The year 2016 has seen growing numbers of cities, countries and corporations pledging to use increasing amounts of renewable energy in the coming time.
This rapid transformation in demand for renewables has energized researchers, engineers and climate activists around the world. This surge has also led author and economist Chris Goodall to research the various options at hand and conclude that “solar power can provide the bulk of the world’s power, not just electricity, within a surprisingly short time.”This statement from the home page of Goodall’s website, carboncommentary.com, provides the theme of his book, The Switch, and the focus of the analysis contained therein.
Goodall writes that the essential ingredients for the switch to dependence on solar power are now in place around the world:
- The cheap power source, the sun, and the increasingly affordable technology for capturing solar radiance.
- The rapidly developing, and falling costs of, battery storage capacity.
- The technology and techniques to convert light into energy-rich gases and liquids that can be used in existing oil and gas distribution and storage facilities.
- The software needed to manage distribution grids.
The first principle and essential value of solar power is the fact, Goodall writes, that sunshine is free, non-polluting and readily available, albeit at varying levels of intensity, throughout the world. In 90 minutes, our sun provides enough energy to power all of our energy needs, worldwide, for one year. Because PV (photovoltaic) modules (solar panels) are maintenance free with an expected lifespan of about 35 years, solar power will undercut the cost of any alternative renewable such as wind and water.
A second essential value is the fact that the cost of a PV module is dropping dramatically due to of advances in engineering and production. Solar photovoltaics are already the cheapest way of providing energy in many parts of the world, and in the coming years will become the least expensive way of generating power nearly everywhere, Goodall believes.
Applying “Swanson’s Law”*, Goodall writes that every time the world’s accumulated solar panel production doubles, the cost of each PV module falls by 20 percent. He refers to this dynamic as the “experience curve”, shown in other technologies to be reliably predictive of the cost reduction effect of innovation and human experience in the lab and factory.
Goodall focuses heavily on the needs of those countries that are not naturally sunny all year. Sufficient battery capacity is essential if solar power is to become the dominant energy source, and battery research and development activity is intense. Because of this intense interest and the “experience curve”, battery costs, like the costs of solar energy, are falling dramatically.
But even with increasingly huge battery storage capacity, in places like the UK, northern Europe and Canada, supplementary power sources are needed during times of less sunlight. Goodall cites wind as an obvious source, but even with improvements in efficiency in wind technology, another source of energy is needed to meet demand especially in the major cities.
It is the search for this other source that Goodall writes has been an “intractable” problem so far. He writes an extensive analysis of research projects and ideas focusing on this problem. The solution he seems to like best is the use of electrolysis to make hydrogen, and the collection of CO2 either from decaying plant matter or by capturing it from the atmosphere. Both would then be fed to specific microbes that exude energy-rich molecules that become fuels such as methane that can be stored in existing energy infrastructure and sent as needed for use in low radiance areas. Research and development of solutions to this particular issue continue.
Goodall writes that as more and more people use PV, demand for, and therefore the price of, all energy sources continue to fall, making solar and wind energy cheaper than fossil fuels, with their high costs of exploration, development, refining and delivery. Goodall says that it is increasingly clear that solar and wind provide the most cost effective business plan for utilities and energy corporations, and when they realize this, the switch to solar energy will be complete.
In discussing the management of supply and demand, Goodall presents an innovative idea about how to match the demand for energy to the supply available. The traditional model is built to provide for maximum demand at all times. Instead of this costly model that encourages waste, he suggests a “demand response” technology that cuts the supply of electricity when power is in short supply or is not needed. As an example, Goodall cites the efforts of a Belgian company, REstore. They have created and run software that, under agreement, cuts electric power to their industry and commercial clients for short periods, perhaps minutes, when the supply is short. In return, these clients are paid cash for their trouble. This software enables REstore to manage the grid to the benefit of all players.
The Switch is a fascinating, highly technical, and inspiring look at what is happening to change the energy culture throughout the world. Goodall takes a realistically hard look at the challenges, yet provides the possible options in terms that offer the reader real hope that through cooperation and ingenuity, low cost and totally clean solar power can become the default energy source on Earth.
[*Swanson’s Law is an observation that the price of solar photovoltaic modules tends to drop 20 percent for every doubling of cumulative shipped volume. At present rates, costs halve about every 10 years.]
The Switch: How solar, storage and new tech means cheap power for all: Chris Goodall. Published in 2016 by Profile Books, 3 Holford Yard, Bevin Way, London WC1X9HD. 274 pages.
When humanity sees Maitreya, whether they recognize Him or not, they will feel obliged to support Him or to reject Him and all He stands for: sharing, justice and peace. Thus will men be divided and known. Thus will the Sword of Cleavage perform its destined task, and thus will Maitreya know the readiness of men for change. Appearing before men as one of them, the Great Lord ensures that men follow and support Him for the truth and sanity of His ideas rather than for His status.
Nevertheless, it matters not whether they recognize Him as Maitreya, as the Christ, or simply as a man Whose wisdom coincides with their own aspiration for justice and peace, for a better world for all men.
Gradually, we must assume, many will begin to see Maitreya as the One awaited by all religious groups under their various names, and will call Him thus. Some will say: “He must be the Mahdi,” while others will declaim: “Krishna has come again, the law is fulfilled!” Others will ask: “Surely he is the Messiah, come at last,” while still others will see Him as the Christ or Maitreya Buddha. All will see Him as their Expected One, fulfilling their hopes and come to fulfill their needs.
Maitreya will neither affirm nor deny these claims nor should those among His workers who believe they have recognized Him. Not until the Day of Declaration will Maitreya acknowledge His true identity and status.
On that glorious day men will know, beyond all gainsaying, that their long wait has not been in vain, that help, indeed, is at hand, that the Teacher is ready to aid and guide. That He comes as an Elder Brother rather than a Saviour, ready to take the lead to save our planet, and to enable men themselves to restore sanity to their lives and ways of living.
Maitreya will show that our problems are many but solvable. That the solution to all is already in our hands. That the simple act of sharing, alone, has the power to transform life on Earth for the better. He will ask for man’s trust, as an Elder Brother, that He will not lead them into other than their destined path of harmony and love, that they have nothing to fear but their fear, and that the way ahead already has the blueprint of the Divine.
Thus will Maitreya ease the way for men to embark on a transformation huge in scope, involving all men and women everywhere, a transformation which will launch humanity into a glorious enterprise, the restoration of Planet Earth to its rightful place among its sister planets of our system.
From the depth of its present problems and sorrows, humanity will find hope. So much that is taking place is positive and auspicious for the race that men can be assured of an early lessening of their problems, not all at once, but gradually, little by little. Gradually, also, men will learn the true reasons for their present anguish. They will come to understand that humanity is One, integral and related by long association and common ancestry, related, too, by its common divinity. No more need man fear and fight his neighbour, no longer need millions starve amidst plenty. Thus can be born a new time, a time when Justice and Sharing control the present chaos and irresponsibility, a time when men respect and care for one another, when the divinity of men becomes manifest and the secrets of life known. Sufficiency will replace abundance as the aim of sane men.
Thus will men come into right relationship with each other and with the Source of all. Under the inspiration and guidance of Maitreya and His group men will blossom in their divinity and make that manifest in all they do. The abominations of war and terror will fast fade from their memory, and a vast creative burgeoning will take their place.
Men will renew and beautify their cities, making them worthy of the new time. These will be greater in number and smaller in size, linked by transport, fast and noiseless. People will educate their children in many different ways, each child linked to the educational system as determined by their rays. In time the interchange between the Masters and the race of men will grow in ever increasing closeness, and children will move happily and logically from stage to stage in growing awareness. In all these measures, in this transformation, each one will play his part.
Presently, there will appear a series of signs which will mystify those who experience them. No one will be able to explain this phenomenon but it will presage a change in the thinking and understanding of men. From that time onwards, a sense of expectancy will grip most nations, which will prepare men for the extraordinary events that are to come. As you know, not all men take seriously the new time which lies ahead for mankind. These happenings will prepare more for this revelation.
Steadily, humanity moves forward to its Great Decision. Unbeknown to all but a few, men are being tested as never before in their long history on Earth.
The Sword of Cleavage, wielded by Maitreya, the Christ and World Teacher, is doing its beneficent work: separating and dividing men, accentuating their different natures and proclivities.
In this way, the choice before men becomes clearer, more sharply defined. Maitreya’s energy of love is impersonal, it stimulates everyone, those who long for peace and right relations, and those who love greed and competition, risking thereby a final war and total self-destruction. Thus the importance of the choice faced now by all.
Many might wonder that such a choice is necessary. Surely no-one wants a devastating war? Today, a small and local war could become a major war of nuclear dimension. The result would be too terrible to contemplate, yet there are those who, even now, are planning how to survive such an eventuality.
The choice for men is clear: to continue recklessly on the present greedy course and destroy life on planet Earth for ever, or to follow the promptings of the benevolent heart and practise sharing and justice as the only guarantee of a peaceful future for men of Earth.
The events of the Arab Spring are a sign that the young are responding to Maitreya’s Call. Ahead of their elders, they have awakened to the new energies of Aquarius and the promise of the new life that they bring. They have lost all fear and gladly sacrifice themselves for a new-found freedom and dignity. A new splendour is growing among the young.
Throughout the world, groups plot and plan for revolution. Arms in many countries are now stockpiled for this purpose. Not revolution but evolution is Maitreya’s advocacy. He knows well that revolution precipitates conflict and carnage, replacing one set of problems by another. What is required is a step by step process of change which allows everyone the experience of being involved in their own destiny.
Sharing is the sole means of ensuring such a process; sharing alone will engender the trust essential even to begin. Maitreya has said: “The first step into sharing is the first step into your Divinity.” Accept sharing therefore, and enter into your birthright.
Without doubt, the most important achievement by humanity would be the ending of war. This achieved, men’s energies would be released to tackle the many other pressing problems which beset them today: the millions who starve needlessly in a world of plenty; the precarious ecological imbalance of the planet; the ever-widening gap between the developed rich and the developing poor nations; the growing incidence and fear of terrorism, ever more sophisticated; the hardship and fear engendered by the economic collapse around the world.
Some governments try to cope with some of these difficult problems while still others are main culprits and instigators of them. What can humanity do? How to start when each problem grows out of another, and all seem intractable?
From Our viewpoint, these problems are real and pressing, and stem from one single condition: the separatism which sits like a heavy yoke on the shoulders of humanity and prevents all action in unison. Ideology rather than reason still guides the minds and actions of governments whose decisions affect the lives of all. They seek friends and allies to support their position, and thus are built the power blocks which strive for supremacy in the minds and hearts of men.
Today, this problem is increased by the re-opening of the religious divide between Christianity and Islam. In a growingly secular world, the fundamentalist adherents of both religions are more and more bellicose, raising the temperature of confrontation to ever more dangerous heights. In particular, Islamic terrorism, in complete contradiction to the teaching of the Prophet, has brought a new dimension to the struggle for a peaceful world. How can this process be reversed? There is but one way to grapple with these problems, one which has never been tried but which, at a stroke, would ease the lot of countless millions and bring, at long, long last, true and lasting peace to a world in agony.
Men must realize that they are not separate, never were and never shall be, that they are part of a divine and seamless whole which enfolds us all, to which, in our own way, we give the name of God. Men must realize that God is peace, is justice, sharing and trust, and that their fear is also the fear of their brothers. Maitreya’s task is to show men this truth, and to remind them that at the core of their yearning lies the peace they all desire, waiting to be made manifest.
As the dark clouds of war gather and obscure the sunlit sky of peace, the response of humanity is twofold: mute acceptance and compliance with the will of the warmongers, or active and spirited resistance to their plans and ploys. Today, we see both reactions in equal measure. Half the world is caught up in the glamour of ‘a war against terrorism’ (without recognizing the underlying cause) and in terrorism itself. The other half deplores both terrorism and the lack of understanding of its genesis. They know that changes, on a major scale, alone hold the key to ending this atrocious evil, and call to the leaders of nations to recognize and address the inequalities which so unfairly divide the world. This latter group must grow and increase their resistance to the plans of those, now in power, who so threaten the stability of the world. They must find each other and work together, knowing that they work and speak for the vast but silent majority who share their longing for peace and manifested justice.
Peace will only come when justice reigns, when sharing has opened men’s hearts and awakened them to trust. Thus men must work and speak loudly for justice and sharing which alone will bring an end to men’s suffering, to terrorism and war. We, your Elder Brothers, are ready to do Our part. We will potentize all actions taken on behalf of the Common Good. We await the opportunity to manifest Our strength; to help to right the wrongs of the past; to show men the uselessness of war. We pledge Our support of all who call for an end to war, for the restoration of sanity and balance in the affairs of men, for the creation of justice and freedom for all.
Help Us to help you. Help Us to do Our part. We long to act, as always, in the interest of the Common Good, which, in Our understanding, is the best interests of all men. Thus it is that We advocate sharing; thus do We advise justice; thus do We see freedom and peace as the culmination of sharing and justice. Let us work together for the rescue of this world. Let us abandon differences in the interests of the race. Let sanity triumph and bring men to see their mutual need for peace, and the restoration of an ailing world.
Many await the future in dread, fearful that man has lost his way, that it is now too late to find the path to peace. We counsel otherwise. We know that the path to peace is simply found, needing only the creation of justice and trust. We know that sharing alone will engender that trust, and bring men to abandon both terrorism and war. Thus will it be, and thus will men respond to Maitreya’s message of Brotherhood and Justice, free at last from the glamours of fear and mistrust, ready to create the future in deed and in joy.
It is with sadness that We watch the continuing efforts of men to solve their problems with the methods of the past. These problems are many and relate to the future as much as to the present. In the main, they are relics of the past and represent a heavy burden for the burgeoning societies of today. Lost in their fierce battle for markets, governments everywhere try all the standard ways to achieve security and strength, development and innovation, and stability in the midst of change. It is an impossible task.
There is but one answer to all their troubles, one solution to all their problems, yet none, so far, has ventured to whisper the word which, at a stroke, would free them and the world. Which, at one stroke, would launch this world into the new era of Righteousness and Truth. Let the word resound, let the word demonstrate the new civilization, the new society. Let the word be heard everywhere; let man respond.
The word is the sound of righteousness, it is the sound of truth. The word brings all men together, and builds the Brotherhood of men. The word sits lightly on the heart, bringing happiness to all. The word is wise and generous, filled with love. The word is sharing, the key to the future.
Sharing is the answer to all men’s problems. Sharing is another word for divinity. Sharing initiates the highest that is possible for man for it opens the door to trust. Sharing will take men to the feet of God.
When men learn to share they will know the meaning of life. When men share they will feel exalted and love what they do. Sharing will make men whole. Sharing will make man One.
There is no end to the concept of sharing. It will prove the salvation of men.
When men see Maitreya they will hear these words of Truth. They will listen to His pronouncements with wide-open hearts, and, responding, will call for the end of tyranny and injustice. They will gather around Him and He will be their spokesman. Soon, men will see His face. Soon, He will present His ideas to the world and usher out the old age.
He is near men now. He cannot be denied. His love now saturates the planes and brings change to the fore.
Consider this: without Maitreya’s help man is doomed. We earnestly await the response from men.
While the world waits, expectantly, for Maitreya, and deliverance, there still remains much to do to secure the planet and mankind. Nevertheless, men have little time to wait for Maitreya to begin His open service. Short, indeed, therefore, is the time left to prepare His way, to tell men that help and hope are at hand, that the Teacher is here, eager to speak directly to the peoples of all the nations.
Speed, then, your efforts. Make haste to inform all who will listen that the destined hour has arrived, that soon mankind will rejoice in the presence of the Teacher. Tell them this and uphold their hope and courage. Many will listen now who before did not; anxiety and fear have taken their toll of men. The signs, too, have done their work and awakened millions to expected happenings and revelations. Never before in man’s history have so many sensed the coming changes nor understood their necessity.
Hence, into an expectant and prepared world will Maitreya emerge, sure in the knowledge that His presence is longed for and eagerly anticipated.
Maitreya will outline for men the priorities which alone will secure and safeguard planet Earth and all its peoples. The necessity of peace is paramount for without peace all else is lost. Peace, He will affirm, can only be ensured through the creation of Justice. The lack of Justice is the begetter of both war and terrorism. Justice, Maitreya will maintain, can be achieved only through Sharing. Sharing, therefore, is the key to world peace and security.
Maitreya will turn the minds of men more urgently to the ills of planet Earth, itself. Without a healthy and robust planet the future of succeeding generations is in peril. Maitreya will stress the urgency of action now to restore equilibrium to our suffering planetary home, and call all hands, old and young, to this primary task.
The fate of those who now starve in a world of plenty will exercise Maitreya’s chief concern: “Nothing so moves Me to grief as this shame,” He says, and seeks to galvanize the creation of a vast programme of aid for the world’s poor on a scale hitherto unknown.
These are the immediate priorities, to make fast and secure the future for men. Man’s free will is sacrosanct and may not be infringed; the speed of implementation of these primary requirements is subject, therefore, to the will of men.
Men now face the choice: to see the world as One and share, and know security and blessed Peace and happiness, or to witness the end of life on Earth.
Maitreya is emerging now to ensure that man’s choice is wisely made. Have no fear, Maitreya already knows man’s answer, and is glad.
