Read my whole newly translated page.

This unattributed article went by without any discussion, and it's the only thing that I have ever seen on this critical subject. I am sure that it is accurate, and it should be read by anyone who wants to understand modern-era China. The following is the end of the article:

中国佛教协会于1953年成立之前，赵朴初等人将章程草案拟定之后，曾送呈毛泽东审阅，毛泽东在审阅时，在协会的宗旨中增加了 “发扬佛教优良传统”八个字。这八个字，不仅表明了毛泽东对中国佛教协会成立的大力支持，而且反映了毛泽东对佛教在中国文化史上地位的充分肯定。

Before the China Buddhism Association was established in 1953, but after the initial proposal had been drafted, it had been conveyed to Mao Zedong for examination, and upon examination, Mao had added these words to the purpose of the Association: “To promote the fine Buddhist tradition.” These words do not merely indicate Mao Zedong’s vigorous support for the establishment of the Chinese Buddhism Association, but it reflects Mao’s total affirmation of Buddhism’s position in Chinese history. ((The Chinese Buddhist Association, which has been fought tooth and nail by the Dalai Lama since its inception, was founded by the Venerable Xu Yun, and currently Xuecheng Fashi aka Xuecheng Da Heshang (see the “Page” list on the right sidebar) plays a leading role in it.

然而，到了晚年，毛泽东对佛教的态度发生了转变，特别是发动了“文化大革命”运动，对佛教以及其他宗教，都造成了不可估量的冲击。很让人遗憾！
这也许就是他一生与佛教渊源中的一大败笔吧！
即使如此，我依然以为毛泽东就是中国人民心中永远的佛菩萨！

However in his later years, Mao Zedong’s attitude towards Buddhism underwent transformations, particularly in that in having launched the “Great Cultural Revolution” movement, he brought about immeasurable attacks on Buddhism and other religions. It was very regrettable! Perhaps this was the only flaw in his lifelong relationship with Buddhism! Even so, I nonetheless consider Mao Zedong to be only the eternal Buddha and Bodhisattva in the hearts of the Chinese people! ((Absolutely. I could not have written it better myself. – vshr))

（部分内容来自于毛泽东与斯诺的谈话记录）
(Part of these contents are from the records of Mao Zedong’s talks with Edgar Snowe.)

One of the things that this article shows, in rigorous detail, is that Mao Zedong, like myself, had pre-existing connections with the cult of Guanyin Pusa. One of the fundamental doctrines of that Dharma gate is that the Bodhisattva can appear in any form at all. Yes, beloveds, s/he can equally appear as the Chairman of the CCP and a follower of Meher Baba. Therefore, all of you who have pre-existing connections with me, I beg you with folded hands on my knees: do not, do not, do not tie the Buddha’s hands, and DO NOT FLOUT the purpose of my birth by sticking on external conditions. There’s just no payoff for that anywhere. None!

Towards the end of Sufism Reoriented’s blitzkreig to Meherabad last month, its leader Carol O’Connor gave a talk to explain the meaning of Sufism. I did not attend that because I considered her unqualified to talk on that subject, and I knew that the more of her distortions I listened to, the angrier I would get, so I deemed it better to ignore the event completely. But nevertheless, everyone in Meherabad, it seems, loves to talk and I couldn’t avoid second-hand regurgitations of her subjective phantasies about what she imagines Sufism to be.

Perhaps the most clean-cut of said phantasies was the notion that the Sufis have a collective path, while the people in the Meher Baba community each have their own individual path to God. The first thing that struck me about this notion is that it is the opposite of what my then Preceptor (Shaik) Lud Dimpfl said about this same difference, when Carol and her then-boyfriend Dr. James MacKie were systematically creating and defending said difference. Lud’s opinion was that it was the Meher Baba Community that was guilty of creating a collective religion, while it was Sufism Reoriented which was the proponent of a person’s right to an individual path to God.

