, mixing in with the sacrifice. And then again, Communities of Light, where everything is magnified. And as Tahirah said, we all affect one another. And in the Communities of Light you are meditating in the Community to meditate on the Community. So again it is all just so magnified that we can see areas that we need to improve.

And I know, living on my own, a lot of times, it is much easier to miss things when you are on your own than back when I was in the Community at the Mission. So thanks God for the way it all just goes together so beautifully.

 

Noor:  Keyosha makes a fine point, which is that even while focusing on one of the Seals we must understand its place within the entire Eternal Divine Path.

If we only sacrifice we would be Christians. But we are not. We are much beyond that.

So focusing on sacrifice within this Feast means to understand how it fits in with the rest, just as she says. That is Maitreya's teachings. The Communities of Light cannot be created without sacrifice. The Second Seal requires the Third.

Sacrifice will lead to suffering without surrendering and submission to God. That is the Fourth Seal. They all fit together.

Now, let me ask you a question: Is sacrifice always a good thing? Should we always focus solely on sacrifice at every moment of the day, and anyone who needs something we give it to them? Anyone who asks something, we... [reading from text] not from ignorance. What does that mean? And not from passion. What is sacrifice from ignorance or passion, how do you know?

 

Keyosha:  You know, it is so easy to miss it, do it from passion. You think you are doing it from your heart but when you really examine yourself sometimes you are actually doing something because you want to get something back from that, the glory, or whatever.

So doing, sacrificing from passion is doing it to receive something back. I will let someone else tackle ignorance.

 

Unus:  Well, everything can be of three kinds, isn't it? Like everything can be from knowledge - satva guna, from passion - raja guna, or from ignorance - tama guna.

Of course, sacrifice from knowledge, from satva guna, will be the ideal, will be the most helpful, useful, in any situation. Others will lead to less perfect situations or results or even bondage.

 

Noor:  Indeed. Sacrifice from knowledge is so rare that there are many theories that it does not exist from those in the scientific community. I used that many times in debate, "There is no such thing as selfless service, it is always for a selfish purpose." So as usual, the Path is narrow.

I will also mention what scottykfla said [typed in chat]: "Wish not to understand but to be understood, not to be loved but to love." That is, of course, St. Francis of Assisi. A very beautiful quote.

What other definitions of sacrifice do we have? Sacrifice to give of yourself for the community, to give more than you take, or...

Other definitions Maitreya has given: I see one here in Thus Speaks Maitreya on Esa the Christ:

Sacrifice means to struggle to progress physically, mentally and spiritually and to help others also to progress in these spheres. It means to be other-centered, to give up "mine" and "thine" for "ours." Therefore, in the process, the false ego is crucified.

Which brings us to another very important part of the Third Seal, crucification. Right? Baptism, what does that mean? How does that relate?

 

Ananda Ma:  In the Glossary... oh, I hope I can take the mic. In the Glossary it talks about baptism as "A ritual performed to become pure, or repentant." So again "It is the act from turning from the external world toward the spiritual world."

So it is the same thing, it is that jahad again, internal and external jahad.

 

Sarah-Ji:  Maitreya's teachings are so vast and there are so many different parts to it. It is fascinating. We could sit here for 24 or 48 hours and just keep talking about all these different things.

In the 33 Virtues, number 24 is, "Readiness to sacrifice everything of individual life for the ideology." So that is readiness to crucify everything of your individual life, to crucify the ego. I am counting down with the 33 Virtues how many more months I have to work full time [laughing], 24. Thanks be to God. So this is a great month for sacrifice.

 

Noor:  And remember if any of you do not fully agree with what another one is saying or does not fully understand it, you have the right to discuss it, or refute it, or question it. It is not... it is equal parts important. But, absolutely.

Anything else?

 

Tahirah:  There was just one thing that came to me when you were saying that, that Maitreya always says, "We tame the ego. We don't destroy it. We tame it." So I guess that can also be applied to this, sacrificing.

 

Noor:  Indeed.

 

Sarah-Ji:  Yes, like wild horses, that you have to tame the wild horses rather than destroy them. You need to use them.

I was also going to mention about Esa's threefold purpose. And you can take it from his name. Esa was to (E)nd the spiritual domination of the Jewish nation. S is Sacrifice. And A is Assemble the people or gather the people. Those were three things that it was prophesied for him to come to do. And he did.

And also another thing about Christ is, the 3's in his life. There are so many threes. It just confirms that he was the Third Seal.

 

Noor:  As Sarah-Ji said, I think we are beginning to see that there is a lot we can focus on in this Feast when we talk about the Third Seal. It is very vast. It involves all parts of life because everything is interconnected, all of the Eternal Divine Path is.

Here is something else that you can consider as pretty relevant to this time actually, that is also from Thus Speaks Maitreya on Esa the Christ:

Sacrificing and selflessness should start from the top of the society (the leaders). Otherwise the mass will be exploited through their sacrifices and a few will take advantage of these sacrifices for their selfish pursuances.

We can see that all over, can we not? So this is an example of... there is a difference between sacrificing and bending backwards. Sometimes you say, "No. I am not going to do it." And that is the correct purpose.

So as usual we have guidelines by which we must understand what to do in each situation, from knowledge. It is not an easy Path but it is the only correct one. Any rigid rule will eventually be a problem at some point.