It is becoming increasingly clear that man is ready for a great leap forward. Despite the many tensions and dangers which still exist, and which to many seem increasing, the human kingdom is moving forward and upwards in line with the Plan which guides the actions of us all. The Cosmic Magnet draws everything towards a planned destination; the energies of the magnet wax in power and cannot be withstood. Man must learn and understand the power and benefice of Cosmos. Thus will he grow correctly with the minimum of suffering.
The Light of Cosmos shines on man as never before, inspiring him to simplify his life and so regain the connection with the Source which, sadly, he has lost.
Were men to heed these words, they would soon enter into a state of Being altogether new in their long journey to perfection.
Time, for the old ways, is fast running out. The old thinking and acting, which cause men so much distress, is nearing its end. A new Light sheds its beauty over humanity and brings to a conclusion the aberrations of the past.
Thus do We see the future for man as one bathed in the light of the new understanding. Thus do We rejoice at the nearness of the time.
Man’s long struggle to build the structures which will serve his rightful purposes is almost over. The required forms are already dimly sensed and soon will break upon his understanding as revelation.
From that moment alone, his progress will astonish all but the watching Brothers. We have for long worked towards this end and wait patiently for its enactment. We know that men’s hearts are ready to give form to their loftiest aspirations, to enter willingly into a future as yet unknown, to rectify the mistakes of the past and to begin again on the long ladder of ascent. We know this to be so and have confidence in man’s capacity to change when needs he must.
This is such a time. Conditions on Earth are deteriorating rapidly: the divisions which have dogged men for centuries raise, as ever, their perennial problems. The planet groans under the impact of man’s wanton destruction. Men await a sign, an assurance of leadership and guidance, and an opportunity to hope.
The signs, for men, are everywhere to be seen. The guidance is assured. The reasons for hope are long and constantly offered.
That men heed them not results from fear. Blind, men are, because they are afraid to see. When, soon, Maitreya steps into the centre of man’s affairs, making known the reasons for, and the solutions to, man’s problems, they will see that the leadership they yearn for has long been theirs to enjoy, that the time has come to abandon the destructive ways of the past, and that all unknown, they have within themselves the hope and capacity which will remake this world and set it, once again, balanced and safe, bravely on its destined path.
When, as now, man is at the crossroads, awaiting guidance on which direction to take, he sets up an invocative cry for help. Inevitably, when the cry has reached a certain pitch, We, your Elder Brothers, respond and answer. Thus is it today as men flounder wildly in the chaos of their own making, afraid to take the only steps which will save them from further chaos.
Into this maelstrom Maitreya is about to enter, fully aware of the task which lies ahead. Only a Being of His immeasurable wisdom could accept such a burden. Only someone of His incomparable courage could undertake such a task.
Out of the anarchic conditions of the present must He construct the new and better order. Out of the agony of millions must He fashion a new world.
Who is there to help Him in His work of salvage?
Who would rally to His cause and aid their brothers and sisters?
Now, as never before, is the opportunity to serve a world in labour, a new world waiting to be born.
Maitreya seeks to lift man into his birthright. He seeks to inspire the creation of a new and happier world. The Great Lord seeks to invest each individual life with sanctity and worth. He seeks to rid the world of violence and war.
Where will He find His helpers? Who are ready to respond? Who have the courage to aid the Lord of Love? He knows already those on whom He can depend. Make ready to see Him. Burnish bright your resolve. Be not dismayed by the immensity of the task. Be simple and heartfelt in all you do. Maitreya approaches, fast, on a shining white steed. His mantram is: fear not!
All, in time, will be renewed.
All, in time, will be returned to the Light.
Consider this: “Take your brother’s need as the measure for your action, and solve the problems of the world. There is no other course.”
Into your unhappy world now steps Maitreya. He knows your agony and suffering better even than you do yourselves, for He knows, too, the joy which is your birthright.
That joy would He restore to you in full and perfect measure. For that is He among you.
Take Him to your hearts and let Him serve you. Know Him as your friend and Brother of Old. Let Him guide you and teach you; thus will you grow in your divinity.
The time has come when you shall see His face. His smile of love will beckon you to His side. You will find your love magnified a thousandfold and, giving it in service to His Cause, enter into the Plan of which you are a part.
Many people await the return of the Christ with trepidation and fear. They sense that His appearance will promote great changes in all departments of life. His values, they rightly assume, will necessarily alter their ways of thinking and living and they blanch at such a prospect. Besides, so mystical has been the view of the Christ presented down the centuries by the churches, that many fear His judgement and omnipotent power; they await Him as God come to punish the wicked and reward the faithful.
It is sadly to be regretted that such a distorted vision of the Christ should so have permeated human consciousness. No such being exists. In order to understand the true nature of the Christ it is necessary to see Him as one among equal Sons of God, each endowed with full divine potential, differing only in the degree of manifestation of that divinity.
That He has achieved the fullness of that divinity is His Glory, and well may we stand in reverence at this achievement. That this same achievement is rare indeed is also indisputably true. But the wonder of the Christ for men is that He was one of them. Naught there is, in the trials and sufferings of men, but He did know it. Each step of the path that men still tread has He painfully trodden. Nothing is there, in the whole panorama of human experience, that He has not shared. Thus truly is He the Son of Man.
There can be little doubt that were He to appear unannounced in our midst few would recognize Him. So far from the general notion is He that He would pass unnoticed in the crowd. Thus it is today among His brothers as He awaits man’s invitation to begin His mission. Many who see Him daily know Him not. Others recognize Him but are afraid to speak. Still others wait and pray, hopeful that He may be the One for whom they dare not hope. Only His Declaration before the world will establish Him in the sight and hearts of men.
While we await that Day of Days, let us clarify in our minds the reasons for His return. Let us understand the nature of the task which He has set Himself. To establish in our midst the fact of God, has He come. To recreate the Divine Mysteries, is He here. To teach men how to love, and love again, is He among us. To establish man’s brotherhood does He walk the Earth once more. To keep faith with the Father and with man does He accept this burden. To usher in the new age has He returned. To consolidate the treasure of the past, to inspire the marvels of the future, to glorify God and man has He descended from His high mountain.
Let us look at His priorities: the establishment of peace; the inauguration of the system of sharing; the removal of guilt and fear — the cleansing of the hearts and minds of men; the education of mankind in the laws of life and love; an introduction to the Mysteries; the beautification of our cities; the removal of barriers to travel and interchange of peoples; the creation of a pool of knowledge accessible to all.
That such a task is not an easy one, not even for the Son of Man, is clear. Ancient habits of division and separation have strong roots, while fear and superstition cast their spell over millions of mankind. But never before, in the history of the world, has a Teacher come better equipped for His task. Maitreya has come to do battle with ignorance and fear, division and want. His weapons are spiritual understanding, knowledge and love; His shining armour is Truth Itself.
The French are indicating that the MAI would wipe out their film industry; in Britain the MAI has been criticized in Parliament and in the Financial Times; the ‘Asian Tigers’ are resisting the MAI, and a small but persistent group of Canadians are warning that the MAI will give corporations so much power that Parliament will not matter much any more.
What is the MAI? Unknown to most people, representatives of the world’s 28 wealthiest countries are meeting at the Organization for Economic cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris to negotiate a Multilateral Agreement on Investment, called the MAI, scheduled to be signed behind closed doors in May 1998. Virtually no one had heard about the MAI until citizens sounded the alarm, and very few still know and understand its implications.
Proponents of the MAI say simply that it creates a level playing field for investors globally, and that it will be beneficial especially for developed countries. From their point of view, the different rules and regulations of national, provincial, state or local governments are a hindrance to doing business. Regulations and laws vary from place to place, and these are a nuisance. The consistency guaranteed by the MAI would reassure investors, and this would be beneficial to all OECD countries, they say.
Not so, say opponents. Rather, the MAI gives the world’s corporations a virtual charter of rights and freedoms, ensuring them the right to conduct business and move their operations wherever and whenever they like, without any government regulations.
National and local laws represent national sovereignty, or the power of governments to set regulations, say those who are alarmed. National laws, for instance, protect the environment or give employment or financial incentives such as grants for job creation to local businesses, or financial support for films, books, magazines and other cultural enterprises. Such preferential treatment would be challenged under the MAI, because foreign companies would expect to have rights equal to local businesses. Opponents suggest that laws to protect the environment, labour, business and culture would eventually interfere with the rights to make profits, and that local laws would no longer hold under the MAI.
It is no wonder that a few Canadians have become very worried. Canada has historically been vulnerable to being overpowered by the culture of its neighbour to the south, the US. Because there is no language barrier outside Quebec, Canadians are flooded with American movies, magazines, and other US products. This is so pervasive that, in a recent survey, Canadian high school students were asked to name the Prime Minister of Canada, and one-quarter of them named the American President instead. To counteract this trend, the Canadian Government has in the past given financial incentives to Canadian books, magazines, films, and other cultural items to offset the barrage of materials produced by its more populous neighbour.
Seeing the danger of the MAI, a small group of Canadian citizens began to educate others via the Internet and by giving lectures. They approached politicians to ask their position on the MAI, and found that politicians generally did not know much about it. Since then, the Province of British Columbia has officially opposed the MAI, although the agreement is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. In addition, one citizen, Connie Fogal, is launching a legal challenge to the Federal Government’s authority to sign away the power of the citizen.
Under the MAI, products such as films are simply an investment. A recent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation newscast reported that the French film industry has become concerned, recognizing that the French Government would no longer be able to give preferential treatment to, or subsidize, films made by the French. As a result, they believe, the French film industry would essentially be wiped out.
A French film industry spokesman threatened that “The Americans, who are the driving force behind the MAI, are not going to bully us into creating a world-wide mono-culture.” American negotiators have, on the other hand, indicated that if culture is taken out of the agreement, it would be too watered down for them to sign. French opponents have responded by saying that this would be a dream come true.
David Weston, who began to raise the MAI issue in Canada in the spring of 1997 by approaching both federal and provincial politicians, and subsequently key political advisers in Britain, says: “The OECD has recognized the MAI’s unpopularity, and is abandoning it under its present name and sponsor. Negotiations are already under way in Paris to rename the agreement and sign it under the World Trade Organization (WTO) instead. I have confirmation from Claude Laverdure, Assistant Deputy Minister (Europe) in the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, that the MAI is indeed being removed from the OECD and that while its move to the WTO was possible, he was not aware of the timeline.”
Weston explains further: “The original WTO-sponsored Multilateral Investment Agreement faltered because the Third World saw its neo-colonialism implications. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), along with its Canadian counterparts, who seem to be the main lobbyists in this game, subsequently moved the responsibility for its implementation to the OECD, changing the name to MAI, in the hope of pushing it through. They then ‘invited’ the Third World to clamber on board under OECD rules.”
However, Weston adds: “Now that the ICC and their ilk have discovered that public awareness and ire are aroused, they have decided to re-route it once again back to the WTO. The implications of WTO’s involvement are important, for under C.57, Chapter 47 (1994) WTO Implementation Act, the Canadian Prime Minister is given authority to sign any international agreements within the purview of the WTO, without reference to Parliament.”
Nevertheless, Weston says: “Any agreement our country signs under the WTO Implementation Act would be illegal. Under the Canadian Constitution Act (Interpretation Act, R.S.C. 1985, c.1-21, section 42(1)), it is absolutely clear that no parliament, present or future, can be shackled or bound by the decisions of any previous parliament. It is my contention, therefore, that because the WTO Implementation Act does attempt to bind present and future parliaments, that it is ‘ultra vires’, that is, beyond the jurisdiction of parliament. If any of its agreements signed bind any parliament beyond the life of any one parliament, then this government is acting illegally, and as such, is bordering on treason, because the right of citizens to bring in whatever legislation they please, is sacrosanct.”
Weston says that he is taking such an active role in raising public awareness about these obscure negotiations because “These agreements are not primarily about trade and investment but, rather, an attempt to replace democratic involvement and control by citizens with corporate control by a tiny elite. My concern is that while our attention is being diverted over the MAI, other similarly obnoxious agreements are being signed under our noses.”
Weston and a small group of citizens remain active in interpreting these agreements to the public and politicians alike. It appears that this minority has had some successes, as people like David continue to try to bring down the Goliath of unregulated international commerce.
An important debate is currently taking place between neo-classical economists, whose influence predominates in business and government circles around the world, and the so-called New Economists, often referred to also as alternative economists. Many of them have questioned the narrow focus of economic measures such as GDP (Gross Domestic Product, or all the goods and services produced in a given year). In their efforts to go beyond this type of measurement or indicator, more modern economists involved with the New Economics have attempted to develop a different type of index of measurement. This measurement involves transactions which are not based on money; work which is regular but unpaid and which, in important ways, underpins the money-based economy; informal, barter-based exchanges; and qualitative factors such as environmental impacts.
Much work is done in the United States and in Britain, where the New Economics Foundation is located. The focus of the New Economics concerns the development of sustainable economics. In a recent interview with Ed Mayo, the current Director of the New Economics Foundation in London, I mentioned that sustainability sometimes seems a vague term, and has been used in a variety of ways. He agreed, but thinks that the many definitions the concept embraces argue in its favour. Sustainability is really a term that points to concerns about unrestrained growth, which depletes non-renewable resources or creates environmental impacts which severely damage animal, plant and human health. The quantity-versus-quality debate can also be understood as the growth-versus-sustainability debate, and ultimately is an important philosophical debate about values. The urgency of the debate, however, relates to real and alarming reductions in the quality of life for many.
What we measure matters, because government policies rely on these measurements. On current GDP measures, a country may be measuring growth without costing-in harmful impacts from that growth. An obvious example is the incidence of asthma and other respiratory diseases, which has risen apace with increased traffic in major cities of the world. In the United Kingdom, asthma is now the third most frequent cause of all hospital admissions, and the major medical societies are leading the way in pointing to the urgent need for revision of transport policies. In simple terms, this will mean fewer cars on the road, restricted areas and improved public transport, as well as continued research into non-toxic fuels. For the health of urban dwellers everywhere to improve, and the increased costs of ill-health to decline, this type of research needs to be given a high priority. Governments need to take a firm lead in informing people about the real costs, to the nation as a whole, of increased pollution and attendant ill-health. For this to happen, a change of thinking is required, and a corresponding change in what is measured would help towards that goal. Prices need to be separated from real costs.
Another way of looking at the striking limitations of the much-used GDP measurement is to focus on how much it leaves out, as well as on the notion that measuring economic activity per se tells us nothing about whether it is harmful or beneficial. For example, what appears to be growth in a nation may be skewed very much in favour of a particular sector of the population, so that a significant segment of the population is excluded. Yet this exclusion from economic activity might result in a growing and dangerous lack of social cohesion and attendant rising crime, which is very expensive for the nation as a whole, despite good annual growth figures on conventional measurements. The measurements might mask successful non-money strategies involving barter. Some economic activity masks social disasters which ultimately can cost the tax-payer a great deal.
A famous example of the limitations of GDP comes from the work of Ted Halstead and Clifford Cobb: a terminal cancer patient who has recently undergone a divorce and has moved house would count as an “economic hero” because of all the economic activity generated in the wake of his illness, his divorce and his move to a new home.
Work on new indicators which broaden what is measured and attempt to mirror more closely what happens in people’s lives includes the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW). It looks at ozone depletion costs; the costs of car accidents; loss of habitats and farmlands; defensive private expenditures on education and health; and attempts to cost activities such as unpaid household work by comparing it, in a given country, with the cost of paid domestic work, as well as including other factors.
Interesting graphs published recently in a briefing paper by Ed Mayo show that in both Britain and the United States, GDP and the ISEW grew apace from the 1950s to the end of the 1970s, after which GDP continues to grow whereas the ISEW begins to decline. This seems to indicate that growth is good up to a point, beyond which social and environmental costs begin to appear. This is now known as the “threshold”. For many, these comparisons mean that while some people may have more money in their pockets, the quality of their lives seems to have declined. As many of the quality-oriented economists point out, the trouble with relying so much on GDP is that it can only add; it cannot subtract. They also point out that, when it was first developed, it was never meant to acquire its current predominance as an indicator. Failure to take into account real costs and quality of life issues such as increased air, water and land pollution, increasing noise, the rise of particular diseases, a more frantic pace of work with decreasing time spent with the family, and so on, can result in important policy failures.
The idea, still fashionable among neo-classical economists, that economics should not go beyond measuring quantity is itself a value. It avoids issues of context as well as of quality, and therefore can lead to mistaken decisions which are unresponsive to genuine human needs.
Recent studies indicate that some 800 million people in the world today, many of them living in parts of Asia and Africa, have an inadequate food supply. But the figures are rising and the picture is worsening, due to recent stock-market falls and currency crashes in Southeast Asia (as in Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia). In these countries thousands of companies are going bankrupt and millions of people are losing their livelihoods. This catastrophe was brought on in part through imprudent lending and borrowing, much of it on a short-term basis, partly through lax supervision of these activities, further aggravated by the flight of foreign investors when confidence was lost.
The international community now worries about a possible currency devaluation in China, suddenly in an unfavourable position because other countries in the region are exporting goods at much lower prices to try to climb out of their disastrous situation. A currency devaluation in China could spark further devaluations in neighbouring countries, plunging them into ever more debt. There are also concerns about Japan, where banks are carrying billions of dollars in bad loans, many of which may ultimately be unpayable. Many of these banks have loaned considerable sums to Southeast Asian countries and are now further exposed. Current estimates of bad loans carried by Japanese institutions amount to as much as $600,000 million. Were major Japanese banks to crash, the panic engendered could cause a world-wide stock-market crash.
