|
 The key
to achieving these goals is a more equitable sharing of
the world’s food and resources. According to Maitreya:
"Without sharing there can be no justice; without
justice there can be no peace; without peace, there can
be no future."
Humanity is at a crossroads. One path into the future
leads to increasing social and economic division,
environmental destruction, war and planetary peril. The
other path leads to increasing social harmony, economic
and environmental balance, and a golden era of peace.
Fortunately, at this critical
point in history, we have in our midst a group of
extraordinary spiritual teachers to help guide us along
the path to peace. But we must willingly accept this
guidance and take action to resolve our most dangerous
global problems.
Among the most dangerous is the
growing disparity between the world's 'haves' and
'have-nots.' As an example:
* The world's 225 richest people
have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion, equal to the
annual income of the poorest 47 per cent of the world's
people.
* Among the 4,4 billion people who
live in developing countries:
* nearly three in five live without basic sanitation
* nearly one in three are without
safe drinking water
* one-quarter lack adequate
housing
* one in five live beyond the
reach of modern health services
* one in five children are
undernourished, and an equal percentage do not get past
grade five in school
* Even in the US, the world's
wealthiest country, some 12 million families are at risk
of hunger, and at least 700,000 people are homeless on
any given night.
This growing divide between the
wealthy and the poor threatens us all, as the resulting
crime, social unrest, civil war and environmental degradation do not respect national or
local boundaries.
Global consumption
The greed of a few has placed the future of the
planet in jeopardy. Global consumption of goods and
services, disproportionately by the world's wealthiest
20 per cent, topped $US 24 trillion in 1998, twice the
figure for 1975. The UN Human Development Report
concludes that the "runaway growth in consumption is
placing unprecedented pressure on the environment." This
report and others cite the destruction of the world's
forests; depletion of the world's fisheries and fresh
water supplies; pollution of air and water; depletion of
the world's top soil; desertification; species
extinction; a dramatic increase in fossil fuel burning
and resulting global warming trends. The list of growing
environmental problems is nearly endless.
Some of the earth's life support
systems are already nearing the "point of no return,"
says Worldwatch's Brian Halwell. "We cannot sustain this
level of consumption forever."
Sharing is the answer
What could cause humanity, particularly those in the
developed world, to change to a less destructive, more
sustainable lifestyle before it is too late?
The writing is already on the
wall, according to former US Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan
Greenspan. "It is not credible that the United States
can remain an oasis of prosperity unaffected by a world
that is experiencing greatly increased stress,"
Greenspan says. But the "stress" of collapsing economies
in Asia and Russia ― and increasing turmoil in Latin
America and Eastern Europe ― not only affects the oasis
of the United States, but the rest of the world as well.
The world economy is "in a mess," concedes a senior
official at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Efforts by the Federal Reserve and the
IMF to prop up the global economy are
dwarfed by the sheer size of the 'global casino' that
has contributed to the problems in the first place. Some
$1,5 trillion in currency changes hands electronically
every day in search of speculative profits unrelated to
any exchange of real goods and services. This flow of
capital, when shifted away from countries like Thailand
and Indonesia, has caused severe economic hardships,
which have rippled across the globe. With Japan, the
world's second largest economy, already in deep
recession, the outlook is not bright.
When the US's "oasis of
prosperity" begins to dry up, as it must in the current
global financial crisis, stock markets in the West will
plunge. This collapse will provide an opportunity for
governments to re-evaluate their economic priorities,
says futurist Benjamin Creme. The nations of the world
will meet together to discuss how to cope with the
future in an orderly fashion.
Solutions at hand
Fortunately, the answers to these seemingly
intractable problems are readily available.
For many years, Creme has spoken
and written about the presence in the world today of a
group of great spiritual teachers, known in the East as
the Masters of Wisdom. At their head is Maitreya, who,
Creme says, is here to inspire humanity to see itself as
one interdependent family.
Maitreya will help us see that the
world's food, raw materials, energy and technological
resources belong to everyone and must be shared
equitably. These resources, Maitreya says, are given by
divine right for the sustenance of all humanity, not for
the use and misuse by a relative few. He will recommend
a re-ordering of economic priorities so that adequate
food, housing, education and medical care become
universal rights.
The next steps
The immediate priority will be the saving of
millions of people now starving to death in the
developing world. Maitreya will propose a crash program
of aid on a world scale to alleviate this suffering.