Since we’re going to have a group reading in lower Meherabad of God Speaks, Meher Baba’s metaphysical masterpiece, that Lud was very familiar with because he worked on its charts under Baba’s direction, I got a fresh copy of it, and check what I found, written by Meher Baba no less, in the beginning of the Supplement (p. 193):

There is no general rule or method that is applicable to all who aspire to realize God. Every man must work out his own salvation, and must choose his own method, although his choice is mostly determined by the total effect of the mind impressions (sanskaras) acquired in previous lives. He should be guided by the creed of his conscience, and follow the method that best suits his spiritual tendency, his physical aptitude and his external circumstances. Truth is One, but the approach to it is essentially individual. The Sufis say, “There are as many ways to God as there are souls of men (At-turuqu ilallahi kanufusi bani adam).

Jamal-i fitrat ke lakh partao
Qubul partao ki lakh shakhin
Tariq-i ‘irfan main kiya bataun
Yah rah kiski wah rah kiski? –Akbar

“Nature’s beauty has thousands of facets for which there are thousands of ways and means of acceptance (understanding), in the Path of Gnosis, who can determine which particular mode or mood is earmarked for a given individual?”

Both of these members of Sufism Reoriented (Carol and Lud) were wrong because both of them were attempting to create a difference between two spiritual paths on the basis of a structural priniciple which all spiritual paths have in common. There are no collective paths to God. None. The paths to God are individual because the only entity that can attain God-Realization is an individual.

Just for the record, Carol’s real spiritual status now is the same as Lud’s was then; for functional purposes she is a classical Sufi Shaik. Such disagreements between Shaiks should not be noticed by us because they are both meaningless and thoroughly beneath us.

Bhau Kalchuri has said that Carol (O’Conner of Sufism Reoriented) is on the planes, but can’t help people, and that’s why she brought them to Meherabad. This is to say that she is NOT a qualified Sufi Murshida, and I agree with it. She is sincere and she has good intentions. She is also a charismatic personality, and many people love her. But like all those in the subtle sphere, she is unstable, and is quite capable of falling off the Path completely. This liability has not yet appeared in her case because she has not yet passed through a major challenge. Her Sanctuary project will prove to be such a test, in my never demeaned enough opinion.

Dynamically, Carol did a great thing by bringing several hundred members of her personality cult to Meherabad. This definitely lightened her burden that has resulted from her taking on a spiritual role for which she simply is not qualified. If she continues this, and her positive attitude towards Bhau Kalchuri and the followers of Meher Baba in general, I think it is possible that she could pass through the stage of non-retrogression and actually become a bona fide Murshida. But that transition is the most demanding stage of the Path apart from the final passage over the gulf between the 6th and 7th planes, and very very few actually accomplish it.

The entry into the mental sphere, which is the difference between a spiritual light-weight like what Carol is at the moment on the one hand, and a fully qualified Murshid on the other, is life-threatening, sanity-threatening, and traumatic for everyone involved, unless the person has fallen under the hand of a compassionate Master who takes her veiled. And even in that case, all of the visible greatness associated with the subtle world – and with the kind of energy manipulation that is Carol’s whole life at the moment – lyses off. The personality trades power for certainty, and all of the stupid cultic drama simply fades away. One of the usual results of this is that most of the disciples also fade. If she actually accomplishes this, which will literally be her whole life if she makes that decision, the membership of Sufism Reoriented will be right back to where it was before she and her one-time boyfriend, that damnable hypnotist clown named Dr. James MacKay, started their idiot psychic games, in defiance of Meher Baba’s wishes for Sufism Reoriented, namely and to wit, 200 members. Count on it.

And if she doesn’t go that way? Perhaps her 500-member personality cult will find somewhere to build that spaceship she needs so badly, for the perpetration of the next stage of her energy manipulations.

This is a case of “East Asians always find some way to get to me.” They don’t post comments because their whole society is so full of doctrine cops, at every level, and some of them are truly dangerous. But then they post these questions to the search queue, that they know damned well that I haven’t discussed yet, in the hope that I will do that.

OK, already! Jeez! Thousand-handed (& Thousand-eyed) Kuan Yin (千手观音) is one of the many forms of Guanyin Pusa (观音菩萨), or more accurately, it is a composite of her many forms. “Thousand” (千) just means innumerable. Kuan Yin represents the divine attribute of Compassion, and compassion has innumerable forms because the suffering to which she responds is of innumerable kinds. So Guanyin Pusa hears all the cries of the world’s suffering, and she emanates a unique transformation body for each kind of suffering, and this is what is represented in the beautiful iconographic forms of 1,000-handed 1,000-eyed Guanyin that pervade the entire Chinese cultuiral sphere of influence.

