• Preface by Benjamin Creme
• Excerpts from the text
• Table of contents
• Reviews

PREFACE by Benjamin Creme

The Great Approach: New Light and Life for Humanity is about the coming into the world of the Masters of Wisdom, with their leader Maitreya, the Christ, as World Teacher; and about the implications for humanity, as well as for the Masters themselves, of this great event.

The book is divided into three independent but related parts. It includes articles from my Master, my own edited talks, and a very wide range of questions and answers arising from these talks.

Part One, 'Life Ahead for Humanity', provides an overview of the background and history of the Masters and their return to the everyday world. In particular, it focuses on the events leading to the gradual emergence of Maitreya and to the Day of his Declaration. This will be an extraordinary 'Pentecostal' experience for humanity, and the start of the gradual transformation of all our structures and institutions. Part One continues with a series of questions and answers which point to ways of recognizing Maitreya before his true identity is revealed; his appearances to fundamentalists worldwide, and the creation of healing wells. This section also deals with market forces and commercialization, and through Maitreya's influence the creation of a just economic order. The environment and pollution are underlined as major priorities and the various activities of 'extraterrestrials' in ameliorating this crisis are revealed. It also covers his concerns for the problems of humanity, such as the divisions in the world, especially the plight of millions in developing countries, and it puts forward his proposals for solving these problems.

Part Two, 'The Great Approach', which lends its title to the book as a whole, deals with that most extraordinary event, the externalization of the work of the Spiritual Hierarchy onto the physical plane for the first time in 98,000 years in their role as teachers. This is a climactic event for the Masters themselves, as well as for humanity: they return to physical-plane activity, only now in group formation, in order to re-enact their own life expression in preparation for the Way of the Higher Evolution. This is part of the long-term plan of the coming together of the Masters and humanity, and the evolution of Hierarchy Itself as a centre on this planet. In their relation to humanity, the Masters, with Maitreya at their head, have provided a blueprint for the future of a brilliant, transformed world free from want and war.

The Ways of the Higher Evolution are so far beyond humanity's consciousness that we cannot conceive what might lie ahead for the Masters. For this reason, I have elected, unusually, but hopefully not irreverently, to treat this section of the book from a humorous stance, underlining how far beyond our knowledge that future is.

Topics arising from the article on the Great Approach include ways in which Masters actually work, both individually and as a group, and more on the work of preparation and its implications for those involved.

Part Three begins with my commentary on an article by my Master, 'Let there be Light', which was previously published in Share International magazine (December 1983). It deals with Light from the esoteric point of view, including the Light of Knowledge, the Christ Principle, Cosmic Electricity and the new Science of Light, which will transform our future. An extraordinary vista opens before us of awareness and discovery.

I describe our long evolutionary journey, and how each incarnation adds a modicum of light to the matter of our vehicles - physical, emotional and mental. The different aspects of light are discussed, and the Christ Principle introduced as the first Master, through the soul. The Light of Knowledge is released into the world by the Masters, so bringing us into the initiatory experience. This esoteric process is shown as the method by which we expand our consciousness to work intelligently with the Plan of evolution, and eventually to become a Master.

The Atlantean civilization is shown not as myth but as a reality of the human evolution. The great war between the forces of Light (the Masters of the Spiritual Hierarchy) and of Darkness (the Lords of Materiality) brought it to a premature end. This interrupted the evolutionary Plan, and led the Masters of the time to retreat to the mountains and deserts of the world, seemingly leaving humanity to cope on its own. Now, after 98,000 years, they begin their return.

One important aspect of the reappearance work which this book does not cover is Transmission Meditation. This crucial part of the work was introduced by my Master in March 1974, when the first Transmission Meditation group was formed in London. Transmission Meditation is fully covered in Transmission: A Meditation for the New Age as well as Maitreya's Mission Volumes One, Two and Three (Share International Foundation).

 EXCERPTS FROM THE TEXT

The One Life
* We have to realize that we are God. Everything around us is God. The space between all in cosmos is God. That life, and there is only that One Life, is us, in us and around us. We call it God but we could as easily call it ourselves. We could call it nature. We could call it any other person we know. That is the One Life which is God. It is not up there, out there, separate from us. It is inherent in every aspect of our Being.

The Plan [of God]
* The Plan is not some vague, cosmic idea in the mind of a great cosmic entity, but something that has exact relevance to our lives. It has to do with right human relationships, and therefore with politics, economics, religion, science and education… Right human relationships come about when we recognize that we are one. It is the fundamental need for all humanity to see that the human race is one group - different colours, different backgrounds and histories, but one single group coming from the same source, all souls in incarnation.