Compared to the many billions promptly found through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to shore up ailing Southeast economies (which some fear may not, in any case, be sufficient), the initiatives required to help the very poorest countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, do not amount to much. Despite a World Bank initiative launched with much fanfare and upbeat press releases at the end of 1996 to help the so-called HIPCs (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries), very few have benefited. To date, only four countries (Burkina Faso and Uganda in Africa and Bolivia and Guyana in South America) have become eligible for debt relief.
The requirements for debt relief are stringent: countries must undergo a three-year economic, administrative and policy restructuring (the so-called Structural Adjustment) to qualify. Greater transparency and accountability are all to the good, but lowering trade barriers and making already vulnerable economies more open have had mixed results in many countries, where there is some evidence that the poor have become even poorer. This is one variant of the familiar ‘winners and losers’ recipe, which may achieve currency stability and other benefits at the price of further impoverishing a significant proportion of the population. In many countries, basic foodstuffs have become more expensive compared to the salaries of the average low-paid worker. It is estimated that the landless poor have to pay as much as 80 per cent of their income to feed themselves.
This stark picture contrasts with a recent, upbeat report, The World Food Outlook, compiled by two World Bank officials and an Australian academic. This report rightly refutes alarmists who predicted shortages of world food supplies several years ago. Remarkably, although the population of the world continues to rise, so the capacity to feed ourselves has also foiled predictions of doom and has kept pace with the demographic explosion. However, there is not a single word in this report about how we can deal with the abject failure to redistribute efficiently from surplus areas to needy areas. It has been pointed out by some analysts that dumping cheap food on Third World markets can depress food prices local farmers rely on. This is true, but the stark fact remains that current market mechanisms lead to the absurd situation that, although there is enough food in the world, many millions go hungry because they cannot afford to buy it.
Poverty and hunger are now understood to have multiple causes, but these are not beyond the reach of our understanding. For example, structural reform of land tenure in many Third World countries could improve the situation. Major international lenders impose profound change on societies around the world but are strangely mute on land-tenure issues.
By the early 1980s, 4 per cent of the world’s big landowners controlled half of the world’s cropland. In 83 poor countries, 3 per cent of the landholders own or control four-fifths of the land. In Asia, between a third and half of the rural population own no land at all. Yet, in terms of food productivity, most small farmers produce more food per acre than larger ones. In Brazil, Chile and Argentina small family farms produce over 8 times as much to the acre as the largest farms. In Colombia, the small-farm production is 14 times greater. But 58 per cent of small-holders have to make do with 8 per cent of the world’s cropland. The obvious conclusion is that land redistribution can increase food security and self-sufficiency and halt the drift to the cities, where the poor lead precarious lives with no or only casual employment.
Perhaps no tangible benefits for the West are at stake here. Multinationals, particulary those which are attempting to command every process in the food chain, from planting and harvesting to ‘adding value’ through food processing and packaging to selling, do not look sympathetically at proposals that make the rural poor more self-reliant. The current free-market economic models also create situations which make many farmers reliant on cash crops for export only (a feature of some international bank loan programmes). This lack of local diversity not only diminishes self-sufficiency, but also makes farmers vulnerable when prices of agricultural products (primary commodities) suddenly drop on the world market. In the last few years, commodity prices have been falling. Excessive reliance on any one export, the plight of many Third World countries, also makes them vulnerable to world recessions, changes in exchange rates and new technologies. Diversity in both local production for self-sufficiency and in exports is necessary yet often resisted by major power brokers in wealthy nations, who seem to want a pliant, compliant and dependent Third World.
Floods, droughts, crop-destroying plagues and civil wars also play their part. But civil wars are also often the result of severe socio-economic imbalances which some policies perpetuate or aggravate.
People also remain impoverished and vulnerable in part because of inappropriate or inadequate credit instruments which avoid the development of adequate ‘micro-credits’. These are very small and therefore repayable loans which effectively spur development but which are often ignored in the thinking of major lenders and banks with no instruments in place to develop them. The non-governmental organizations (such as major and accountable development charities) can play a role. The extension of credit in this way (which benefits the rural and urban poor most directly) needs to happen on a much larger scale than at present, and heads off the complaint, so often heard, of corrupt officials in any country pocketing a percentage of the loans or grants. In India, it is significant that as much as 25 per cent of all foreign assistance is channelled through non-governmental organizations.
Development policies and loans structured to ignore the crucial role of women in Third World farming also delay the development of self-reliance and food security in various countries.
Finally, a modern form of slavery, namely debt slavery, plagues many countries. This is the focus of the British-based charity Christian Aid, which is linking with 50 other charities, community and church groups and writers in various countries in a ‘Jubilee 2000’ campaign for debt forgiveness for the world’s poorest countries. Drawing on the humanitarian traditions of slavery abolitionists such as William Wilberforce, the groups who form part of the Jubilee 2000 campaign have called themselves the ‘debt abolitionists’. They cite a United Nations Development Programme estimate that 21 million children could be saved by the millenium through cancellation of external debt owed by the world’s poorest countries.
Tanzania, for example, is one among several countries which has had to spend over a third of its wealth simply to service its external debt. Most sub-Saharan African countries have merely struggled to pay interest without ever succeeding in reducing the debt itself. The international lending institutions in the West seem to benefit by judicious application of the debt tourniquet, not allowing countries to collapse altogether, ensuring interest repayments keep coming, but ensuring also that the debts can never be repaid either. This, on a country-wide scale, replicates the ‘bonded labour’ situation in Third World countries where workers owe their loans all their lives and have to keep working merely to keep alive, without earning anything other than their food. You can never make headway simply by servicing a debt to pay off interest rather than reducing the debt itself. Yet this is the situation in some of the 40 countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
Growing public awareness through campaigns such as Jubilee 2000 can persuade the world’s richest countries (the so-called G-7 countries comprising mainly European countries, the Unites States and Japan) to write off the crippling debts of the poorest countries. Other initiatives in this regard, have come to nothing or proceed too slowly. One plan was that the IMF should sell its gold reserves; this plan was opposed by both Japan and Germany. Leadership from the United States has also been strangely lacking. Some of the ‘announcements’ seemed designed more to placate a growing body of discontented public opinion than to precede tangible action. There is a great difference between the announcement of debt relief initiatives and their substance. Perhaps the hope is that the public will go to sleep, without tracking the meagre sequels that follow the announcements.
Aside from extending micro-credits and restructuring debt relief to speed it up and to increase it, food redistribution mechanisms need to be carefully worked out. Many studies point out that much food is lost through inadequate infrastructure to take food to market or to store it adequately. This being the case, until better transport, storage and marketing mechanisms are in place, as well as land redistribution and greater use of credit mechanisms targeted directly to the rural and urban poor, the major aim has to be to feed the people now, despite and even because of the current inadequacies.
It is painfully obvious that the market, left to itself, cannot deliver this. The obvious solution is an international food agency to redirect food to areas of need, with the specific aim of ending hunger and starvation within a few years. The right to life itself has to become the highest priority.
(References: Mitchell, Ingco and Duncan, The World Food Outlook, Cambridge University Press, 1997. State of The World 1997, Worldwatch Institute Report, Earthscan Publications Limited, London. E.M.Young, World Hunger, Routledge, London and New York, 1997. Middleton and O’Keefe, Disaster and Development, Pluto Press 1998. The New Abolitionists, Christian Aid report, London, 1998.)
Malnutrition contributes to nearly seven million child deaths every year — more than any infectious disease, war or natural disaster, according to the 1998 State of the World’s Children Report released by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. Where it does not kill, malnutrition can leave victims physically maimed, intellectually impaired and suffering from the consequences of a weakened immune system. “The persistence of malnutrition has profound and frightening implications for children, society, and the future of humankind,” said UNICEF Executive Director, Carol Bellamy. “Yet this worldwide crisis has stirred little public alarm, despite substantial and growing scientific evidence of the danger.”
While there have been dramatic reductions in malnutrition in some parts of the world, the overall number of malnourished children is on the rise. No less than half of all children under the age of five in South Asia and one-third of those in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as millions of children in industrialized countries, are malnourished.
Malnutrition is not only a “silent emergency” but a largely invisible one, the UNICEF report found. Three-quarters of the children who die worldwide of causes related to malnutrition are what nutritionists describe as “mildly to moderately malnourished” and show no outward signs of problems. Starvation of the kind arising from famines, war and other catastrophes, although much covered by world media, is responsible for only a tiny part of the world-wide nutrition crisis, the report points out. “Malnutrition is not a simple matter of whether a child can satisfy his or her appetite,” Bellamy said. “A child who eats enough to avoid immediate hunger can still be malnourished. Good nutrition relies on a combination of adequate nutritious food, good health services and proper care for both pregnant women and children.”
Malnutrition can take a variety of forms that contribute to each other, such as protein-energy malnutrition and deficiencies of micronutrients like iodine, iron and vitamin A. Malnutrition is chiefly a consequence of disease and inadequate dietary intake. But, according to the report, many more elements are involved, including discrimination against women, which results in women eating last and least, and in being denied the educational opportunities that would empower them better to care for themselves and for their children. Malnourished women who become pregnant give birth to children who are already malnourished and whose ability to contribute to society as adults is diminished. Low-birthweight babies, for example, have IQs that average five points below that of healthy children. And women who are stunted — the long-term result of their own low birthweight, a poor diet and repeated illness — are more likely to die in childbirth, especially because of obstructed labor.
“While malnutrition has long been recognized as a consequence of poverty, it is increasingly clear that it is also a cause,” Bellamy said.
But UNICEF says that recent breakthroughs in nutritional science could have yet undreamed-of benefits, not only for the general healthy development of children, but also in helping to limit and even prevent some major killer diseases. “We now believe that good nutrition could be a key element in the fight against some of the world’s greatest health challenges, including maternal mortality, malaria and even HIV/AIDS,” Bellamy said. “And there is growing evidence that better nutrition in early childhood and during pregnancy may reduce the burden of heart disease, and other chronic and degenerative ailments, later in life.”
One of the most exciting discoveries is of the power of vitamin A, which is found in such foods as eggs, butter, whole milk, and liver. Studies show that deaths from diarrhoea can be reduced by 35 to 40 per cent if children are given vitamin A supplements. Other research shows that vitamin A could halve the number of deaths among children suffering from measles. A recent study in Nepal found that low-dose vitamin A supplements can reduce pregnancy-related deaths dramatically — an average of 44 per cent among women in areas where vitamin A deficiency is widespread.
Supplements of vitamin A and zinc may boost children’s resistance to malaria, which currently kills 600,000 young children each year. Moreover, zinc supplements seem to have a remarkable effect in reducing the toll of diarrhoea and pneumonia in poor countries. “Like the breakthroughs in immunization in the 1980s, such simple, low-cost nutritional supplements could be one of the most significant new public health interventions for the late 1990s,” Bellamy said.
But UNICEF is concerned that much more needs to be done to reduce the global toll of severe and moderate malnutrition. Governments in poor and rich countries must show leadership and commitment and must provide funding to mount and support actions to combat malnutrition that can be implemented by communities themselves. The price of inaction is high, the report warns: countless millions of children intellectually disabled, physically stunted and especially vulnerable to illness.
Numerous authors in recent history have attempted to bring the Ageless Wisdom philosophy to the public’s attention: Alice Bailey, Annie Besant, Vera Stanley Alder, Benjamin Creme, Torkom Saraydarian and others. One such contemporary book is Spiritual Politics, by Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson.
Drawing upon their experience with various new age groups and philosophies, including Findhorn and the Lucis Trust, as well as their understanding of the Ageless Wisdom, and participation in political and economic groups, McLaughlin and Davidson have put together an analysis of the world’s political and economic problems, with suggested solutions, based on the Ageless Wisdom philosophy.
Spiritual Politics is divided into five sections: ‘The Book of Life’, ‘Evolutionary Governance’, ‘The Hidden Causes of World Events’, ‘The Divine Hand Behind Human Affairs’, and ‘Creating a New World Order.’
Groundwork for the book is laid in ‘The Book of Life’. Key concepts are examined which assist the reader’s understanding in later sections: the Ageless Wisdom throughout history, Ageless Wisdom principles — detachment, the soul, initiation; energy and thought; and the recognition that a divine purpose exists behind human affairs.
The second section, ‘Evolutionary Governance’, is an examination of the new wave in political relationships called transformational politics. It is based on two main ideas.
First, “the personal is political and the political is personal.” Politics is a collective manifestation of the sum of its parts. If we want to change the whole, we have to change the parts.
Secondly, we are called to move beyond narrow and separatist viewpoints, where polarities are emphasized, to view people and events in relationship to each other. This basic principle of the Ageless Wisdom views all people as interconnected.
In the third section, ‘The Hidden Causes of World Events’, the authors examine the underlying causes of global problems. Such causes range from mental ones — polarized/separative thinking, to emotional — fear and greed, to etheric causes — chakra imbalances, and the effects of karma.
In the first three sections of Spiritual Politics the authors examine human causes of world events. In ‘The Divine Hand Behind Human Affairs’ they look at causes which are transhuman. Discussion is given over in part to Hierarchical influence and the manner and methods by which the Hierarchy effect changes in the world. Other influences mentioned include Shamballa, devas, forces of darkness, the seven rays, and astrological correlations.
In the final section of the book, ‘Creating a New Planetary Order’, McLaughlin and Davidson seek to integrate the theory and philosophy of the earlier sections into a proposal for a new political and economic order. Those who have studied the Ageless Wisdom teachings know that meditation is only one aspect of the spiritual path. This section suggests opportunities for the other important aspect, service.
Spiritual Politics is a book for the beginner, one without a working knowledge of the Ageless Wisdom. It is quite effective as a workbook or guide for those seeking a path of service from a spiritual perspective.
A comparison
Spiritual Politics covers many of the topics discussed in Benjamin Creme’s books — The Reappearance of The Christ and The Masters of Wisdom and Maitreya’s Mission, Volumes One and Two. Similarities between the works abound. Differences exist, but they are more in detail and interpretation than general philosophy. In fact, there were so many similarities, I fully expected to see Creme’s books referenced in the notes or bibliography of Spiritual Politics. Strangely, extraordinarily, I did not.
Similarities between the authors’ viewpoints can be seen most clearly in the political and economic discussion. There are a number of examples which reflect this.
Generally speaking, their interpretations of the causes behind current problems are parallel, as are their suggestions for solutions. The authors concur that basic human needs must be met in order for the global crisis to improve. McLaughlin/Davidson speak in terms of a divine law: “The Law of Supply and Need says that resources should flow to help people provide for their own basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing, education, and health care.”
Creme says: “The number one priority will be the provision of adequate food for all the people; two, the provision of adequate housing for all the people; thirdly, the provision of adequate health care and education for all the people.” When these conditions are met, the stress and strain of living for millions of people will be alleviated. This will move the world towards stability in the political and economic fields.
Creme and McLaughlin/Davidson also have similar views on the international banking procedure whereby interest loans are made to developing countries.
The authors of Spiritual Politics say: “Major changes will have to take place in the structure of our global financial system. The practice of charging interest on the use of money was called usury in the Bible …. This financial system is especially devastating to poor countries, which try to drive up their rate of productivity and growth to meet the interest rate.”
Creme states: “… the year before last, $40 billion more went from the Third World to the developed world in repayment on loans than from the developed world to the Third World in new loans. It is nothing to do with aid. It is usury.”
Can economic disparity between the developed and developing world continue to exist? Both authors say no. Rich countries can no longer reap their bounty at the expense of the poor. The wellbeing of the developed world ultimately depends upon the wellbeing of the developing world. Towards that end the principle of sharing must be an integral part of economic affairs.
Benjamin Creme has said, since the early days of his public work, that sharing is the only hope for our deeply divided world. “If we accept the principle of sharing … and redistribute the world’s resources … we will have peace. It is the only way in which we will have secure and lasting peace.”
The authors of Spiritual Politics speak of sharing in terms of circulation and stewardship. “The key to right circulation is sharing. By sharing, concentrations of resources become beneficial to more people than just those who hold the assets … Guidelines for the stewardship of the planet’s resources are necessary … must balance the individual’s need for incentives with the need of the whole to receive a portion of the wealth.”
But it is not clear that the authors agree upon the urgency of the political and economic crisis, as seen in the following quotes.
In Spiritual Politics one reads: “Despite our concerns, the universe is unfolding in perfect timing … As more and more individuals around the planet awaken the fire within their hearts, the positive, loving energy field around the planet is strengthened.”
Benjamin Creme states: “Those of us now in incarnation have an extraordinary responsibility … We have to solve the problems of today and the immediate future, to decide for all time whether or not the human race will continue — to make the choice for justice, sharing, right relationships, and peace, or to destroy all life.”
Although other differences between the authors can be found, the key one lies in their ideas regarding the reappearance of the Christ and Masters of Wisdom. Benjamin Creme and McLaughlin/Davidson agree that the Masters of Wisdom exist and do return to the everyday world from time to time.
McLaughlin and Davidson offer a generalized discussion: “The World Teacher will come as a recognition of potency in leadership, through dynamic but logical changes in world affairs and through action taken by the masses of people from the depths of their own consciousness.”
The cornerstone of Creme’s entire work is that the reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom not only occurs periodically, but is happening now. “For the first time since Atlantean days the Hierarchy of Masters will work openly in the world, known to us for what they are. He, Maitreya, is a mighty Avatar, equal to His daunting task … to guide and inspire the building of the new civilization. He will be with us for the next 2,500 years.”
