A. He speaks to a different humanity, so necessarily the emphasis is different. Then He spoke to a relatively few shepherds, fishermen, peasants, etc. They were uneducated, illiterate, totally dominated by the priests, very superstitious.

Today, He will speak directly (by modern media) to a vast audience of educated, literate, thinking people who can make their own decisions. Therefore, His function is one of Teacher rather than Saviour. The spiritual crisis of today is focused through the political and economic fields and must be resolved there. Otherwise there would be no humanity left to save or teach. Necessarily, His message is one of sharing and justice to bring humanity into a sense of its unity. Yet, essentially, you will find that the message of today is the same as that given through Jesus: humanity is one; we are all children of the one Father; God is Love; Love thy neighbour; the Kingdom of Heaven is within (a state of Being); man is a soul in incarnation; know Me (that is, experience Me in your heart) and you will know the Father. 'Feed My sheep' becomes 'Save the starving millions.'

Q. Will Maitreya inspire us to worship God?

A. No, I do not think He will. He has said: Do not worship Me. If you worship Me you are putting yourself below Me, whereas you are on the same level.

There is only one Divinity - we all share it. The only difference between Maitreya and you or me is that He is a tremendously advanced human being who has several degrees of cosmic consciousness, and we have barely the beginnings of mental consciousness. There is a difference in the degree to which we manifest that Divinity, but the Divinity is the same in everyone.

You will find that the approach to God will change dramatically. When a Teacher has come before, the groups to whom He has given His teachings have made Him a God, have put Him up in Heaven, and one day a week they worship Him (if they are from Islam they worship Him every day, several times a day). More and more, people will begin to realize that they are God, that what we call God, what we call Nature and what we call humanity are one and the same, there is no division. We are God in incarnation. We are Divinity Itself. Maitreya says the Self alone matters - you are that Self, an immortal Being. If you realize yourself as God, as Divinity Itself, who is there to worship?

Q. How does one cultivate spirituality?

A. Maitreya says to cultivate three things: honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit, and detachment. These sound easy, but they are very difficult, otherwise we would all do them, of course. We all think one thing, say something else, and do something else again; we have little honesty of mind. We have to inculcate, and practise, honesty of mind. This allows us to become detached. Practise detachment and that allows us to have honesty of mind. It also involves sincerity of spirit. Hardly anybody is who they really are. We imitate all the time. We want people to think that we are this rather than that, that we are nice, that we are good, that we are honest, that we are whatever ideals we seek to present to the world. It is rare to find people who sincerely and honestly are who they are. This produces a state of speaking from the heart and, in this way, the spiritual nature of a person can be conveyed to somebody else, and they can respond. It is a 'heart to heart' relationship which you seek to establish. Then you are who you are. It is like registering and expressing your own identity, sincerely and totally. Again, this produces detachment. 

These three work together: detachment produces honesty and sincerity, which produce more and more detachment. Maitreya says: 'The Self alone matters' (the Self meaning the divine aspect, the Lord). 'You are that Self, an immortal Being.' And, He says, our pain, our suffering, our problems, are due to the fact that we identify with everything and anything other than that Self. He says, ask yourself: 'Who am I?' If you do so, you will find you are identified with this physical body, which lasts only for one life at a time and is renewed successively, so it cannot be the eternal Self.

Or you identify with your emotions, your feelings, your energy sensations, which are transient - one day you feel one thing, another day you feel another. They are not the Self. Or you identify with the constructions of the mind, with your beliefs, ideology, whether you are Christian or Buddhist or Hindu or whatever, and with all the traditions that go with that. It does not matter to the Self for one instant whether you are a Christian or a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Hindu, or of no religion at all; what matters is that you register yourself as the Self, that you identify with the Self, which is the same as God.

Self-realization is God-realization. If you practise right identification and detachment, you come inevitably to Self-awareness, which leads to Self-realization. It is not a belief, not a religion, not an ideology, but something which benefits all people and is, in fact, the goal of all life.

Q. Why is it so important to become detached?

A. If something good, nice, pleasant happens to you you feel happy, but you were not happy before and you may not be happy tomorrow, so the feeling of happiness is not the Self. The nature of the Self is not happiness, but it is continuous, unbroken joy; it never changes. Or something nasty and painful happens and you are miserable, have a sense of loss, pain, disillusionment, depression. What has happened to that happiness, where did it go? Neither the pain nor the happiness is anything to do with the Self. These are the experiences of the man or woman in incarnation, the physical, mental, emotional vehicles of the Self. The Self itself knows none of that; it has no emotions, no thoughts, it alone is, it is Being, manifesting through physical body, emotional structure, mental body. These are vehicles for the Self to experience at this level. When you are detached, the Self can go in and out of these at will. It can use these vehicles but does not get attached to them.

