The essence of market forces is greed and separatism. The more one is attached to these forces, the more they create cells of imprisonment. This leads to spiritual bankruptcy and mental disequilibrium.." – Maitreya
Scottish-born painter and esotericist Benjamin Creme has spent more than 30 years preparing the world for the most extraordinary event in human history: the return of our spiritual mentors to the everyday world. Creme has appeared on television, radio and documentary films worldwide since 1982 when he announced that the Lord Maitreya, the World Teacher long awaited by people of every spiritual tradition, albeit under different names, is living in London, ready to present himself openly when invited by the media to do so. This event is now imminent.
Creme, based in London, continues to carry out his task as messenger of this news. He has written 14 books, most recently The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007) and The Awakening of Humanity (2008). He is editor of Share International magazine, which circulates in more than 70 countries and is dedicated to the emergence of Maitreya and the political, social, economic, environmental and spiritual changes that are now taking place.
In an interview with Edge Life, speaking by phone from San Francisco during a recent visit to America, Creme reminds us that Maitreya is a teacher who, when he makes his long-awaited emergence telepathically into the consciousness of every human being on the planet over the age of 14 on the imminent "Day of Declaration," he will give each of us a glimpse into who we truly are as human beings and offer us the personal choice of awakening.
The process is described thusly: Maitreya, who can change his physical form at any time, will come forward as a consultant on global issues and will be interviewed on American television. Those public and corporate leaders who have met with Maitreya at a conference in 1990 will come forward and support his ideas. Then, when enough people begin to respond to his ideas, the Day of Declaration will take place and Maitreya will emerge to teach and inspire. Maitreya teaches, among other things, the oneness of all life, humanity’s great spiritual destiny, the Law of Cause and Effect and its corollary the Law of Rebirth, and the absolute need to share the world’s resources more equitably among all people.
Last month, Creme shared with us more about the return of the masters and greater insight on the Day of Declaration. He continues the conversation now, beginning with Maitreya’s views on the current economic crisis in America.
In your book, The World Teacher for All Humanity, you write that Maitreya calls speculation the great disease of humanity.
Benjamin Creme: Absolutely. Speculation for the Masters is anathema and is the greatest disease that humanity has, and it ends up, of course, in commercialization.
What is the future of the financial markets in America and Europe? Having them collapse and then rebuilt with new ideas?
BC: Maitreya says they will never have the same role again. The present stock exchanges of the world have very little to do with the real economy of the world. Trading is a small part of the work of the stock exchanges. They are really to do with financial speculation, and they speculate on the value of the yen, the dollar, the pound, the franc, or the euro, at any given time. Billions are lost and billions are made by this speculation, and that’s what the stock exchanges are about. They are for greedy minds.
The Masters say that perhaps some segment of it might be retained for these greedy minds to play with, but for humanity as a whole, they have no major part to play. The Masters, through their disciples, have worked out various interrelated plans that will solve the problems. Any one of them would solve the problems of distribution, which are at the heart of the economic problem.
It is not economics per se, it is non-distribution. There is more food in the world than we could possibly use. There’s a huge surplus of food per capita, but it’s locked away and rotting in the storehouses of the Western world, whereas in the East, in many parts of Africa, India and South America, people are starving to death. Millions of people are dying of starvation in a time in which there is a huge surplus of food.
Maitreya says, "Nothing so moves me to grief as this shame. The crime of separation must be driven from this world. I affirm that as my purpose." So the saving of the starving millions of the world is the number one priority. After that, the number two priority is the saving of planet earth from decay and death, because this is a very sorry state.
Capitalism, as it’s practiced in America, seems to go against these values shared by Maitreya.
BC: Yes, it does. But Maitreya asks us to think of the problem of the world as a cart. It has to have two wheels. If you have one wheel, the cart doesn’t go. If you have one wheel called socialism, it doesn’t go. If you have only one wheel called capitalism, it doesn’t go. It needs two wheels. These two wheels are capitalism and socialism.
Because of what they call the "new economy," the economy of market forces, the world is moving more and more toward a complete commercialization of life on earth, and the Masters find this a desperate state of affairs. One Master has said that commercialization has humanity by the throat and is removing humanity, men and women, out of life.
