As humans, we sometimes make choices based on beliefs that are self-limiting and rob us of the radiant joy we so generously deserve. Dwelling in possibility and opening ourselves to unlimited good can definitely feel a little un-comfort zone-y, but relaxing and embracing our divine infinite potential is a sure-fire key to real happiness.

One of my favorite quotations comes from inner peace guru Wayne Dyer. He talks about “having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing.” This means that, even if an outcome looks differently than we expected, we stay in the flow and meet it with gratitude and grace, knowing there is always possibility at every turn. And later, we are usually grateful for the turn of events.

I observe my cats doing this very thing. Cats follow their bliss. Whether it’s napping, going after a catnip banana, or trying to steal a piece of cheese from the counter, they know what they want and they go for it! You remove them from the counter and they head over to a shoebox and chill for a few hours. They don’t look back and mourn the cheese that might have been; they move on to the next great experience and fully embrace it.

How many times do we mourn the cheese that might have been? What would it be like if, after being removed from the counter, we lovingly affirmed the shoebox…and ourselves? I mean, seriously, who loves themselves more than cats? Sure, the cheese would have been nice, but the shoebox is so cozy…with a great view of the birdfeeder!

Let’s look to our feline friends as models of thinking big and staying in the flow. Why not go after what we want? Whether it’s a job, a relationship, a project, or some healing work you know needs to happen. Do it! Go after the cheese, releasing all attachment to outcome! You’ll never know success if you don’t try, right? If you happen to get removed from the counter, find that shoebox and love it. And when the birds show up at the feeder, you’ll think, “Boy, I’m so glad I was removed from that counter and found this box!”

Most of us “get” the importance of taking care of ourselves physically. It’s also important to be aware of our mental bodies by way of our thoughts, our emotional bodies, and how we are feeling. And we can do all of this when we recharge though our spiritual self.

We exercise the way we have been told and eat the way we feel is healthy. I think that the understanding of eating organic and taking responsibility for our environment is very prominent if we are aware. Going green is a very hip today, and it has been for a while. You can pretty much walk into any grocery store and find an organic/natural section. When someone asks me if I eat and use all organic products, my answer is, “As much as possible.” I am practical, in that it is not always available. Do the best you can, with what is available for you at this time. The intention is key to creating more opportunities to make your world toxic free in all ways.

The fact of the matter is, we all have intelligence – our inner wisdom. And then there is intellect, what is learned (our mind). What is learned is helpful in ways of cooking, planning and completing the mundane tasks of life. It has its place. Knowledge and inner wisdom work together.

But remember, it’s not safe to let the mind control. You know what I’m talkin’ about. It’s when the thoughts start looping and the rampant, relentless, repetitive recordings will not shut up! Rehashing the past of coulda, woulda. Time to shut down the program, the thought patterns of learned behavior. Outdated software!

The new Earth is here, the new human is here. It’s time to take on a new mission in life. Be happy.

Connect and tune in daily to Source. Take a few moments every day, and hold a space for love. Feel solid in your heart, with the light of your Soul, and then connecting upward to Source creating a solid pillar of light that extends below your feet. This is centering, and this is the best way to tune in that I know. This is something everyone can do, anywhere, any time. You KNOW how to do this. As many of us know, when we do this consistently, the connection comes easier and more solid.

We live in a dualistic world. Collective consciousness is very powerful (group thought/mind-control). It’s time to take charge. Keep pure on all levels with the physical body, thoughts and emotions. This will bring you the energy of beauty, joy and love that is here. Now.

Beyond the veil that separates the earth from the heavens exists a hierarchy of Divine Beings who are waiting. They know there are human beings who will one day realize they are more than a body plodding through life because of some cosmic accident. They know these souls will awaken to a memory that something Divine exists within them, something that connects them to an unknown powerful source of wisdom.

We are those souls and they are the wisdom beyond the veil that is waiting to guide us.