By wrong identification the Self, which is pure Being, gets fixed, as it were, trapped in a net on the physical plane, for example, where someone has, perhaps, total addiction to drugs - he cannot help himself. You have to get the person to realize who is taking the drugs. When you find out who is taking the drugs, you can distance yourself from it, and the process of rebuilding the connection with the Self takes place.

Q. I would like to ask a question about detachment, because I find it very difficult to comprehend the state of consciousness where apparently the emotions don't play on the personality?

A. Maitreya says there are three things which you have to practice to come to know the Self: honesty of mind, sincerity of what He calls spirit, and detachment. Detachment is detaching yourself from identifying with yourself as body, mind or spirit. It is not saying to yourself: 'I mustn't feel emotions.' Many people suppress their emotions. To suppress your emotions is just as bad as indulging your emotions. What you have to learn to do is to look at your emotions and not indulge them and not suppress them either. Not repress them but simply look at them, not identify with them; and if you do not identify with them you detach from them. It is like creating a space between you and them. 

Most people immediately identify with their emotion, whatever it is. They have done so all their lives and so they take it for granted. They feel every negative emotion and they think it is their right to experience them. In fact some people think it is their duty; and I suspect many psychologists tell their patients that it is their duty to 'emote'. The point is you have to be detached, not by detaching from life but to be very aware, to look very seriously at what is happening but not to identify with it. This is difficult because it needs a degree of detachment to do it - you have to be there before you can get there! But it takes just a little space to create a bigger space.

The best way I can think of is to study Krishnamurti. If you put into practice what you read as you are reading, you create that space. Look at what you are feeling, allow yourself to feel it but do not indulge it and do not suppress it or try to get rid of it. If you fight it it is like the trials of Hercules: every time he cut off the Hydra's head two grew in its place. That is what comes from repression. What you have to do is to lift it up, as he did, finally, into the light of day (the light of the soul), and the Hydra died of its own accord. Simply look at the feeling and say: 'That is not me. It wasn't there yesterday, it won't be there tomorrow, it is not me,' and it will go away. Every time you do this you weaken it. You withdraw nourishment. Every time you identify with anything, your energy nourishes it. Whatever you focus on, your energy will flow to it and you will strengthen the emotion. You have to reverse the process and the emotion will die a natural death through lack of nourishment. Detachment is the way to bring about the honesty of mind and the sincerity of spirit which Maitreya teaches.

Q. What does Maitreya mean by sincerity of spirit? 

A. By spirit, Maitreya means energy, power, shakti, the force of existence in the material world. This includes the energy of the astral plane which galvanizes our emotional body. We either identify with Self, the Absolute, or with the vehicles of the Absolute - the mind, the astral, spirit or shakti nature, or the physical body. Spirit, in this sense, is the energy of the senses, in all the connotations of that word - the astral senses, and so on.

Sincerity of spirit is seeing reality without distortion. Everyone under the degree of a Master lives in a greater or lesser degree of illusion. When the illusion is on the physical plane we call it maya. When on the emotional or astral plane, glamour. When the illusion is on the mental plane, we call it illusion. These are all different aspects of illusion. Sincerity of spirit means responding to the emotional experience of life free from glamour. That is another freedom. Mental freedom is freedom from mental conditioning, freedom from ideas which are conditioning your mind. Sincerity of spirit is freedom from the glamours of the emotional plane, so that you see life as it is on the emotional plane. You are not caught up in the glamour of astral plane energy.

Q. What is dishonesty of mind?

A. All of us think one thing, say something else and do something else again. That is dishonesty of mind. Honesty of mind is thinking something and saying and doing what is consistent with that thought: what you say is what you think and what you do - these are in a direct line. Hardly anyone practices it because it is difficult. Everyone knows the politician who thinks things that he does not want to make known so he answers questions obliquely. No politician, apparently, can afford to tell the truth.

When you are speaking from the heart, totally sincere, consonant with who you are and what you are, without pretensions or glamours, without building yourself up as something that you are not, but direct and pure and true to yourself - that is sincerity of spirit.

This teaching is not a religion. It is not something you have to believe in or not believe in; it's a practical science of evolution. It is, of course, also an art. It depends on a moment-to-moment experience of the Self and a recognition of what is the non-Self. The non-Self are the vehicles of the Self - the mind, spirit and body. You either identify with them and suffer, or identify with the Self and know total freedom.

Q. Maitreya's teaching of the essential unity with the Self did not seem to have a transformative impact on most inhabitants of the planet when taught by Jesus. Will the response be more profound this time?

