Integration with the Soul

His Holiness Tulku Buddha Maitreya Rinpoche was discovered and recognized beginning in 1984 by a series of Tibetan spiritual leaders as a Tulku, or a child born in perfection, divinely awakened and a living saint.

In 1998, His Holiness was enthroned in a formal recognition ceremony in Kathmandu, Nepal, as Maitreya, the Buddha of this age, by Ven. Khenpo Khyenrab Gyatso. In November 2000, he was enthroned at the Dema Monastery in Kham Tibet, recognized as the Western-born reincarnation of the founder of Tibetan Buddhism, Padmasambhava Guru Rinpoche, by the Buddhist Master His Holiness Dema Choktrul Rinpoche.

H.H. Tulku Buddha Maitreya Rinpoche has been identified and acknowledged by multiple leaders of Tibetan Buddhism as the reincarnation of Gautama Buddha, Tsong Khapa, Atisha, Jesus the Christ "St Issa" and the Western-born Buddha Maitreya, the Living Buddha. The focus of His Holiness' work in the West is fundraising to support the Living Masters of Loving Wisdom in the East to ensure their well-being and healthy living. His projects include building, restoring and supporting monasteries worldwide.

The Edge spoke with H.H. Buddha Maitreya Rinpoche by phone on the topic of our soul and how we might better connect with it.

" It seems like more and more people have a sense that something is lacking in their lives, and they seem to be searching for a more definitive sense of self and purpose. It all comes down to the age old questions, Who Am I and What am I doing here.

How do we re-establish a connection and loving relationship with ourselves, with the innermost part of who we are?
His Holiness: I think most of it has to do with reality, that there's a lot of ability in people to be a little bit more psychic than they think. That they have a certain psychic energy that is more aligned to fear, and the way that they see life in a distrusting way. Or how they may trust the government, or how they may trust a relationship. That comes from a lot of competition and other things.

The process of humanity and our education and developing human rights and developing a little bit more ability to begin trusting people more and more than we ever did before is beginning to awaken people to a place to where they want to know more. Their heart is opening up more than what's known as the solar plexus or the energy of lower psychic energy -- or just negative thought forms and negative behavior.

It also includes wanting spiritual awakening within, and being able to sense that we're actually on the right path, doing the things we should be doing or able to actually express the virtues of love and receive love from other people. There's a shift that is waking people up just in the natural evolutionary course of things.

The best way to actually bring that about is to try and clean up what might be left over in a person's life that's actually holding a person down negatively. If a person cleans up negative connections, lets go of certain things in their life and allows it to grow a little bit more, that enhances a lot of the ability for that lower nature, that fear, that distrust to kind of be healed, to go away. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.
His Holiness: So there's a lot to that, as far as just cleaning up your environment, cleaning up your relationships. The other thing is beginning to add meditation to a person's life. If you want to get to know yourself, the best way is to relax the mind and the emotions, and just take some time to get to know yourself through meditation.

Every time a person meditates, they need to focus on breathing as a beginning step. Breathe deeply down into the stomach and realize that the breath needs to go that far down and not just into the lungs. Then breathe out slowly so the breath has a complete release. When a person does that, they're actually opening up energy of the lower body and releasing it out the upper body, which is an old yogi technique of purifying doubt and negativity. It's always beneficial to meditate, and breathe and learn how to breathe correctly when you're meditating.

Why are people disconnected? And why have they chosen to be disconnected?
His Holiness: I think the biggest problem with the inability for people to relate properly is based on little innuendoes about the differences between men and women. Even today there are books that say men are from mars and women are from Venus; it's separative. There are cognitive ways of thinking that really are not true, but are based on just a general perception. And we grow up with other innuendos in relationships, that women are sugar and spice and everything nice, and boys are puppy dog tails and all the negative things.

There are implications about women having more compassion toward children, and if you talk about children, you talk about women; you don't necessarily apply a relationship to children and men. Those connotations have moved through humanity and into society and still exist, and it is a form of prejudice. And when you have a prejudice like that going on, even unconsciously, it makes it hard on a psychic level to experience an intuitive level of loving and draw people to you that complement you.

So we need to be much more aware of the things that we listen to and that we agree with. If you go into a mall and go to look for clothes for a man, you'll find them in one small little section, but if you want to find women's clothes, you'll find an enormous selection. That's because there's an emphasis on the illusion that women are much more interested in having all these fine things. But I know a lot of men who would love to have a lot more variety.

