A. Growth of consciousness comes, simply and purely, out of freedom. Nothing else. The given state of life is freedom. That is what Maitreya has come to teach. Freedom is the natural state of humanity. It is the divine as it demonstrates in our everyday life. That is what Self-realization is about. It has to be free of all attachment. Any attachment limits that freedom which begins to manifest, stage by stage, as we free ourselves from these attachments.

The problem with psychotherapy, unless you are so disturbed you really need it, is that it focuses the attention on the lower self. Growth of consciousness is achieved precisely by losing consciousness of the separated self. No one enjoys psychotherapy more than the person being treated. They sit or lie down on a couch and talk about themselves. The result is a total concentration of the person on the couch on his or her self. I am not talking entirely against psychotherapy. We all know individuals who are, literally, too ill, who are psychotic or so neurotic and unbalanced in their personality that they do need professional psychotherapeutic treatment so that they can live in a reasonable state of balance. But apart from these, psychotherapy, in my estimation, does not do too much good for most people.

You can do that on the psychiatrist's couch, if you like; it will take longer that way. Or you can get engaged in service and begin to lose the sense of having to yourself that place at the centre of the universe. You will not have that same desire because you will be so involved in service, in acting with and through and for other people, and in serving the needs of the world, that you forget about yourself. You can, literally, for long periods, forget about yourself. It has been shown to be possible. The quickest way, the best way, is through service. You do not even have to pay for it!

Q. Is disease karmic? 

A. By this I suppose is meant the result of actions in previous lives or earlier in this life. All disease or ill-health, except when it is hereditary, is karmic - the result of our misuse of energy from one level or another, usually that of the soul and, in astrally-polarized individuals, largely from the astral plane. Karma can relate to yesterday or last week or a month ago or last year, and not necessarily to earlier in this life, or even in a past life. We are making karma all the time, good or bad.

Q. What is the value of sickness which leads to death?

A. To quote from the Master DK (Esoteric Healing by Alice A. Bailey, p.41), "... disease is sometimes the working out into manifestation of undesirable subjective conditions. These, when externalized and brought to the surface of the human body, can be known, dealt with and eliminated. It is well to remember also that sometimes this working out and elimination may well bring about the death of that particular body. But the soul goes on. One short life counts for very little in the long cycle of the soul, and it is counted well worth while if a period of ill health (even if it eventuates in death) brings about the clearing away of wrong emotional and mental conditions.

 "Second, disease is sometimes incident upon and part of the process of the withdrawal of the soul from its habitation. This we call death, and it can come quickly and unexpectedly when the soul withdraws with suddenness from its body. Or death can spread itself over a long period of time, and the soul may take several months or years for its slow and gradual emergence from the body, with the body dying by inches all the time."

Q. When will there be an end to diseases like cancer and AIDS?

A. In the not too distant future, the Technology of Light will give the medical profession an entirely new approach to the cure of these and other diseases. In the meantime, many people are finding that through meditation, and the closer identification with the Self which ensues, direct self-healing can be achieved. A transformation of our life-styles on a national and international basis is the key to the eradication of the imbalances which demonstrate as disease. As far as cancer is concerned the replacement of burial by cremation would speed this process.