BASKET: 0 items
CHECKOUT NOW
THE BODHISATTVA QUESTION
Krishnamurti, Rudolf Steiner, Valentin Tomberg, and the Mystery of the Twentieth-Century Master
with new Foreword and Afterword by T.H. Meyer
T.H. Meyer - translated by John M. Wood and Carla Vlad
'Enthusiastic readers are sometimes heard to say of a book: "I couldn't put it down" This is obviously either a metaphor or else a gross hyperbole. But I can't recall any book as to which in my case it came nearer to the literal truth than The Bodhisattva Question.' - Owen Barfield
The twelve sublime beings known, according to eastern tradition, as the Bodhisattvas, are the great teachers of humanity. One after another they descend into earthly incarnation, until they fulfil their earthly mission. At this point they rise to Buddahood and are no longer obliged to return in a physical form. But before a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha, he announces the name of his successor...
According to Rudolf Steiner, the future Maitreya Buddha - or the 'Bringer of Good', as his predecessor named him - incarnated in a human body in the twentieth century. Presuming this to be so, then who was this person? The Theosophists believed they had discovered the Bodhisattva in an Indian boy, Krishnamurti, who grew up to be a teacher of some magnitude. Adolf Arenson and Elisabeth Vreede, both students of Rudolf Steiner, made independent examinations of this question in relation to Steiner's personal mission, and were led to contrasting conclusions. More recently a claim has been made that Valentin Tomberg - a student of anthroposophy but later an influential Roman Catholic - was the Bodhisattva. These conflicting theories are analysed by Thomas Meyer, who demonstrates how the question can be useful as an exercise in developing sound judgement in spiritual matters.
Elisabeth Vreede's two lectures on the subject, included here in full, are a valuable contribution to our understanding of the true nature and being of Rudolf Steiner.
T.H. MEYER was born in Switzerland in 1950. He is the founder of Perseus Verlag, Basel, and is editor of the monthly journal Der Europäer. He has written numerous articles and is the author of several books including Reality, Truth and Evil, Facts Questions and Perspectives on September 11, 2001; Clairvoyance and Consciousness; The Bodhisattva Question, and major biographies of D.N. Dunlop and Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz. He also edited Light for the New Millennium, Rudolf Steiner's Association with Helmuth and Eliza von Moltke.