A. The fundamental purpose of education, as I see it, is to equip people to demonstrate their divine potential as souls in incarnation. The externalization of the work of the Masters will have an enormous physical, emotional, mental, and psychological impact on humanity. We will come to realize that the soul really does exist. They, the Masters, are the Kingdom of Souls. People like Jesus will be talking to the people daily. He is alive and well and, if you can believe me, has been living in Rome for the last seven years. The Master of all the Masters, the Lord Maitreya, has been living in London (although moving around the world at will) since 1977. If these are facts, then the fact of the Hierarchy will also demonstrate the fact of the soul. People will say: "That was Saint John", or "That was Saint Peter." But today He is the Master Koot Hoomi or the Master Morya.

It will become clear that reincarnation is a fact of life. This will transform human thinking about the reason for our being on the Earth. We will come to know the answers to the age-old questions: "Why are we here? Who are we? What is the purpose of life? Where are we going to?" It will become clear that we are here for a certain purpose: the evolution of the soul in incarnation, carrying out the evolutionary process.

Every soul comes into incarnation with a given set of purposes. Each person's education should be geared to facilitate that process, the working out of the soul's purpose in life. This means that teachers, the educators, whether in school or out of school, must know the point in evolution of any given child. They must know the focus of their consciousness, what really commands their greatest attention, the polarization, as it is called, of their consciousness. Is it on the physical plane? (I do not think any human being is polarized on the physical plane today.) Is it on the astral, the mental, or the spiritual plane?

With the vast majority of people, it will be found that their polarization, the seat of their consciousness, is the astral/emotional plane. That being so, the point of education for these people will be to lift their consciousness onto the mental plane. If they are mentally polarized, then the educational aim will be the raising of consciousness from the mental to the spiritual level, so that they become spiritually polarized.

Q. What are the immediate aims of education? What are the first steps in laying a more appropriate foundation? 

A. (The Master:) The first step is to accept the autonomy of the child. Each child requires education, otherwise he cannot fulfill his potential. However, that education must fit him as you would require a pair of shoes to do, and as the shoes become outgrown and must be changed, so too must the educational structures, outlook, curricula and concepts respond to the child's changing needs.

Basically there are two educational structures in many countries: one for a small Èlite, preparing them for the higher echelons of influence and power, and another for a broadly based, egalitarian rump which is equipped for the lesser posts in industry and other fields.

Each has advantages and disadvantages, but takes no account of the variety of gifts and levels of evolution to be found among children everywhere. The truly gifted child must find the environment to fulfill his gifts. This is relatively rare today.

The broad mass of children produce a less sustained level of achievement but must feel that all resources are at their disposal. It is of course true that the truly gifted child will achieve eventually under most conditions, but much available time is lost for many, for want of the necessary stimulus at high level. This is an essential requirement if the needs of the new time are to be met.

Q. Will the structure of the family be outmoded in the new age? If so, what will replace it?

A. No. The family is the basic unit which provides the best conditions and karmic situation for correct evolution. It cannot, with impunity, be replaced.

Q. What do you think are the most significant things we can teach children to prepare them for the Aquarian age and world sharing?

A. Obviously, much emphasis should be given to the Oneness of humanity and the need for justice and sharing. I would say a global, international view of the world and the idea of service to the world should be inculcated plus the need for demonstrated love and an inclusive spirit to engender right relationships. The most important factor, of course, is parental example.

Q. Can you tell us more about the educational centres that will be set up after the Day of Declaration? 

A. These centres will teach young people the first steps in the process of Self-realization. As you know, many young people today lack direction, motivation, meaningful employment. With some this leads to vandalism and crime. They will be given the opportunity to learn who they really are - of coming into Self-awareness. Maitreya says the first step to Self-awareness (which leads to Self-realization) is self-worth and self-respect. So these young people will be rehabilitated in that area - trained, found jobs, and given the techniques of Self-awareness. This leads to Self-realization, the goal of humanity.

People will be chosen and trained to oversee this rehabilitation, and there is a very simple breathing technique which will be part of the process. It involves a balancing of the breathing and the holding of the breath for four counts at a certain point. In that moment of holding the breath the person becomes temporarily, but immediately, Self-aware. And in that second, Maitreya can intervene, as it were, to stimulate the point reached. It is a way to rehabilitate thousands, perhaps millions, of alienated young people. It is the young of course who have to make the new world.

Q. It would seem that our present education is mostly geared toward relating to the outer world. We are primarily taught skills designed to help one fit into society. What about the developments that might come in the future toward the inner side? 

A. Today, most education, for what it is worth, is education for jobs. People are simply fitted to make their living in the outer commercial world under the whip of competition. This will change. Competition has to give way to co-operation. Above all, it is competition, which is based on greed and fear, that holds humanity back in its most important expression of its oneness, its sense of being part of one group. This has to change. When it does, people will realize, and the Masters will exemplify, the fact of the soul. People will realize that they are souls and will turn to the soul. Then the education for the life of the soul, and the psychology of the soul, will become more and more the norm in our educational system.

I do not mean that we will have only religious education. I am not talking about religion at all. The religious path, as seen by the Masters, is only one of many paths to the demonstration of our innate divinity. God does not reside in the religion, although the religion might help you to realize that divinity. Every aspect of life - politics, economics, religion, art, culture, science, education - can be lived in such a way that what we call God can be known and expressed. The divine becomes a moment-to-moment experience. That is in fact what it is. It is not a man with a beard sitting up in the sky watching that you are not stealing, lying, or cheating. It is inside you; it is your sense of the divine inside that gradually changes you from lying, cheating, and stealing to not doing these things. Not because somebody is telling you that it is bad, but because you instinctively know that that is not the right way to live with your fellow human beings.

Whatever injures or harms another person is intuitively, instinctively, wrong. A change in behaviour comes about by self-observation and self-determination. These things fall away as you become more aware of, and imbued with, the quality of the soul. That will happen on a wider and wider scale as humanity ceases to compete and learns to cooperate - in the family, in the community, nationally and internationally.