Therefore, when we venerate Guanyin, we cannot despise any form. Any given dog, cat, beggar, government official, student, teacher, monk, merchant and so forth can be Guanyin’s transformation body with which she is responding to our cries.

Well asked, unknown friend, well asked indeed. It is well, O daughter of good family, that you have asked this today, for the benefit of all sentient beings.

BTW, Meher Baba is the compassionate Buddha Maitreya, of whom Guanyin Pusa is the present emanation. “Meher” is the Persion root for compassion.

Today is a Hindu festival day, Mahasankranta Day, which is celebrated as the first day of the new year which is (detectably without instruments) longer than its’ night. It is a dedicated time for new beginnings. For me it is roughly the 120th day that I have followed Meher Baba’s instructions at Manzil-e-Meem, about taking a cold shower before dawn, and saying the name of God of my choice from 0500 to 0600, and I believe it’s critical mass on my left-over sexual kleshas, so I can say openly and forthrightly with Vivekananda, “No more women! Who needs them?” It is this kind of straightforwardness, on this particular issue, which I choose to start from Mahasankranta this year. This is my sacred Dharma carried forward from lives of previous Attainment, and I’ve earned it anew in this body. No more stupid distractions by family life, or the possibilities thereof. I just don’t need them.

… They know not truth who dream such vacant dreams
As father, mother, children, wife and friend.
The sexless Self! whose father He? whose child?
Whose friend, whose foe is He who is but One?
The Self is all in all, none else exists;
And thou art That, Sannyasin bold! Say –
‘Om tat sat, Om!’…

Read Vivekananda’s whole beautiful renunciate classic here: The Song of the Sannyasin. Vivekanada was a working 6th-plane pir, and Meher Baba gave him God-Realization at the time of his death.

I would put Vivekananda’s meaning like this: Who craves a woman other than Adi Shakti, and who percieves Her very being to be something other than one’s cold shower in the Brahma Muhurta, and who wakes to a single day on earth without being so blessed by Her, knows not Truth.

The last of them is reputed to have left today, according to my innumerable spies and collaborators. I successfully avoided them for the month they were here. They were truly scary; they ran in herds, and they abberrated everything they participated in, just by their sheer numbers. At the height of the inundation, there were reputed to have been 150 of them here. From beginning to end, their numbers were dominated by people young enough to be my grandchildren. My cohort, the group that founded that Order, and which most definitely belonged to Meher Baba, was conspicious by its’ almost complete absence. The one person that I recognized and interacted with had been in the Berkeley Baba group when I had been a Reoriented Sufi in the ’60′s and ’70′s

I’m tempted to write of Lemmings Reoriented, but we wont’t go there, OK? That would be cruel.

Meanwhile, back in Reoriented Sufiburg, aka Walnut Creek CA, the spaceship soap opera has gone on. There is a County Board of Supervisors meeting planned for late February. This was projected for January, and this delay cannot be an harbinger of joy and glad tidings for the (increasingly attempted) shakers and movers at S. Reoriented. The Board of Sups is just dragging its’ feet on this, which benefits the comparatively ad hoc opposition.

This Patch.com article on this subject is notable for the extent of the discussion, and the really scary failure, by both sides, to descend from third-order verbal abstractions when discussing a piece of real estate.

A Pilgrim Disaster at Bodh Gaya
TwoCircles.net
By Imran Khan, IANS,
8 Jan 11

Bodh Gaya (Bihar) : Heaps of garbage, stinking toilets, squelchy muddy pools, harassment by beggars and severe power cuts are not exactly things one associates with a spiritual enlightenment trip. But this is exactly what tourists from around the world are facing at this Buddhist holy town.The thousands of Buddhist devotees who have flocked to Bodh Gaya, the birthplace of Buddhism, for the 10-day Kalchakra Puja are left disappointed.