It seems like it's marketed that way purposely to continue encouraging women to think they are the ones who shop all the time.
His Holiness: That's right, it's an innuendo, and it is insinuating that men are this way. But we're not. Men are no less compassionate than women, they're no less sensitive than a woman, they have no less desire to communicate than a woman. But there are psychic underlying processes that tell men and women that they are not like the opposite sex, and those ideas hit the movies, the TV and became a part of the cultural understanding of how things are. You find that same thing in caste systems in India. Propaganda is run to control cultures that actually create separation in order to have a control over the relationships of the people.

You mentioned earlier that we need to trust more in certain things. How can do that when we seem to be inundated with distrustful messages. How can a person who is not used to meditating and trusting the silence, learn to trust it? And to trust that inner voice as opposed to trusting the voices from outside ourselves?
His Holiness: It is difficult. That's one of the reason's I offer tools for meditation, like an etheric weaver, or pyramid or magnetic mat. These tools are amplified by the blessings of Tibetan monks. When a person works with these tools and begins to meditate, it actually helps to connect them in to a place of meditation that is very difficult to do on their own when they're still connected at that lower psychic level, where there's negativity and their mind is wandering and all those different types of habits are still going through their body. By having this connection, it actually releases that connection and inspires the person in a telepathic way to meditate in a very high way, spontaneously.

So in a sense, they wouldn't even be aware that they are letting go of those habits, but they would be letting go of them?
His Holiness: That's right. Because it's all happening so spontaneously that it just begins to integrate. Because of the level of meditation they go into so quickly, they begin sensing and feeling the healing process, like electricity and warmth and all kinds of physical things that they feel. And they experience more emotional and mental spiritual clarity during the process of meditation. Normally, it would take years to attain such a meditative experience.

With the hustle and bustle of everyday life, how can a person maintain the connection with soul?
His Holiness: I'd suggest taking refuge by going out into the forest every once in a while. Get away from city life, go off to the park, or go to the ocean. Make an environmental stress-free space in your own home that adds to more spiritual relaxation using different types of buddhas or whatever thing you want to put around to make it much more spiritual, much more awakening, much more healing.

Add those things into the cycle of your mind, so that you get out and go for a bike ride in the mountains, or you get out and release your stress -- not just every once in a while on vacation, but at least every couple of days.

Then add meditation to that, as much as you can. Every time you eat, meditate. Every time you have a break to do anything, just sit there and take those deep breaths, learn how to do that more often and it'll happen so quickly and spontaneously you'll gain benefits from just being a practitioner of the meditative skills.

As humans and souls, Who are We?
His Holiness: There's a great big leap between the animal and the human being, and that's plagued man for quite a long time. Ever since we started developing with science and started having the mind to wonder about such a thing.

My belief system is that the human being is something that has jumped from a link of spiritual evolution, say the aboriginal man or the Neanderthal, where the mind was not so developed, senses were not developed, the ability of emotional control was not developed. At a certain point of time, once that development began to develop, a certain psychic level of development leaped forward into creating the next level of man, the next level of human beings. From that point on, we've been building monasteries, induced religions and ceremonies, and evolving very quickly.

And now here we are. Now we're at the point where those sensory abilities are actually integrating the personality of more intelligent, emotionally stable human being that can create the technologies and advance the world, and help with medicine and understand religion to a less fanatical point to where we're actually going to leap into another evolutionary jump that gives humanity longer lives and much more attuned realities of the next level of human nature.

And we're on that road right now?
His Holiness: Right now we're in that period of integrating science, technologies and spirituality. A leap of reality is going to take place where metaphysical, spiritual and different miraculous events will take place due to a leap of faith. There will be an evolutionary jump in our DNA and our make-up as a whole.

So in a sense, the act of searching for who we are in itself is impelling us to find the answers?
His Holiness: That's right. By searching for who we are, we find out things that we don't like about "that" person, the one we don't really want to be, and we begin to be the person that we really are -- the person that we really are in our own true virtues. And as that develops, so too do we begin to integrate a higher quality of soul rather than the lesser quality of personality. It's an automatic integration of transforming personality into soul.

**********

For Personal and Planetary Healing H.H. Tulku Buddha Maitreya Rinpoche has set up Worldwide Soul Therapy Meditation Rooms and Centers with room-size Pyramids and combinations of His Etheric Healing Tools such as Vajras and Etheric Weavers that are Synergistically applied for Self Healing and Soul Integration. All of the Pyramids and Etheric Healing tools are made within his California Monastery. All donations and 70 percent of sales support His Holiness' Tibetan Refugee Projects. For more, call toll-free 1 (877) 444-SOUL (7685) or go to www.tibetanfoundation.org

Douglas Crandall is an advertising sales representative of The EDGE and spiritual explorer. Contact him toll-free at 1 (877) 776-5244 or at (763) 503-5328. E-mail doug@edgenews.com
Copyright © 2001 Douglas Crandall

November 2001