Faith has its reasons
R. UMA MAHESHWARI
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Arya Maitreya, a Buddhist bhikku, from Tirumala finds significance in both paths.
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Arya Maitreya
On the Vishakha Purnima day this month, May 13, the city witnessed quite a few events. Some associated with Annamayya's birth celebrations and others with Buddha's day of enlightenment and mahaparinirvana 2500 years ago.
At the Ananda Buddha Vihara Trust at Mahendra Hills, there was a special invitee who would have revelled in both these occasions with equal fervour and devotion. He was Arya Maitreya, an ordained Buddhist bhikku, from Sri Venkateswara Santiniketan (ashrama) at Tirumala. For, he is not only a practising Buddhist, but an equally staunch devotee of the deity of Tirumala, Venkateswara. And this is what makes him seem unique. In his address on the occasion at the Ananda Buddha Vihara , Arya Maitreya stressed on the significance of Vishakha Purnima and the message of the Buddha for India and the world. He spoke of the significance of the tithi / day in Buddha's life as the day of four major events in his life - his birth, the day of his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and the final stage of liberation.
Born in 1920 in a Telugu Vaisnava brahmin family as `Devarajulu', in Tiruchirapalli, Arya Maitreya studied law at London and was bar-at-law at Gray's Inn, London. He toured Europe and many countries in Asia during this time. In 1970s he was advocate at both the (then) Madras Civil and High Court. In this time, he was also reading up religious philosophies such as Buddhism, Jainism and what he naturally was conditioned by birth, Sri Vaisnavism, Advaitism (the concept of non duality), and Saktism (worship of the mother goddess).
He went to Kashmir and learnt pranayama and other yogic practices there in 1980s. At the same time, he went to Leh and Dharamsala and got immersed in Buddhism as well. He travelled to the Royal Monastery of Thailand as well. He addressed a congregation on the philosophy of karma at the World Fellowship of Buddhists Head quarters at Bangkok in the late 1980s. Arya Maitreya says the TTD (Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam) has been very generous with him and he has been living there since last several years. . "In Vipassana I seek the jnana marga, the path to liberation that the Buddha decried, and in practising Vaisnava and Sakta rituals I am following the route of karmaI believe even the Bhagavad Gita also spoke of jnana marga, in the same way as the Buddha did. They are both the same in many ways."
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