* God's Plan is not a set of rules that you have to obey, but ideas which in themselves have an inner beauty, an inner relevance because they are at the very heart of the spiritual basis of our lives. When we aim at right relationship, we automatically create structures ― political, economic, and social ― which allow that to take place.

The Master's return
* The return of the Masters to the everyday world, the Great Approach, is the most extraordinary event ever because it is taking place for the first time in 98,000 years. It is a climactic event not only for humanity but also for the Masters themselves.

* Can you imagine when the Masters are actually working openly, known for what they are and advising the leaders of the world, the major statesmen, professors, educators, the great financiers and administrators? You can imagine what effect the Masters' advice will have on these men and women, trained in their own particular professions, with all the expertise at their finger tips, though sometimes an expertise that has led the world to the very edge of a precipice. That expertise will be turned to good, to the needs of all humanity, and will show an insight, a technological clarity and ability which will quickly, if we wish it, transform the world.

* The Masters will not push us. They will simply present us with the information and guidance and leave it to world public opinion to decide which way to go and at what pace. In this way, the free will of humanity will never be infringed.

Maitreya's emergence
* Maitreya is emerging forthwith. As soon as the stock market crash he has predicted for several years truly begins to grip, Maitreya will emerge openly. He will begin to teach but not as Maitreya, or the World Teacher, not as the Christ or the Imam Mahdi or the Messiah, which he could claim to be because that indeed is how we see him. He wishes only to be called the Teacher, because he says: "If I am the Christ to Christians, what about the Jews, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists? If I am Maitreya Buddha to the Buddhists, what about the Christians, the Jews and the others?"

* He will take up an invitation that he has received to appear on a major television network in the US, then in Japan. After that, all the networks will want to interview this extraordinary man.

* When enough people are thus responding to his message, they will demand that the networks of the world allow him to speak and develop his ideas more fully to the vast majority. Then the television networks will be linked together by satellite. This will be the most extraordinary event of all our lives, the most extraordinary event in history, like none other before it in its scope.

* He is not a religious teacher per se. He is a spiritual teacher, an educator in the broadest sense of that word. He has come to educate humanity about its own nature, to show us that we are divine, that in every single person is the divine spark which connects us with all cosmos.

* "From far and wide the representatives of the people gather at His side, and he endows them with a wisdom altogether new… His call for Justice, Peace, and Brotherhood will then be heard among the nations, avowing God's concern for the well-being of men everywhere. His voice will remind the peoples of their origin and destiny, and bring them, in trust, to the feet of God." (From the Master ―, through Benjamin Creme)

Miracles
* The present phase of miracles, now worldwide, will continue and accompany this process until no one can deny its significance at this time.

 Rehearsal for the Day of Declaration

* Diana, Princess of Wales, at the age of 36, was tragically killed in a motor accident in the early hours of Sunday 31 August 1997. It left a nation and much of the world in shock. So familiar was she in her varied concerns for the poor, the underprivileged, the sick, and the innocent victims of barbarous landmines, that her death has evoked an extraordinary wave of sympathy and grief.

* The unprecedented response was from the hearts of the people, their love for Diana who gave so much love to the needy and neglected. Maitreya potentized that love by a tremendous outflow of his energy ― the Christ Principle ― to which the people spontaneously responded without quite knowing why. It was, as it were, a rehearsal of what will happen worldwide on the Day of Declaration.

Spiritual crisis
* Until now, the vast majority of humanity has decided that competition. is the only way forward. That belief is driving us to a totally untenable position. Today the major expression of that tension is in the political and economic fields. Humanity is going through a great spiritual crisis which is focused through these areas of activity and must be resolved in them. If it is not so resolved, we will destroy all life on the planet.

Two worlds
* You see the developed world, the G8 nations and a few more, usurp and waste three-quarters of the world's food and 83 per cent of all other resources, so that the developing world has to make do with the rest. They have more than two-thirds of the world's population, but have to make do with a quarter of the world's food and 17 per cent of the other resources. As a result, they die in their millions.

* That is the day-to-day reality for millions of people, and we shut our eyes to it…. We have a solution that is so easy. Maitreya says we must see ourselves as one, brothers and sisters of one humanity under the one God. Therefore, the food, raw materials, energy and science of the world belong to everyone, and should be redistributed more equitably around the world.