This earth is a school of learning. We chose to enroll in this school, even though we knew it would be difficult. We had a choice to go to other schools that were easier and less demanding, but we wanted to go to the best school, a school we could liken to Harvard, a school with challenging courses and tests that would seem almost insurmountable. We knew if we showed up for classes, did our homework and passed the tests, regardless of how difficult, we would one day graduate. Getting a degree from this Harvard was an incredibly important accomplishment. It wasn’t just graduating from any school and it wasn’t just any degree. It was the most demanding school and guaranteed we would leave with a Master’s degree.

Before we enrolled, we met with our personal “spiritual advisers” to decide what courses we were going to take for our soul’s highest growth. We chose classes in relationships, career, money, ego, fear, addictions and many other difficult courses. We knew some of these courses were going to be extremely grueling, but we also knew we would not struggle alone. Our advisers made a promise to us. They would be there to guide us. They assured us that we were entering the school of life with a direct line to the divine wisdom that would help us pass the tests we needed to earn our Master’s degree. They told us that we had one incredible adviser that would be with us constantly. They explained that our adviser is capable of interpreting the wisdom beyond the veil because it lives there, and here. This adviser is our soul.

Our life is not pre-determined, but it is pre-designed. We knew exactly what we wanted to accomplish when we incarnated. Our Soul had an agenda, pre-designed with the help of an incredibly wise team of brilliant beings who are constantly accessible. We made a commitment to enter into this earth life experience in order to grow, overcome past challenges, missed opportunities and failed tests. Some of us committed to more than our own personal soul’s growth. We committed to accepting the role of mentor for other souls who also enrolled in the school of life. Our reason for incarnating then transcended our own personal growth and included our commitment to helping other souls evolve.

Our journey in the school of life is not just about us. We can only earn a Master’s degree if we share what we have learned with other souls who are struggling with their own tests. The Master’s degree is the completion of all of the tests our soul, and our advisers, helped us create before we were born. Once we pass the tests, which are to transform our earthly challenges into enlightened insight that we can share with others, we are finished. We will never need to enroll in Harvard again and our cycle of rebirth onto this planet will also be finished.

Earning a Master’s degree is only possible if we overcome the power of our human ego by aligning with the wisdom of the soul. The voice of our soul is continuously calling for us to listen. If we will stop our addiction to earthly distractions, it will guide us to everything we need to manifest our dreams. It will align us with the magnificent wisdom of those who live beyond the veil.

Our spiritual evolution isn’t in the hands of a guru du jour whom we think has the answer. It is in the very center of our own being — and it is calling for us to learn to channel the wisdom and power of the beyond.

“This is the ultimate purpose of man…to find the One which is in him…which is his truth…which is his Soul; the key with which he opens the gate of the spiritual life…the heavenly kingdom within.” – Unknown

Religious suppression is gradually being replaced by spiritual freedom; a freedom that has opened the door to the “Self-awareness” movement. Unfortunately, the pendulum has swung too far. Many of us run to the latest “new age,” self-help, inspirational best seller, searching for the answer. We seek the most popular healer and run from astrologer to psychic. We turn to Oprah to find the latest noteable “guru du jour,” searching for the key to life. Where is it? Who has it? How can we get it?

The answer lies in an allegory in one of the most famous children’s stories of all time, a story that has been passed down through four generations. Although it is highly probable that L. Frank Baum did not intend The Wizard of Oz to hold such a powerful inner meaning, we can find the key to life by turning this timeless tale into a personal metaphor.

Dorothy leaves Kansas to flee the oppression of her challenges. She’s caught in a horrid storm of chaos and dropped into an uncharted mystical world. She asks for help and a guardian appears and tells her to follow the path. She meets like-minded travelers on her journey who are seeking to fill their own emptiness. Together they trek a perilous road to Oz in search of the wizard who allegedly has their answers. The path to Oz is riddled with distractions and challenges, but they eventually arrive at their destination, expecting the wizard to provide the answers they seek.

The wizard portrays himself as the all-knowing, all-powerful being who has the key to everything they need. He sends them away, demanding they do particular deeds to win his favor; only “then” will he give them what they came for. Their journey leads them to conquering their greatest adversaries, only to return to the wizard, who they still believe holds the key. The wizard accidentally exposes his true self and finally, in a moment of personal honesty, divulges that he too is just a man on a journey. He graciously explains that he doesn’t have their answers. He tells them that what they have been searching for is already within them.

