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From the inception of Share International magazine, Benjamin Creme’s Master provided an article every month for very nearly 40 years; this complex article was written in 2008 and deals with ideas still pertinent today.
by the Master —, through Benjamin Creme
Many people await and expect the emergence of the Christ but hold a very distorted view of how that will affect humanity. Many await Him as a Spiritual Magician Who will cancel out their and others’ shortcomings, and so establish everlasting peace. Theirs is a very passive view of this vast and complex happening. For Maitreya, Himself, it is an opportunity to come into a dynamic interaction with humanity, to establish the Principles of the Divine Plan, and to inaugurate the era of Right Human Relationship.
This entails the active response and participation of men and women everywhere: a worldwide, continuous process of change in outer structures and inner perceptions.
Maitreya does not see as particularly open and fruitful those areas of the world where Christians are in the majority. Nor do other major religions inspire in Him more hope of understanding. To be sure, in all religions are men and women who are ready to respond and to act for the benefit of all. Likewise, in every walk of life, in every country in the world, people await the signal that will summon them to action on behalf of their brothers and sisters, known and unknown.
Many await the Christ as the Judge, sent to chasten and punish the lawbreakers. Maitreya, the Christ, is a Teacher, and will indeed teach man the Laws of Life, but a Judge He never was, nor does punishment hold a place in His vocabulary. He will seek to inspire men to know themselves as souls in incarnation, travelling a journey of self-discovery together, and helping each other along the way. He will affirm that competition hinders and deflects men from their path, rendering sterile each glimpse of the soul’s nature.
Men have strayed far from that Path. Commercialization has humanity by the throat and is squeezing every generous thought and gesture out of their lives. The souls of men can endure little more of this oppression and are crying aloud in their agony and frustration. They wonder, then, at the upsurge of crime and mayhem committed by the young in every land.
Maitreya will acquaint men with the origin of wars and military action around the world. He will show how even the climate and weather are disaffected as a result. Men have much to learn about the effects of their actions, and the need for discipline and care.
The Christ comes to teach. Men, free will intact, must respond in order to grow. The Christ, Maitreya, never uses force, even if thus we would the sooner learn. He knows that only that which is undertaken by man’s free will is lawful and likely to bear fruit.
(Share International, March 2008)[This article from Share International magazine, May 2021, is by a senior member of the Hierarchy of Masters of Wisdom. His name, well-known in esoteric circles, is not yet being revealed. Benjamin Creme, a principal spokesman about the emergence of Maitreya, was in constant telepathic contact with this Master who dictated his article to him.]
(Read more articles by this Master)
At every lecture he gave around the world, and virtually every day of his life, Benjamin Creme was asked numerous questions covering a vast range of topics. We draw on this large recorded resource and publish answers provided by BC and his Master over the years, none of which have yet appeared in Share International.
Q. What are angels?
A. Angels exist. They are a quite separate evolution from the human – a kind of parallel evolution to the human. In the East, they are called the Deva Evolution or the Angelic Evolution. They are all the way from the very subhuman elementals on the involutionary arc to great beings – Archangels – far higher than humans, on the evolutionary arc. So, it’s an unbelievably varied evolution all the way down into matter – these elementals are used to upholding the matter of the planet. And on the evolutionary arc, the lower builders as they are called, those who create the trees, the flowers, the vegetation of the planet, who administer the weather of the planet, who look after the springs, the rivers – all of that is the activity, in matter, of these tiny, little devic or angelic lives which are subhuman. And in acting in this way they gradually evolve to come near the human [evolution]….
People today are experiencing angels all over the world, in every country. It becomes a ‘number one’ hot talking point everywhere, from the media to the dining room, and so on. Everybody has now experienced an angel.
These ‘angels’ are not angels, these ‘angels’ are Masters. The Masters act as if They were angels, saving people from all sorts of tragedies; death in a car crash, drowning or falling off a cliff, or whatever. These innumerable instances of being saved by ‘angels’ are, in every case, done by Masters Who show Themselves as ‘angels’. They can change Their appearance at will. People think of angels with big wings and so on; They don’t have big wings, they don’t need wings, it’s a thought-form which humans have about angels. So, the Masters use that thought-form, appear as ‘angels’, and people say, “An angel saved me!” It did – but it was a Master.