Ralph Alan Dale EdD, PhD, of Florida, USA, developed the new field of micro-acupuncture and has written extensively about acupuncture to promote healing and disease prevention. He explains how what he calls the “hologrammatic integrity of our bodies” can form the basis for a new consciousness, and provide us with a model for understanding ourselves and the nature of the universe.
Share International: What is micro-acupuncture?
Ralph Alan Dale: It is the name I have given to the manipulation of energetic systems which are localized in every part of the body such as the ear, nose, face, tongue, hands, abdomen, foot, back, etc. With micro-acupuncture we can perform the same variety of functions as we do with traditional acupuncture. It is useful not only to therapists, but also to patients and to the general public as well, since some of its systems are easily learned, safe to use, and subject to manipulation through simple finger pressure.
SI: Do you suggest that lay people can practice acupuncture?
RAD: Yes, acupuncture with your fingers or using ice or heat on the acupoint may be used by anyone. Some of my books and video tapes are for health-care professionals and some for the general public. I have a small book called Acupuncture With Your Fingers: An 18-Point Healing System, which is easy to use as first aid. Even children use this book.
SI: Were you not a musician before you became interested in acupuncture and holistic medicine?
RAD: Yes, I was a conductor and composer. I first came into contact with Chinese medicine in 1960, when I met a Japanese physician named George Ohsawa who applied the Chinese yin and yang principles to teach people how to eat properly. I had watched him do acupuncture only once, and there were dramatic results. About 12 years later, I was compelled to learn acupuncture due to an accident which occurred in a physician’s office. A metal syringe, used to clean the ear, punctured my ear drum and entered the inner ear, creating deafness, loud ringing and vertigo. This condition, known as Meniere’s disease, is incurable according to Western medicine. But I recalled my friendship with George Ohsawa, and the clues he had given me. Subsequently I learned that Meniere’s is responsive to acupuncture, and that what conventional medicine means by “incurable” is that a condition is not responsive to either drugs or surgery.
SI: You taught yourself acupuncture?
RAD: There were very few acupuncturists in the US in 1972 when I acquired Meniere’s disease. Even if I had found one, I was not going to put myself into the hands of any therapist who might make another mistake. I was going to be my own doctor as much as possible. I did find a young Chinese man in Florida who had just graduated from an acupuncture college in Hong Kong. I asked him to teach me, but he refused, saying that there were no books in English, and that he had never taught anyone anything. I persisted until he agreed to teach me, translating his books point by point, page by page. When I thought I knew enough, I began to needle myself, and within two months I was cured. I was so impressed that I decided to spend the next period of my life deepening my knowledge of acupuncture, and subsequently spent time with acupuncture masters in the Orient.
SI: How did you develop the groundwork for the new field of micro-acupuncture?
RAD: In 1973, I began to study the work of Dr Paul Nogier of Lyons, France, who first discovered that the ear is a complete energetic system, and that it can be used to treat the whole body. Nogier further discovered that the order of the ear acupoints repeats the anatomy of the body, but he believed that the ear was the only part of the body that functioned as this type of energetic hologram of the body. I began in 1973 with the opposite premise, namely, that every part of the body functions as an energetic microcosm of the Chinese traditional acupuncture system. I believed that any part of the body can be used to treat the rest of the body, and that the topology of the points in each of these “micro-acupuncture systems” was a holographic repetition of the whole body’s anatomy. For instance, the face has points corresponding to all other parts of the body, including the head, torso, legs, and feet. The nose also has a web of points relating to all others parts, such as the head, torso, legs, and so on. I investigated what other researchers and physicians had discovered about such reflex systems and found that systems of the tongue, iris, hands, feet and teeth (and in fact, every gross part of our anatomy) had originated in various countries throughout the world, some in ancient times some very recently. From this information, I developed a theory and the principles of what I called micro-acupuncture.
SI: What is the significance of these discoveries?
RAD: They show that we are not a composite of different parts and systems, but that every organism has an inherent integrity, with every part of us expressing a holographic replica of our whole body’s vital energy, known as Qi in ancient China and as Prana in ancient India. This implies that every part of us has the information of the whole. Karl Pribram, a neuro-physiologist, discovered that our brain also functions hologrammatically. He showed that although parts of the brain specialize in certain functions, when a particular part of the brain is removed, other parts assume the functions of the part that was removed. This is also in line with the thinking of the physicist David Bohm, who concluded that the structure of the universe itself is hologrammatic.
SI: What are the implications?
RAD: Micro-acupuncture implies that no part of us is unrelated to other parts, even down to the single cell. Every cell probably knows the whole of us. There is a new consciousness implied in these premises; namely, that reality is a complex, interrelated and integral structure, including our own body-mind-emotions-spirit, as well as our relationship to others and to our environment.
SI: The spiritual concept that we are one is now a scientifically verifiable fact?
RAD: I would say so. This premise is not just an abstraction any more since we have shown that we express an energetic integrity. This premise that wholeness, rather than fragmentation, is the basic nature of reality, has in one way or another motivated my entire life. It is a premise which says that we are more than two eyes for opthamologists to tend to, and a digestive system for gastroenterologists to tend to, a heart for cardiologists and a brain for neuro-physiologists and psychiatrists, etc. In effect, the fragmentation expressed in conventional medicine and in our social relations may be a distortion of nature, a false premise which has permeated our lives.
SI: How do we let go of these false premises?
RAD: By changing our way of being and thinking. We are at war with ourselves, with the environment, and with others. It is a matter of overcoming the old ways of thinking and the old premises of being, including our economic and political structures. The old competitive market economy and the old political parties, representing special selfish interests, will give way to a co-operative global community. Once our technology is no longer polluting our environment and used primarily for killing people, it can be used to create an economy of abundance. Such an economy no longer requires us to be individual, group, race, national, ethnic, religious or gender enemies of each other because there will be plenty of everything for every one of us on the planet. Given our present technology, starvation and deprivation are artificially maintained.
SI: Do you see the younger generation exhibiting such changes?
RAD: Not yet. Many young people do seem to have a growing awareness that the way of life they are born into is senseless. There is a widespread rejection of this way of life, but I do not see that there is a grasp of alternatives yet. It is up to those of us who have more experience, maturity and the beginnings of a higher consciousness to suggest alternatives.
SI: Do you see this beginning to take place?
RAD: Yes, and I take every opportunity to remind others of the joys of social and self-liberation, which we experience when we help to liberate our medicine, our culture and our own personalities from the schizoid ideologies and way of life we have inherited. I take particular joy in knowing that we have been born at a unique moment in the entire multi-million-year evolution of this planet. In knowing that, we have the privilege and responsibility of ensuring human survival and transcendence.
“The fusion process is the method for the immediate future. It will use a form of nuclear energy derived from a single isotope of water. It is safe and superabundant in the waters of the oceans and rivers of the world. This nuclear fusion uses not heat but a cold process, and will be used relatively very soon …” (Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, 1979)
Russ George has followed his scientific curiosity down many strange paths. He has done environmental impact studies in Canada’s North, and made television documentaries on the environment. But Russ George has outdone himself with his latest research venture which, surprisingly, has led him to head up a new company in Washington, DC. Clustron Sciences Corporation will be utilizing a discovery which Russ George says is “launching the birth of a new physics”, and, according to some scientists, just slightly less important than the discovery of fire.
After the first announcement by Doctors Fleischmann and Pons in 1989 of successful attempts at cold fusion, Russ George began collecting all available information on the subject, including detailed reports on all experiments done around the world. Gathering this data was akin to detective work, because virtually nothing had been published on the topic. Scientists have generally ignored, or discredited, the discovery, because they could not explain all the facts involved in the cold fusion reaction, nor could they consistently replicate the experiments. The cold fusion phenomenon does not obey the rules of a chemical or nuclear reaction, and could not even be adequately explained by Doctors Fleischmann and Pons who first announced it. It has therefore remained a mystery.
Many pieces of the cold fusion puzzle have come together as a result of information-sharing. Japanese scientists established an experimental process which could be replicated, and George’s colleague was able to convince them to share the results of their experiments. In seeking out cold fusion experts in the US with whom to share this information, Russ George was led to Ronald Brightsen, formerly a senior executive with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. For the last 30 years Brightsen has worked on developing a new model of the atom that, he believes, explains nuclear fission more completely than does the traditional model. Upon examining George’s information, Brightsen recognized that his new model of the atomic nucleus might also explain cold fusion.
Cold fusion is a phenomenon that occurs when ordinary hydrogen and an isotope of hydrogen called deuterium — both of which are abundant in ordinary water — are brought together with metals such as palladium, titanium and lithium. Cold fusion releases enormous quantities of energy — hundreds to thousands of times more than ordinary chemical reactions could possibly yield, and significantly more than nuclear fission. Cold fusion, in contrast to hot fusion, occurs in a relatively simple apparatus roughly the size of a postage stamp, and does not emit neutron radiation. It also gives off very little, if any, of the radiation common to fusion and fission.
One of the reasons that cold fusion experiments have been so difficult to understand is that the particles emitted are 1,000 times more energetic than expected, and unlike those emitted from conventional fusion. As one scientist put it: “Conducting experiments to detect particles (emitted from the cold fusion reaction) with the current equipment is like trying to hear a flashlight on your radio.”
Cold fusion is a staggering scientific discovery, George claims, in that the energy it produces is clearly the hallmark of a process of a previously unknown character. The social and economic implications are astounding. For instance, there is more potential nuclear energy in a cubic mile of sea water than in all of the oil, gas, and coal reserves on Earth. Understanding how to release this energy will be a revolutionary advance that makes possible dramatic decreases in power consumption by a broad array of common devices.
The new model of the atomic nucleus, called the Nucleon Cluster Model (NCM), will revolutionize a wide range of energy and materials technologies, its proponents believe. It may also explain a number of unsolved mysteries of physics and unlock a wealth of unexpected explanations for many physical phenomena in addition to cold fusion and fission. For instance, the energy from the stars (such as our sun) was previously believed to be a product of nuclear fusion. But there were basic flaws in this explanation, among them the fact that no one could detect neutrinos emanating from the sun, although neutrinos are present in all nuclear fusion reactions. The cold fusion reaction more closely approximates the energy emitted by the sun and stars. The amount of radiation produced by the reaction is very small but of extremely high energy. One of the implications of the cold nuclear fusion reaction is that the nucleus of the atom can be affected with much smaller amounts of energy than previously thought, and that the nuclear forces are weaker than posited in the original model of the atom.
“The implications are astounding,” says Russ George. Given that matter and energy are convertible, this new model will enhance our understanding of energy, and of how energy and matter are related. In fact, positing the Nucleon Cluster Model could eventually be as important as Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev’s 1869 development of the Periodic Table of the Elements. “No one has tried to come near this kind of energy before,” George says, “and founding this new company is like going on a shopping spree at a sale before all the other shoppers get there.”
On a sobering note, he assured me that “the proof will be in the pudding” — the development of practical applications for this new energy source. The situation is like having discovered electricity but still needing to invent the light bulb. George’s newly-formed company intends to introduce innovative commercial applications, for example technologies aimed at converting radioactive waste to a non-radioactive state, and to design a wide range of heaters based on the development of new superconductor and semiconductor formulas. “This new reaction still needs a popular name,” Russ George mentioned, and I volunteered to think about it and to pass the challenge on to Share International readers.
Russ George is certain that this energy source will not be monopolized by the few as is the world’s oil today. “Probably the most difficult hurdle is that cold fusion seems too fantastic scientifically and too good to be true economically and socially,” he muses, “but cold fusion will likely revolutionize the world in ways we can barely begin to imagine.”
When one thinks of the people who still do not have access to electricity and who so painstakingly gather scarce firewood for their heat, one hopes that this indeed is a new source of energy that humanity will share equitably. One also hopes that the scientist Michael Faraday — to whom we owe our electrically-powered civilization — was right when he said, “Nothing is too wonderful.”
For people like Francisca Rojas of El Salvador, a little bit of money can go a long way. A little bit of money has to go a long way.
Rojas was orphaned at the age of nine and lived by herself in a ditch beside the road. A woman found her, took her home, and put her to work washing and ironing. Rojas ran away when she was 17 and had her first child when she was 18.
“I went to my first [microcredit bank] meeting and was afraid I could not [take and repay a loan],” she said. “But the bank promoter who was there believed I could do it, and I was so desperate that I tried it.”
With her first loan, Rojas bought spices, noodles, and little ceramic pieces on a tray which she sold at the market. After three loans of $50 each, she had saved $45. “I never saved before,” she said. “I used to earn $17.50 a week. Now I earn from $35 to $53 each week. I can spend almost twice as much for food, live in a much nicer home, buy medicines, and save money. I feel safer now. I sleep calmly at night because I am not so worried about how to pay back a money lender. I don’t have to prostrate myself to anyone. I have confidence. When you have been as poor as I have been, there is a lot of shame. Even when I was a child, people wouldn’t look at me. I guess they were afraid I would ask them for something. I never had any friends. Now each week I come to our bank meeting. They are glad to see me. Now I have friends. This is the most important thing,” she concluded.
Rojas is one of an estimated 8 million people around the world who have access to microcredit. Programs such as the one Francisca works with provide very small loans, training, and, importantly, peer support, to the poor to help them start or expand self-employment projects.
A worldwide Microcredit Summit convened in Washington DC recently with the goal of increasing the 8 million people currently receiving microcredit to “100 million of the world’s poorest families, especially the women of those families, by the year 2005.” It is an ambitious goal, especially given the humble beginnings of the microcredit movement a little more than 20 years ago.
Humble beginnings
Mohammed Yunus, a US-trained economist, returned to his native country of Bangladesh in 1972, one year after the nation became independent, to head the Economics Department of Chittagong University. But he soon discovered that the economic theories he taught at school meant little to the poor people he spoke with in the villages. He found one woman who earned two pennies a day making bamboo stools. But she had to borrow money for the materials from a trader who bought the final product at a price which barely covered the cost of the materials. It was essentially slave labor.
“I took a student of mine,” Yunus said, “and went around the village for several days to find out if there were other people like her who were borrowing from traders … In a week’s time, we came up with a list of 42 such people. The total amount needed by all 42 of them was only $30. I was terribly ashamed of myself for being part of a society which could not provide $30 to 42 able, hard-working, skilled persons to make a living for themselves.”
He took $30 out of his pocket and asked the student to distribute the money to the people who needed it, telling them it was a loan, and they had to pay him back. The people’s lives were improved, and they repaid their loans to Yunus. But he soon realized that, as a university professor, he couldn’t provide money for all the people who needed it. So he went to a bank. The bank manager literally laughed at him. “This little money is not even worth all the papers they have to fill in, and the bank is not going to do that,” the manager said. And besides, the poor had no collateral to back up the loans. Finally, after months of wrangling, Yunus persuaded the bank that he would be the guarantor of a $300 loan, which he proceeded to give to the poor people of the village in 1976.
The villagers paid Yunus back, and he was able to distribute more loans. Yunus eventually set up his own bank, the Grameen [Rural] Bank in 1983, to lend only to the poorest people in Bangladesh — landless, assetless people — mostly women. The average loan size is $75, and the repayment rate is 98 per cent. The Grameen Bank has lent to 2.1 million people so far.
With some variations, the Grameen Bank model has been replicated around the world, helping millions of people across the globe.
At the Summit, Yunus compared microcredit efforts today to the first airplane flight by the Wright Brothers at the beginning of the century. “Some find our plane unsafe, clumsy, not good enough,” he said. “But soon we will be flying our Boeings, our Concordes and launching booster rockets.”
Movers and shakers
The impressive roster of participants at the Microcredit Summit, and their enthusiasm for microcredit programs, was a tribute not only to Yunus, but also to the power of his idea that the poor can help themselves out of poverty if given half a chance.
Among the more than 2,000 participants from 100 countries were three presidents and two prime ministers; Queen Sofia of Spain; the President of the World Bank, and the presidents of major regional development banks; the heads of UN agencies; members of parliament; heads of commercial banks and private corporations; heads of major foundations and philanthropists from around the world; representatives of nongovernmental organizations; practitioners — those who implement microcredit programs across the globe; as well as borrowers like Francisca Rojas who have received the benefits of microcredit.
The presence of the world’s movers and shakers, from every part of the political spectrum, appeared to mean more than simply efforts at photo opportunities with the gathered media. US First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, a co-chair of the summit, who, along with the US Secretary of the Treasury, spoke at the conference, said that she and the President, Bill Clinton, first met Mohammed Yunus in 1986, and have been deeply committed to microcredit since then.
Hillary Clinton showed photos of her visits to microcredit programs in Bangladesh, Chile, India, Nicaragua, and the US itself. The First Lady talked about a woman she met in Chile who had received a loan for a new sewing machine. “She said that when she got that new sewing machine she felt like a caged bird set free. And that is a good way to describe how many of the people I have met seem to feel when given the opportunity.”
Mrs. Clinton went on to describe the opportunity presented at this moment in history: “As we move toward this 21st century, we have an opportunity that has seldom come, if ever, in the history of humankind. We have a world that can, with technology, democracy, and free enterprise extend the benefits of prosperity and peace to countless millions whose lives can be lifted up.”
The US Government’s international development agency, USAID, has targeted $120 million in both 1996 and 1997 for microenterprise projects worldwide.