Dorothy, the heroine, is happy her companions have found what they came for, but she is still no further along then when she started her journey. She feared her only hope in returning home was gone. She cried for help and her guardian appeared. In one of the greatest spiritual moments of this children’s fairy tale, the Good Witch, Glinda, told Dorothy the power was with her all along. She didn’t need the wizard or anyone else. All she had to do was…you know the answer…click your heels three times and repeat… “there is no place like home, there is no place like home, there is no place like home.”

Our soul is our ruby slippers, and it has always known the way home. Whatever journey we take ultimately leads us home to the wisdom within. It isn’t wrong to seek mentors to help guide our path. The challenge is that we are inundated with self-help information and Hollywood gurus who seemingly have an answer that we don’t. We start to believe that they, those we consider more evolved, have the key to our life. If we are constantly seeking to find our inner wisdom by believing that we can’t find it, we won’t find it. We will follow a path that continues to lead us outside of ourselves, and the voice of our soul will become distant and faint, replaced by the chatter of those we think have our answers.

We are the offspring of a Divine Power that created the universe and everything in it. We may never be able to label it, or define it, but we can intuitively feel it, hear it and know it. Since we are the creation of something Divine, the DNA of that “great something,” whatever you want to call it, lives within US. That Divine DNA is our soul and it has a voice, an intuitive inner voice that is constantly trying to reach us.

The voice of our soul may guide us through mentors who have wisdom that can help us on our path, but we are not meant to rely on someone else to unlock our own inner wisdom. Books, healers, intuitives or whomever we may seek point us to the understanding that WE have the answers. We are not meant to put someone else on a pedestal, believing they are the great wizard of Oz, the answer to our dreams.

Learning to unlock our own inner wisdom IS the key to life. The voice of our soul is connected to the Divine wisdom that lives (over the rainbow) beyond the veil of this earth plane. Our spiritual guides, guardians and loved ones are waiting to help us on our soul path. They are waiting to help lead us home; not to die, but to live our Divine potential.

Detach from the chaos of life by shutting down technology for a brief time every day. Stop running from person to person to find your answers. Access the Divine wisdom of your own soul. Spend quiet time listening to its advice. Seek only those who reinforce your own ability to find your answers. If the chaos of your adult life has created such a serious path, return to the wise child within. Watch The Wizard of Oz and find the powerful inner message of this timeless tale. This time, let your soul quietly repeat the profound message Glinda spoke to Dorothy: “You’ve always had the power.”

The underlying trends toward a heaven on earth are often obscured by the “noise” of the day, pessimism and cynicism. But I believe that with God’s enduring, steadfast love humankind will ultimately reach a heaven on earth. The ten elements that I believe are essential in this quest are as follows:

1. Peace: The major keys to peace lie in our ability to prosper and spread democracies worldwide. Going beyond toleration to respect of all loving faiths is also critical. Advancing to general acceptance and appreciation across racial lines will build peace within and between nations.

2. Security: We must strive to gain security from terrorism and crime. It is critical that we stop radical Islamics. History is replete with fanatics such as Hitler who somehow gain power with genocide and aggression. Recognizing the danger and acting internationally through winning minds and hearts without letting up on international pressure are essential to a victory over terrorism. For example see Paul Marek’s powerful essay, “A Look at Radical Islam” and James K. Glassman’s persuasive contribution, “How to Win the War of Ideas.”

3. Freedom: Freedom is prized by all humans, whether they currently possess it or not. Implicit in the democratic ideal is that free individuals will generally act in their own best interests. And the sum of a free society’s actions will allow a greater whole than with nations who repress its people.

4. Democracies: Democracies worldwide in the long run would be the best kind of government for reaching and enjoying a heaven on earth, for they empower the individual, and ultimately societies, to make good choices. History has shown that democratic governments are less likely to make war with one another. Additionally, they discourage tyrants who are corrupted by power. Democracies provide for the orderly transfer of power. However, we must realize that elections don’t necessarily produce the best leader in every case.