Now, angels exist in their own right but they don’t have this contact with humanity which people imagine they do. Not yet; but one day, in the future, there will be a close relationship between the human kingdom and the angelic evolution. They are great healers and have much to confer on humanity in terms of the healing arts.
Q. That leads me to ask, do we each have a guardian angel?
A. We do indeed have a guardian angel and people think that when they’re being saved it is their guardian angel – who is their guardian. But it is not like that at all. The guardian angel does not save you from mishap or from a tragic dangerous situation. A guardian angel keeps you on the path of evolution; that’s its role. Where you might stray onto the involutionary path through black magic and evil activity the role of the guardian angel is to keep you on the straight path to God, which is the path of Light, through the evolutionary process and of which the Masters that I’m talking about are the Custodians.
Q. So, can you speak to them?
A. You can’t speak to your guardian angel. People pray to them, but it is the Masters who hear and who respond.
(Benjamin Creme on a New light on Age-old questions, with Dick Larson, 1996)
Share International has a large reserve of unpublished letters which were confirmed by Benjamin Creme and his Master to be genuine encounters with Masters, or a ‘spokesperson’. Other letters presented here are new, and while we cannot confirm or indicate whether a Master is involved, we present these letters for your consideration.
Dear Editor,
I just had an amazing experience. I begin with the background to it: I took two photos of a man sitting on a bench in Barcelona in 2008, who was later confirmed, by Benjamin Creme’s Master, to be a familiar of Maitreya. In one of the photos Maitreya is looking down, and we see his face in 3/4 profile. I kept both photos on my computer and decided to put a thumbnail of one of them on my desktop. To my amazement, when I put the thumbnail on my desktop, Maitreya’s face had turned to face me directly!
I bought a new computer in the summer of 2020. I transferred all my photos to the new computer and, just as I had on the old one, I put a thumbnail of the same photo of Maitreya on the desktop of the new computer. This time however the photo did not change, and he was not looking directly at me, just as in the original photo.
Tonight (23 March 2021), while in a Zoom meeting with friends working on a presentation about Maitreya, I noticed that the name of this thumbnail was simply ‘.jpg’. I thought “That’s not right!” and proceeded to rename the thumbnail ‘Maitreya.jpg’. Just as I saved the new name, I looked at the thumbnail and his face had turned towards me and was now facing me directly!
This feels like a miracle to me!!
(I am attaching both the original photo, and a screen shot of the new thumbnail).
S.Q., Edmonton, Canada.
This photograph was confirmed by Benjamin Creme’s Master to be Maitreya as a familiar, as he appeared in Barcelona in 2008. Maitreya and the Masters often choose to appear in a guise or as a ‘familiar’. This figure may bear no resemblance to Maitreya.
The new thumbnail
(1) Our Transmission Meditation Group member mailed us an article dated 31 August 2003 from a Massachusetts newspaper about a local health food store. Though he misspelled our last name, put the wrong street address, wrong building number, even a wrong town and no zip code, amazingly the letter arrived within a few days with no problem whatsoever!
Was it a very special delivery?
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirmed that the letter had arrived with Maitreya’s help.)
(2) In October 2004, in the same health food store, I met the same gentleman whom I’d met and talked with there in July. He looked exactly as he did three months ago: tall, black, strongly built, in his forties. However, this time he was wearing a big brown, four-to-five inch high, square Muslim cap, and brown shirt over a white knee-length one.
When I volunteered to help a lady customer get a box of twenty cans of crushed tomatoes into her shopping cart, he was standing right in front of me as I turned around, smiling approvingly. He had a huge five-gallon blue jar filled with reverse osmosis filtered water in his shopping cart. Thinking, “He is Maitreya”, I couldn’t even say how happy I was to meet him again.
He was very energetic and walked right past me to the cashier and out the door to the automobile outside. He saw me staring at him and, if he was Maitreya, I hope he knew every word I was saying to him inside my head.
Would it be possible to let me know whether this was Maitreya or a regular customer of the health food store?
(Benjamin Creme’s Master confirmed that the man was, indeed, Maitreya.)
