A. Service is the lever of the evolutionary path. Through service we learn to identify with that which we serve, and so a shift occurs in our centre of focus. It shifts from the personal, the selfish, to the impersonal, the unselfish. And, in doing that, we identify more and more with more and more. The way is through service. That is why it was instituted by the Christ in Palestine, as a lever for the evolutionary process, because, as we begin to serve, we become more and more decentralised, we identify with more and more, until we can identify with everything that is. And when we can identify with everything that is, we are everything that is. We are God. We release our Divinity.

Q. How can we keep happy? 

A. Serve. The happiest people I know are the people involved in the Reappearance work. What makes them happy is the idea that Maitreya is in the world, and that the ills of the world, the pain, the suffering, the lack of opportunity for millions of people will stop. I do not mean in a day, a week, or even a year. But the process of transformation will take place. That makes them happy; that is what has kept them happy for years.

You are happy because you are cognizant, aware, and experiencing, the major events of our time, of any time. Never has there been a time like this. The people involved in the work can experience it at a very purposeful level, which gives them this inner happiness. Most people involved in this work have a kind of inner secret. They know what is happening, and it keeps them alive, vivid, awake, alert - and happy.

Q. Is there anything we can do as individuals to help us move through evolution faster? 

A. Evolution is speeded up through meditation and service. These are the two levers of the evolutionary process. Nothing moves you forward faster than correct, scientific meditation and powerful, altruistic service to the world.

The soul comes into incarnation in the first place to serve the Plan of evolution. It is aware of the Plan of the Logos of the planet and it seeks in every way to carry out that Plan. The major aspect of that Plan is the spiritualization of matter, which the soul does by entering into incarnation. On its own plane, the soul is perfect, but in incarnation it has to go through all the limitations of our miserable lives: the selfishness and greed, the misshapen thoughts that we project around us that create the Bosnias, the Rwandas and other terrible situations in Africa - starving millions in a world of plenty.

Q. How do we find out which is one own's way of service?

A. People imagine that they have their own very special, distinguishable, way of serving. That is why they have not found it yet. They are still looking for that which does not exist. There is seldom one way of service for an individual. There is a world in travail needing to be served. There are different approaches and different departments in life and you can serve in any of them. It would have been rather a waste of Winston Churchill's talents to work in the Theosophical Society. On the other hand, one cannot imagine H. P. Blavatsky as the head of a government. There are obvious choices, depending on one's personality structure.

Find what attracts you in terms of a direction or department. Most people are not stupid. Normally they do not do things which are totally alien to them. They may do, but usually not for long. What attracts you and holds your attention - work to which you give time and energy for a long period - will probably be along your own natural line. A magnet attracts things to it because it is magnetic. Work, groups, activity, attract because they are magnets; you are attracted by the force of the magnet. If it is your magnet, you will work confidently within it. If it is not your magnet, you will know. It is self-regulating.

Q. How do relationship to one's spouse and children relate to one's service?

A. The disciple has to satisfy the needs of life - to earn a living, to pay correct due to family duties - and also to serve as a disciple. That is the problem for the disciple: to be in the world totally, relating to, accepting the world, accepting one's responsibility as a human being among all human beings, no better and no worse; accepting the human karma that goes with that; accepting life as it happens day to day; nothing getting you down, nothing taking you too high but a steady, even response to life, with as great an equanimity as you can achieve without aloof coldness. The aloofness of the disciple is the aloofness of the individual who is isolated in the mainstream of life. He has to recognize that he does not belong to himself, nor to his family and friends. He does not belong to his group but to the world. Because he belongs to the world, he also has the duty to relate to the world, and not to see himself as an isolated and super-human figure, serving the world from a higher plane. The disciple is not on a higher plane; the Master is on the higher plane. The disciple is living and working in the world as one of us.

Q. When Maitreya appears, what kind of service will we be assigned?

A: I think it is a mistake to think that people will be assigned specific kinds of service by Maitreya (or the Masters). The needs of the world will be addressed by all who wish to serve, each one finding his or her best means through experience, specialized skills or trial and error. The Masters are not going to take over the world and tell us what to do. That would be infringement of our free will.