Sharing, justice and freedom
* Sharing, justice and freedom are the wellsprings of our life. We have to manifest them. We see everywhere, if we care to look, the pain and anguish of countless millions of people who have nothing to eat, nothing to give their children. Every day 24,000 children die of starvation, and we do little or nothing about it. This is a day-to-day problem, not something that can be solved now and again with a few dollars of aid. It needs the complete transformation of our political and economic structures.

* No soul comes into the world to starve; it is against the law of life.

Stock market crash
* There is only one way humanity will share, and that is when it is brought face to face with reality, when the pain hurts enough. Then we will take the necessary steps, but until humanity sees the need it will not share. The need will be shown by the collapse of the world's stock markets which Maitreya calls the "gambling casinos" of the world.

* Every senior economist in the world who has given an opinion has voiced it as a possibility, or even certainty in some cases, that there will be a world stock market crash.

* For America, the 'wilderness experience' will probably be harder than for anyone else because it has become used to so much comfort, so much overuse and misuse of resources… The developed world, in particular, has to learn to live more simply.

Commercialization
* The danger of commercialization, apart from the exploitation of the peoples of the Third World, is the commercialization of our concepts, our values, our ways of looking at the world. This is why Maitreya says it is more dangerous for the world than an atomic bomb.

Ethnic conflicts
* Everyone should realize that, in their long incarnational experiences, most people have been members of every race, colour and religious tradition. When people really see and accept these facts, and when the principle of sharing is implemented, fear of the stranger, the foreigner, will go, and race hatred with it.

Environment and pollution
* If the environment is not restored, in a very short time there will be no new civilization. There will be no planet. We have probably another 20 to 30 years in which to restore this planet to health… The present economy enjoyed by the developed world is completely non-sustainable.

* Pollution, according to the Masters, is already the number one killer in the world. It so diminishes the activity of the immune system that people succumb to many diseases such as pneumonia, influenza, AIDS, HIV and so on.

The planet's environment and the Space Brothers
* One of the major activities of the Space Brothers is to neutralize the pollution with which we are destroying our planet ― caused in the main by nuclear radiation which is pouring out from the nuclear powerhouses all over the world.

* They are so advanced that they can make the UFO craft, which are made from etheric matter. They create the crop circles as a means of letting us know, obliquely, that they are here ― that the Space Brothers are real.

Why are we here?
* What is the purpose of our reincarnational cycles? They provide the soul with the opportunity of serving the Plan of God. It is the soul which incarnates over and over again in a series of vehicles which it gradually invests with its own nature, its own Being, until the man or woman is totally soul-infused and can work consciously and intelligently with the Plan.

* The soul usually has three main goals in any particular incarnation, and it sets the circumstances and difficulties of our lives to bring out the qualities which will take us forward in evolution. If we run away from these and try to get round the obstacles rather than overcome them, we have to come back to the same point again and again.

The Christ Principle
* The Christ Principle is born as a light in the cave of the heart, the heart centre at the right side of the body, at the same level as the physical heart. It stimulates that centre until it begins to radiate. The person then changes dramatically… Each one of us has this Light, the potential, of all Cosmos, and everything that that means.

Spiritual growth
* It is as if you have inside yourself a spiritual spring, and everything you do of a spiritual nature winds up the spring, like a clock. It winds to a point where it cannot any longer be wound without snapping. Then it unwinds, and you have a change, a shift in consciousness. Before every expansion of consciousness there has been a period of spiritual tension… That is how you advance. That is the key to the whole process of expansion of consciousness, and therefore of evolution.

God realization
* When all our vehicles - physical, emotional, and mental - are vibrating to the energy of light, at the same frequency, and the link with the soul is total and complete, there comes the link between that of which the soul is the reflection - the Monad, the Spark of God, the Self and the physical-plane man or woman… The fifth initiation follows from the complete union of the now totally soul-infused personality and the Self or Divine Spark. The individual is then a Perfected Being, God-Realized, Self-Realized, as are all the Masters.

Service
* As soon as you make contact with the soul, inevitably you want to serve in some way. It is automatic because it is the nature of the soul, not the personality, to serve.

Facing our problems
* We never will become a Master if we do not have the strength to overcome whatever we are faced with, however unpleasant or difficult, however a challenge to our self-esteem. Our Being will never demonstrate itself to any great degree until we put it to work in overcoming such obstacles.

* The first thing, I think, is to make an inner decision that we will solve every problem, overcome every obstacle, before we try to go on. Instead of running away, we will try to solve it, give it our best to overcome, and if we do that, it will, by strengthening us, weaken every problem that we face after that.

Happiness
* How can we keep happy? 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.

* 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.