As humanity begins to accept the
Principle of Sharing, and people call on governments to
implement this principle, each country will make an
inventory of its assets and needs. These statistics will
provide a United Nations agency, set up for this
purpose, with the information required for a rational
redistribution of the world's resources. That which each
country has in excess of its needs will be put aside, in
trust for the world.
The plans for such a
redistribution program ― drawn up by economists,
financiers and industrialists of great achievement ―
are already in existence, awaiting only the demand of
humanity for their implementation. A sophisticated form
of barter, on a global scale, will eventually replace
the present economic system.
There will be opposition to such
plans from some of the more privileged members of
society who will see a loss of their traditional status
and power. But the need for change will become so
obvious that they will find themselves increasingly
powerless to halt the momentum.
Another top priority will be
saving, protecting, and healing the environment. This
will require the creation of economic systems based on
the principles of sustainability and sufficiency, rather
than the present system of overproduction and waste,
Creme says. The goal is to supply the needs of all while
maintaining the planet's health.
With the transformation of
economic structures, people throughout the world will
increasingly be able to live decent, dignified lives.
The incidence of large families will diminish,
particularly in the developing world, where it is mainly
an insurance for old age. The earth's population will
gradually decline to a more natural level.
Humanity's choice
The bright future ahead for humanity is dependent on
the decisions we make today. Maitreya and the Masters
will advise and guide, but the future rests in our
hands.
Maitreya will present humanity
with two alternative scenarios of the future ― either
to continue in the selfish, greedy ways of the past and
destroy ourselves, or to accept the Principle of Sharing
and create a brilliant new civilization where all may
participate as full members of the human family.
Maitreya is in no doubt about the
choice humanity will make. He says: "The success of my
mission depends on you: you must make the choice ―
whether you share and learn to live peacefully as true
men, or perish utterly. My heart tells me your answer,
your choice, and is glad."
Economic injustice and social upheaval:
is sharing
the answer?
Monte Leach, US editor of Share
International magazine, interviews Benjamin Creme
[from the July
1993 issue]
Monte Leach: According to the
World Bank, there are now 1,7 billion people throughout
the world living in poverty. In the developed world,
economic recession is pervasive. What are we doing
wrong? In your view, what's the problem?
Benjamin Creme: The major problem
is the fact that we have come to the end of our
civilization. We are witnessing the breakup of the
civilization of the last 2,000-odd years and the
beginnings of the process of creating a new
civilization. This is why Maitreya is in the world, to
inspire and guide us, to educate us in the creation of
the correct structures ― political, economic, and
social ― which will allow us to go forward in our
evolution on the right premises.
At the moment we see a
super-division of the world, a separation into major
groups ― the developed and the developing world. The
developed world usurps and wastes three-quarters of the
world's food and 83 per cent of the resources. The Third
World, as it is called, has to make do with the rest. As
a result, 38 million people are, at this moment,
starving to death in a world with a huge surplus of
food. We have a 10 per cent per capita surplus of food
in the world, so no one need starve.
What is required is a reassessment
of who and what we are in our relationship to each
other. Maitreya says the first step we have to take to
address these problems is to see ourselves as one,
brothers and sisters of one humanity. We have to get
that sense of globality, that we are one people, one
group ― and therefore the food, raw materials, energy,
scientific know-how and educational facilities of the
world belong to everyone. These resources are given so
that all people may evolve correctly according to the
plan which underlies our evolutionary process. As a
result, we must share these resources more equitably.
When we share, Maitreya says, we will create justice in
the world, and when we create justice, and only then,
will we have peace. He has come to show us how to have
peace. If we do not accept the process towards peace,
there will be no world, because we can now destroy all
life on this planet many times over. We have the nuclear
arsenal to do this.
ML: The major threat, as you
see it, to international security is not nuclear arms
per se, it is the tension which underlies the economic
situation.
BC: According to Maitreya, what he
calls the "engines of war" have been switched off. The
Cold War is over. No one any longer believes that the US
and Russia are going to destroy each other in a nuclear
holocaust. But the energy which sent the planes into the
sky and the tanks and troops into the battlefield does
not just disappear. It is a destructive force which he
says has been going around the world looking for a new
home. He says it has found a "new womb." That new womb
is commercialization based on market forces, which, he
says, are based on human greed. Maitreya calls market
forces the forces of evil because they have inequality
built into their very structure. They help a few to
achieve a better standard of living, but at the expense
of millions who suffer a lower one. Commercialization is
gripping every nation in the world as the market forces
concept begins to dominate even in the previously
communist bloc. We are finding a situation where the
rise in tension is so great it has within it the seeds
of a third world war, and that war would destroy all
life.