B.S., New York, USA.
It has come to our notice that more and more people are receiving our information from the website alone, and thus forgoing the small cost of subscribing to Share International magazine.
Not everyone can, or does, use the internet, and it is essential to have an outer, physical expression, which can display with photographs, the events of which we speak. That means there has to be a magazine, which of course requires a lot of work from volunteers, and a lot of money to produce. There may be a notion that Hierarchy dishes out money for this work, but it is not the case. Subscriptions to Share International are an essential part of maintaining our work and reaching the public. The cost of the subscription is kept as low as possible, the magazine is not subsidised by advertisements and printing and postal charges are mounting all the time.
Surely we would all agree that all those who seriously believe in this work would want to support the magazine, whether or not they read the information on the internet.
Thank you for your support.
This is a photograph of the hand of Maitreya which appeared on a mirror in a bathroom in Barcelona. The lady-owner went into the guest bathroom and saw a handprint on the mirror and cleaned it off. She thought no more about it.
A few days later she went into her own bathroom and saw the same handprint on the mirror. Luckily, instead of wiping it off, she got in touch with her son, a co-worker in the Share International group in Barcelona. He took a picture of it and sent it to me, and my Master confirmed it as the hand of Maitreya.
It is a fantastic hand, it is real in a way that no print is, it is something like the print on the Turin Shroud of the body of Jesus after the Crucifixion. (Benjamin Creme, SI, November 2001)
Maitreya's handprint
My dear friends, I am close to you now. Many of you have awaited My presence for a long time. I am about to step forward openly before all men, and to begin my outer mission. There is no distance between us. Know this. Understand this. When you ask Me through the hand* or through the hand directly to Me for help, that help, you should know, is assured. It is possible that you will not recognize that the help has been given, but so it will be. Trust Me to aid you, for it is to do so that I come. I shall exhort you to work with Me for the good of all. This is the opportunity to grow quicker, faster than you have ever done before, and so bring you to the Feet of That One Whom we call God. Be not afraid of the many problems which arise now almost daily in the world. These events are transient and soon men will come to understand that they have before them a future bathed in light. So will it be.
SI, November 2007 (Received at the end of Benjamin Creme’s interview for a television documentary in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.) *Maitreya refers to His own hand print.
Q. Does the photograph of the handprint of Maitreya in Share International have healing properties like the magnetized water in the areas where Maitreya appeared to religious gatherings, and if so, how does it work – for instance by placing one’s own hand on top or above this picture while praying and, if not, does a photocopy have the same healing energy as the photograph in Share International?
A. Yes it has extraordinary healing properties, but not in the way you might think. It is a means of invoking the energies of Maitreya. The water Maitreya has magnetized all over the world is magnetized with energy from Aquarius; that energy resides in the water. In the case of the hand it does not. When you place your hand over it, or simply look at it and ask for Maitreya’s healing or blessing or help, that invokes it from Maitreya – according to the karmic law.
It acts as a source of help from Maitreya, depending on the law of karma. If you ask for a bigger car or house, it does not mean He is going to give you a bigger car or house, but if it is within the law of karma your request may be met.
….
Q. (1) Is it just coincidence that this sign [Maitreya’s hand] was in the same issue of Share International as the article by your Master on the reception of Maitreya? (2) It also seems to mean: “Stand. Wait. Be steadfast.” (3) Which of these interpretations, if any, is correct? Could you please say something more about it. (The photograph of Maitreya’s hand being photographed is quite wonderful too, because the hand seems to float in space – as if held over the world.)
A. (1) No, it is not coincidence. As with all Masters, Maitreya and my Master share a group consciousness. Maitreya is very aware of Share International. (2) Yes. (3) Until we see His face it is the closest He can come to us.
This selection of quotations is taken from Maitreya (Messages from Maitreya the Christ and Maitreya’s Teachings – The Laws of Life), Benjamin Creme’s Master (A Master Speaks Volumes One and Two), and Benjamin Creme’s writings.