Any comments?

 

Keyosha:  Well, and it makes sense too, with rules, because rules can be from ignorance, passion, or knowledge. So rigid rules from ignorance, like we see often in our society today, make no sense, but rigid rules from God... well, you do not really want to call them rigid, they are rules from God for a reason. They have a purpose behind them. So therefore, they are from knowledge. Like that.

 

Sarah-Ji:  Even in the New Testament there are examples of how Christ changed some of the rigid rules and he did not go along with the rigid rules. It was appropriate to go to the field and pick some corn on the Sabbath, or pick whatever... It wasn't GMO corn though, it was good corn [laughing], when he picked the corn to feed himself and his disciples. But it was appropriate.

 

Noor:  Yes, you know, because Christ's teaching is, "If someone slaps you in the face, turn the other check." And that seems to be misused in a lot of ways because he also threw all the money changers out of the temple. He wasn't like, "Oh, those are bad... slap me again," he slapped them. So even within Christ's teaching you can see the duality that is necessary to be truly wise.

So let us take all of this now, all of these general ideas that we have discussed in terms of sacrifice: That giving of yourself; giving more than you receive; creating the Communities; turning around and being baptized, going towards God; the high standards we need to apply to our leadership, otherwise they will take advantage; and try to apply them practically.

What does it mean for us now, at this time, for each of you individually at this time? What is sacrifice from knowledge? What will further the goals of the Mission and your spiritual progress, for each of you? What are some general things we should all be focusing on?

And then, during this week, you might be considering some of the individual things that you might not be seeing at this point. Some of the things that, perhaps related to what Maitreya has been saying in the recent Newsbriefs and our new initiative in the Mission, and things like this.

What are some things in general that we should consider doing?

 

Keyosha:  One thing that comes to me is sacrificing our time, to spend more of it with God. Like coming to the readings in the morning of the Scriptures and The Reminder, etc., and in the evening again.

So sacrifice of time. To share the Message, to share the teachings.

 

Sarah-Ji:  To really evaluate, to really contemplate, how can I do more, how can I be more effective, what can I do to help God's Mission on earth? How can I do more? What can I do more? To really evaluate, contemplate on that.

 

Unus:  Or even maybe contemplating or meditating on trying to realize what we are here for actually, our ultimate goal, our place in the Mission.

If you love the Mission, if you love these teachings and have respect for them and if we see how they bring light to our lives individually, and how it could bring light to the whole humanity through the Communities of Light, through following the Eternal Divine Path, and so what is our place in this?

And how can we be the best? How can we be a tool for God, so that God can come through and bring perfect fruits, results? I think that is a very good ideal to sacrifice for.

 

Noor:  I mean, the very act of baptizing is sacrificing the false ego, right? Crucifying it. That is internal. It is not just external sacrifice but internal sacrifice. Sacrifice your desires and attachments, take them to the cross and destroy them. And I love the quote by Maitreya, "Change yourself by knowing yourself." Change yourself by knowing yourself.

The goal is to become sacrifice. It is not to force sacrifice, it is to become sacrifice. It becomes, it becomes... it is just what you are. It is who you are. That is the goal.

Any other comments?

[Pause]

I mostly wanted to get people thinking about sacrifice in general. But to progress we have to apply that general guideline and understanding to each individual life. It is not enough just to understand the general concept. If it was, this struggle would be much easier. But the goal is to take that and meditate on, "What does it mean for you?"

There are some general things we can say about this time as a whole. As we have been saying many times, that the time is to come together and create the Communities. This world is falling apart. Without sacrificing for the Communities we may, and most likely will, not survive it. We must come together and create this, and that requires a lot of letting go of things on each of our parts. And that it is necessary for each individual to become responsible for the good of the Mission, etc.

So consider these things over the Feast. These might be the way that you understand further the Third Seal, using these next eight days, in a joyful manner, as a Feast. Change yourself by knowing yourself.

Any other comments on this? I hope that gives a good introduction on what we are here to do, at least for these next eight days - what might we consider looking at, and everyone understands where we are going.

I will leave the mic open for a little longer, and then we can move on to understanding the schedule.

 

Keyosha:  I wanted to add, in thinking about sacrifice, in talking to some of the people in the Mission and the Divine Sisters... You know, when someone lays dying - this was really coming to me strongly, as I was sharing with people - that when someone lays dying, what was it that they did in their lives that was really important?

Especially for women, because I am a woman - was it the beautiful clothes they wore? Because our society puts so much emphasis on that and we get caught up in it, you know, the beauty of our body and things like that. And just, you know, anything in general, like our job, our success, all those things, how important are they going to be when we lie dying?

What is it in our life that we will be able to remember that we did that helped God's Kingdom to come for humanity, that is helping everyone in the universe? That is what is going to count when we are there making that transition.

 

Noor:  [responding to something typed in text] Scotty made... Consider that you are on your deathbed and looking back on your life, and see what is important now, at that moment.

When I sit down to do my homework and I'm like, "Oh, this is too hard," or, "This is boring. I am going to go watch a movie." Right? And I do that my whole life. And then I am about to die and I sit back and I look at it and I say, "All those times that I was not strong enough to stand up and do what was right and actually accomplish something, was that worth it at this point, now that I have no more chance? I am about to die."

