The final words of the Christ to His apostles were, "Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the age" or cycle (Matt. 28.20). The important word is "end." The word used is the Greek "sun-teleia," which means the end of the time period, with another immediately following after.
For decades, the reappearance of the Christ, the Avatar, has been anticipated by the faithful in both hemispheres --not only by the Christian faithful, but by those who look for Maitreya and for the Boddhisattva as well as those who expect the Iman Mahdi. The word Avatar is a Sanscrit word, meaning literally "coming down from far away."
The priests, the Levites, the Pharisees and the Sadducees were not the ones who recognized Him when He came before. They feared Him. And it is highly improbable that the reactionary churchmen will be the ones to recognize Him today. It is a fallacy to believe that the main trend of Christ's work will be through the medium of the churches or the world religions. Why the Christ consciousness must always be spoken of in terms of religion, of church-going and of orthodox belief is one of the incredible triumphs of the forces of evil.
The symbolic prophecies found in all the world Scriptures anent this imminent event will prove their veracity; their symbolism will nevertheless elicit re-interpretation; circumstances and happenings will not necessarily be exactly as the Scriptures would appear to indicate. For instance, He will come indeed in the "clouds of the air" (Matt. XXVI.64), as the Christian Scriptures say, but of what interest is that when millions come and go in the clouds, each hour of the day and of the night?
We should familiarise ourselves and others whom we contact with the following facts:
The Christ will reappear as the Unifier of East and West, a hard saying for the orthodox and narrow Christian churchman to accept. This means that Christ will work in the closest cooperation with the Buddha. The Buddha is closely allied with the Christ in this process of His reappearing, though He will not be involved or active during the entire period of Christ's coming, active work on earth.
In the East there is an ancient legend which has application today and which holds the clue to the relation of the Christ (Maitreya) and of the Buddha (Shakya Muni). It concerns a service which the Buddha will render Christ. The legend says that when the Buddha reached enlightenment, and experience on Earth could teach Him no more, He looked ahead to the time when His Brother, the Christ, would be active in the Great Service --as it is called. In order, therefore, to aid the Christ, He left behind (for His use) what are mysteriously called "His vestures". He bequeathed and left in some safe place the sumtotal of His emotional-intuitive nature, called by some the astral body and the sum total of His knowledge and His thought, called His mind or mental body. These, according to the legend, will be assumed by the Coming One and prove of service, supplementing Christ's Own emotional and mental equipment and providing Him with what He needs as a Teacher of the East as well as of the West.
The teaching which the Christ will give this time will probably fall into four parts:
The Christ, on His reappearance, will found a New World Religion that must be based upon those truths which have stood the test of ages and which have brought assurance and comfort. These surely are:
All this will not come as the result of some proclamation or some stupendous planetary event which will force human beings everywhere to say: "Lo: He is there! Lo: Here are the signs of His divinity!" for that would evoke only antagonism and laughter, resistance or fanatical credulity. It will come as a recognition of potency in leadership, through dynamic but logical changes in world affairs, and through action taken by the masses of people from the depths of their own consciousness.
The Christ's reappearance plans do not involve the birth of some nice child in some nice home on Earth; they will not produce the wild claims and the credulous recognition of the well-meaning and the unintelligent as is so frequently the case today, nor will someone appear and say: "This is the Christ. He is here or He is there." However, the widespread appearance of such tales and claims, though undesirable, misleading and wrong, nevertheless demonstrates human expectancy of the imminence of His coming. Belief in His coming is basic in the human consciousness.
The Lord Maitreya, the Christ, will come unfailingly when a measure of peace has been restored, when the principle of sharing is at least in process of controlling economic affairs, and when the churches have begun to clean house. Then He can and will come; then the Kingdom of God will be publicly recognised and will no longer be a thing of dreams and of ideals.
The work of preparation for the reappearance of the Christ is our first and foremost duty. The most important part of this is teaching people on a large scale to use the Great Invocation: the complete new utterance of the Christ.