ML: Many people would argue
that market forces are the saviour of mankind. Many
nations are heading that way in the developing as well
as the developed world. They say: "This is the way out.
The communist system has failed. What other choice do we
have?"
BC: The communist system did not
fail. It was never tried. We never saw communism in the
so-called communist bloc. What we saw was a kind of
state capitalism. What we are seeing now is a breakup of
the totalitarian political system ― which is not the
same thing as communism ― and the gradual
transformation of capitalism. Maitreya says the symbol
for the new economic situation, which will be neither
capitalism nor communism, can be witnessed in the coming
together of communist East Germany and capitalist West
Germany. The reunification of Germany gives us the
possibility for the creation of what he calls a social
democracy or a democratic socialism ― something which
is neither classical capitalism nor communism. He says
eventually this will be the norm in Europe and
throughout the world.
ML: How does that relate to
what you were talking about in terms of sharing?
BC: Unless we share the resources
rather than compete for them, we cannot create that new
situation. We have enough food and resources in the
world for the needs of all people, but the major nations
― the US, the European states, Japan and one or two
others ― completely dominate the scene and usurp and
misuse most of these resources. So there is not enough
for others at a price that they can afford to pay. The
Third World is strapped for its very existence. That is
why there are 38 million people starving there.
If we had a drought in California,
Florida, Britain or France, for example, we would be
able to buy food grown elsewhere. The reason why
millions die is not from drought but because they do not
have the finances to replenish that which is lost
through drought. If you have an economic system which is
not based on competition, greed and self-service, which
is what market forces are about, then you can redress
this whole situation.
Maitreya says that any government
which follows market forces blindly is leading its
nation to destruction. He says this civilization is
literally at the end of its tether. It is coming to a
halt. What we are witnessing today is not simply a
recession or slowdown of production. We are witnessing
the death throes of the current civilization because it
is based on wrong premises.
Market forces assume that everyone
starts at the same point. But everyone does not start at
the same point. No two nations start at the same point.
No two individuals within those nations start at the
same point. There are extraordinary discrepancies in
living standards. How many people imagine that the world
can go on indefinitely in this hideous situation? For
how long do people imagine that the people of the Third
World will put up with this state of affairs? The answer
is sharing, a sharing of resources.
ML: In other words, the current
system will collapse.
BC: Maitreya says we are
witnessing its collapse. He says it is inevitable, and
that there will be a world stock market crash which will
begin in Japan. Maitreya said this in 1988, and since
then the stock market of Japan has lost nearly 60 per
cent of its value. Maitreya says it is a bubble; it will
burst inevitably. How it bursts depends on ourselves,
but it has to burst and let out all the corruption and
inequality which prevents the demonstration, as he would
say, of the true inner spiritual nature of humanity. We
are wasting the resources of countless millions in the
world by condemning them to an enforced poverty and
degradation, and the misery of undernourishment and
starvation.
ML: You are saying it will
literally take a collapse for the changes that you are
recommending to be made, and nothing short of that will
be enough. Perhaps we can see the error of our ways.
BC: Many people see the error of
our ways. I am not alone in pointing these out. But
governments, and people who keep the governments in
power ― enormous vested interests in the world in all
sectors, the simple greed, the self-protective mechanism
of humanity ― prevent these changes from taking place.
Almost everybody would admit these changes would be
useful, but maybe impractical to implement.
Maitreya says if they do not take
place, we will destroy ourselves. He says that it will
take the collapse of our economic system, as we have
known it, to bring us to a sense of reality, to realize
that we cannot go on indefinitely in a world where
one-third of the population uses three-quarters of the
world's food and 83 per cent of the other resources. The
crime, drug addiction and social unrest in the developed
world are a direct result of this imbalance in the
world's resources. Even the distortion of the world's
long-established weather patterns is the direct result
of this disequilibrium created by man's disharmonic
thought patterns.
ML: When do you see this
collapse occurring?
BC: Maitreya has said it will be
very soon. Obviously, we see what is happening in Japan.
In 1989 the stock exchange stood at 38,000 to 39,000.