Or, if you had the courage to overcome those problems and you have made a difference, to look back at your life and be able to say, "Here is something that I can come to God with openly and be proud of. Maybe not perfect yet, but..."

That is why Maitreya says that you are forced to look at yourself clearly at the moment of death. There is no more time to put it off. Here it is. This is what you did. Are you proud of it or not? Did you do what was important, or not?

[answering something in text] Absolutely.

I will also address what Lejla says. And actually I would like to let everyone know that Lejla has become an official Mission, or a full-fledged Mission member and her new spiritual name is Sadhana. So, congratulations Sadhana.

She said that, "If we sacrifice in the wrong situations we might become burnt out and then not have the strength for the right kind of struggles." And there is in fact a quote from Maitreya that relates directly to that, which says that:

It is just like a good plant. When you have a good plant, the soil around the plant is good. So usually the weeds start growing around it also. The weeds start trying to obtain the nutrition from the soil where the plants are growing.

Sacrificing has to be done with a very discriminating mind, so that people will not sacrifice for the weeds but for the real plants. So we have to weed out those elements that use the resources of the community but really do not give any flower, they do not give any fruit. "You know them by their fruit." If they are not giving any fruit, what do you do? They are weeds, cut them off. You have no choice. You have to say, "OK, this is a weed, now I know." Then after awhile, you know all the weeds. When you see a weed you say, "Oh, that is a weed," right away.

That is why sacrificing is so important. Many communities have suffered because very few sacrifice to the utmost and many other "weeds" just eat their nutrition. Then they became thinner and thinner. Eventually they died because they did not have any nutrition themselves to continue. They just gave and gave and gave. When they no longer gave, those communities fell apart!

Everyone, even the highest person on earth, has a limit to his capacity to give. The physical body is very demanding on the energy. Therefore, you have to weed out those things that will weaken the community and only bring in those that give fruit. Then you might be able to help others to a point that they also will give fruit.

(From Thus Speaks Maitreya on Esa the Christ)

It is the time of sundering. So something you might meditate on is, "Am I a good plant or am I a weed? And if I am a weed, how can I become a good plant?"

Everyone has that potential, right? That is the difficult question. When all are good plants then all will be happy and create a great universe.

Oh and Lejla, Sadhana, is going to say something. Here we go.

 

Sadhana:  Sal-Om everyone... [sound too low]

 

Noor:  Are you going to try again, Sadhana?

[Could not hear her]

OK, well, we are going to have testimonials after I explain the schedule. So I think I am going to go ahead and explain the schedule and then maybe you can try again after that and hopefully get in with the testimonials. Maybe play with your microphone a little bit. We could hear you, we could tell you were talking, it was just very, very low. So if there is just a way to turn up your volume it should work fine.

OK, these are things to consider but... OK, does anyone have an answer for Scotty before we move on to the schedule? This can be the last thing that we consider. He says...

 

scottykfla: [Noor reading what he typed in text] But when the plant dies does it sorrow, worry because it had weeds or does it revel that it had friends and gave life? Or while it is living is it worrying about weeds all day instead of living or is it enjoying the shade the weeds give, maybe? While the plant itself is Divine, it knows it will provide nutrition to the earth when it passes.

 

Noor:  What is the answer?

 

Unus:  Well if you are not... my interpretation, my thought on that is that, if you are not living what you are called for, what your potential is, you don't need to wait until you die to have sorrow because you will be in sorrow even during your life, because you are not living the potential and your Soul, your Self, somewhere down deep inside you know that you could do more or you should do more. So that brings that unhappy or depressed or whatever you call that, that sorrow feeling.

And while living, that is why we usually have that worry because we are not living according to the Laws, the universe, the God, and all that. And then we struggle. Then all these things come up and we end up living from the lower self. We end up living with worries, with fears and all that sets up our lives.

So we don't really enjoy life as much as we can and we don't enjoy even things are perfect as they are but our interpretation, our way of being in it is not perfect. So we do not become One with God. We do not become One with the perfection around us and we do not see our purpose. And that brings all that worry, all that sorrow, all those depressed feelings.

So again, following the Eternal Divine Path, literally, every day, will take care of all this and we won't go into this kind of confusion or confused way, in my opinion, interpreting life.

 

Keyosha:  Also that makes me think of a Satsang where someone asked Maitreya about The Goal Of Life Is To Be(come) Divine. And there are two ways of looking at it. Either you can be becoming Divine, or already be Divine, in a sense.

And the thing is, becoming means that we are progressing, we are always taking steps toward our goal. And so then you can live in the moment and be satisfied if you are taking those steps and you are looking at yourself and you know you are making progress. And you may be sorrowful too because you know you have also made mistakes.

And then the other part is to be Divine, which I actually think Unus addressed right in the beginning, living to the point of living, being God, being your potential, absolutely 100% doing your dharma. And then everything is God when you look at it. As it says, Om Nam Kevalam, That Divinity (God) Is Everything. When you get to that point where you are actually being Divine.

 

Noor:  Maitreya's teaching is not meant to create worry. One thing he has said many times is, "Don't beat yourself up if you are not perfect." Start where you are at. Start where you are at. The goal is to understand the problem, not hate yourself because there is a problem.