"Buddhist tradition divides the period between the death of Buddha and the manifestation of Maitreya in the actual universe into:Every entity in the hierarchical universe lives within the sphere of a greater being. The term hierarchy is formed by two Greek words: hieros, meaning sacred; and archein, meaning ruler. Therefore, hierarchy means the rulers of the sacred. Interestingly, the generative and thus, the physically creative center in the human body, the sacrum, shares the same etymological root as the word "sacred."
- I. Period of the turning of the Wheel of the first Law (500 years);
- II. Period of deterioration of the law of images (1,000 years);
- III. Period of the turning of the Wheel of the second Law (3,000 years), after which Maitreya will leave the Tushita heaven and come upon earth to establish the lost truths in all their purity." --Alice Getty, The Gods of Northern Buddhism
According to esoteric buddhism the sacred Rulers or Powers of the created universe may be technically listed as:
Adi-Buddhi..............(Primeval Universal Mind),
Maha-Buddhi.............(Great Universal Mind),
Daiviprakriti...........(Universal Light or HERMES),
Dhyani-Chohans..........(Primeval Seven Flames, Elohim or Cosmocrators),
Dhyani-Bhuddas..........(Buddhas of Meditation),
Dhyani-Bodhisattvas.....(Meditative Ones),
Bodhisattvas II.........(Supraterrestrial Bodhisattvas)
Manushi-Buddhas.........(human Buddhas, as Shakya Muni), and
Bodhisattvas III........(human Bodhisattvas, as Maitreya).
In the section of the Secret Doctrine entitled "The Mystery of the Buddha" we are told that "the Dhyani-Buddha, when the world needs a human Buddha, creates through the power of Dhyana (meditation), a mind-born son --a (human) Boddhisattwa-- whose mission it is after the physical death of his human, or Manushi-Buddha, to continue the work on earth till the appearance of the subsequent Buddha" (Vol V, pp. 365-6). It seems that, according to the principles of esoteric buddhism, the evolution of the Christ or human Bodhisattva brings Him into conscious contact with the actual Powers of the created universe.
This creative process of a human Buddha is further delineated in the teachings of Mahayanic Buddhism as the doctrine of "the three kayas or bodies" (Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya). The Dharmakaya, common to all beings, is the abstract, unmanifest essence of buddhahood contained in the Adi-Buddhi. The Dharmakaya is perceivable only through the subtle Sambhogakaya (Body of Bliss) donned by the Dhyani-Buddhas, and the "magically" created, physical counterpart, the Nirmanakaya donned by the Manushi-Buddhas, such as Lord Gautama (Shakya Muni). The Nirmanakaya is the physical vehicle that allows human contact with the buddhic world of being.
In a certain sense, the doctrine of the three bodies may be related to the spiritual triad: Atma (Dharmakaya), Buddhi (Sambhogakaya) and Manas (Nirmanakaya). One of the most important tasks that a disciple faces prior to the third initiation is the construction of the antahkarana, the conscious bridge between the unmanifest, but causal, permanent atoms of the spiritual triad, and the threefold manifest personality comprised of the mental unit and the astral and physical permanent atoms. Although we are cautioned that "the permanent atoms will remain a mystery for a long time" ( Treatise Cosmic Fire, p.526) it may still be appropriate to consider the possibility that, in the process of building the antahkarana, the resultant redeemed lower permanent atoms (mental unit, astral and physical) may be needed, and eventually used, to construct the vehicles of manifestation of a human Buddha, such as the forthcoming Lord Maitreya. It may be an additional source of encouragement to realize that our efforts in constructing the antahkarana will eventually culminate, at the fifth initiation, in the liberation of "seed" atoms needed by a human Buddha to manifest.
