Arya Maitreya Mandala

Arya Maitreya Mandala ( Sanskrit Arya maitreya Mandala आर्य मैत्रेय मण्डल "Circle of noble Maitreya ") is a by Lama Anagarika Govinda ( 1898-1985 ) in India launched the called Tantric Buddhist order of global distribution. The members shall, after at least three years of novitiate in entering the Order bodhisattva vows and free to organize their life. The order represents an integrative view of Buddhist philosophy and maintains tantric sadhana exercises that can be transmitted as a secret doctrine, by the initiation of teachers to students.

History

The Founder

The German - Bolivian writer, painter and mystic Ernst Lothar Hoffmann, who was known as Lama Anagarika Govinda, occupied himself from early youth with Buddhism. In 1928 he moved to Ceylon and took the vows of a Brahmacari. He studied extensively the tradition of Theravāda. Govinda met the 1931 Tibetan Lama Ngawang Kalsang called Tomo Geshe Rinpoche, who convinced him of Tantric Buddhism and enthusiastic for Tibet. 1947 married Govinda the Indian artist Li Gotami, with whom he worked closely ever since. The books Govinda, including The Way of the White Clouds and Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, contributed from the fifties to the strong interest in Tibetan Buddhism in America and Europe. Govinda teacher Ngawang Kalsang had the " vision of a forward-looking Buddhism " and made the next Buddha Maitreya to the " central mission of a spiritual renewal movement. " This inspired the founding of the Arya Maitreya Govinda mandala.

India

The Order was founded by Govinda on October 14, 1933, Darjeeling. At its education, " members of all local Buddhist groups ", ie Tibetans, Nepalese, Sikkimese and Indians involved. In its home country India, the core of the Order was in its initial stage " is an association of about 30 intellectuals and professors. " In those early members of the Order, who, under the patronage of Tashi Namgyal, King of Sikkim (1914-1963), the Indologist Benimadhab Barua (1888-1948) and Bhattacharyya find Benoytosh (1897-1964) and the poet Rabindranath Tagore. In the early phase of the order " came the establishment of an international Buddhist University in North India special priority. " Even the wife of the founder, the artist Li Gotami Govinda, was a member of the Indian branch of the order.

Spread

From 1952, the Order is spread internationally. He first came to Vietnam and Europe. The European branch of the Order was founded by Hans -Ulrich Rieker into life, the, the Netherlands and Switzerland founded with the senior members Lionel supporters in Europe and Harry Pieper branches of the Order in Germany. The Swiss branch was established and headed by Henry Noel Marryat Hardy. 1970, there were already in ten German cities Arya Maitreya Mandala centers. Also, a Hungarian branch of the Order was founded in the fifties by Erno Hetényi. This also belonged to Stephan Palos. The Czech religious scholar and Indologist Karel Werner was also a member of the Order. In the U.S., the Kailas Shugendō branch of the Order of Neville G. Pemchekov Warwick was launched and directed.

The Order, which requires at least three years novitiate pertaining to the study of Buddhist philosophy and meditative training, also spoke in Europe especially intellectuals. Arya Maitreya Mandala writes its members before any binding form of life as celibacy. " Those who want to enter the Order, usually his original profession does not give up. " Among the prominent German Order members were Ernst Pagenstecherstraße, Rudolf Peter, Karl Smith and Max Hoff glass. Social impetus came from the Order member Wilhelm Müller, which developed social programs for drug addicts and mentally disabled youth in the Rhineland in the sixties and seventies.

Development

Undertook lecture tours through the Anagarika Govinda in the 1960s and 1970s to Europe, America and East Asia, it came to the establishment of other branches of the Order, including the United States and Singapore. In 1982, Lama Anagarika Govinda, the government of the Order, the Office of the Acharya, to the doctor Karl -Heinz Gottmann ( 1919-2007 ) on, who held it until 1999. Since then, the doctor and psychotherapist Armin Gottmann the Arya Maitreya Mandala stands before the world as Acharya. In addition to this are leading members of the Order of the Dutch psychotherapist and Indologist Robert Janssen and the Austrian philosopher Volker Zotz.

Orientation

The Order emphasizes the creative use of the intellectual heritage of humanity. " Even his Leitgestalt, Lama Anagarika Govinda had, combines ideas from different traditions in his spirituality; in his mind, the Order seeks consciously to a Buddhism that the space and the time adapts in which it spreads. "

In the name of the Order is expressed that his mission is Maitreya, the future Buddha. How Anagarika Govinda taught solves this coming Buddha, " the era of intellectual achievements through an extended, intense intuitive awareness as to what the feeling of the essential unity will help all life an active charity to new breakthrough. " The Order is by Anagarika Govinda on the future harmony of mankind actively participate by focusing in all areas related to the design of the future. According taught Govinda: "We must continue to build on the foundations of the past, without exhausting ourselves in constant repetition! " This is the Arya Maitreya Mandala also for the relationship to Buddhism, which is estimated in its various schools, but after Govinda in terms the future needs to be solved from rigidities and redesigned:

This spirit of Maitreya who initiates the development of the values ​​of the past, blows by Anagarika Govinda, the limits of individual religions and thus goes about Buddhism beyond. The Order is to be sought in the departure of the old beliefs and traditions for new more light closer values ​​"; because today awakened in humanity for the first time the consciousness of a planetary unit that encompasses all of us by fate and the individual brings into a deeper relationship to the whole. "

Importance

Arya Maitreya Mandala, which lays down no rules for the personal lives of its members as celibacy or possessions as a religious and represents an integrative view of Buddhist philosophy and practice, is often treated as an outstanding example of modern adaptations of Buddhism religion in the scientific literature. After the assessment of the religion scholar Martin Baumann, who dealt in several research projects with the history and the nature of the Arya Maitreya Mandala, independent interpretations were developed in this Order, which connected on the basis of a definition of the essence of Buddhism with the help of a development model elements of different traditions and integrated. "

81695
de