Death
* People fear death because they think of it as the 'end' of themselves. When people realize that death is not the 'end' but the beginning of another phase of life and experience and consciousness, they will lose the fear of death. An understanding of the Law of Rebirth, and of the evolution of consciousness which it makes possible, will free us from this fear.

The Law of Cause and Effect ― Karma
* Maitreya will certainly teach the fact of reincarnation as the basic Law ― with the Law of Cause and Effect ― governing evolution on our planet. The presence of historical figures (now as Masters) like Jesus, Saints Peter, John and Paul will prove it.

* The hardship of life is the result of the non-carrying-out of soul purpose. We come into incarnation under the Law of Rebirth but also in relation to the Law of Cause and Effect, and hardship is a result of previous misdeeds, personal or racial ― we all share in racial karma… Every painful thing that happens is a result of wrong action in a previous life or in a previous phase of this life; the result of the karmic working out of that past ― thus freeing us from its cause.

The Master Jesus
* If you were to ask the Master Jesus: "Are you the one and only Son of God or the one and only God?" He would say: "No, there is no such person." There is no such person in the whole of the universe as the one and only God or the one and only Son of God. Everybody without exception is a Son of God. The difference between ourselves and the Masters, like Jesus or any other Master, is that they know they are sons of God. They experience that divinity and they demonstrate that divinity.

Technology of Light
* Electricity has these different levels: electrical fire of the Central Spiritual Sun; the Fire Electrical (solar fire) of the Heart of the Sun; and the electrical fire-by-friction of the physical sun. In each of these lies a great mystery. At the core of that mystery is the nature of light and therefore the nature of life itself… We have been told that Maitreya will eventually introduce a new technology, the Technology of Light. That will allow us to understand and use the secrets hidden in the nature of electricity.

* It seems obvious that if the Technology of Light is going to give us unlimited power, heat and locomotion directly from the sun, and everybody has it, then no one will be able to own it, as today the oil sheikhs have untold riches under the desert. The Technology of Light is obviously going to have a powerful effect on the economy of the world. Nobody owns it, yet we all use it.

The Light of Knowledge 
* The Light of Knowledge, the awareness of what lies behind appearances, what constitutes the world of meaning and the nature of Beingness, is now available for all humanity when they are ready to absorb it. No aspect of this teaching, this Light of Knowledge, is ever withheld from humanity if we are ready to receive it.

* There will be a dramatic increase in knowledge along many different lines ― particularly in the Science of Light and the nature of Being.

Genetic engineering
* Genetic engineering in the hope of creating clones of people is, I think, a misuse ― it is useless anyway, as clones are not really human beings because they are not souls.

* We are individuals, each one unique. The only thing that could be manufactured by the engineering method is a cloned physical body. How long would a physical body last? How useful would it be without the soul ― and the energy, purpose and will of the soul - to infuse it and condition its actions?

* Genetic engineering will prove to be one of the most potent means of developing, for the better, both animal and vegetable forms and, in combination with the coming Technology of Light, will transform the use of surgery, making the transplantation of organs - heart, liver, kidneys, etc. ― a thing of the past.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Life ahead for humanity
The World Teacher for the new age / The coming of Maitreya / Maitreya in London / Maitreya the Fifth Buddha / Maitreya's television interview / Recognition of Maitreya / 'Rehearsal' for the Day of Declaration / Miracles / Encounters with Maitreya and the Masters / Maitreya's appearances to religious groups / Preparing for Maitreya's emergence / Benjamin Creme as a spokesperson / Transformation and new approaches / Commercialization / The energy of destruction / Stock market crash / Sharing / Politicians / Ethnic conflicts / Legal systems / The USA in a quandary / National identities / China / Crime and violence / Children and violence / Environment and pollution / The planet's environment and the Space Brothers / UFO spacecraft / Beings on other planets

The Great Approach
The way Masters work / Individual Masters / The Master Jesus / Avatars / The historical Jesus / Mary, the mother of Jesus / Externalizing the Masters' ashrams / Control of the forces of destruction

The coming of a new light
Nature of light / Different levels of light / Inner and outer light / Astral light / The Atlantean race ― wrong use of astral energy / Educational behaviour / Technology of Light / Genetic engineering / Science and religion / The soul and incarnation / The Law of Cause and Effect - karma / Health and healing / On women's health / Energy healing / Happiness / Awareness of the Self

REVIEWS

The Book Reader "For almost three decades, Benjamin Creme has lectured to audiences across the world and has talked about miracles and messengers and the changing age... Informed by the rich knowledge of contemporary consciousness, The Great Approach takes giant strides in illuminating the history and the presence of sheer glory."

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