Japan, the largest single provider of international assistance among nations, was represented at the Summit by former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata and two members of the Japanese parliament. Hata and his colleagues, part of their parliament’s League for Poverty Eradication, expressed their determination to support and “promote grass roots assistance, especially the microcredit movement” in their communications with the Japanese Government, private financial institutions, economic organizations and the public at large. They urged the government to shift $1,000 million of Japan’s $10,000 million annual overseas development budget to grassroots assistance, with $100 million of that devoted to microcredit programs.
Birth of a new movement
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a statement read by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) administrator Gus Speth, called the summit “a landmark event in our ongoing fight to eradicate poverty.”
“When the poorest, especially women, receive credit, they become economic actors with power, power to improve not only their own lives, but in a widening circle of impact, the lives of their families, their communities, their nations, and the community of nations…. Microfinance, though not a panacea, has proven to be a remarkable instrument to lift the poor out of their plight.
“I therefore fully endorse the goal of this summit to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest households by the year 2005 … In our common struggle, you can count on the UN to be with you throughout this effort.”
UNESCO President Federico Mayor said that we must be bold in our efforts to fight poverty. “We must learn to share,” he said. “We must dare to share.”
John Hatch, founder of FINCA, a nonprofit group that has pioneered microlending in Latin America, said that the summit gave birth to “one of the largest humanitarian endeavors ever attempted by the human family … We have launched a movement too powerful to fail, a movement led not by governments, but by their citizens. Its power is fueled by the most potent energy of all — a mother’s love for her children.”
World Bank President James Wolfensohn said his institution, the largest international lending agency in the world, was an enthusiastic supporter of the summit’s efforts. “We commit ourselves at this summit to be your partner. We will help in whatever way we can. If we don’t get it right, tell us how we can get it right. Let us work together as partners in trying to reach that 100 million goal, and in trying to leave the world a more peaceful and safer place for our children.”
The bottom line
Summit organizers estimate that it will cost $21,600 million in grants, low interest loans and commercial loans over the next nine years to reach the goal of providing microfinancing to 100 million families by the year 2005. Yunus in his remarks reminded the audience that the summit was not a fund-raising event, but there were financial commitments announced. Among them was Microstart, a new pilot program from UNDP, which pledged $40 million to help microenterprise efforts in 25 countries.
Conference participants signed a declaration of support for the summit’s goal, and worked on action plans detailing how each would work individually and institutionally to attain that goal. Most of the institutional action plans are due for completion by 1998. The “boldest and most inspired” of those plans will be published by summit organizers as they are finalized. In 1999, the summit secretariat will produce an evaluation of the progress being made toward achieving the summit’s goal.
The meaning of that goal, as expressed by Makgomo Mangena, a micro-entrepreneur from South Africa, is clear: “As for me,” she said, “I will be happy if my children and I live long. I am determined that each of them will have a better future.”
By now, many of us involved in educating about hunger, poverty and related development issues have discovered there are certain questions that inevitably arise when we discuss these issues with the public. Struggling to respond, however, it has become increasingly clear to me that, while the questions may remain the same, the answers — like development itself — are constantly changing. This is all to the good, I believe, for it bespeaks the kind of openness to new ideas, insights and experience without which we could not solve the massive problems of underdevelopment which imperil our survival as a world community.
So with the caveat that there are a multitude of perspectives on these questions, and, of course, many other important concerns about development I cannot begin to address in a short article, I’d like to frame some responses. My hope is that you will be stimulated to look more deeply into these matters and to wrestle your own way to a more satisfying understanding of this most crucial global issue.
Q. Why can’t people in these Third World countries grow enough food for themselves?
Actually, they used to. Mass hunger on the scale we see today is a relatively new phenomenon. It has arisen from a combination of factors. In many nations, it can be traced directly back to the effects of colonialism, when nations like Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and The Netherlands essentially invaded large parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America so as to meet the needs of their own ideologies, countrymen and trading partners. During their colonization of these regions they imposed drastic changes on the traditional cultures, including the ancient ways of finding and growing food. They converted land that grew a healthy variety of crops for local inhabitants into land that grew a single crop (like sugar cane or tea) for export, not only forcing many farmers out of the business of providing for their own people, but pushing others onto less fertile land. Thus was set in motion a cycle which gradually led to widespread poverty, an increased birthrate, and severe environmental damage.
The powerful industrialized countries have also pushed their own export crops (like wheat) on Third World nations, thus competing with local farmers who cannot afford to produce such massive amounts of food as cheaply as we can with our heavy machinery and chemicals. A majority of developing countries could grow much of what they need, or at least earn the capital to buy it from elsewhere, if the power brokers, both without and within their own nations, weren’t exploiting farmers and other workers for their own ends.
Distorted view
Q: These Third World governments seem so corrupt and violent. What would it matter what we do if they are oppressing their own people?
It’s true that there is corruption and violence in some governments in the Third World. But we have gotten an exaggerated and distorted view of this matter. People from the Third World often comment that we hold them to standards we ourselves cannot meet, and with all our own corruption in the developed world we’re in no position to criticize them. Certainly we have no Idi Amin. But we have had Hitler and other notorious despots. And when you consider that many of the developing countries have had to create governing structures from scratch in 20-40 years, it’s remarkable how quickly they are passing through and going beyond the inevitable problems all nations must endure in learning to govern themselves.
Just think about Africa. After the Second World War, the continent Africa was subdivided into a whole set of new countries. The Western powers did the subdividing, of course, drawing arbitrary national boundaries between ethnic and cultural communities that had for millennia considered themselves one people, and forcing traditional antagonists to become members of new nations to which they had no real allegiance. To make matters worse, whole new systems of government — based not on the historical patterns of governance in these regions, but on the structures imposed by colonial powers — had to be learned and mastered.
Finally, we have to look at the kind of media reporting we are getting. It’s the media, after all, which has provided most of us with whatever impressions we have about the Third World. And these impressions are about as accurate as the ones Soviet citizens get of the United States. Just as their media have (at least before glasnost) often depicted Americans as either evil profiteers or impoverished beggars, so our media have tended to depict people in the Third world as either violent and corrupt, or totally dependent and helpless. The fact is that Third World governments and people come in all varieties and types, and no simple generalizations can be any more true of them than of us.
Q. Why doesn’t the food and aid we send to Third World countries actually get to the people who need help? So much of it seems to be wasted, or siphoned off by those using it for their own ends.
Again, where do these impressions come from? Most people tell me this idea comes from what they’ve seen on television or read in newspapers and magazines. But this is a one-sided picture, a parallel to the tendency — at least in the United States — to see the whole welfare system in terms of the relatively few welfare cheats who misuse it. The question I would ask anyone who is tempted by that kind of one-sided picture is this: why are we so willing to believe that most Third World people — both within our own borders and abroad — cannot, or will not, use resources we have shared with them, intelligently? Why do we focus on, expect, and believe, the worst?
Of course there is some waste and some mismanagement of development assistance: any time you are trying to move a lot of resources through bureaucracies over distances, a certain percentage is misdirected or misused. Development assistance to the Third World is not unique in that respect. But there are special problems in the Third World that compound the usual logistical and institutional challenges. Food may be rotting on docks, for example, not necessarily because of ineptness, but because there may not be trucks to transport it — or roads to transport it on, or because there is no place to store it while it’s waiting to be moved. The recipient countries are simply too poor to afford such an infrastructure.
Some of the distribution problems are as much the fault of the donor governments as the recipients. The United States government, for instance, usually opts to funnel assistance through political channels in the recipient nation, rather than through grassroots groups working directly with the poor. And just as in the developed nations, governmental bureaucracies in the Third World are strongly affected by special interest groups — particularly the wealthy who help politicians maintain their power. As we know all too well from our own experience in the First World, when the wealthy control resources, they do not necessarily trickle down to the poor.
Still, for every such problem there are probably 10 successes most people never hear about. Grassroots groups are making truly astonishing progress, using often minimal help proffered by the wealthy nations to invent new, appropriate technologies, restore their land, educate their children, and improve their agriculture. Thanks to the capacity people have to learn from past mistakes, both ‘donor’ and ‘recipient’ nations have by now come to a fairly sophisticated understanding of what good relief and development activities require, and they are moving to a new stage of collaboration to put these learnings into practice. Anyone willing to believe there must surely be good news about the Third World will find it. Once you start watching you will wonder why you never noticed it before.
Population growth
Q: Isn’t the rate of population growth in the Third World destroying any chance for things to get better there? Can’t anything be done about it?
The growth rate is indeed high in many parts of the Third World, and this is of tremendous concern to their own leaders, as well as to us. There’s an increasing effort within these nations to find ways of decreasing this growth; in some areas it has actually been going down for some time, though it is still high by our standards. I should point out, however, that if the world’s economic resources were distributed more fairly, there would be no trouble feeding this projected population increase. People who have money — no matter how many of them there are — can get food, while the poor — no matter how much food there is — cannot afford it.
Poverty is also strongly associated with the occurrence of large families. Without the capacity to pay for help, families must rely on children to work the land (so that the farmer does not lose it), earn income for the family, and care for ageing parents and relatives. But it is also true that the poor people, like many rich people, often deeply love children, consider it a blessing to have a lot of them, and may consider it a sacrilege to try not to have them.
Specific population control measures must be geared to the cultures and lifestyles of the many diverse peoples who are having large families. But there is good reason to believe that, whatever these measures, family size will decrease spontaneously if three things happen: if the standard of living improves (which means people have more income, children survive infancy, and are not chronically ill); if women have access to educational opportunity, and if they have more say in the decision-making of their society. We now have statistical evidence to demonstrate the linkage between these factors and a decrease in population.
We also have evidence in our personal and national histories: if you are middle-aged now, how many brothers and sisters did your own parents have (compared to the number that you have)? Your grandparents? How many of their siblings died when they were very young? What was the overall standard of living in your nation at that time? How much education did the women in the family have? It’s sometimes a revelation to realize that ours were developing nations, our birth rate too was very high.
Developed countries like ours have small families because we are well-off; developing people within our well-off countries — our own poor — tend to have larger families. It is not the breakthrough in birth control that is responsible for a decline in the birth rate: we ‘discover’ or select birth control methods because our economic and social condition is such that we feel hopeful about our future and the future of our children. If the people of the Third World can look forward to living better lives, the kinds of lives we take for granted now, they will solve their own population problem.
Q: Why don’t we show them better ways of doing things? We’re experts in growing food and using all kinds of technologies. If they’d try some of our techniques they would do much better.
One of the most painful lessons well-meaning donor nations have learned is that you can’t simply transplant technologies and techniques from one culture and environment to another. We tried, but many such efforts failed because local conditions — ecological, social, economic and political — were not right for methodologies developed in very different situations. After all, most of the techniques that enabled our own countries to reach their high standard of living evolved from within. Technologies need to be appropriate to the situation in which they will be used. Otherwise they destroy other vital elements of the society or environment and ultimately self-destruct. Besides, why should Third World people be any more anxious to have outsiders tell them how to solve their problems than we are? We have problems too; to solve them, we may be interested in entertaining suggestions, getting help from people with special knowledge, or adapting others’ ideas to our own use. But it is not a natural function of human nature willingly to surrender our own decision-making and problem-solving capacity to outside experts or authorities. Happily, the Third World is rapidly producing some extraordinary innovations that will not only lead to long-term improvement in their lives but contribute to ours as well. There are new techniques in farming, health care, community development, ecology, scientific research, finance, and many other areas that we are beginning to adapt to our own situations. We can help this dynamic process move even faster by providing capital and resources, responding to requests for help with training and education, and by experimenting collaboratively with our counterparts in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Q: Why aren’t we more actively working toward improving life for the poor? We have them in our rich nations too. Why do we feel so apathetic and uninvolved?
We do indeed have Third World problems here at home, and we’re not doing any better at dealing with them than we are with poverty in the Third World. The real answer, I think, is that while we’d like to see people’s lives improve, we’re not at all eager to make the kinds of structural changes in our institutions and systems this would require. On top of that, we don’t really know what changes will be needed or exactly what these changes might do to our own lives. So we cling to the status quo, to what we do know.
One of the greatest impediments to making these changes is the perception that “they” are having problems that “we” can neither relate to nor do anything about. It’s as though we were members of a modern village looking across a chasm at a primitive people struggling for survival on the other side. We might wish to help, but the gulf — internally and externally — is just too wide.
But suppose we see ourselves as being on the same side of the chasm, members of related clans, aware of an encroaching desert at our backs and looking longingly across the abyss at a beautiful green land of great abundance. Our clans may be different in many ways. But we know that all of us love our children and grieve when they suffer; we all crave the self-respect that comes with doing meaningful work and making a contribution to our community; every one of us is joyful when we marry, when we see our children master a new skill, when we create something lovely, or when we experience the presence of God. We sense our commonality and yet celebrate our uniqueness. We realize we are one even as we are many.
And imagine that some of us have been driven to the edge by the consuming fire of hunger and poverty; others, by the deadly oppression of meaninglessness in a world where there is nothing worth getting and nothing inside to give. But bearing down upon us all are the warning winds of impending disaster, of a confluence of crises: the global environment being stressed to the breaking point, the global economic system which is fracturing and will collapse on rich and poor alike, the global war-machine devouring resources as fast as they are created.
Only if we join together, pooling our human and material resources, each contributing what we can, will we be able to build the bridge that could carry us across to the new world. To do so we must recognize the special strengths each of us brings to the task. We must share and supply those unmet needs that prevent some of us from having the strength to take on the task facing us all. We must be sure we have the kinds of leaders within our individual clans who understand the challenge and are willing and able to tackle it. And we must work together at every level to find methods that work for all — and not just to convey us out of our dilemma and into the abundant future that beckons.
At this moment in the world’s history we are indeed standing on the precipice. But we have yet to recognize we are all on the same side. Of course just saying this is so does not convince anyone. The truth of the matter will only come home to people who learn to identify with others very different from themselves, who are able to discover our shared humanity in the context of our many differences. For if we can make this discovery, we will immediately grasp the need for just and equitable systems that support this global family relationship. And when we begin building these new systems on the bedrock of our love for one another and for the earth that supports us all, the world will work and we will find we’ve made it, over to the other side.
Generally speaking people are unaware that there are definite references in the New Testament that unequivocably imply reincarnation. In fact many ask why, if the subject of reincarnation is so important — from the religious point of view — there is so little mention of it in the Bible. One obvious answer is that the reality of reincarnation, at least in the New Testament, was simply taken for granted, just as we take for granted that a healthy tree which has lost its leaves for the winter will get a new crown of leaves in the following spring. Let us examine the evidence which leads to this conclusion.
The first sign of a “taking for granted” of the doctrine is found in Matthew, 11:13-14; 16:13. Jesus is asking his disciples “Whom do men say that I, the son of man, am” (Matt. 16:13) and the disciples answer “Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elias and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets.” How could Jesus be thought to be any of these except in a past life? Elias and Jeremias lived centuries before. As for John the Baptist, since he had recently been put to death, there could not have been a reincarnation, but it seems that some people thought that his spirit could have inspired Jesus. If people could speak in this way they obviously took the doctrine for granted. That Jesus is actually asking the question shows he is aware of the doctrine and considers it valid. Jesus himself tells his disciples who John the Baptist really was in the past: “For all prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear let him hear.” (Matt. 11:13-14). So Elias, according to Jesus himself, came back to earth in the personality of John the Baptist. This is repeated or confirmed in Matt. 17:12: “But I say unto you that Elias is come already and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the son of man suffer of them. 13. The disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.”
No polemic
There is here no equivocation, no polemic: the words are from the Master himself. As for his past identity, Jesus is not interested in discussing it. He was far more interested in finding out what his disciples thought: “Whom do ye say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15). And the answer of Simon that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God, and that nothing else matters, pleases Christ who immediately makes Simon Peter the corner-stone of his church. The point is, it does not matter what we have been in the past and trying to recover our past identities represents an inappropriate clinging to the personality. The doctrine of reincarnation is only important at the personality level in so far as it teaches us that we are given many opportunities on this earth to perfect ourselves and work out our salvation. Over-emphasis on past lives has serious drawbacks. It may encourage sloth: “I’ll make an effort in the next life”. On the other hand it might cause personality attachment, “I was Julius Caesar” or “Cleopatra”, according to predilection. This merely bolsters the ego and is thus detrimental to the spiritual life which requires the ultimate elimination of ego-centredness.
The third reference comes as a question concerning a blind man. The disciples ask Jesus: “Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind” (John 9:2-3). How could a man sin before he was born? Unless the sin was committed in another life. The apostles are not asking what kind of sin resulted in blindness, but who sinned, taking for granted that the act of sinning itself brought about this dire result. Furthermore, the sin could have been committed either by the man in a previous existence, or by his parents. This implies both that the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, which is a Biblical doctrine, and that the soul exists and therefore pays for the transgressions of previous lives. Jesus does not rebuff the apostles for asking such a question. If the doctrine had been alien to his mind, he would have told them that they were talking nonsense. He simply takes a different attitude. His answer “Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:3) implies that the doctrine of karma (and therefore its corollary, reincarnation) is not always understood rightly and that the calamities that befall humans should not necessarily be laid at its door. Superficially we might take the meaning “that the works of God should be made manifest” as referring to his own healing ministry; that it can be shown that he, as God incarnate, can heal all, even blindness from birth. But I would tend to think that his answer has several levels of much deeper meaning, one possibly being that the man’s blindness (if we take it as a literal physical blindness) was not brought about by sin but by a deliberate choice by the soul for a certain crucial experience necessary for its development. Out of that experience the soul would emerge triumphant through its perfect faith and trust in the “Christ” — by which could have been meant the external Jesus Christ or as appearing the inner divinity to which Saint Paul referred when he said: “My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).