5. Prosperity: Capitalism tempered with democracy and free, fair trade can lead to worldwide growth and wealth, which can benefit each of us and all of us to the degree that our own talents and resources permit. Preparation and opportunity go hand-in-hand with self-discipline and hard work. Each of us must strive for financial literacy and make it our business to know what we own. We have a responsibility beyond ourselves in our wealth. We are not meant to love money, but to treat it with respect and be generous toward worthy ends.

6. Spiritual Harmony: We must move beyond religious tolerance to real respect among all the world’s loving spiritual beliefs and practices. Even differing beliefs can lead to similar values, which in turn may lead to behavior that is acceptable to God. Loving religions teach us how to live our lives and how to cope with our own mortality. God’s enduring, steadfast love will empower us here, just as I firmly believe that love will allow all the other elements.

7. Racial Harmony: While the lack of racial harmony goes back to ancient times, that certainly doesn’t mean that we can’t overcome this obstacle. Our nation has moved forward largely by peaceful means over recent decades, including the election of an African American president. Many other nations have also advanced in this march toward racial harmony. In our country we owe much of this nonviolent racial progress to Martin Luther King, Jr. See “Where Do We Go From Here?” in that great leader’s own words. The Golden Rule is especially important in treating others with respect.

8. Ecological Harmony: We must tend to the world’s God-given environment – emphasizing natural beauty and perpetual conservation. Concurrently, we must achieve a balance between those worthy goals and the necessity of rescuing those in abject poverty, as well as maintaining the economic progress of all nations.

9. Health: Technology and medical science are vital to advance the health of the world’s population. Additionally, our own physical, mental and spiritual habits must embody disciplines that promote good health. Death is inevitable until God acts to prevent it, but wholesome, active behavior can result in longer and longer lives as medical science, our habits and economic means progress.

10. Moral Purpose and Meaning: Moral purpose and meaning is perhaps the hardest element to achieve. We do not always do the right thing day by day. Our DNA and environments are not perfect. We have weaknesses that can result in horrors such as the Holocaust. But our flaws do not mean that a nurturing environment can’t lead to success after success until God finally takes over and pulls us out of the misery of our human condition.

When you consider the above, think about this excerpt from the New Testament, Matthew 19:26, “with God all things are possible.”

Many of today’s parents are seeking natural remedies and a holistic lifestyle for themselves and their families in an effort to attain optimal health and live a greener life. Holistic parenting is about understanding how our choices are connected. Being conscious of our choices enables us to think on a larger scale and to do what is best for our families both in the short term and the long term.

Although holistic parenting can take many routes and result in a wide variety of choices, there are some simple things every parent can to do to begin their journey. Here are six steps to discovering holistic parenting:

• Be Informed. Being informed in all of your parenting and health choices is a cornerstone of whole living. Investigate your options educate yourself on the benefits as well as the risks of your parenting, healthcare, and lifestyle choices.

• Cultivate Trust. Living holistically starts with a shift in your perspective, away from fear and uncertainty and toward trust in yourself, your body, and nature’s healing power. Cultivating this trust is challenging, but uncovering it is ultimately a source of empowerment.

• Tune Into Your Mother (or Father) Wisdom. Deep within yourself lies your inner wisdom and intuition, as well as your spiritual voice. What feels right to you may not be the most traveled path but often will best serve your family.

• Go Natural. The preponderance of chemicals in our food, homes, and environment is wreaking havoc on our health. We need to look for safe, non-toxic products to care for our homes, and to eliminate artificial ingredients, preservatives, and pesticides from our food.

• Live Lightly on the Earth. Living holistically means recognizing the interconnectedness of our choices. Tread lightly by supporting industries that nurture the earth (such as organic farming), incorporating green practices into your life (such as recycling), and giving back of yourself through volunteer work.

• Find Support. Creating and interacting with others who share similar philosophies is empowering and will help you to find the tools you need to grow a healthy family. What’s more, social support itself is health creating. Recent studies show that being socially connected to others can improve your physical health and is linked to lower mortality rates.