The Jan 1-10 festival is being led by Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama. Well-known personalities like Hollywood star Richard Gere, Prime Minister of Tibetan government-in-exile Lobsang Sangay, and top official representatives of Buddhist countries are also attending the festival.

A large number of the over 200,000 Buddhist devotees belong to Tibet and India, but sizeable numbers have also come from 63 different countries of Europe, the US and neighbouring nation.

The devotees are complaining of mud near the 4,000 tents, inadequate number of toilets, garbage around Kalchakra maidan, lack of facilities like drinking water and power supply, exorbitant rates charged by hotels and autos and cheating by local businessmen.

“It is difficult to move around and take clean breath due to the stinking mud and water logging near our tents and place of religious discourses by the Dalai Lama. The Bihar government has failed to provide simple arrangements for this large gathering,” Tenzing Phunso, a Tibetan devotee from Dharamsala, told IANS.

He said that most Tibetans from India expected good facilities but it appears the “state government ignored sanitation, water supply and electricity”.

“Not to talk about lodging and transportation. For me, Bodh Gaya was devoid of basic infrastructure necessary for such a large gathering. Frequent power cuts ashamed me,” he said.

Michael John, a Buddhist devotee from the US, said there was filth everywhere, despite the fact that a big festival was being attended by people from around the world.

“It is sad that local authorities have failed to ensure a clean and garbage-free holy town. Another problem is the beggars,” he said.

Donald Henry, a devotee from Britain, was disappointed because he did not come across any decent eateries.

“It is unfortunate that Bodh Gaya is propagated as the leading tourist site in India, particularly for Buddhists across the world, but the government failed to provide necessary facilities,” he said.

Henry said it was for the government to utilize a big opportunity like this to show its hospitality to attract tourists.

Guru Rinpoche, a Buddhist monk from Arunachal Pradesh, said the devotees living in the hundreds of tents were facing a lot of trouble during the Kalchakra festival. “They are living with inadequate power supply, toilets and drinking water when cold wave like conditions are prevailing in Bodh Gaya,” he said.

Swamijee, a Hindu monk-turned-activist who has been campaigning for a clean and encroachment free Bodh Gaya, said the local authorities have made a mockery of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s claims of developing the tourism sector.

“Devotees have been forced to live in dark and use dirty water to clean their clothes and utensils. There is no arrangement for garbage disposal. It is all giving a bad impression of Bodh Gaya,” he said.

An official of the organising committee of the Kalchakra Puja told IANS that they were not receiving the full cooperation of authorities in Bodh Gaya.

“Some local government officials wanted cash for work but we refused to pay bribe that resulted in poor facilities,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Bodh Gaya, about 110 km from here, is where Lord Buddha attained enlightenment 2,500 years ago. The Kalchakra Puja or Wheel of Time, is one of the most sacred events of the Mahayana sect of Buddhists. It is being held for world peace and brotherhood.

Buddhists from the West who arrived early went around the 30-odd foreign monasteries in Bodh Gaya run by Buddhist countries.

Although authorities say they have enforced heavy security, police admit they have received a number of complaints about snatching and pick pocketing. “In most cases, foreigners have been the target,” a police officer said.

Security was tightened in the town following intelligence reports that the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, faced possible death threats.

(Imran Khan can be contacted at imran.k@ians.in)

The Dalai Lama and Richard Gere are both media wonks. Their administrative skills are highly questionable, and their real spiritual practice is tantamount to non-existent. Of course, none of this is their fault, even though they’re in charge. It’s the Government of India’s fault, don’t you know?

I don’ think so. I think these two clowns are simply out of their depth in this.

And frankly, we’re within a hop, skip, and a jump from this in Meherabad. This year’s Amartithi (31 Jan) will go well, barring acts of God, but once people get used to breaking the conditions of their spiritual agreements, and once corruption and lies become the norm among the Trustees, we’re absolutely on the slippery slide to something this ugly.

Meherabad as it exists is an exception to the over-crowding and iffy sanitation that have become the norm at India’s major pilgrimage sites. Let’s keep it that way, OK? Cleanliness begins in our hearts, and it does not come from a pusilanimous “Hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil” attitude. It comes from owning our truths, speaking our truths, and doing what we know is right in Meher Baba’s service.