But on the other hand, not worrying at all because you believe you are already perfect means you will never progress. As usual, there is a sweet spot.

I mean, in some ways you can even say that worry is kind of an excuse because what you do is... if you understand that there is a problem, there is a disparity between what you are and what you want to be, then the goal is to change yourself from being what you are to what you want to be. Whereas most people do not have the strength to change what they are, so they just worry about it. But it really does not help anything. You see?

So that is why deep meditation is so important because staying where you are and worrying about it is no better than anything. But using that worry to understand that there is a problem and then fixing that problem, that is spiritual progress. And that will stay with you forever.

So at the end of your life if you have had no spiritual progress, you cannot be satisfied. It is not possible. Whereas those who have done their dharma and have progressed and have died more perfect, with a more perfect world then they began with, they can be satisfied.

So again, there is a middle path. Not to beat yourself up but at the same time it is not to pretend like things are perfect when they are not.

OK, so I don't want to spend too much time, or I don't want to make it so there is no time for testimonials, so let's move onto the schedule.

Again, this is the Feast. We can enjoy it and let's have a great time. It is supposed to be Joyful. And so, welcome everyone.

Let's look at the schedule. So, as mentioned with Maitreya's article, we are going to have more people be celebrating the Feast as they can in their individual areas. We have set up somewhat of a schedule. It is in many ways the same as it has been in previous years but some things have been automated or made individual. So here is the link. And I am just going to go through it real quickly to make sure that everyone understands some of the details about things that have changed.

The first thing I want to say is that this schedule is in Mountain Daylight Time, and if you are not in that time zone, you are going to need to transfer it to your time zone. And one of the easiest ways to do that is, on our website we have a page that actually does it for you. I am going to link it.

If you click on that page it will show you what the Mountain Standard or Mission time is and what your local time is. And you can use that to compare and see what the difference is and then add or subtract the number of hours from the schedule so that you can make it clear when these will be happening. OK?

So if everyone goes to the first page of the schedule, the Welcome, this has already happened so that should be clear. So let's move onto the First Day.

Each day follows the same schedule essentially with just a difference in the events, the two events of the day. So we start in the morning with a service: Kirtan, Reminder, Samgacchadvam, Collective Meditation, Divine Path.

After that we have a morning reading related to the Third Seal, so we have chosen Holiest Three, which is the section about the Third Seal, and after Holiest Three is finished we can move on to Commentaries on St. Matthew for the rest of the Feast for each individual reader which is assigned in the mornings. Generally the same as it is during the week, but there are one or two differences, there are one or two additions for days that we do not usually read, such as Thursdays. Anyway, you can see where you are listed.

After that there is an hour dedicated to individual innercise practices. This includes things like yoga, Tai Chi, anything that works with the chakras and the flow of energy, martial arts and things like that.

Then there is breakfast and the first of the events. You can see on Monday... usually on the first day of the Feast we have a recording playing or a reading of the Lecture by Maitreya on that Feast Seal, so the Third Seal. In this case we are going to make it more individual again so rather than reading it or hearing a recording, the transcript is linked and we ask each of you to read it individually, read the first half and then spend that time to contemplate on it and meditate on it and understand it.

And then the evening Event is the same thing with the second half. So again similar but more individual.

And then of course, we have The Reminder at the mid-day. And then in the evening at 4:00, rather than the evening reading of reader's choice that we used to have, we are just going to be listening to the recordings on Paltalk which will be playing at that time. So again something more individual and automated.

Then we have an hour or so for Pilates or similar practice, a combination of exercise and innercise, to get some exercise but at the same time make it spiritual.

And then we have an evening service, dinner, and then from 7:30 to 9:00 each night we have the same freeform readings that we have been having in the previous Feasts when anyone can come and read. So if you are interested in reading then please join us then because it will be a lot of fun.

And this schedule idea stays the same for each day. We also celebrate one Seal for each day during the Feast in such a way that Saturday always falls, the Seventh Seal always falls on Saturday. And it is just, the larger Feast considers the Third Seal, each individual day focuses on each individual Seal.

So the rest of the days the schedule is pretty much the same so I am just going to go over the events. If you go to Day Two, the morning event is Maitreya's first session. As explained in the Newsbrief announcement and in His article, there is going to be a little difference in the way these sessions work this year. We will not be accepting any questions for Maitreya from the room directly. Any questions for Maitreya must be sent in via email to us at least a day before the session, and they must be a new unique question that has never been asked before and cannot be found on the website.

If your question is accepted to be answered, we will let you know and then Maitreya will come in at that time and answer the questions and any follow-ups that those who asked questions might have. And once that is finished He will leave the room and at that point the room will take on a different dimension, similar to what we did here at the Welcome actually, where we will be asking questions that we have and helping each other answer them. So again a little difference there.

If you have any questions for Maitreya, first make sure that they are not on the website already answered. And if they are not, send them to us at least a day before because no questions are going to be accepted from the room. And if no questions are sent, Maitreya will not come in at all. It will only be that session of helping each other. I hope that is understood.