May your parenting journey be a healthy one!

Every election day I see a smaller than usual turn-out for my Tuesday night class, what with people’s time and attention so taken up with the political process at hand. In the historic election of 2008, I decided the best way to get any turn-out at all would be to hold an after-voting event aimed at envisioning healing for our world and its leaders.

But as class was about to start, I was distracted and agitated. I wished I had just cancelled for the evening, because all I wanted was to glue myself to a TV and watch as results trickle in. We were all tense, still in that early hour when just two states had been called: one blue, one red. My small group of five, a bit reluctantly, tore ourselves away from the radio that had been tuned to a news station and refocused our attention on the healing work set for the evening.

A little later, still in the mellow afterglow of spiritual healing, I came up with an exercise just for fun. I asked everyone to write the names of two wise and well-known leaders from the past on separate 3×5 cards and throw them face down into the center of our circle without sharing what we wrote. When we had a pile of cards representing various history makers of the past, we chose five of them, one at a time. We let each leader "speak" to us by using our intuitive minds to imagine what they’d say. The experience that followed took us beyond the interesting exercise we expected into the territory of goose bumps and tingles. It became even more meaningful in the hours after the election.

Here are some of our "conversations with wisdom" that night.

The first card turned over was John F. Kennedy. He spoke to us about seeds of change planted in the 60s that seemed to disappear for a while but had actually been germinating in the collective consciousness and now are ready to reappear, with lasting strength this time.

The second card was Jesus, who spoke of everyone needing to become a leader. He said this is why Barack Obama has been so quickly propelled to the position of president. He is one who leads by empowering everyone and, collectively, we are now ready for this.

The next card turned over was Martin Luther King, Jr. At first, he appeared so overcome by emotion that he just wordlessly shared his tears of joy. But, being a man of such powerful words, the speaking soon followed. He said Barack Obama is a "bridge," that this soul chose the unusually diverse circumstances of his early life as preparation for playing this important role for the world. His purpose is not just to bridge the divide between races or political parties. He is here to bring the world together, bridging separateness of all sorts, and to demonstrate the greater power of love over fear.

As we all let the impact of these words sink in, we decided to move on to another voice. The next card picked was…Martin Luther King, Jr., again! We jokingly apologized for moving on before the honored Doctor was finished, and let him "speak" once more.

This time he emphasized how Obama can’t do it alone. Everyone is called to a new level of involvement and service. There must be more mass demonstrations of peaceful cooperation. He said the huge turnout to vote was one such demonstration and more are needed. He spoke of a new resurgence of patriotism; that patriotism has in recent years been commandeered by a small group in service to fear-based agendas. Now patriotism will be something different – a love of country rooted in love of humanity and in service. Rather than defending what we love against the rest of the world, the new patriotism would seek to reach out in love to the world around us. He said that our new national "defense" program will be an offering of aid and education to the people of the world, which will quite naturally disempower dangerous governments.

After this rather long message, we decided to turn over another card to hear one last voice. When the next card was revealed, we all seemed to catch our breath in synch as it once again showed the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By now we felt there was no coincidence in play, that this wise soul is profoundly involved in the historic events of the evening. In his last message to us he gave reassurance – a reassurance we didn’t realize how much we needed until it was given – that this one, Obama, would not need to sacrifice himself as many who preceded him did (at which point we all connected the dots: J.F.K., Jesus, Dr. King…all killed for their service). Not to worry, the need for this kind of pain was over.

I left class that night deeply grateful to have been exactly where I was instead of anxiously fixed on my television. And later, I watched on TV the many tearful faces overcome with joy, just as Dr. King first appeared to us. I saw his daughter speak eloquently of Barack Obama as a "bridge," echoing with eerie precision her father’s words. I watched the predicted president elect, Obama, so gracefully reach across party lines to recognize the importance of each of us and to ask for everyone’s help.

Then I, who have never felt patriotic in my life, who even thought patriotism to be too divisive a sentiment for a world so in need of common ground, felt a wave of pride and love for my country unlike anything I’ve ever known before.