Crude palliative
That the doctrine of karma (and reincarnation) is all too often used as a crude palliative to resolve problems that appear unresolvable, may have been understood to some extent in Biblical times, even as it is nowadays in certain cultures and communities. This may be gathered from Leviticus where we find the following:
“And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour as he hath done, so shall it be done to him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.” (Lev. 24:19-20; cf. Ex. 21:24. Deut. 19:21).
In this Jewish expression of the law there seems to be no room for the “transformation” of the man, the change of heart and mind that would automatically bring about a different reaction. Jesus seems to have tried to counteract this notion of an inexorable law that leaves no room for human change of attitude in his “new commandment” “that ye love one another”. This commandment superseded all the others and is the law of laws which conveys compassion, forgiveness and grace, and implies the possibility of transformation.
With regard to karma, an interesting passage is found in Luke concerning the “Galileans whose blood Pilate has shed in the midst of their sacrifices” (Luke 13:1). In his commentary, Jesus says: “Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you nay; but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:2-3). The implication is that calamity does not occur to some because they have sinned more than others, but that all of us have wrong attitudes and wrong attitudes lead us into misfortunes of one kind or another. To change one’s attitude, to transform one’s self, is the whole purpose of the many parables by which Jesus taught his disciples. The important point of the Gospels’ teachings is the transformation of the inner man, the psychological man. In its esoteric sense Jesus’ remark to Nicodemus “Thou must be born again” cannot be interpreted as referring to reincarnation, but to that inner transformation of man, equivalent to a new birth. That alone can transmute us into new beings capable of entering into that spiritual state called the kingdom of heaven. This is the main concern of the Gospels and of Jesus’ teachings.
The successive revelation to humanity of new aspects of reality has taken place throughout history and continues to do so, as the emergence of Maitreya, the Christ, demonstrates. In the West our knowledge is more or less confined to Christianity, but buried in most ancient myths and legends, and then later in holy scriptures, there are preserved records of the lives, presence and teachings of other, earlier teachers or Avatars.
Our focus on the achievements of Jesus in Palestine frequently blinds us to, or at least dims our appreciation of, the contribution of other Avatars and other faiths. This blinkered view of the unfoldment of humanity’s evolution makes the acceptance of the appearance of yet another teacher difficult for many Westerners. Each Avatar has brought some teaching which, correctly apprehended and gradually applied by humanity, expands our understanding and is the next step forward in our development.
Hercules
One of the first such teachers appeared so far back in time that it is impossible to say when he lived, but ancient legend carries the memory of His achievements: Hercules, a hero-teacher, portrayed “through the form of a pictorial and world drama (symbolic in nature) the concept oaf great objective, only to be reached as the result of struggle and difficulty.” (The Reappearance of the Christ, by Alice A. Bailey, Lucis Publishing Co.) He presented to humanity the concept of great tests and trials on the path back to the Father, the journey of evolution itself, epitomized and preserved in the Twelve Labors of Hercules. These are the tests all are subjected to prior to each initiation.
Vyasa
Vyasa was another great Avatar who brought to humanity the message that death is not the end. The impact of such an apparently simple concept was enormous, since it meant that the possibility now existed for identification with a higher immortal self rather than with the physical-plane life only.
The Buddha
There were many other lesser teachers between the time of Vyasa and the Buddha, but the Buddha was a major teacher who came to the East bringing enlightenment, the answers to the many questions which plague and puzzle humanity about its own existence. He came “to lay the foundation for a more enlightened approach to life, giving the teaching which would open the door to the work of the Christ who would, He knew, follow in His steps.” (Alice Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ)
By giving out the Four Noble Truths, He answered man’s question: why? He taught that man’s suffering was of his own making, and that the focusing of desire on the material and the ephemeral caused all despair, hatred and competition, and was why “man found himself living in the realm of death — the realm of physical living…” His life, example and teachings prepared the way for the Christ. Coming approximately 500 years before the Christ, the Buddha was a manifestation of the Wisdom aspect of God, just as the Christ is the embodiment of the Love aspect. These two great Avatars continue to work together, the Buddha aiding and supporting Maitreya, the Christ, in His present mission to the world.
It is interesting to note that He who is known as the Buddha worked through His disciple, the Prince Gautama, in a way similar to that in which Maitreya, holder of the office of the Christ, overshadowed the disciple Jesus, who acted as His vehicle in Palestine. The Master Djwhal Khul says (in The Reappearance of the Christ by Alice Bailey) that, around about the time of the Christ’s return, the Buddha will send two trained disciples to reform Buddhism — this at a time when the Master Jesus will be taking certain initial steps towards reassuming control of His church. Buddhism, along with other religions, awaits the coming of another great teacher. He is known as Maitreya Buddha, the Fifth Buddha in the continuing line of divine revelation.
Krishna and Sankaracharya
Sri Krishna and Sankaracharya, two great Avatars, were both previous incarnations of Maitreya. Krishna appeared around 3000 BC, and Sankaracharya lived in about 800 BC. Sankaracharya gave “deep instruction upon the nature of the Self,” while Sri Krishna, by demonstrating the need to control the astral, emotional nature, opened the door to the second initiation. In Palestine, working through the disciple Jesus, Maitreya the Christ completed the work of the Buddha by manifesting the Love aspect of deity.
A comparison of all religions shows their common elements. “Eventually a new world religion will be inaugurated which will be a fusion and synthesis of the approaches of East and West. The Christ will bring together not simply Christianity and Buddhism, but the concept of God transcendent, outside His creation, and also the concept of God immanent in all creation.” Both approaches will come together in a new religion based on the Mysteries of Initiation and an informed knowledge of the Science of Invocation of Deity.
GAUTAMA FORESAW MAITREYA
“Now in those days, brethren, there shall arise in the world an Exalted One by name Maitreya (the Kindly One) an Arhat, a Fully Enlightened One, endowed with wisdom and righteousness, a Happy One, a World-knower, the Peerless Charioteer of men to be tamed, a teacher of the devas and mankind, an Exalted One, a Buddha like myself. He of His own abnormal powers shall realize and make known the world, and the worlds of the devas, with their Maras, their Brahmas, the host of recluses and brahmins, of devas and mankind alike, even as I do now. He shall proclaim the Norm, lovely in its beginning, lovely in its middle, and lovely in the end thereof. He shall make known the wholly perfect life of righteousness in all its purity, both in the spirit and in the letter of it, even as I do now. He shall lead an Order of Brethren numbering many thousands, even as I do now lead an order of Brethren numbering many hundreds.”
(Gautama the Buddha in DIGHA NIKAYA)
In its essence, esotericism is the art of consciously recognizing that all existence, manifested in its myriad variations of form and quality, is fundamentally based on energy. Not only are all forms of creation composed of energy, but every form of activity also arises from streams of energy activated by that all-encompassing law of nature — the Law of Cause and Effect. The function of the esotericist is to take cognisance of these energies and, as far as his mental and spiritual evolution allows, to learn how these energies may best be guided and controlled to the maximum advantage of humanity, thus implementing the precepts of the Divine Plan. In the early stages of his conscious development as an esotericist, the aspirant will only be aware of a limited range of these energies impinging on his system, but with growing sensitivity the observed range will increase, thus progressively expanding his consciousness and consequently his capacities for effective service. The beginner will at first be lost in a maze of interlocking and interacting energies. In due course he will, however, begin to distinguish between:
- Purely physical energy, consisting of energy and forces which have been transmuted and engendered in his physical system.
- Emotional forces and mental powers evoked by energies focused through the etheric body to these two planes.
- The impelling energies sent forth by the soul and therefore emanating from the higher mental and spiritual levels.
The esotericist must also learn to recognize the energies which determine the nature of his environment. He must come to the realization that all happenings and circumstances, and every physical manifestation of whatever nature, are but the symbols or reflections of events and activities occurring within the etheric worlds. These inner realms are the worlds of reality, and it is the task of the esotericist to penetrate the separating veils, to familiarize himself with the newly discovered conditions, and then to qualify himself for fresh fields of activity. The field of esoteric study should not remain limited to considering only those energies which are directly affecting the individual or his immediate environment. It will be of even greater significance to consider the more comprehensive energies affecting national and international politics and world events.
Each disciple should endeavour to understand the nature of these forces, enabling him to contribute his part, whether large or small, towards promoting favourable world conditions. It should always be kept in mind that all creation is but spirit in manifestation, and therefore every form of energy, whether it concerns the individual, the group or the nation, and whether in the field of religion, science, economics or of a political nature, has its spiritual aspect, and stands to gain by correct spiritual approach. Thus, wars are, for example, caused by energies which have accumulated until a point of saturation is reached, and these pent up forces are then both literally and figuratively released explosively. The time will come when it will be possible to determine the incentive esoteric causes of such wars, thus enabling them to be avoided or eliminated.
Esotericism therefore concerns itself with the many energies of the soul, and aims towards free access to and functioning in the subjective worlds. It serves as the mediating principle between life and substance, but is oriented to the spiritual rather than to the physical aspects. To attain these ideals, the disciple must have a reasonably well developed intelligence, and must definitely be mentally oriented, because it is essential that, while contacting and moving amongst these inner realities, he should be able to draw his own logical conclusions and arrive at a clear understanding of that which his consciousness may register.
Increased light, leading to illumination, is the inevitable result of all true esoteric activity, and under the guidance of the soul, this in turn intensifies the inherent light of all substance brought under the influence of the work. The soul-infused and dedicated esoteric student may therefore continue on his chosen way with confidence, and with the knowledge that as he proceeds, overcoming all obstacles on his ascending path, this path will be irradiated by ever brighter light. And as each disciple, through his own efforts, is endowed with greater light, it will become part of his responsibility to develop into a light-bearer in his own right, dispersing this light amongst his fellow men who, although still largely unknowingly, are yearning for this light to brighten the darkness by which they are surrounded.
Excerpted from the book Bridges by Aart Jurriaanse, ISBN 3-929345-11-0
Monte Leach: Many people believe that it’s too late to restore the environment, that there’s little hope for a sustainable, healthy future. Do you subscribe to that view, or do you think there’s still time to turn it around?
Benjamin Creme: I think there is still time. It is not just my opinion because that would be no better than anyone else’s. But it is certainly the view of Maitreya that there is time to turn this dangerous situation around.
Following a crash programme of aid for the starving millions of the world and the implementation of the principle of sharing, will be the saving, protection, and healing of the environment. This involves everybody; we all use the environment.
Maitreya says there are two environments, an inner and an outer. The outer reflects the inner. If the inner is disturbed, the outer also is disturbed. We are witnessing this today. Because we are so disturbed in our inner environment, not recognizing ourselves as spiritual beings related to each other, we rape, pillage and despoil. We inflict our greed and aggression on each other in wars and all sorts of aggressive actions and reap the results: a gradual erosion of the very environment which keeps us in being as a species. If we do not address this problem, the human and sub-human kingdoms of this planet will die out.
Many ecologists recognize this fact. The “Green” agencies have been talking about this for years, trying to impress on governments the need for change. But at the Earth Summit in Brazil in June 1992, some major nations, most notably the United States, refused to sign the very resolutions which would address these urgent problems. The atmosphere is heating up, the air, the rivers and seas of the world are becoming so polluted that we are poisoning ourselves all the time. It is simply the extraordinary resilience of the human body, mind, and spirit that has prevented our destruction before this time.
ML: How do we turn the situation around? I fear that if we wait until we make the internal changes that you were talking about, it could be too late.
BC: Left to ourselves that might well be so. Luckily, we are not left to ourselves. Maitreya, the World Teacher, is in the world, living in London since 1977. There is a large group of Masters, his disciples, also in the world. They are ready to come forward to show us the steps we must take to stabilize the world. The resources of the world must be shared, used to the utmost of their good for humanity as a whole, instead of, as now, being misused by the few. When we in the developed world accept and implement the principle of sharing, we will find that we are happier and richer living a simpler lifestyle. We have to learn to live more simply so that all people can live.
ML: Is that the key, in your view, to cleaning up the environment?
BC: Yes, it is a problem of the developed world usurping and wasting the resources and destroying the environment.
ML: Some people would also argue that a major problem is in the developing world where there’s so much poverty that people use and abuse resources just to survive.
BC: It is a Catch-22 situation for them.
ML: It is. How do we change that?
BC: We create the conditions which force the people of the developing world to cut down their rain forests to earn the currency to buy food and other resources from us. The entire system needs to be reorganized.
As I understand it, the principle of sharing will work out something like this: a new United Nations agency will be established; all the nations will be asked to make an inventory of what they have and what they need, what they produce and what they have to import. From this, the world’s ‘cake’ will be known. Each nation will be asked to make over, in trust for the world as a whole, that which it has in excess of its needs. Out of that common pool of excess, the needs of all will be met.
A very sophisticated form of barter will replace the present economic system. That will relieve the people of the Third World from destroying the very resources which the entire world needs just to live. We do not need forests just to make chopsticks. We need forests for the interchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen, so that we can continue to exist along with the animal and vegetable kingdoms.
We have to realize our interdependence. That is the key. We are one group, one humanity, and have to work together for the benefit of all. Until now, that has been impossible for us even to recognize, let alone accept. But with Maitreya guiding us, and showing us the alternative self-destruction we will be galvanized to take the needed steps. The governments of the world will sign the necessary resolutions. The plans which today are only blueprints will be implemented because we have no alternative. If we would continue as a species, we must address these problems. Since we must, we will.
Technology of Light
ML: Although we in the developed world may choose to live a simpler lifestyle, we still need energy sources. We need clean water, clean air. The environment is so polluted now; we have the greenhouse effect and other major problems. How can we come to terms with this situation?
BC: The Masters of our Spiritual Hierarchy, who are coming into the world with Maitreya, have the technology to neutralize the greenhouse effect, the pollution of the atmosphere, even the effects of nuclear radiation. We have to wind down the fission process of creating energy. What I am not advocating, or even suggesting, is returning to the old days humanity living in pastoral conditions, and so on. We will still have a prosperous, well-balanced, modern lifestyle, with all the technology which we are capable of inventing. We shall be given the blueprints of technology which at the moment we cannot even begin to imagine. It would boggle the mind of the most advanced scientist.
ML: But we’re not going to be waiting for Maitreya and the Masters to give us the technology to make these changes. We can’t just sit back and say: “They’re going to give us the technology to clean up the planet, so we don’t have to do anything.”
BC: When we accept the principle of sharing, and when that process is actually working out in the world, we will be given the gift of new technologies. I do not mean that we will be given an instrument and shown how to use it. We will be given the secrets of how to create this technology. Then our advanced scientists will develop it.
There is a new technology — the cold fusion process — that is in the offing. I would say that in a very few years from now cold fusion will produce a rather large proportion of the earth’s energy needs. But after that there is another technology which Maitreya calls the Technology of Light which will provide unlimited energy for all our needs.
Factories will be run by robots. We think of robots which make cars in factories today as being very sophisticated, but compared with those of the future, these are the primitive beginnings of that technology. By thought alone we will create the machines which will make the artifacts of our daily living. This will allow man the time for the investigation of his own nature, for recreational and creative pursuits and so on. An entirely new and highly sophisticated technological world will be created, but only when we see ourselves as one humanity. If that technology were given now, we would destroy the world with it. We almost destroyed the world with nuclear weapons. Nuclear fission is the most dangerous way to tap the energy in the atom. That same energy streams to us from the sun. The Technology of Light will use energy direct from the sun. It will even be applied medically, and with our growing genetic experimentation will allow us to create new organs in the body as needed.
ML: Are there any indications in the world now that this technology of light might be in the offing?
BC: There is a town in what was the Soviet Union which has all its light and heat sources relayed direct from the sun through one of the satellites. The technology is still in its infancy but eventually it will make all war impossible. An army, even one man with a rifle, can be pinpointed on earth through this technology. A submarine thousands of feet under the sea can be rendered totally harmless. Even a terrorist in an aircraft with a bomb in his hand can be rendered completely harmless. It is a super-Star-Wars scenario, but taken to the ultimate degree, and directed for the good of all not under the control of any one government.
ML: I wouldn’t want to put that kind of technology in the hands of the US Pentagon or the Russian military establishment.
BC: I could not agree more. No one nation will be able to usurp the control of that technology. It will be in the hands of our Spiritual Hierarchy and various committees of the United Nations. It can only be administered through the United Nations. It is a global technology.
ML: I’m used to thinking in terms of solar energy, geothermal, wind power and other renewable sources.
BC: In the short term they will have their place. We could right now do away with all nuclear fission and have energy from wave power, solar energy and wind. As you say, all of these could supplement the present energy resources tremendously. We could, and should, shut down every nuclear establishment in the world today. They are deadly.
ML: Appropriate technology, then, will be a bridge toward the cold nuclear fusion process?
BC: Which will be a step towards the Technology of Light. That will transform all life on this planet. Having unlimited resources means that no one nation or group of nations, as for instance those who produce oil today, can dominate the international financial scene. If oil were superseded today, whole groups of nations as power mongers would fail.
ML: What you’re talking about is predicated on …
BC: … the acceptance of the principle of sharing. When we actually implement the principle of sharing, and create the conditions for justice, and therefore of peace, this technology can be freely given.
