The ascended masters once walked the earth the same as we do. They had lifetimes in which they perfected various soul and character qualities. A study of specific lifetimes of the masters helps us to understand what is required for true self-mastery. One of the more well-known lifetimes of the ascended lady master Kuan Yin is a life she lived in China that exemplified her capacity for unconditional love, compassion and mercy.
Today Kuan Yin is a well-loved female goddess in Chinese communities. Many legends have grown up around this spiritual figure. One of the most popular legends describes Kuan Yin as the daughter of a malicious king who wanted her to marry a rich but hardhearted man. Kuan Yin told her father that she would obey his command if her obedience resulted in the alleviation of three of the major sources of suffering in life.
Kuan Yin explained that the first form of suffering she wanted alleviated is the suffering people endure as they age. The second form of suffering she insisted must be alleviated was the suffering people endure when they fall ill. The third form of suffering that should end was the suffering caused by death. If the king could not agree to these requests, she would refuse the marriage and retreat to a life of religious devotion.
Her father attempted to break her will by forcing her to perform hard labor and withholding normal amount of food and drink. She continued to beg to be allowed to become a nun. Although her father ultimately allowed her to work in the temple, he made the monks give her the hardest tasks to try and force her to yield.
Although she hardly slept with all of the responsibilities piled upon her, the animals around the temple sensed her goodness and began to help her. This infuriated her father, who tried to burn the temple down. However, Kuan Yin was immune to damage by fire and put out the fire with her bare hands without receiving any burns. This was too much for her father who now feared her power and ordered that she must die.
When she was executed, a supernatural tiger took her to a hell full of demons. Kuan Yin made flowers blossom in hell. The realm was transformed into a paradise later known as Fragrant Mountain. When Kuan Yin’s father grew ill, she sacrificed her eyes and arms to aid him. Finally he was overcome with remorse.
From this point, Kuan Yin was transformed into the Thousand Armed Kuan Yin, a powerful goddess for whom an eternal temple was built. But as Kuan Yin prepared to leave the world of men, she heard the cries of suffering below. Her compassion inspired her to take the vow of a bodhisattva, vowing to remain with the earth until all suffering should cease.
Kuan Yin is regarded by many as the protector of women and children. By this association she is also seen as a fertility goddess capable of granting children and an eternal source of motherly love. For students of the ascended masters, she is a beloved bodhisattva who demonstrates the power of compassion.
Kuan Yin is recognized as a supreme bodhisattva devoted to all sentient life. Below is an excerpt of her HeartStream given July 4, 2009:
When you enter fully your Buddha Nature and seek only to be the hands and feet of the Buddhas, then you too, through a mind one with the universal Mind, may offer the gift of your Presence to thousands and millions of souls. And your bodhisattva vows are fulfilled soul by soul by soul until one day all sentient life is freed and the Earth in a new transcendent glory is bathed herself, even as the new Buddha baby is bathed within the universal stream of the Mother’s love.
The Messenger David C. Lewis has also discoursed on the qualities of mercy that Kuan Yin embodies:
The gradations of mercy are many. They flow from the most delicate renderings of forgiveness and compassion as the roseate-pinkish hues of violet to the deeper, more blue emanations of mercy which come, even as a certain justice and a rendering of cosmic judgment, as it were, to cleave away all that is unreal so that the light of mercy may manifest in the lives of all.
When people pray to Kuan Yin-not in the way of just a supplication, for some intercession to relieve them of suffering or to get them out of a condition that may be painful to the human ego-but they come to Kuan Yin in a way that is in the understanding of the bodhisattva path to serve sentient beings until all are free, then Kuan Yin comes with a great magnificent presence of beingness that illumines our life and brings forth the highest possible outcome and reality for us. (December 18, 2008)
Kuan Yin’s dedicated to God as the Mother light is a theme in many of her Heartstreams, including this HeatStream from August 24, 2008 and her support and honor for Mother Mary’s mission:
So, we would have you fully embrace your Buddha Nature, your Mother Nature this day. For what is the Buddha without the Mother? And who is the Mother without the Buddha? For you see there is the sacred dance and interplay of light betwixt that which is above and that which is below, that which is within and that which is without. And unless you fully understand the nature of the Mother of mercy and the Mother of compassion, you cannot know fully the Father of light, the Father of cosmic flow….
I stand now emanating rings of fire on behalf of the blessed Mother Mary to those within a thirty-three mile radius of this place. Come to the fount of the Mother here, O souls. Partake of the essence of my heart and the heart of Mary. You will know surcease from struggle, from dense desire and from the machinations of the mindless ones in a holy respite in our arms and in our heart. Kneel before the image of Mary, bow before that which is my representation-not to honor our outer personalities, but to embrace fully that Mother Light even within your own soul.
Learn more about Kuan Yin and other ascended masters and their teachings through the website listed below.