The Prince

The Young Prince

Imagine a young prince who has been entrusted to the care of peasants since infancy, in order for him to experience life's hardships. He doesn't know he is heir to the throne, and he goes to work every day in shabby clothes and with hardly any food inside him. Years later, the king, his father, decides his education is complete and sends a whole delegation of representatives to find him and bring him back to the palace. The young prince hasn't a clue what's going on and thinks a mistake has been made. But there's no mistake, and they explain to him he was sent to live with peasants simply in order to learn what hard work, sobriety and modesty are. Now he's arrived at the palace: they ask him what he would like for his meal, and all he wants is a little bread, an onion and some water. He doesn't know the royal chef has prepared a whole feast... And you can imagine the rest of the story.

And if I tell you that, inside, you are all princes and princesses... Yes, because you are all sons and daughters of God, and one day your heavenly Father, who has entrusted you to peasants for the sake of your education – yes, symbolically that's what life on earth is – will solemnly send for you. But only on condition that you have worked properly, of course; otherwise, this apprenticeship with peasants could last for many incarnations.

OMRAAM MIKHAEL AIVANHOV

The name Omraam

“This name, says Georg Feuerstein, is made up of two famous Sanskrit mantras or words of power, Om et Ram.

• Om is the most sacred mantra of the Hindus. It stands for the Absolute, or Divine itself.
• The syllable Ram, which was rendered as «  Raam  » in French to assist with the correct pronunciation, is the mantra denoting the fire element.

“The Master explained his initiatic name as follows: ‘
Thus the name I was given in India, OMRAAM, corresponds to the two processes of ‘Solve’ and ‘Coagula’: OM dissolves all things, rendering them suble and fine, and Raam materializes them. The name OMRAAM is the symbol of the process of concretization, the invisible, intangible idea that must incarnate on earth so that it can be seen and touched by the whole world

“All this time, Brother Mikhaël had refused to be addressed as master by his disciples. He had always regarded himself as their fellow-disciple of his own teacher, Peter Deunov. Now everything was changed. His disciples, who had been following him for 22 years, insisted on paying him due respect, and he finally accepted being called ‘Master’.

“A true master, he explained, is one who knows the truth, is thoroughly familiar with and upholds the laws and principles of existence. He also has the will and ability to control his inner environment and to use this ability only in order to ‘manifest all the qualities and virtues of unselfish love.’

“Disinterestedness is unselfish love, which, for Aivanhov, finds its highest expression in the known universe in the sun.
“He also said: ‘The ideal of a disciple is to free himself from all restrictions, to throw off everything that hampers him, and become like light’

“The restrictions Aivanhov had in mind are the boundaries erected by the ego-personality, which make it virtually impossible for the ordinary person to see things as they really are and to think, feel, and act in consonance with Reality.”

Georg Feuerstein
“The Mystery of Light” Passage Press