Today [i.e. 1993.ed] it is
around 16,000. It will go up a little bit and then down
a lot, and then go up another little bit and down again,
but heading down overall, until even the Japanese
government can no longer keep the financiers in check.
They will start jumping out of high windows like we
would be doing here if the same situation were
pertaining.
ML: What happens after that?
BC: Maitreya says when that
happens the priorities of all governments will change.
He says the number one priority of all governments will
become the provision of correct, adequate food for all
the people: it is the number one necessity; two, the
provision of adequate shelter for all the people; three,
the provision of adequate health care; and four,
educational facilities for all the people. These are the
basics which do not seem too much to ask for: enough
food, shelter, health care, and education. Yet there is
no country in the world ― not even the US, the most
powerful militarily, and once the richest, country in
the world ― where these four requirements pertain as a
universal right. He says that when they do, they will
transform the world.
Humanity is going through a great
spiritual crisis, Maitreya says. It is a crisis of
identity, to find out who we really are as spiritual
beings. As souls we are one. There is no such thing as a
separate soul. On the physical plane we have the
illusion that we are separate, but in fact we are one.
Therefore, we can make this step forward in our
evolutionary advance only when we create right human
relationships. That is the next spiritual ideal to be
achieved by humanity.
The first step is the sharing of
the world's resources, because if we do not do this we
will destroy ourselves. It is as simple as that. We have
free will. Maitreya is not going to interfere and make
sure that we do not destroy ourselves. He is going to
present us with these alternatives: carry on as we are
today in the old, greedy, selfish, competitive ways of
the past and destroy ourselves, or else accept that we
are one, accept the Principle of Sharing; implement it,
create justice in the world, and therefore peace, and
begin the construction, under his inspiration, of a most
brilliant and wonderful civilization such as this world
has never known.
ML: How will it work exactly?
Will the changes occur on a national basis? For
instance, in the US, will we say: "We need to change our
priorities?" Or will it happen internationally through
the UN or some other forum?
BC: I would suggest it is a
combination of both. The UN will become the major
debating chamber of the world. All world problems will
be debated there and resolutions passed which will
implement the new system. An entirely new UN agency will
be set up specifically to oversee the process of sharing
the world's resources.
But I must emphasize that we have
free will; nothing will be forced on humanity. When
humanity of its own free will accepts the Principle of
Sharing and asks Maitreya and his group of Masters, who
are likewise returning to the world (there are already
14 Masters in the world), how do we do this, how do we
set about sharing, then we will find that the plan is
already there.
There is a group of high initiates
who have worked out with the Masters over many years a
whole series of interrelated plans which will solve the
redistribution problems which today are at the heart of
the economic problems. It is really a problem of
redistribution of resources. That redistribution results
from a change of consciousness. Humanity is approaching
a point where it is undergoing a great shift in
consciousness, beginning to recognize itself in relation
to each other and to cosmos, to nature, to what we
generally call God, in an entirely new way. Maitreya
says that everything, every single thing in cosmos, is
interconnected. There is no break at any point. What we
do to ourselves, we do to nature. What we do to nature,
we are doing to ourselves, as God, because we are
reflections, points of consciousness of that total
consciousness that we call God.
Throughout the whole of cosmos
this process is enacted and re-enacted; every thought,
every action is setting into motion a cause. The effects
stemming from these causes make our lives. If we have an
underground nuclear explosion, for example, we will
certainly have an earthquake. Every effect streams from
a cause.
Maitreya will emphasize ― and we
ought to know it by now, we have had thousands of years
to understand it ― that everything in life obeys the
Law of Cause and Effect. We cannot go on creating wrong
conditions and expect there will be no effects. If we
create conditions of imbalance in a nation, inevitably
we get crime. Just making a stronger police force or
army will not solve the problem. We have to combat the
source of the crime ― inequality, imbalance. The whole
process of evolution is moving towards oneness, fusion,
synthesis. Market forces, which are based on division,
separation and competition, act against the evolutionary
process. That is why Maitreya calls them the forces of
evil. They have their place, but only a very limited
place. When they are followed blindly, they lead
inevitably to destruction.
ML: Will Maitreya be openly
advising humanity? Right now I think it would be fair to
say that very few people know about his presence in the
world.