ML: Because they’ll see that humanity …
BC: … is one, sees itself as one.
ML: And mature enough to deal with it.
BC: Of course.
Underground nuclear testing
ML: Perhaps we can go on to another pressing issue — underground nuclear testing. You have said in Share International and elsewhere that nuclear testing has a devastating effect on the environment, and not only the local environment.
BC: It is impossible to have an underground nuclear test without creating an earthquake — not necessarily in the immediate vicinity but anywhere in the world. Of every 30 major earthquakes, some 21 or 22 follow a nuclear explosion. There are other reasons for earthquakes, but the vast majority are the result of underground nuclear testing. We need not test nuclear bombs. The scientists involved in nuclear testing are trying to maintain their jobs by producing refinements of the existing mechanisms of the various bombs. Just as in the commercial fields companies are producing more and more prettier-packaged goods to keep their products going, so the scientists are producing refinements of their technology simply to keep the technology going, and with it their jobs. Self-interest is causing these earthquakes.
ML: And that’s having a devastating effect.
BC: Yes. As I have said, you cannot produce an underground nuclear explosion without creating an earthquake. Also, you cannot produce an underground nuclear explosion without throwing into the atmosphere thousands of tons of dust saturated with nuclear radiation which eventually falls into the oceans, rivers, and reservoirs of the world. We are all taking in nuclear radiation every time we breathe and drink.
ML: It would be safe to say that most scientists wouldn’t or don’t see the connection between underground testing and earthquakes.
BC: They do not see the connection because they do not want to see it. But any intelligent person knows that there is a connection.
ML: Another connection that most people wouldn’t be aware of is the one between humanity’s actions, and even humanity’s thinking processes, and the world’s weather patterns. That might seem like science fiction to people.
BC: This is harder to explain, but perfectly true. We do have a direct effect on our environment. Very soon, under the tuition of Maitreya and the Masters around him, humanity will come to understand that what we call God, what we call nature, our environment, and what we call humanity are one. There is no separation between these. Everything, according to Maitreya, is interconnected. Every atom, every particle within every atom, is related to every other particle throughout cosmos. Therefore, what happens in one aspect of creation inevitably has an effect on another.
Humanity is part of its everyday environment; we call it nature. The destructive thoughtforms of humanity create the conditions of imbalance and tension in the world. The imbalance between the developed world and the Third World, the poverty and suffering which ensues from that imbalance and therefore the thoughtforms of pain, agony and of destruction, pour into the mindbelt of the world. They affect what are called the devic elementals whose work it is to control the weather patterns of the world.
ML: What are the devic elementals?
BC: They are elemental forces which control and organize the patterns of nature. They are energy forces and respond to human thought. When our thoughts are in equilibrium, they are in equilibrium. When our thoughts are destructive and chaotic, as today, the devas go out of equilibrium. This has resulted in the complete distortion of the world’s weather. For instance, we see floods, major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, torrential rain where they have never been known, lack of rain where it was normal; hurricanes. All of these phenomena have been with us since we can remember but in controlled patterns. All of that has gone. There is no set pattern in the world’s weather today.
When we come into equilibrium by creating the conditions of equilibrium living together in peace, sharing the resources of the world, creating, thereby, harmony in the world the devas will return to their preordained forms and patterns and create equilibrium once again. They respond directly to human thought.
ML: To sum up, our environmental problems are very serious, but they can be solved.
BC: They can, and will, be solved. Probably within the next 30 years, this planet will be saved.
ML: By our own actions.
BC: By our own actions, under the inspiration and guidance of the Masters. But we must accept the principle of sharing and the simpler lifestyle which that demands. We must set about restoring the health of the planet.
ML: But you’re not talking about giving up all our possessions and returning to the Stone Age hewers of wood and gatherers of water.
BC: On the contrary, the new civilization will be more fulfilling, richer, more splendid, creative and abundant than any before.
Man is the manifestation in physical matter of the spiritual Monad, a single spark of the one spirit. The final objective as far as man, the individual, is concerned, is that his physical life and activities should be brought under complete and conscious control of the soul, the reflection of the Monad, or the Christ within. Through that control he must dominate circumstances, and make environment the instrument with which to manipulate matter. In this process he has to work in, with, and through energy or, as it is also known, electric force, which has to be applied and directed through three types of form, manifested as:
a. The mental body, the first aspect
b. The astral or emotional body, the second aspect
c. The physical body, the third aspect
The mental vibration holds the key to the situation, and by means of the will seeks to co-ordinate the functions of the physical body. In some respects it endeavours to link up the consciousness with the three forms, but it may also repulse and cause separation.
The astral vibration deals with the quality of the individual, determines his attractive or repulsive aspects, and also contains the psychic element. The dense physical level is where consciousness or spirit is reflected in the material form. The force holding the three forms together and allowing them to function as a coherent whole, is contained within the vital or etheric body which is controlled by the seven centres of energy; these centres are responsible for the vitalisation and co-ordination of the bodies, and they correlate these forms with the soul, the main centre of consciousness. The correct way of representing the constitution of man would be in the descending order of Monad, triad, soul, personality. But as this exposition is primarily intended for the average man who is still mainly self-centered, it will perhaps be better understood if the personality is used as the point of reference, and if his path of unfoldment is indicated in rising order, the path of return to the Father’s home. The principal items as set out below, will subsequently be considered in greater detail:
I. The Personality: The physical plane man or lower self. The personality is a triple concept, composed of:
1. The physical body, containing the dual aspects of (a) The etheric or vital body. (b) The dense physical body.
2. The emotional or astral body.
3. The mental body, including the lower or concrete mind.
II. The Soul: Also known as the ego, higher Self, inner ruler, the Christ within, or the son of mind.
The soul is not a body. It is the linking or middle principle, representing the relation between spirit and matter; the link between God and His form; the Christ principle. The soul is that which provides consciousness, character and quality to all manifestations in form, and it is therefore also the inner guide of the personality.
The degree of progressive spiritual unfoldment in man is an indication of the extent to which the soul is asserting its influence, until eventually the lower self is fully controlled by the soul, and the doors are opened to the higher spiritual influences to the energies from the Monad, the Father. The highest aspect of the soul is represented by the higher or abstract mind, which simultaneously is the lowest aspect, and therefore the connecting link, between the soul and the spiritual triad.
III. The Spiritual Triad: This is the triple reflection of the Monad, through which the Father functions at lower levels. It is expressed as:
1. Spiritual Will,
2. Intuition, Love-Wisdom, the Christ principle,
3. Higher or Abstract Mind.
The triad stands, on a higher level, in the same relationship to the Monad as the personality stands to the soul — the lower being the instrument through which the higher is functioning.
IV. The Monad: or pure spirit, the Father in heaven, reflecting the triplicity of deity:
1. Divine Will or Power – The Father.
2. Love-Wisdom – The Son
3. Active Intelligence – The Holy Spirit.
Direct contact between the Monad (the triad) and personality is only effected when man is nearing the end of his journey of experience in the three lower worlds, and when the gap in consciousness between spirit and matter has been bridged by the `lighted way’. The personality then becomes a direct instrument of service under the direction of the Monad, by-passing the soul, which then becomes redundant and is absorbed within the Monad.
Excerpted from the book Bridges by Aart Jurriaanse, ISBN 3-929345-11-0, further info: www.bridges-publishing.com
The process of evolution takes place alike on individual, planetary and on cosmic levels. As we progress in this, the human kingdom, we shall recognize that it is a very important kingdom in the scheme of this planet but is nevertheless a transitional phase between the animal and the spiritual kingdoms, and that the evolutionary journey which each of us is making takes place under laws which govern throughout cosmos. There is nothing in the whole of cosmos which, under the law of correspondences, is not proceeding under these same laws of evolution.
The basic impulse behind all evolution is that activity of the soul in incarnation which we call service. Service is nothing less than the demonstration in relationship of the Law of Love. It is the Love of God for Its creation which impels the Logos Itself to take incarnation and to demonstrate Itself through Its Body, planet Earth, with all the kingdoms, including ourselves.
We are, essentially, monads, sparks of God, demonstrating divinity at our tiny individual level. We have within us the potentiality of all divinity, and the process presented to us to demonstrate that divinity is rebirth. Rebirth is a process which allows God, through an agent — ourselves — to bring Itself down to Its polar opposite — matter — in order to bring that matter back into Itself, totally imbued with Its nature. It is an extraordinarily interesting and beautiful thing that is taking place in creation. It is amazing in its beauty, its intricacy, its logic, in the opportunity also for creative change, because it is not a fixed mechanical thing but an extraordinarily beautiful living process.
We are monads either of Will, of Love, or of Intelligence. The monads reflect themselves as souls, differentiating themselves into seven distinctive energies or ray types. The soul, the true Self, the inner man, demonstrates itself again on the physical plane, taking a personality of one or other of these energies, which may well change from life to life; a mental body, an astral body and a physical body, the rays of which may also change, running the gamut of these various types until it has built into its vehicle all the qualities of all the rays, synthesized in this solar system by the 2nd ray of Love-Wisdom. In this way, the soul can demonstrate itself as Love through its succeeding personality expressions more and more — until it is doing so totally.
The aim of the evolutionary journey (in the first place) is to bring the vibrations of the physical, astral and mental vehicles into frequencies so similar that the person is an integrated whole. There has to be this synchronicity of vibration to make possible the great crises of the evolutionary journey called initiation.
When the individual is ready for training for the last few laps of the evolutionary marathon, the soul brings its vehicle, the man or woman, into meditation of some kind. That very first time it might be a very fleeting experience, but sooner or later meditation becomes an important activity in the life.
The soul does this in order eventually to grip its vehicle in such a way as to form a link, a channel, through which it can send its energy and its nature into the vehicle and so work out its purposes. The soul, when it takes incarnation, does so with certain plans and purposes, and the incarnation is the opportunity for the vehicle to carry out the soul purpose. This occurs over and over again, and of course the nearer you get to the final straight, the end of the marathon, the more correctly, the more fully, will you be demonstrating the plans and the purposes, the will, of the soul. All that we know of purpose and meaning in life comes from the soul level.
Love and sacrifice
The nature of the soul is to love and to serve, and to sacrifice itself for the Plan of the Logos. The soul has no other purpose than to serve through love and sacrifice and it is indeed the self-sacrificial will of the soul which brings it into incarnation. Groups of souls come into incarnation together (however unaware the individual personality might be that it is one of a vast group of souls), each group expressing a particular type of energy and brought into incarnation specifically to handle that energy.
The ray energies come into manifestation cyclically. For the last 2,000 years, life on this planet has been dominated by the 6th ray of Idealism or Devotion. With its advent, enormous numbers of 6th-ray souls were brought into incarnation because they have the ability to express the qualities of that particular ray. We are now in a period when the 7th ray of Organization or Order is coming into manifestation. There are always several rays (never more than four) in manifestation at any given time, but the 7th ray will bring in very large numbers of 7th-ray souls and people with 7th-ray personalities who will be able to handle the new incoming energy. In the article written by my Master for Share International Vol.5, No.7/8, He talks specifically about the coming into incarnation of groups under a particular ray quality giving the possibility of the correct handling of problems. He begins with the esoteric truism that every period brings into incarnation those souls equipped with the ability to meet with and handle the problems of the particular time.
Every cycle obeys this law. Whatever problems we are faced with in the world we can be sure that in incarnation, or coming into incarnation in the immediate future, will be groups of souls equipped to deal with these problems. As the Master says, this is the guarantee of progress for humanity; it gives us hope and provides an insight into the working out of the Plan. We are faced today with extraordinary problems because we are at a transitional phase between one age and another. But as this age proceeds, in another, say, 300 years or so, groups of souls will come in who will meet a completely different situation. An altogether more stable one will pertain. These groups will be equipped with the knowledge, the insights, qualities and abilities to demonstrate more of our divine potential, above all the sense of Oneness, of fusion, which is the basic evolutionary aim of this coming cycle.
We are entering the ‘crisis of love’. This is the experience which the human race faces as it enters that period in its evolutionary journey when it will, as a whole, demonstrate the quality of Love and take its place in the Kingdom of Souls, the Esoteric Hierarchy. During the Aquarian age, the aim of the Christ, Maitreya, the Hierophant at the first two initiations, will be to initiate millions of people, in group formation, into the Hierarchy. Eventually, by the end of the age, the vast majority of humanity will have taken their places in the Spiritual Kingdom, the Esoteric Hierarchy, at some stage or other. Vast numbers will take the first and some will take the second initiation. This is an extraordinary event to be happening on a mass scale. It shows the success of the evolutionary Plan as it is envisaged by the Lord of the World, Sanat Kumara, on Shamballa, and carried out by His agents, the planetary Hierarchy.
As does everything in cosmos, evolution proceeds according to definite laws. The result of evolutionary experience and progress is to come into a deeper awareness of these laws and of the mechanism by which they govern the energies at the basis of all creation. God, it might be said, is the sum total of all the energies in the whole of the manifested and unmanifested universe and at the same time the laws governing these energies, and their interrelationship. God, as it says in the Bible, is a consuming fire. God is energy, fire; not one fire but many fires. Their interrelation and interaction creates the visible and the invisible universe. As we understand their working, we become manipulators of these laws. The Logoi of the various planets and great Beings like the Christ and the Buddha have evolved into awareness of these laws, have understood their workings and know how to manipulate them correctly, scientifically, in accordance with the Plan of the Solar Logos.
Imagine a world free of war, poverty and injustice; where sharing and cooperation replace greed and competition; where peace born of justice prevails. In the midst of today’s chaos, is this new world possible?
Many now expect the return of their awaited Teacher, whether they call him the Christ, the Messiah, the fifth Buddha, Krishna, or the Imam Mahdi. Millions now know that the one who fulfils all these expectations, Maitreya, the World Teacher, is already living among us and is gradually emerging into full public recognition.
Maitreya is the Teacher for all humanity – those of all spiritual traditions, and those who follow no particular faith. He does not come as a religious leader, but as an educator in the broadest sense.
Maitreya has not come alone, but with a group of wise men, the Masters of Wisdom, who have long worked from behind the scenes as the inspirers, teachers and guides of humanity. They are returning to the everyday world to help us solve our most critical global problems.
Maitreya and the Masters will show us that the only way to bring about peace is to create justice; and the only way to establish justice is to share the resources of the world, equitably, among all humanity according to need. Maitreya has formulated a number of simple priorities that demand immediate and worldwide attention. These cover the essential needs of every man, woman and child: an adequate supply of food; housing for all; access to health care and education as universal rights. Another top priority is the restoration of the environment.
Maitreya will inspire humanity to create a new civilization based on sharing and justice, freedom and peace, so that all may have the basic necessities of life in a world free from want and war. He and the Masters are here to show us the way forward, but they can only guide – we ourselves have to act to save our world.
Many now expect the return of their awaited Teacher, whether they call him the Christ, the Messiah, the fifth Buddha, Krishna, or the Imam Mahdi. Millions now know that the one who fulfils all these expectations, Maitreya, the World Teacher, is already living among us and is gradually emerging into full public recognition.
Maitreya is the Teacher for all humanity – those of all spiritual traditions, and those who follow no particular faith. He does not come as a religious leader, but as an educator in the broadest sense.
Maitreya has not come alone, but with a group of wise men, the Masters of Wisdom, who have long worked from behind the scenes as the inspirers, teachers and guides of humanity. They are returning to the everyday world to help us solve our most critical global problems.
Maitreya and the Masters will show us that the only way to bring about peace is to create justice; and the only way to establish justice is to share the resources of the world, equitably, among all humanity according to need. Maitreya has formulated a number of simple priorities that demand immediate and worldwide attention. These cover the essential needs of every man, woman and child: an adequate supply of food; housing for all; access to health care and education as universal rights. Another top priority is the restoration of the environment.
Maitreya will inspire humanity to create a new civilization based on sharing and justice, freedom and peace, so that all may have the basic necessities of life in a world free from want and war. He and the Masters are here to show us the way forward, but they can only guide – we ourselves have to act to save our world.
Many now expect the return of their awaited Teacher, whether they call him the Christ, the Messiah, the fifth Buddha, Krishna, or the Imam Mahdi. Millions now know that the one who fulfils all these expectations, Maitreya, the World Teacher, is already living among us and is gradually emerging into full public recognition.
Maitreya is the Teacher for all humanity – those of all spiritual traditions, and those who follow no particular faith. He does not come as a religious leader, but as an educator in the broadest sense.
Maitreya has not come alone, but with a group of wise men, the Masters of Wisdom, who have long worked from behind the scenes as the inspirers, teachers and guides of humanity. They are returning to the everyday world to help us solve our most critical global problems.
Maitreya and the Masters will show us that the only way to bring about peace is to create justice; and the only way to establish justice is to share the resources of the world, equitably, among all humanity according to need. Maitreya has formulated a number of simple priorities that demand immediate and worldwide attention. These cover the essential needs of every man, woman and child: an adequate supply of food; housing for all; access to health care and education as universal rights. Another top priority is the restoration of the environment.
Maitreya will inspire humanity to create a new civilization based on sharing and justice, freedom and peace, so that all may have the basic necessities of life in a world free from want and war. He and the Masters are here to show us the way forward, but they can only guide – we ourselves have to act to save our world.