A. If that were not the case Maitreya would not be here. The teaching of the Christ through Jesus was largely preparatory, prophetic. He comes now to fulfill that preparatory work.

We are a very different humanity today from that of Jesus' time. Then, He spoke to shepherds and fishermen, deeply superstitious, totally under the control of the priests. You cannot imagine the consciousness of the people in Jesus' day. There is no way that you could put yourself in their minds and see the world through their fear and superstition. Whatever the priests said, they believed, they had to believe. Now He comes to a world where mass education, radio and television, all the modes of communication that we have today, have completely changed humanity. It is to a highly intelligent, organized, and aspiring humanity that He returns today. I have not the slightest doubt that He will find the right response from us. Otherwise, He would not be here. 

The Christ knows the consciousness of humanity. There is no separation in His consciousness between Him and us. The separation is on our side. He has come to change the world through us. That means He knows that it can be done. He knows that there are enough people in the world through whom the changes can take place. Some may know the Agni Yoga teachings, which were given by the Masters through Helena Roerich. In the first book, which was given by Maitreya, He says: 'There was a time when 10 true men could save the world. Then came a time when 10,000 was not enough. I shall call upon one billion.'  My Master says that there are now about 1.5 billion people ready, conscious, available to the Christ as a vanguard through whom He can work to change the world. I have no doubt that He will do it.

Q. Does Maitreya have in mind any end-purpose to life?

A. He says the meaning and purpose and goal of life is the achievement of Self-realization - that is what we are here for - and He has come to teach the 'art', as He calls it, of Self-realization. He says that it is not a religion, an ideology or a belief but is something which is the goal of our life. When you are Self-realized you are also illumined, enlightened, and become a Master; then you are free to leave this planet, if that is your destiny.

Q. When Maitreya says 'Self' and 'spirit' what does He mean? 

A. By the Self Maitreya means the Monad or the Spark of God, the Absolute, that which stands back of creation, which reflects itself on the soul plane as the individual human soul. The Self is impersonal. There is only Self, which is everybody. It is untouched by creation, but experiences or observes creation through the Soul and the reflection of the Soul - the man or woman in incarnation.

Q. What is Self-realization and how does it manifest in one's being? 

A. (1) Self-realization is the same as God-realization. When unity or at-one-ment has been established between the individual in incarnation and his or her soul, and through the soul with the Monad (in Theosophical terminology) or Spark of God, Self- or God-realization takes place. The soul is then no longer required as the Divine Intermediary and is reabsorbed into the Monad (of which it is the reflection). The Self can then manifest directly through the reflection of its reflection, the physical-plane personality, now totally soul-infused. (2) The manifestation is that of the perfected Master with consciousness and control on all planes of this planet. Maitreya has said: 'The Self alone matters. You are that Self, an Immortal Being.'

Q. What is Maitreya's view about who we are and where we come from? (Dec 91)

A. Maitreya says that the Self alone matters. We are that Self, an immortal Being, and our difficulties, our suffering, come from identifying with that which is not the Self. His teaching is very simple, very subtle, and, I think, difficult to carry out, otherwise we would all be doing it. He says: Ask yourself: 'Who am I?' You will find that you identify with this physical body, its needs and desires. If that is the case you will not experience who you are, you will experience this body with its painful sufferings and desires, but that is not you. Or you will identify with your feelings, your emotions - your joys and fears and so on; none of that is you. Or you identify with the constructions of your mind, your beliefs, ideology, memory. That is still not identification with the Self, but simply with a vehicle that the Self uses to demonstrate at this level.

We have to realize who we are. When we find out who we are we realize we are the Self. That is not something we can talk about, but a moment-to-moment experience, and can only be done in silence. As soon as you put a word to it you are intervening something between the experience of the Self and the Self itself. It is an experience.

Are you aware of who you are, or are you only aware of the vehicles of who you are - the body, the emotional, energetic structure, and the concepts of the mind? None of these are the Self. You have to go beyond these to become aware of the Self. That is not something that anyone can give you. Maitreya can give you an experience of the Self - He does it all the time - but even that is temporary. For a few days or weeks you will be in a state of bliss, but it will not last until you can do it for yourself, and that is only possible when you become detached.

Q: When Maitreya emerges, will the level of my consciousness naturally increase? Is there a need of a special practice? 

A. The increase in conscious awareness will depend entirely on one's ability to respond to the energy and teaching of Maitreya. Nothing is 'automatic'. Maitreya has said the essentials are to know 'the Self' and that the easiest way to do that is to practice honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit and detachment. He has given a New Age Prayer to aid in this process.