Others say life is not about commercialization. It is not about market forces. Maitreya calls market forces the forces of evil, because they benefit the few at the expense of the many. How long do we expect the many to go on? He says it’s reaching a point when these many will not put up with this state of affairs forever and will revolt. There will be massive upheaval, social destruction, revolutions of one kind or another, and eventually war – and that war would destroy all life.
We have no alternative but to share, and sharing is the divine plan. The Plan of Evolution is the plan destined by the Logos (God) of our planet for the evolution of the earth, and the governments of the world try all they can to make the economy work, but they can’t. Nothing works anymore, because it’s of the past. All the technology, all the ways, all the ideas, all the theories of economics don’t work. They work for a time and build for certain people a lot of money, and then there’s a depression and the whole thing collapses for a time, and then they build it up again, and for a time it works for a few, and then again collapses. This same pattern is repeated year after year, decade after decade.
Maitreya says governments are dealing only with the ways of the past, and we have moved into a new cosmic cycle. Humanity is no longer the same. Its needs are no longer the same, and the needs of all around the world are recognizable. We need jobs. We need food. We need shelter. We need health care. We need education. These few things are the absolute necessities of all people everywhere, and yet even in the most-developed world, like America and Europe, no one has all of these things by right, unless they have money – and this is the rub. Unless you have money today, you cannot live life according to your need.
Politically it seems as though we have a candidate in this nation who is encouraging a renewal of hope through the removal of fear. Is this in line with Maitreya’s blueprint?
BC: All the thoughts and ideas that move in that direction are the result of the effect of Maitreya’s ideas. They saturate all the planes, from the dense physical to the high spiritual planes, and people respond to them according to the state of their heart. If the heart is relatively pure, they respond to the highest level, and downwards to just common sense – although it takes heart sensitivity at times to recognize it as common sense.
Politics seems to be a part of Maitreya’s message in terms of how to lead people responsibly. What has Maitreya thought about the course of these past eight years of America’s leadership, in proclaiming a war on terrorism?
BC: America, like all nations, has to renounce war. It’s an utter, utter necessity to renounce war forever. And nothing new can be built until this is done. The wars of today, the terrorism of today, are the result of injustice, and that injustice is the outcome of our greedy, selfish, competitive way of working through commercialization and market forces. They no longer work and have to be seen to be of the past, and relegated to the past, so that we can build new structures, new forms of living together and sensing our common bonds of brotherhood and justice and freedom for all peoples – not just some of the people, but for all people.
One of those ancient civilizations, the Mayans, have their calendar ending around 2012. What’s the significance of that time period from Maitreya’s perspective.
BC: None at all. There’s no significance. The Mayans disappeared as a culture, which was for the time extremely high. People have asked me this question many, many times, and the Masters say that when you wake up on the next day, the sun will rise as usual and you’ll have your bacon and eggs as usual. Life will be the same as what we have reached by 2012.
One thing that some of us do feel is that time is speeding up. Is that actually happening?
BC: That is literally true, yes. Maitreya has created a new relationship between this planet and the Sun. It is so slight that you could never measure it, but we are slightly closer to the Sun than we were before, and this speeds up the evolution of the planet. Therefore, our sense of time is speeding up.
But for the Masters there is no such thing as time. For them, what we think of as the past, the present and the future are all one. There is only this moment of time. That is it, all of it. I have been shown by the Masters that the past is still going on as if it were happening, and the future is already happening, although from our point of view it has yet to arrive. But on the level from which the Masters work and from which they look at the world, these are all now, just everlasting permanent now, and there’s nothing else but now.
Next month: Maitreya’s views revealed.
For complete information on the emergence of Maitreya and the Masters of Wisdom, visit www.share-international.org or contact Share International USA toll-free at 1.888.242.8272. George Catlin, a long-time associate of Benjamin Creme, will present free talks on "The Masters and the Path" from 11 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. and from 3-3:50 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, at Minneapolis Convention Center. Daily admission is $9, or two for $10. For complete details, visit www.edgelife.net/expos.