When men more fully realize the extent of the damage done to their lives by the economic and financial collapse of recent years, they will find it impossible to revert, as many hope will be the case, to the old system. That economy was shattered by greed, selfishness and separation; but essentially by the action of the energies of the new time. Already, more than men are aware, the energies of Aquarius work their magic on Earth. Increasingly people are being drawn together in consciousness; the energies of synthesis are performing their beneficent work. Already, many are responding in a new way, as if relieved of a deadening weight, looking forward to a world simplified but more united. (Benjamin Creme’s Master, from ‘Men’s lives will flourish’)
The world can no longer afford the vast discrepancies between the living standards of the rich and those of the poor nations. That imbalance is at the heart of our political/economic problems today. Basically it is a spiritual problem: a choice between materialism and separation on the one hand and spiritual sharing, justice and brotherhood on the other. Our choice will decide the fate of humanity. (Benjamin Creme, Maitreya’s Mission Volume Two)
Throughout the world there is a growing sense of impending change. The collapse of major currencies and financial agencies has shaken the fabric of the world economy and initiated attempts to shore up, and rectify if possible, the crumbling edifice of the global economic structure. These last-minute attempts will not succeed. In the short term, they may but delay the ultimate collapse of a system no longer viable, or useful to the vast majority of men….
The old, outworn structures are losing their stability and coherence, thus clearing the ground for the construction of the new-age forms. (Benjamin Creme’s Master, from ‘Prelude to change’)
Q. I read that Maitreya, your Master and you yourself think that commercialization is destructive. Why? The world has always traded.
BC: There is a difference between ‘commerce’, for example, trading, and the effect of commercialization. Trading is a legitimate way of exchanging goods and, as you say, has been carried out for untold ages. Commercialization is a situation in which making money (profit) enters every possible field of human activity. Even the provision of healthcare and education becomes subject to this gross materialism. Today, commercialization knows no bounds and cannot be contained. Every service is considered as a commodity, which can be bought and sold, at will. This degrading practice is at the heart of our problems today. (Benjamin Creme, Unity in Diversity)
(an excerpt)
Annie Besant was a most remarkable woman and something of an enigma. A very detailed biography by Arthur Nethercot from the early 1960s is divided into two volumes: The First Five Lives, and The Last Four Lives.** It is true that her life can be divided into quite different phases: Christian, by upbringing and marriage; secularist; fighter for equality and women’s rights; socialist; teacher; theosophist and, as leader of the Indian National Congress, fighter for Indian independence. She was always a prolific writer and, as she put it, always a seeker after truth with a wish to help others.
The aim of the fairly short biography by Muriel Pécastaing-Boissière (MPB) is different: to show the continuities between these different phases of Besant’s life, using her own autobiographies (she wrote two), and with a useful exploration of the political, social and intellectual contexts. The result is a readable and illuminating book.
The Victorian era into which Annie Besant was born (in London in 1847) was constricting in its mores, especially for women. Girls were expected to marry and were legally subservient to their husbands. But, having unexpectedly been educated by an enlightened woman who believed in educating girls to the same standard as boys, she overcame these limitations, which were compounded by poverty as a child and young woman, and by a failed marriage. She kept going at a time that was rich with new ideas. The Church of England exercised much control in British society but there was a great deal of resistance against its dominance, and a ferment of different, sometimes opposing ideas – Darwinism, and the idea of evolution; the on-going throes of the industrial revolution with the growing power of the working classes; imperialism, along with resistance to it; a materialism, side by side with a great interest in parapsychology and spiritualism – altogether a mass of contradictions.
This book shows how Annie Besant was a part of these movements. From an early age she began to reject aspects of Christianity, particularly the divinity of Jesus. From this rejection of the doctrines she was brought up with, she moved first to a kind of theism – that God is all pervasive and cannot be located in one being. She began to study and write. She took on causes of women’s rights. She ‘preached’ a secular doctrine. After a while she joined the National Secular Society – always writing and teaching. With a great interest in the emerging science of the time, she was always seeking more, and for something that transcended the material. Her eventual espousal of Theosophy satisfied that wish and brought together her interest in science and the transcendental, and ancient and up-to-date thought. Each phase of her life saw Besant take on influential, leadership roles. She was elected head of the Theosophical Society in 1907, a role which she retained until her death in 1933, and for many years was head of the Indian National Congress….