In the Adi Buddha system, Lord Maitreya is the human Bodhisattva evolving from the Dhyani-Bodhisattva Visvapani and the Dhyani-Buddha Amogha Siddhi, and is currently evolving to become our next Manushi-Buddha during the sixth root-race. Lord Gautama (Shakya Muni), on the other hand, was the fifth root race Manushi-Buddha evolving from the Dhyani-Bodhisattva Avalokitasvara and the Dhyani-Buddha Amitaba. Furthermore, we are told that "the Master K.H. will assume the role of World Teacher (human Bodhisattva) in the distant future when the Christ (Maitreya) moves on to higher and more important work than dealing with the consciousness of humanity." Externalisation Hierarchy(p.644)
"The Gospel story gives us the five initiations of the Master Jesus (first through fifth) and the Christ (second through seventh). The latter (seventh) is left incomplete, and the Voice is not recorded, because at the Resurrection and Ascension we are not told of the hearing of the affirmative sound. That will be heard when the Christ completes His work at the time of the Second Coming. Then the great seventh initiation will be consummated, and the Buddha and the Christ will together pass before the Lord of the World, together see the glory of the Lord, and together pass to higher service of a stature and calibre unknown to us" ( Rays and Initiations, pp.83-84). At this point we should recall that "the buddhic vehicle of the Christ is identical with the buddhic vehicle of the Buddha" ( Rays and Initiations, p.687), and that "the buddhic permanent atom has its spirillae arranged so as to form approximately a figure 8 with a central stream bisecting the double spiral" ( Treatise Cosmic Fire, p.531). It is well known that the number 8 is the number of the Christ.
According to esoteric tradition, Lord Gautama, as the previous human Bodhisattva, overshadowed Vyasa, Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster, Orpheus and finally attained buddhahood as Shakya-Muni, the founder of Buddhism. D.K. assures us that, in fact, "Vyasa passed out of our planetary scheme millions of years ago. His work brought about the process known as individualisation ( Rays and Initiations, p.526). Lord Maitreya, on the other hand, incarnated as Krishna, overshadowed Jesus 2,000 years ago and is currently making preparation for His Second Coming that will result in a major initiatory planetary experience and His Buddhahood initiation. Although esoteric tradition (A. Powell. The Solar System, p.143) maintains that "They (Gautama and Maitreya) entered the Moon Chain on Globe D in the fourth round as primitive men, and on Globe F took their vow to become Buddhas, D.K. sets the record straight stating that "Christ (Maitreya) was the first of our earth (Lemurian) humanity to achieve the goal, whereas the Buddha (Gautama) was the last of the moon chain to do so." ( Esoteric Psychology, p.210) Therefore, it is unlikely that both Gautama and Maitreya individualized in the Moon Chain as previously believed.
We are now in a better position to understand the fact that a major stumbling block stalling the reappearance of the Christ, the Lord Maitreya, is not so much the so called "evil" forces, but the inertia of spiritual people, specifically, disciples in the world today. The construction of the antahkarana is not just a matter of individual growth and liberation. If that were the case, spiritual ambition and spiritual selfishness would suffice. On the contrary, we, as modern disciples in a critical time of planetary transition, are responsible, as a group, to literally sew the Robe of the Lord, even if only the Hem of His Robe is accessible to us. Each thread of our redeemed substance projected into the realm of the spiritual triad will bring closer the physical reappearance of the Christ, the Lord Maitreya.
The Yogakara school founded by Maitreya is presumably related to the Teaching of Kalachacra, the teaching of Fire or Agni Yoga ( N. Roerich. Shamballa, p.28). We are advised to "affirm Our Teachings as your citadel. Let the breath of regeneration fill your complete being." (Agni Yoga #29). Therefore, it is the regeneration of our lower nature that will permit the reappearance of Lord Maitreya and a closer planetary relationship with Shamballa. Certainly, the shortest way to Shamballa, led by Lord Maitreya, is through the application of the transmutative Fiery Yoga in our daily lives. Nothing less is required of modern disciples.