This section explores in depth the background to the emergence of Maitreya the World Teacher and the Masters of Wisdom — who are They? What are Maitreya’s priorities and teachings? What is His relationship to other Teachers? What are the signs of His presence in the world? What is the Ageless Wisdom Teaching? What role do we — humanity — have to play in the emergence into the everyday world of Maitreya and the Masters? The answers to these and a host of other questions can be found in these pages.
Life magazine’s cover of July 1991 asked: “Do you believe in miracles?” and reported that thousands of unexplained miraculous phenomena are occurring worldwide. “I did a little digging,” said editor Peter Bonventre, “and it turned out there’d been a rash of sacred apparitions all over the world … There’s a worldwide spiritual revival, and it’s one of the great stories of our time.”
In April 1995, Time magazine devoted an eight-page spread to its cover story on miracles, and concluded: “People are hungry for signs.”
Reports of signs and miracles involving people from all faiths (and those of none) are increasingly reaching the media. According to Benjamin Creme, founding editor of Share International magazine, they are all signs of the imminent emergence of Maitreya, the World Teacher, and his group, the Masters of Wisdom. Maitreya comes now, at the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, to show us the way out of our current difficulties and bring the new teachings which will guide humanity towards its next evolutionary step. Soon we will see Maitreya on television and hear his call for sharing and justice as the only way to peace.
Benjamin Creme writes: “Over many years Maitreya and his group of Masters have saturated the world with miracles. In the 10th message from Maitreya given in 1977 at one of my public meetings in London, he said: ‘Those who search for signs will find them, but my method of manifestation is more simple.’ All religious groups look for signs. It is through the signs that they know the teacher is in the world or is coming into the world. You only have to keep awake and you will see that signs are everywhere. In every country in the world, in every religious setting, there are signs of one kind or another.”
This is where we can put announcements of a special or time-sensitive nature.
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Please note: While the name Maitreya is used by others, their understanding of the World Teacher may not correspond to that presented on this site. Anyone presently promoting him- or herself as Maitreya or the World Teacher is not the individual to whom we refer.
This site is maintained by Share International, a non-profit educational group with sister groups in over 20 countries. All rights reserved.
Many now expect the return of their awaited Teacher, whether they call him the Christ, the Messiah, the fifth Buddha, Krishna, or the Imam Mahdi. Millions now know that the one who fulfils all these expectations, Maitreya, the World Teacher, is already living among us and is gradually emerging into full public recognition.
Maitreya is the Teacher for all humanity – those of all spiritual traditions, and those who follow no particular faith. He does not come as a religious leader, but as an educator in the broadest sense.
Maitreya has not come alone, but with a group of wise men, the Masters of Wisdom, who have long worked from behind the scenes as the inspirers, teachers and guides of humanity. They are returning to the everyday world to help us solve our most critical global problems.
Maitreya and the Masters will show us that the only way to bring about peace is to create justice; and the only way to establish justice is to share the resources of the world, equitably, among all humanity according to need. Maitreya has formulated a number of simple priorities that demand immediate and worldwide attention. These cover the essential needs of every man, woman and child: an adequate supply of food; housing for all; access to health care and education as universal rights. Another top priority is the restoration of the environment.
Maitreya will inspire humanity to create a new civilization based on sharing and justice, freedom and peace, so that all may have the basic necessities of life in a world free from want and war. He and the Masters are here to show us the way forward, but they can only guide – we ourselves have to act to save our world.
Monte Leach, US editor of Share International magazine, interviews Benjamin Creme
(from Share International, July/August 1993)
Monte Leach: According to the World Bank, there are now 1,7 billion people throughout the world living in poverty. In the developed world, economic recession is pervasive. What are we doing wrong? In your view, what’s the problem?
Benjamin Creme: The major problem is the fact that we have come to the end of our civilization. We are witnessing the breakup of the civilization of the last 2,000-odd years and the beginnings of the process of creating a new civilization. This is why Maitreya is in the world, to inspire and guide us, to educate us in the creation of the correct structures ― political, economic, and social ― which will allow us to go forward in our evolution on the right premises.
At the moment we see a super-division of the world, a separation into major groups ― the developed and the developing world. The developed world usurps and wastes three-quarters of the world’s food and 83 per cent of the resources. The Third World, as it is called, has to make do with the rest. As a result, 38 million people are, at this moment, starving to death in a world with a huge surplus of food. We have a 10 per cent per capita surplus of food in the world, so no one need starve.
What is required is a reassessment of who and what we are in our relationship to each other. Maitreya says the first step we have to take to address these problems is to see ourselves as one, brothers and sisters of one humanity. We have to get that sense of globality, that we are one people, one group ― and therefore the food, raw materials, energy, scientific know-how and educational facilities of the world belong to everyone. These resources are given so that all people may evolve correctly according to the plan which underlies our evolutionary process. As a result, we must share these resources more equitably. When we share, Maitreya says, we will create justice in the world, and when we create justice, and only then, will we have peace. He has come to show us how to have peace. If we do not accept the process towards peace, there will be no world, because we can now destroy all life on this planet many times over. We have the nuclear arsenal to do this.
ML: The major threat, as you see it, to international security is not nuclear arms per se, it is the tension which underlies the economic situation.
BC: According to Maitreya, what he calls the “engines of war” have been switched off. The Cold War is over. No one any longer believes that the US and Russia are going to destroy each other in a nuclear holocaust. But the energy which sent the planes into the sky and the tanks and troops into the battlefield does not just disappear. It is a destructive force which he says has been going around the world looking for a new home. He says it has found a “new womb”. That new womb is commercialization based on market forces, which, he says, are based on human greed. Maitreya calls market forces the forces of evil because they have inequality built into their very structure. They help a few to achieve a better standard of living, but at the expense of millions who suffer a lower one. Commercialization is gripping every nation in the world as the market forces concept begins to dominate even in the previously communist bloc. We are finding a situation where the rise in tension is so great it has within it the seeds of a third world war, and that war would destroy all life.
ML: Many people would argue that market forces are the saviour of mankind. Many nations are heading that way in the developing as well as the developed world. They say: “This is the way out. The communist system has failed. What other choice do we have?”
BC: The communist system did not fail. It was never tried. We never saw communism in the so-called communist bloc. What we saw was a kind of state capitalism. What we are seeing now is a breakup of the totalitarian political system ― which is not the same thing as communism ― and the gradual transformation of capitalism. Maitreya says the symbol for the new economic situation, which will be neither capitalism nor communism, can be witnessed in the coming together of communist East Germany and capitalist West Germany. The reunification of Germany gives us the possibility for the creation of what he calls a social democracy or a democratic socialism ― something which is neither classical capitalism nor communism. He says eventually this will be the norm in Europe and throughout the world.
ML: How does that relate to what you were talking about in terms of sharing?
BC: Unless we share the resources rather than compete for them, we cannot create that new situation. We have enough food and resources in the world for the needs of all people, but the major nations ― the US, the European states, Japan and one or two others ― completely dominate the scene and usurp and misuse most of these resources. So there is not enough for others at a price that they can afford to pay. The Third World is strapped for its very existence. That is why there are 38 million people starving there.
If we had a drought in California, Florida, Britain or France, for example, we would be able to buy food grown elsewhere. The reason why millions die is not from drought but because they do not have the finances to replenish that which is lost through drought. If you have an economic system which is not based on competition, greed and self-service, which is what market forces are about, then you can redress this whole situation.
Maitreya says that any government which follows market forces blindly is leading its nation to destruction. He says this civilization is literally at the end of its tether. It is coming to a halt. What we are witnessing today is not simply a recession or slowdown of production. We are witnessing the death throes of the current civilization because it is based on wrong premises.
Market forces assume that everyone starts at the same point. But everyone does not start at the same point. No two nations start at the same point. No two individuals within those nations start at the same point. There are extraordinary discrepancies in living standards. How many people imagine that the world can go on indefinitely in this hideous situation? For how long do people imagine that the people of the Third World will put up with this state of affairs? The answer is sharing, a sharing of resources.
ML: In other words, the current system will collapse.
BC: Maitreya says we are witnessing its collapse. He says it is inevitable, and that there will be a world stock market crash which will begin in Japan. Maitreya said this in 1988, and since then the stock market of Japan has lost nearly 60 per cent of its value. Maitreya says it is a bubble; it will burst inevitably. How it bursts depends on ourselves, but it has to burst and let out all the corruption and inequality which prevents the demonstration, as he would say, of the true inner spiritual nature of humanity. We are wasting the resources of countless millions in the world by condemning them to an enforced poverty and degradation, and the misery of undernourishment and starvation.
ML: You are saying it will literally take a collapse for the changes that you are recommending to be made, and nothing short of that will be enough. Perhaps we can see the error of our ways.
BC: Many people see the error of our ways. I am not alone in pointing these out. But governments, and people who keep the governments in power ― enormous vested interests in the world in all sectors, the simple greed, the self-protective mechanism of humanity ― prevent these changes from taking place. Almost everybody would admit these changes would be useful, but maybe impractical to implement.
Maitreya says if they do not take place, we will destroy ourselves. He says that it will take the collapse of our economic system, as we have known it, to bring us to a sense of reality, to realize that we cannot go on indefinitely in a world where one-third of the population uses three-quarters of the world’s food and 83 per cent of the other resources. The crime, drug addiction and social unrest in the developed world are a direct result of this imbalance in the world’s resources. Even the distortion of the world’s long-established weather patterns is the direct result of this disequilibrium created by man’s disharmonic thought patterns.
ML: When do you see this collapse occurring?
BC: Maitreya has said it will be very soon. Obviously, we see what is happening in Japan. In 1989 the stock exchange stood at 38,000 to 39,000. Today [i.e. 1993.ed] it is around 16,000. It will go up a little bit and then down a lot, and then go up another little bit and down again, but heading down overall, until even the Japanese government can no longer keep the financiers in check. They will start jumping out of high windows like we would be doing here if the same situation were pertaining.
ML: What happens after that?
BC: Maitreya says when that happens the priorities of all governments will change. He says the number one priority of all governments will become the provision of correct, adequate food for all the people: it is the number one necessity; two, the provision of adequate shelter for all the people; three, the provision of adequate health care; and four, educational facilities for all the people. These are the basics which do not seem too much to ask for: enough food, shelter, health care, and education. Yet there is no country in the world ― not even the US, the most powerful militarily, and once the richest, country in the world ― where these four requirements pertain as a universal right. He says that when they do, they will transform the world.
Humanity is going through a great spiritual crisis, Maitreya says. It is a crisis of identity, to find out who we really are as spiritual beings. As souls we are one. There is no such thing as a separate soul. On the physical plane we have the illusion that we are separate, but in fact we are one. Therefore, we can make this step forward in our evolutionary advance only when we create right human relationships. That is the next spiritual ideal to be achieved by humanity.
The first step is the sharing of the world’s resources, because if we do not do this we will destroy ourselves. It is as simple as that. We have free will. Maitreya is not going to interfere and make sure that we do not destroy ourselves. He is going to present us with these alternatives: carry on as we are today in the old, greedy, selfish, competitive ways of the past and destroy ourselves, or else accept that we are one, accept the Principle of Sharing; implement it, create justice in the world, and therefore peace, and begin the construction, under his inspiration, of a most brilliant and wonderful civilization such as this world has never known.
ML: How will it work exactly? Will the changes occur on a national basis? For instance, in the US, will we say: “We need to change our priorities?” Or will it happen internationally through the UN or some other forum?
BC: I would suggest it is a combination of both. The UN will become the major debating chamber of the world. All world problems will be debated there and resolutions passed which will implement the new system. An entirely new UN agency will be set up specifically to oversee the process of sharing the world’s resources.
But I must emphasize that we have free will; nothing will be forced on humanity. When humanity of its own free will accepts the Principle of Sharing and asks Maitreya and his group of Masters, who are likewise returning to the world (there are already 14 Masters in the world), how do we do this, how do we set about sharing, then we will find that the plan is already there.
There is a group of high initiates who have worked out with the Masters over many years a whole series of interrelated plans which will solve the redistribution problems which today are at the heart of the economic problems. It is really a problem of redistribution of resources. That redistribution results from a change of consciousness. Humanity is approaching a point where it is undergoing a great shift in consciousness, beginning to recognize itself in relation to each other and to cosmos, to nature, to what we generally call God, in an entirely new way. Maitreya says that everything, every single thing in cosmos, is interconnected. There is no break at any point. What we do to ourselves, we do to nature. What we do to nature, we are doing to ourselves, as God, because we are reflections, points of consciousness of that total consciousness that we call God.
Throughout the whole of cosmos this process is enacted and re-enacted; every thought, every action is setting into motion a cause. The effects stemming from these causes make our lives. If we have an underground nuclear explosion, for example, we will certainly have an earthquake. Every effect streams from a cause.
Maitreya will emphasize ― and we ought to know it by now, we have had thousands of years to understand it ― that everything in life obeys the Law of Cause and Effect. We cannot go on creating wrong conditions and expect there will be no effects. If we create conditions of imbalance in a nation, inevitably we get crime. Just making a stronger police force or army will not solve the problem. We have to combat the source of the crime ― inequality, imbalance. The whole process of evolution is moving towards oneness, fusion, synthesis. Market forces, which are based on division, separation and competition, act against the evolutionary process. That is why Maitreya calls them the forces of evil. They have their place, but only a very limited place. When they are followed blindly, they lead inevitably to destruction.
ML: Will Maitreya be openly advising humanity? Right now I think it would be fair to say that very few people know about his presence in the world.
BC: Maitreya will be openly advising. He will come forward as the World Teacher for all groups, religious and non-religious alike. He will be looked towards by religious groups as their expected Teacher ― the Christ for Christians, Maitreya Buddha for Buddhists, the Messiah of the Jews and the Moslims, Krishna for the Hindus ― but in fact, he is really a teacher, an educator for the whole of humanity, showing us how to become what we are, spiritual beings, and therefore how to create the environment in which that spirituality can be expressed. It cannot be expressed in the midst of these divisions and separations, this competition based on market forces.
ML: If I am a farmer in the US, for instance, if I am growing food and I put a lot of hard labour into it, should I not reap the benefits of doing that work? Sharing sounds great, but will we actually implement it when the time comes?
BC: According to Maitreya, we shall. He knows already that humanity is ready for sharing and will accept the Principle of Sharing. That is why he can be here.
Of course, the farmer in the US producing food should reap the benefit of his labour, but the poor peasant in Zaire or Zambia should also reap the benefit of his hard labour. That does not pertain today. In the developed world, we produce so much that we dominate the world’s markets. We lay down the price of our goods and, because of our resources, the price of the goods of the Third World also. We demand from the developing countries the raw materials and products at a price which leaves them able to live only at a very low level, with more than a billion people living below the poverty line and 38 million actually starving. Yet we demand for our own resources, for our own production, the top value that we can demand on the world market so that we can maintain what is a very artificial level of living.
People in the US, Europe and Japan live on the backs of the Third World. This is the reality. The reason that we do not see it is simply our complacency. Maitreya calls complacency the source of all evil.
ML: Yet many people here in the US would say we are not complacent. When there is a crisis in Africa or elsewhere, we are right there responding with food and aid.
BC: Of course, but these are individual reactions. In every country you will find those whose hearts respond to human need. But it is an on-again, off-again affair. Humanity as a whole, through its agencies, the governments of the world, does not address these problems on a global scale. We would not put into power, perhaps, a government whose number one priority was the saving of the starving millions if it meant the reduction of the living standards of our own nation. Nobody can win votes on that basis, or so the politicians think. The time is coming when they will not win any votes at all unless they put that issue at the forefront of their priorities.
What we are going to witness is the creation, by Maitreya, of a world public opinion focused, galvanized, centered on sharing as a divine right. Maitreya says: “When you share, you recognize God in your brother.” He says the problems of mankind are real, but solvable. The solution lies within our grasp. He says: “Take your brother’s need as the measure for your action and solve the problems of the world. There is no other course.” He will galvanize and potentize world public opinion which, when so organized, no government on earth can withstand. It is that world public opinion which eventually will force all the governments in the world to accept the Principle of Sharing because it will be seen that we have no alternative. We either share or we die. It is as simple as that.
ML: The power in essence will be from the people, and not from any teacher like Maitreya.
BC: Exactly. Maitreya does not come with power. He comes with the power of inspiration and guidance, but not with autocratic power. He says that from now on governments everywhere will be by the people, for the people. We are already witnessing it. Look at what has happened in the former Soviet Union. It is chaos at the moment, but who brought down the Berlin Wall? Who opened up the Soviet Union to glasnost? Mr Gorbachev was mainly responsible for ending the Cold War and for glasnost in the Soviet Union. Of all the world leaders, he is the one most responsive to the mental impress of the Lord Maitreya.
We are witnessing the galvanizing of humanity, the people of the world, to take upon themselves responsibility for their own lives. Over the last few years, that has been happening all over the world. The dictatorships of the world are going. That is why the Soviet Union broke up ― not from the collapse of communism, but from the collapse of political totalitarianism, which is something else.
We are also seeing the collapse of economic totalitarianism. The economic system, largely based on market forces, is approaching its death. There is a third totalitarianism yet to break up ― religious totalitarianism. Religious totalitarianism is reaching the acme of its power. We see that in the rise of fundamentalist groups in all religions, even in the tolerant Buddhist and Hindu faiths. It is expressed in Islam very powerfully today and in Christianity too. It will be the last to disappear, but eventually totalitarianism in the churches will go. Then humanity will know freedom for the first time: political freedom, economic freedom and justice, and freedom of thought and belief.