In the evening of that day we are going to provide a link for the teaching session that we created last year, which includes information on the proper methods of spiritual practices, such as a few asanas, and then specifically the Mission: The Reminder, the Kirtan dance, tandava and tandavi, and there may have been a few other things but I think that was mostly it. This is not yet prepared yet but there will be a link in this part of the calendar on Day Two under 2:00 PM where you can go to it and watch that. And the rest of the day is the same.

On the third day, the morning event, on Day Three, will be Unus's lecture on Universe and Man. And it is going to be great. He showed us some of it. He has really put a lot of time and effort into it. So I hope you all will join him.

By the way, all of these events will be on Paltalk this year. We have discontinued our use of GoToMeeting. So all events will be on Paltalk, in this room.

Then in the evening of that day, at 2:00 PM, we have scheduled a Rosary session, which means either individually or in your community perform the Mission Rosary. And there is a link there.

Then on Day Four there is the second part of Unus's lecture in the morning. Universe and Man is a huge book. He has had trouble fitting it into two parts. But this way he will be able to get across what he wanted to get across. So those are the two lectures. The PowerPoint slides for his presentation will be linked here very soon. And at that point you will be able to access them during the lecture.

Keyosha, you can download something called the PowerPoint Viewer. It is free. Google it. And it is provided by Microsoft, not to create PowerPoints but to be able to view them for anyone. Similar to the PDF viewer that Adobe offers for free. So Google PowerPoint Viewer and install it on your computer and then you will be able to see it.

That goes for everyone, please type in text if you have any questions about this. I am just going through it briefly because most of it is the same each day. But if you have any questions let me know.

Then in the evening of that day, of Day Four, on a Wednesday, we provided an open space for choice of spiritual practice. So whatever you enjoy doing, please go ahead and do it at the time.

Finally, well not finally, but on the Fifth Day, Thursday, in the morning we have our usual community service time, which we do every year. Here, locally at the Mission, we will be cleaning up our local neighborhood. But the idea being to find a selfless service from knowledge, a sacrifice if you will, that you can do in your area and ideate it to God that you are improving His Universe. If you can do it with the community that is always better.

And in the evening that day will be the second session with Maitreya with the same rules as the first session. The questions must be sent in at least a day in advance, and earlier if possible, that would be great.

Finally on Friday, the Sixth Day, we have the daily Vision Quest. It is an all-day thing. Usually here we go to the mountains nearby and try to have a Vision Quest. There is a link there in that schedule explaining more about a Vision Quest through a Satsang by Maitreya. So find something in your area that you can do similar to that.

And then at night, of that night, instead of doing the freeform readings at 7:30 PM, we will be holding another, just like last year, spiritual story/jokes/poems night. Unus will be moderating. So just like last year, bring stories and jokes and poems to share, spiritual stories and jokes and poems. It's dependent on you guys to make this a good thing. If there is not enough brought then we will just have the reading session. But if we do have a lot of great input then we can have people reading something and then discussing it, contemplating on it, and then someone else reading something else. It can be anything, jokes, stories, poems, anything spiritually related that teach great lessons. So that will be a fun time.

Day Seven is the Sabbath. On the evening of the Sabbath we usually have a movie night, and we have this time recommended a movie that Maitreya wrote a snippet about at some point, a couple of months ago I believe, within the last few months. It is called, "The Hidden Story of Jesus," and it describes a lot of similarities between the story of Christ and many other stories in other religions throughout the world, and many other interesting facts about Christ that are not the same as what Christians believe but provide a lot of truth. So it is a great movie.

We have provided a link there for where we found it on YouTube but it keeps getting taken down. So if the link ends up not working, just search for "The Hidden Story of Jesus" on YouTube or a similar site and you should be able to find it. It seems to be a documentary style. It is very good.

Finally on the Eighth Day, of course, is the Holy Convocation. It is supposed to be rounding throughout the day or a constant chanting, but we will have a morning session of rounding and an evening session of rounding and then just have the Kirtan playing throughout the day for any of those who would like to participate in that.

And we are going to have... we are believing, we are not positive, but we believe we are going to have a special treat for the morning and the evening services in that we might be using an audio of Maitreya himself leading the Kirtan, as a special time, since this is a once in a year opportunity, kind of thing. So it is a really, really beautiful Kirtan. And I hope we can get that worked out.

And that is the schedule. As you can see it is similar to previous years but more automated and more individual in general.

And as we always say, the schedule is made to be intense. And as we always say, the practices are for you, you are not for the practices. The Sabbath is for man, man is not for the Sabbath. So do it to the extent that you can. Don't kill yourself, please. And do it in the way that you enjoy it and have a great Feast. It is a lot of suggestions that we think will facilitate your Feast experience but they are not requirements. And adapt them to your individual needs. OK?

Any questions about that?

[Silence]

So we hope you enjoy the Feast. We hope this was useful and that... yeah! We're at the Feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, thanks God! And that is great.

So now comes the testimonials, as always.

And not to put you on the spot Sadhana, but if you would like to try your mic again then maybe you can say what you wanted to say. Go ahead.

 

Sadhana:  [no sound]

 

Noor:  That is too bad. I was looking forward to... But yes, at the very beginning there we could hear you. It was still low but you were legible. But after that it seemed to get lower again. I am not sure why. You could try double-checking the connections into your computer, making sure that it is working. But, I mean, I know that your mic worked fine on Skype when you were talking with Sarah-Ji. So I am not sure why.

