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.

Meher Baba has said that Broad Buddhism is one of the high roads to God. Pursuant to that, and the request of the the wealthy garment merchant from Singapore who appeared in my dream last night (the night of 3 JAN 12):

LET IT BE KNOWN that for the propagation of the Buddhadharma in the modern era, and for the benefit of all sentient beings, I have established the The Maitreya Broad Meditation Society (弥勒佛宽广禅会), based on the practices described and recommended in these sources:

1. The Pure Land sutras in general, OR Meher Baba’s Wish for my Lovers (In Chinese: 巴巴的希望). [preliminary practice].

2. Meher Baba’s Discourses in general (I highly recommend the 7th edition), and the material therein about meditation in particular, AND/OR adherence to the Buddhist Five Lay Precepts (extended Engilsh/Chinese bilingual document). [intermediate practice].

3. Bhau Kalchuri’s Spiritual Training Programme training manual which is based on Meher Baba’s New Life. We consider Meher Baba’s New Life to be the Buddhadarma brought up to real time, and that it is the fastest and most dependable way to enact the meaning of the Buddha in the modern era. [advanced practice - Bhau has stated in his manual that it could be used by other groups].

This program leads to a life of service, not to monasticism. We do not take full monk’s vows, or wear robes, because we know that these will only get in the way of our service and our presence in the world, which we consider essential to our practice. We are “in the world but not of it,” and in particular, we do not despise wealth. but rather we acquire it and use it to stabilize our practice and our presence in the world, and to help those less fortunate than ourselves, most especially those who are destined to attain on the path of meditation.

The Maitreya Broad Meditation Society that I have founded most definitely belongs to American Buddhism, and it has English for its’ language of instruction, and is based on American core values, but it is open to all without regard to caste, creed, gender, race, ethicity, or nationality. Because the vast majority of practicing Buddhists on this planet have classical Chinese for their liturgical language, I stress Chinese, particularly with regard to the source materials of our practice. Some of these are already available in Chinese as I write, and within my lifetime, all of them will be, for sure. These levels of practice are thoroughly consistent with what already exists in the Chinese cultural sphere of influence, particularly with respect to basic ethics, and I expect them to generalize to that sphere.

I may incorporate this as a non-profit organization, and seek funding for it, when I go back to Hawaii so that some can practice together, and in the meantime you may read, or download, or buy these materials. If you have questions about them, you may ask me. You can either post comments to this post, or correspond with me by email. My email address is on the Bhau Rings graphic on the right sidebar.

By the grace of Maitreya Buddha, aka Meher Baba, and by my vow:

GIVEN on this 4th day of January, 2012.

GATE, GATE, PARAGATE, PARASAMGATE, BODHI, SVAHA!

I recently encountered this list on p. 34-36 of The Spiritual Training Programme (of AMBPPCT) by Bhau Kalchuri, and it is found online at: Lord Meher, p. 3556. This set of conditions is exactly what the Buddha meant by the Five Lay Precepts, but with added refinements which prohibit, right up front, the subtle attachments which cause the Five Buddhist Lay Precepts to be routinely perverted or abandoned in real time.

What makes these particularly appropriate to focus on, in the context of the AMBPPCT Circular Letter of 17 Nov 11, is that these are the ethical basics of the Spiritual Training Programme that has been designed for AMBPPCT by Shri V. I. “Bhau” Kalchuri. Let us not delude ourselves about Bhauji, please, folks. The “Shri” on his name literally means a spiritual teacher, and Bhau is all of that. The “Ji” honorific that I too frequently fail to add to his common appelation has similar implications. Bhauji’s training manual is the most adept piece of spiritual literature that I have ever seen anywhere in any language. If I knew that I had to spend the next three years among people with whom I did not share any language, and I could only take one English book to the experience, Bhauji’s training manual would be that book. Absolutely. I would choose it over anything directly written by Meher Baba. (Most of Bhau’s manual is actually quoted from Meher Baba, but my point is that his POV is more useful to me personally than that of Meher Baba.)

The Trustees are supposed to be the ethical equivalents of graduates from, or at least progressive practicers of, the Spiritual Training Programme described by Bhau Kalchuri*. The fact that one current Trustee most definitely falls short of this is simply unacceptable. No one in Meherabad, Meherazad, or Khushru Quarters will be free to do what Meher Baba wants, and what he required of all those close to Him, while this corrupted individual remains a Trustee.

*On p. 75 of The Spiritual Training Programme Bhauji has written this about the relationship between Trustees and the Fixed Conditions:

If you are nominated and confirmed as a Trustee, you will still continue to be a Spiritual Trainee striving to become a Servant of God. As a Spiritual Trainee Trustee, you must continue to uphold the Fixed Conditions of the New Life. The only thing that has changed in your life is your outer responsibility, but your inner responsibility remains the same as before. Your concern being a Trustee is with the outer structure of the Trust Estate. But you have to continue to build the inner structure within yourself, striving to become God’s Servant. When the innner structure is there, this will allow you, as a Trustee, to uphold and even promote a feeling of Oneness in the midst of your duties. If you do this, you will have fulfilled your duty to Beloved Baba’s’ Wish under Mastery in Servitude.

Jai Meher Baba
Viveshwar Bodhisattva
28 Dec 11

Fixed Conditions

1. First and foremost, you must take it as an absolute and unqualified certainty that you will not receive even the slightest spiritual or material benefit, or indeed, any benefit whatsoever. On the contrary, you must be prepared for every kind of disappointment and adversity.
2. You should not expect that Baba will have his nazar on you or that he will perform any miracles or use his spiritual key to protect or save you from illness, danger, imprisonment, death, or difficulties and disasters of any kind.
3. You will not touch women, except when necessary, your mother, wife, sister and daughter; or professionally when you are practising as a doctor.
4. You will not enter politics.
5. You will not express anger by word or deed to anyone, whatever the provocation, and you will not criticize anyone unfairly, either to his face or behind his back. Although you may at times feel anger in your mind, you must never express it by word or deed.
6. You will tell no lies under any circumstances.
7. Neither Baba nor you will accept homage from anyone, nor will you deliberately create circumstances that might invite homage to Baba or to you. If, however, without your having invited it, homage is given to Baba or to you, it must be repaid action for action to the giver.
8. It must be clearly understood that although the conditions are binding on you all, Baba himself is not bound by any order or condition, and is absolutely free for all time.
9. The one and only thing, however, in which Baba not only is not free but deliberately binds himself is regarding the condition that you will not receive the slightest benefit of any kind whatsoever, and that you must be prepared for every kind of disappointment and adversity. It must, in addition, be absolutely clear that Baba will also never give any order that will absolve any of you of your individual responsibility before God for any consequences that may follow. You must take it as an absolute certainty that the responsibility before God for each and every consequence rests for all time wholly and solely with you and you alone, and that Baba will never give an order that will change or nullify this responsibility.
10. You will not commit any lustful action with anyone, male or female, young or old.