BC: Maitreya will be openly
advising. He will come forward as the World Teacher for
all groups, religious and non-religious alike. He will
be looked towards by religious groups as their expected
Teacher ― the Christ for Christians, Maitreya Buddha
for Buddhists, the Messiah of the Jews and the Moslims,
Krishna for the Hindus ― but in fact, he is really a
teacher, an educator for the whole of humanity, showing
us how to become what we are, spiritual beings, and
therefore how to create the environment in which that
spirituality can be expressed. It cannot be expressed in
the midst of these divisions and separations, this
competition based on market forces.
ML: If I am a farmer in the US,
for instance, if I am growing food and I put a lot of
hard labour into it, should I not reap the benefits of
doing that work? Sharing sounds great, but will we
actually implement it when the time comes?
BC: According to Maitreya, we
shall. He knows already that humanity is ready for
sharing and will accept the Principle of Sharing. That
is why he can be here.
Of course, the farmer in the US
producing food should reap the benefit of his labour,
but the poor peasant in Zaire or Zambia should also reap
the benefit of his hard labour. That does not pertain
today. In the developed world, we produce so much that
we dominate the world's markets. We lay down the price
of our goods and, because of our resources, the price of
the goods of the Third World also. We demand from the
developing countries the raw materials and products at a
price which leaves them able to live only at a very low
level, with more than a billion people living below the
poverty line and 38 million actually starving. Yet we
demand for our own resources, for our own production,
the top value that we can demand on the world market so
that we can maintain what is a very artificial level of
living.
People in the US, Europe and Japan
live on the backs of the Third World. This is the
reality. The reason that we do not see it is simply our
complacency. Maitreya calls complacency the source of
all evil.
ML: Yet many people here in the
US would say we are not complacent. When there is a
crisis in Africa or elsewhere, we are right there
responding with food and aid.
BC: Of course, but these are
individual reactions. In every country you will find
those whose hearts respond to human need. But it is an
on-again, off-again affair. Humanity as a whole, through
its agencies, the governments of the world, does not
address these problems on a global scale. We would not
put into power, perhaps, a government whose number one
priority was the saving of the starving millions if it
meant the reduction of the living standards of our own
nation. Nobody can win votes on that basis, or so the
politicians think. The time is coming when they will not
win any votes at all unless they put that issue at the
forefront of their priorities.
What we are going to witness is
the creation, by Maitreya, of a world public opinion
focused, galvanized, centered on sharing as a divine
right. Maitreya says: "When you share, you recognize God
in your brother." He says the problems of mankind are
real, but solvable. The solution lies within our grasp.
He says: "Take your brother's need as the measure for
your action and solve the problems of the world. There
is no other course." He will galvanize and potentize
world public opinion which, when so organized, no
government on earth can withstand. It is that world
public opinion which eventually will force all the
governments in the world to accept the Principle of
Sharing because it will be seen that we have no
alternative. We either share or we die. It is as simple
as that.
ML: The power in essence will
be from the people, and not from any teacher like
Maitreya.
BC: Exactly. Maitreya does not
come with power. He comes with the power of inspiration
and guidance, but not with autocratic power. He says
that from now on governments everywhere will be by the
people, for the people. We are already witnessing it.
Look at what has happened in the former Soviet Union. It
is chaos at the moment, but who brought down the Berlin
Wall? Who opened up the Soviet Union to glasnost? Mr
Gorbachev was mainly responsible for ending the Cold War
and for glasnost in the Soviet Union. Of all the world
leaders, he is the one most responsive to the mental
impress of the Lord Maitreya.
We are witnessing the galvanizing
of humanity, the people of the world, to take upon
themselves responsibility for their own lives. Over the
last few years, that has been happening all over the
world. The dictatorships of the world are going. That is
why the Soviet Union broke up ― not from the collapse
of communism, but from the collapse of political
totalitarianism, which is something else.
We are also seeing the collapse of
economic totalitarianism. The economic system, largely
based on market forces, is approaching its death. There
is a third totalitarianism yet to break up ― religious
totalitarianism. Religious totalitarianism is reaching
the acme of its power. We see that in the rise of
fundamentalist groups in all religions, even in the
tolerant Buddhist and Hindu faiths. It is expressed in
Islam very powerfully today and in Christianity too. It
will be the last to disappear, but eventually
totalitarianism in the churches will go. Then humanity
will know freedom for the first time: political freedom,
economic freedom and justice, and freedom of thought and
belief. |