I hope you can get it worked out because we would love to hear your testimonial. It will be the first new testimonial we have had in, like, ten years [laughing]. That is not true. I am exaggerating. But still it would be nice.

OK well, if you need any help in trying to troubleshoot that, Sadhana, send me a private message and I can try to help.

But does anyone else want to give a testimonial to set this off? A testimonial is just anything you would like to say about the Mission, or explaining how you found it, or whatever you would like to say, really. Go ahead.

 

Testimonials:

Unus:  Sal-Om. Sal-Om everyone again. Let me start off then. Thanks God for the good sound.

As probably many of you know, I found the Mission when I was looking for my purpose in this life, when I was stuck with life. I did not know what to do. I had many options, seemingly, in front of me but nothing fed me, fed my Soul. So I was begging for an answer, asking God, "What is my purpose? What is the purpose of life, actually?"

And the way I came to the Mission was a little bit of mystical for me because through focusing on this question and kind of like falling into some sort of meditative mood on this, I just realized I did not really look, search for it truly. And it made me go to the Internet and look for "Maitreya," in fact; I knew about Maitreya by then. And that brought me to the website.

When I came to the website, oh, it was all Light, it hit me reading about it. And I couldn't realize, couldn't in fact grasp that it, the Mission, was here all these years, till twenty, twenty-some years at that point. And I was in very big joy and couldn't stop reading for like twelve hours a day.

And then I contacted the Mission. And thanks God I found all the answers and became a contact and starting to translate the teachings then. Again I spend most of my awake time doing the translations. And it was a great way to learn the teachings and realize it.

But as we just talked about it, it is not... reading and understanding it at some level is very different than becoming them and becoming and following the Eternal Divine Path. It is a great Joy. It is a Revelation every day. But it is not also a walk in the park. Sacrificing, sacrificing the false ego, actualizing it, learning to become not the doer, surrendering and eventual submitting, it can be a really struggling thing.

But at the same time, as we talked earlier, like many of us, or sometimes I find myself looking for excuses, looking for the weeds, or realizing that the weeds I have or things around me and saying, "Oh, in fact this is OK, maybe it helps this purpose or not," but actually it's the weakness sometimes because we fall into "I" again. But with sacrifice, sacrificing the lower self, as Noor said, knowing yourself, to overcome them, I think...

In fact, just in having this in front of you as the way to salvation is a great relief. I cannot imagine how my life will be if I did not have the Mission or the Eternal Divine Path and everything Maitreya revealed to us. I think I would have gone mad or something.

So thanks God once again. Thanks God all of you for being here. And thanks God for Maitreya and the Mission. And Sal-Om to you all.

 

Keyosha:  I think the one thing that... I don't know if this is actually a testimonial of how I found the Mission, but it's to me the greatest realization about the Mission, is: I just can never get over the fact that this Mission is for everyone and everything, every unit consciousness, anything out there in the universe. Nothing is left out.

And along the lines of thinking about that, you know sometimes we do worry that maybe we are not good enough people, and that, maybe the worry isn't important, but the idea of looking at ourselves is important. But I often think, well, why would God even want to bother with me? And I know there's got to be lot of other people out there that think that kind of thing. You just think you are totally not good enough.

And yet God is Merciful. He Loves all of us. And that is why He did this Mission and this Eternal Divine Path because He sees that there is not a single speck or smallest particle in this universe that doesn't deserve to reach the highest, the purest state of being. That nothing will be left out. And I just, it is just unfathomable, so incredible to me and I just love the Mission for that.

And the fact of knowing that God has been merciful to me, makes me want to be more merciful to others in my life that I meet. And looking at myself, "Am I being merciful?" Not excusing things and saying, "Oh, that is OK," but, in other words, merciful in the sense that understanding that the struggle sometimes isn't that easy. And as God has given me Mercy, may I share that with others and...

Just thanks God so much for this Mission.

 

Noor:  Yes, thanks God for sure.

I am really sorry that you cannot get your mic working, Sadhana. I have to admit I was looking forward to hearing a new testimonial, I really was. But that is fine. That is all good.

She says, "Sal-Om. I wanted to say Sal-Om to all brothers and sisters and to say, yes, Sadhana is my new name and my new birthday is today. I am very excited about that. As always, thanks to God."

And we are also excited for you, for sure. Welcome, that's beautiful. Maybe at the very end you could try it one more time. Just, I don't know, it would be so nice to hear a new one. But ah, OK.

 

Ananda Ma:  I guess we just go?

I wanted to thank both Unus and Keyosha for what they said. Unus talked about how he doesn't know where he would be if he hadn't found the Mission. And that just strikes me right there because where would any of us be without this Mission? And Keyosha mentioned how, the Mission feeds everyone. There is no separation. Everyone is welcome, everyone.

And then Sadhana with that beautiful message to all the brothers and sisters. It's her spiritual birthday today. She's got her new name. That is so beautiful.

I came looking for Maitreya. I was on a spiritual journey and I didn't feel like I was home yet. I hadn't found someplace that Keyosha was talking about that accepted everyone. Not, to your face and then when you turned your back they would talk about you. Or, tell their members how, "Only this small group was destined for Heaven." I could not understand a God who was that small.