This book is a fascinating account of the whole sweep of Anne Besant’s life and achievements. It admirably fulfils its aims of showing the coherence and consistency in the extraordinarily varied and rich life of this remarkable woman, who committed her life to truth and to service.
* Muriel Pécastaing-Boissière, Annie Besant 1847-1933 – Struggles and Quest. Theosophical Publishing House, London, 2017.
** Arthur H. Nethercot, The First Five Lives of Annie Besant. Rupert Hart-Davies, London, 1960, The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant. Rupert Hart-Davies, London, 1963.
by Ariane Eroy
Photographer Camille Seaman was born in 1969 to a Native American (Shinnecock tribe) father and African American mother. She graduated in 1992 from the State University of New York, where she studied photography. Since then Seaman has become an award-winning photographer whose work is part of the permanent collection of the National Academy of Sciences Museum in Washington, DC. She has spent decades traveling to the North and South Poles, where she takes portraits of icebergs and documents the dramatic environmental changes occurring there.
“Camille Seaman strongly believes in capturing photographs that articulate that humans are not separate from nature,” according to her website, camilleseaman.com. Ariane Eroy interviewed her for Share International.
Share International: You have stated, “I was taught from a very young age that we are connected to everything and that everything has a Life Force.” Tell us more about this.
Camille Seaman: My grandfather took it very seriously that all of his grandchildren should understand what it meant to be a true human being. For him that meant knowing that we are interrelated and interconnected with everyone and with everything – not just people. So he had these ways of teaching where he would not just tell us, but show us, becausehe understood that the difference between believing something and knowing something was actual experience. That physical interaction with something is how you know.
The thing that still stands out to me was him taking me into the woods, and we would stop at each tree. He would literally introduce me to each tree, have me put my hands on it, saying, “This is your relative in the same way that I am your relative and you must respect it.” I see the faces and personalities of trees as individuals….
I will touch upon stillness because that is a huge part of my work, and it was another one of my grandfather’s teachings. From about the age of 5 until 13, every day, whether it was cold, sunny, raining, snowing – it didn’t matter – I was made to sit outside and be still, for one hour. And I had a favorite spot: I would sit on top this table that we had under a big maple tree. After the hour, my grandfather would call me in and say, “What did you see?” If I was feeling stubborn, I would say. “I didn’t see anything.” And he would say, “Go back outside.”
What I learned in this experience is that when you are still, that border – that otherness, that separateness – between you and nature dissolves. I just want to articulate that that border is built by us. Nature does not recognize that border. We do. But when you are still, that border dissolves. And suddenly you have the most incredible experiences, like a bird will come and land on you, or a butterfly. Or you will notice things that seem somehow magic. “How did that happen?” But it only happened because you were still and nature says, “Ah! You’re back! Welcome back.” And they send this Welcome Committee to say, “We see you!” Whether that is a phenomenon that is happening with the clouds, or an animal, or a spider, even, these magical moments happen when you are still, because then you are not just present, you are interconnected again. …”
1 The Christ as Teacher
by the Master —
3 This month in Share International
4 Point of view:
Reclaiming our common home – expand the commons to include everything we need
by Vandana Shiva
5 “We have to act”: Atmospheric CO2 passes 420 PPM for first time ever
by Kenny Stancil
6 Why rehabilitation is as vital as rescue for child trafficking survivors
by Neena Bhandari
8 A recommended read by Phyllis Creme
Annie Besant (1847-1933) Struggles and Quest, Muriel Pécastaing-Boissière
9 Another youth environmental leader makes her voice heard:
meet thirteen-year-old Ridhima Pandey
10 The hand of Maitreya – a source of help and healing
11 Signs of the time:
Signs in the skies
13 On the grandeur of icebergs and the stillness of human beings
Interview with Camille Seaman
by Ariane Eroy
16 Economics and finance
by Aart Jurriaanse
17 A spiritual perspective on economics – a compilation
19 Climate-friendly food is easier than we think
by Edwina Hughes, Richard Waite and Gerard Pozzi
20 Tens of thousands march in France to demand much stronger climate law
by Jon Queally
21 Letters to the editor:
Walking on air
23 Questions and answers
by Benjamin Creme
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