We are working towards the 2025 Shasta Wesak Festival, May 10th -14th , 2025, with vigor and clarity of Purpose. The Centennial Conclave of the Spiritual Hierarchy takes place during 2025 bringing with it a renewed stream of Force. This will be the focus of our efforts in the following months.
Wesak is widely celebrated throughout the East as the Festival of the Buddha. For esotericists it is the high point of the spiritual year when forces of enlightenment flow from the higher worlds into the mind of humanity.
While Buddhists celebrate Wesak as the time that marks the birth, death and enlightenment of the Buddha, ageless wisdom students regard it as a living event. At the exact moment of the Taurus full moon, the Buddha is said to return momentarily to earth, appearing to those gathered in a secluded valley in the Himalayas who are able to see him. Some have dreamt of being present at the ceremony. The Christ stands before the Buddha and, in a moment brimming with vitality and significance, receives the Buddha’s blessing on behalf of humanity, before turning and radiating this blessing out to the assembled gathering and to all human beings.
The Buddha has always been known as a great Revealer, rendering the mind as a “clear sheet of glass” in order to see the reality of Oneness. His techniques of dispassion, detachment and discrimination help to sweep away all that veils and hinders recognition of this reality. The underlying message is simple: before we can truly see we have to free ourselves from the many forms of desire that impede our vision.
A new world is now being conceived by many – it is being actively looked for, and when the eye of the soul is opened, it will be seen to be more real than the world that is revealed by the five senses. The new light is on its way. The annual Wesak blessing plays a crucial role in the coming of that light.
The period of the Wesak Festival has lately been extended to cover five days of work and service; that is, the two days preceding the full moon, the day of the Festival itself, and the two succeeding days. The exact hour of the Wesak full moon is itself of tremendous importance.
The two days of preparation are to be known as "Days of Renunciation and Detachment." The day of the Festival is to be known as the "Day of Safe-Guarding," whilst the two succeeding days are to be called the "Days of Distribution." This demands five days of the most intensive effort in service, leading to the renunciation of all within ourselves which could hinder our usefulness as servers and as channels of spiritual force. It means that after due preparation, dedication and upward striving for the first two days, on the day of the Festival itself we simply regard ourselves as the recipients of as much of that inflowing spiritual force as we can contain. As channels, we must be prepared to forget ourselves in the service of touching, containing and holding force for the rest of humanity. We must learn to regard the day of the Festival itself as the day of silence–a subjective silence and inner peace that can be preserved unbroken though we may at the same time be serving with our speech and our active interest in others. During the day, two thoughts only will hold our constant attention. These are the need of our fellowmen and the necessity of providing a group channel whereby the spiritual forces may become available. We shall attempt to hold ourselves steadily in the light of our own souls, and thereby begin to work as souls, whose interests are ever with the group and not with the individual, and whose consciousness is that of the whole and not of the part.
On the two succeeding days, the focus of our attention should be turned away from ourselves to the outer world, and our effort will be to pass on that measure of spiritual energy that we have been successful in contacting.