So I was looking for Maitreya. And thank God that God Blessed me, and each of us, to find this Mission. And this Mission does accept and work with everyone, no matter where we are. And that just makes my heart feel very good.

And so, just thanks to everyone. Thanks to God, most especially for His Grace, for letting each of us be here. Sal-Om.

 

Tahirah:  Sal-Om. I would just like to say that, Amen, first of all, for what Ma has given us, and Keyosha and Unus, of their testimonies.

I really have nothing planning to say but I am just feeling that, from listening to each of you, brings to me some thoughts in my mind that, I think that before we were born we already have this in our Soul. And not that, we may not be aware of it as a child or going through life, until we reach that certain time. But I think once we have found this Mission, once we have found Maitreya and these teachings, that fulfilled that part of us, that there was a little part in us that maybe we were not aware of that needed to be opened up and filled with the Grace of this Message.

So I am just very, very thankful that God sent Maitreya to this world and that we happen to be here at this time, and perhaps other times too, when God sends His Messengers to humanity.

Even when I was looking for Maitreya and found Him in Toronto in, what, 1982 I believe, I still at that time did not even know what I had discovered. I knew that it was something that I wanted to be a part of and it felt very right to me and so I did begin this Path with the teaching and THOTH.

But I did not really capture all of it right away, it took a while, because I was thinking, even, THOTH was such a big book. It was like, WOW, overwhelming to me to think I could sit down and read it all. So I would read it in little pieces at a time. I think at one of the Feasts when we started reading the THOTH together, that helped me personally to have a greater understanding of THOTH, the teachings, and some of the questions that have come up over the years, and everything just seemed to flow.

So I am just very thankful for God giving us this teaching and for sharing with the Mission to have all these things that we can be a part of, even though we are not living, some of us that are not living at the Mission at this time, or in that community, that we can at least be a part of through our Internet connection. And as Keyosha said, coming to the readings in the mornings, the services in the mornings and evenings and as much as we can instill within us these teachings in every way. So that goes along with our sacrificing and doing what we each can do individually and as a group to help share these teachings in a greater degree.

So maybe I am sounding very serious but I am very, very joyful, very joyful.

And my cat Veronica here, she loves the Mission. She is always here when I am at the computer in the Mission. She is sitting right in front of the screen and she is just a part of this Mission. So she is right here and loving every minute.

Anyway, thank you so much. Thanks God, thanks God for this opportunity. And I will release the mic now. Sal-Om. Thanks God for this Feast, this beautiful Feast. Thanks God!

 

Sarah-Ji:  Well, it has been twenty-four years that I've talked about my experience, so I wasn't going to say it again. But golly, it was really true!

My life was a mess. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know where I was going. I was in this ashram, and it was supposed to be an ashram where we did a lot of meditation. And the teacher was talking about meditating and "forget your mind," and it did not sound right to me.

And I prayed so earnestly. I prayed and prayed, "God, what do you want me to do? I gave up everything to be in this ashram. I don't think it is right. God, what do you want me to do, God, God?"

And this person walked in, in the center. And we were meditating, and honest, there was a huge tunnel of light between us. And I would go upstairs and I would meditate and he would be in my third eye. And it was Maitreya, and I was like, "What is this? I am this intellectual person, what is happening? What is this?"

And it really happened. It really happened. It was just amazing.

And then one day Maitreya drove me to a park and He got out The Greatest Sign and He said, "This is my Mission and I need someone to help me." And I had no... He explained The Greatest Sign to me and I had no idea what He was talking about but I knew it was my answer to the prayers that I was having. And He said, "I need someone to help me," and I said, "Do I have any choice?" and He said, "No." And that was it. That is my story. And I am sticking to it because it is true.

So I would say, Maitreya-Ji, and it is not just for this lifetime, I have no choice for every other lifetime: I will help you. I will be there. I will do whatever you want. And I will be part of what you are doing because what you are doing is Great.

And we need guidance in this world, we need a code to live on, a correct code. There are too many voices out there. We need the real Voice that tells us how to live. And that is what you are. And I am committed to you forever.

Sal-Om!

 

Noor:  That's a good segue, because I was going to talk about too many voices. I will briefly go through... there are actually some people that have not heard these stories before.

So I was born into a Mission family, but was not really interested in high school and fought a lot and wanted to do my own thing. I got really into philosophy, and debate, and computer games, and, you know, I was a kid and I did not really care about God or anything like that, and went that way.

Of course they let me go. That is kind of what you have to do. I went to college... And Legos, yes, for sure. And Eggo waffles... not true.

Anyway [laughing], I... actually, Tahirah, so you know, that Lego set you gave me, I gave it away to a child of a farmer here. So your gift was passed on to a good cause.

But in any case, I was really into philosophy, and the multitude of voices was precisely what confused me so much. Because everyone had an opinion and I could see, with the proper assumptions accepted, from a purely intellectual perspective, that any of them could be true or false. It completely destroyed my ability to understand right from wrong, or anything.

This is not something I believe that happens to only me. I think it happens to almost everyone in American society at this point that goes through the school system because their focus is on presenting a multitude of opinions, and everyone has a right to their own belief, and "here is what this guy thinks, and here is what this guy thinks," but never ever saying which one is right and wrong, they are not allowed to do that, it is not politically correct. So therefore you end with an idea that, "Well, anything is OK, whatever."

So that is exactly what happened to me. And as I've said before, my senior project in my senior year of high school was presenting and defending the argument that we can never know anything at all, whatever, whatsoever, period. It was impossible. So, I mean, where do you go from there? I was done with philosophy. I had beat it to death and there was nothing further to go. It didn't make sense. I could not... there was nowhere else to go. My brain had reached its limit of intellect.

So after that I tried, just, you know, enjoying myself for a while, and played a lot of computer games, wasted a lot of time in college, this and that.

Three years in, I had no other choice but to take another look at the teachings because at the least I could say that everything my father had told me was a good idea for me at the time, even if I didn't do it, and that He had great wisdom. He had an authority I did not understand. He seemed to know what right and wrong, or at least have the authority to state it, and I didn't. And neither did anyone else. And what they were saying definitely didn't make as much sense. Their lives were in much worse trouble than my family. So I had to take another look.

And after six months of taking another look I finally got it. And it was incredible. So that was that.

Three years later... And the interesting thing that I was getting to is that, after three years of learning the teachings, internalizing them, pretty much spending my whole waking existence inundated with them and working for the Mission, now I am back in school. And it is the same idea, it is the same stuff, but my perspective is completely different.

And it is fascinating because... what are they even talking about [laughing]? Like, I am reading a book called Organizational Behavior, and they are like, "Here are a bunch of models as to what we think motivation is." And there are like seven of them. And then at the end they are like, "Here is where you put them all together." And it is a whole page of just, like, boxes. "This leads to this but it might also lead to this. It goes both ways, this one..." What is even the point of that? I mean, are you kidding me? You try to fit human behavior into a model in a page? It is just bankrupt. It is just unbelievable.

And they all, they present these different theories like these people have authority. "This guy, he wrote a bunch of books and he does a lot of statistical modeling, so therefore let's take a look at his theory." Right?

But Esa was around for three years; he has 2 billion followers. But they don't put that in the book. Why not? He has a lot of theories on motivation, doesn't he?
But, no, it is not acceptable. "We do not want to listen to... we do not want to even consider that." That is not education. It is selective. So it is ridiculous.

And they've got "Critical Race Theory." What does that even mean, critical race theory? Everyone is part of God. End of theory [laughing].

So it is just like... it is amazing to see it from such a different perspective. And with every single thing, to have a guideline by which I can say, "Is this included in the Mission or not? Does this fall somewhere within the teachings, just misguided or with some wrong parts in it? Or is it completely out there?" A lot of these organizational behavior ideas make sense, but when they try to fit them in this stupid model, its stupid.

It is amazing in any case. It is amazing to be able to be within that same system but so absolutely different, and with an authority and understanding that no one else really grasps because they just do not have that base.

And for the Christian groups to be hollering out at me when I walk by, "Come, come talk about Christ." And oh man are they sad after that, that they come talk to me. They hand me the little sign-up sheet, "What do you think Christ was? Was he God, or a Prophet, or the Son of God, or just a guy?" And I check all four of them and they just look at me like, "What the heck?" [laughing].

And I can see a Muslim walk by in her chador, in her burka, and that is beautiful. It is amazing.

At the same time I am learning about, you know, statistics and max. And I can argue evolution and at the same time I can argue Prophethood. I can argue with a Native American about where their teachings fit in. And I have no fear in any of this. You know, it is just incredible.

So it is really a lot of fun to be back in school with a base actually, this time, not confused. So there is clarity. There is an amazing clarity. These people just have no idea what they are talking about.

So, thanks God!

 

We've got about five minutes left in our allotted time... I am glad you enjoyed that, Sadhana. I expect that anyone who has been in a university understands that there is this little world, kind of, where everything is based on how many papers you've written, and the politics of professorship, and stuff like that.

And again, I am not saying that everything they have is wrong. Like statistics, there's an amazing amount of truth in there, but it is so rigid, it is so intellectual, and it is completely... it is not completely, but it is so disconnected from actual life. It is like a little world of its own, with big words, dark sentences. With some truth but it doesn't understand where it falls or how it fits into the rest of the universe.

Only the Mission fits into everything. So it is amazing in any case.

So as I was saying, we have about five minutes left. So if anyone has any last thoughts, please go ahead.

[Silence]

OK, then I think our Welcome is over. So have a good Feast everyone. Let us know if you have any questions.

Remember that celebrating the Feast is your responsibility. What we have provided is only to facilitate. And we hope you enjoy the week.

Again, let us know... Oh, and I wanted to let you guys know that while, unlike previous Feasts, since I am in school, I will not be here most of the time for the day-to-day activities. So if something needs to be understood, or changed, or fixed during the day, during the normal day-to-day activities for the Feast, email Unus and Ananda Ma because they will be the ones handling most of the day-to-day activities.

Again, there is not much. It should be mostly automated. I don't anticipate any problems. But if anything needs to be said, you can include me as well, but also make sure to include Unus and Ananda Ma because they are the ones who are going to be introducing Maitreya, handling the readings in the evenings, and the other daily activities while I am not able to be there. So, just letting you guys know.

So enjoy the Feast. And thanks God to everyone. Thanks God. Have a Joyful time. Sal-Om everyone!

 

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