Last of a three-part series

"There will be no war as a result of the corruption and deceit of the politicians because I am among you. So far I have been acting behind the scenes, with My hands concealed, in order to give room to those in authority to change their ways and to serve the will of the people. But now the time is imminent when I will have to raise My hand so that people can converge on Me and look towards Me for guidance." Maitreya

Scottish-born painter and esotericist Benjamin Creme has spent more than 30 years preparing the world for the most extraordinary event in human history: the return of our spiritual mentors to the everyday world. Creme has appeared on television, radio and documentary films worldwide since 1982 when he announced that the Lord Maitreya, the World Teacher long awaited by people of every spiritual tradition, albeit under different names, is living in London, ready to present himself openly when invited by the media to do so. This event is now imminent.

Creme, based in London, continues to carry out his task as messenger of this news. He has written 14 books, most recently The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007) and The Awakening of Humanity (2008). He is editor of Share International magazine, which circulates in more than 70 countries and is dedicated to the emergence of Maitreya and the political, social, economic, environmental and spiritual changes that are now taking place.

In an interview with Edge Life, speaking by phone from San Francisco during a recent visit to America, Creme reminds us that Maitreya is a teacher who, when he makes his long-awaited emergence telepathically into the consciousness of every human being on the planet over the age of 14 on the imminent "Day of Declaration," will give each of us a glimpse into who we truly are as human beings and offer us the personal choice of awakening.

The process is described thusly: Maitreya, who can change his physical form at any time, will come forward as a consultant on global issues and will be interviewed on American television. Those public and corporate leaders who have met with Maitreya at a conference in 1990 will come forward and support his ideas. Then, when enough people begin to respond to his ideas, the Day of Declaration will take place and Maitreya will emerge to teach and inspire. Maitreya teaches, among other things, the oneness of all life, humanity’s great spiritual destiny, the Law of Cause and Effect and its corollary, the Law of Rebirth, and the absolute need to share the world’s resources more equitably among all people.

Last month, Creme shared with us Maitreya’s perspective on capitalism and the current global economic crisis. He continues the conversation now, beginning with Maitreya’s views on religion and more on the Day of Declaration.

What’s the future of organized religion in the bigger picture?
Benjamin Creme: Organized religions will remain, some of them for a very long time to come, but under the inspiration and guidance of the Masters there will be built another approach to Divinity. You can’t call it really a religion. It’s a very scientific religion, esotericism, a path to spirit, to union with your soul, and through the soul, union with the spark of God.

You could call it religion if you have to, but we have no word to explain it yet. This scientific religion, scientific path to God, is such that you become a disciple and then you become an initiate, and then you can become a Master and reach the top of the mountain that way. People will go to the mystery schools, which will be reopened, as they go now to university. When ready, they will seek training for these five initiatory processes, which take place in the last few lives of our evolutionary experience.

All of us stand somewhere in relation to that path. We’re either coming up to the first initiation, or have taken that and are somewhere towards the second, or towards the third, or the fourth, or the fifth. Eventually, in the crowning glory for all of humanity, all of us will have taken the fifth initiation and be Masters, and as far as planet earth is concerned, be perfected.

But, the Masters see this as only semi-perfection. They don’t even think they have finished the path of evolution on planet earth. They see stretching ahead of them vistas of being, of knowledge that we can’t even begin to imagine.

But, on the Day of Declaration, Maitreya will give people an inkling of this. He will show how old humanity is – far, far older than we can imagine. There have been before us great civilizations that now lie under the sands and the deserts. We know very little about this, but the Masters know this, and they know the state of humanity and will inspire humanity to see itself in these terms, as growing towards a greater spirituality, a greater understanding of the spiritual nature of all life. We will see politics as having to be spiritual, economics as having to be spiritual, science and education and everything that we do as being essentially spiritual, lifting humanity to higher and higher levels.

Life is not about making money. It is about enhancing the quality of life for every single being so that they go from physical satisfaction to astral satisfaction to mental satisfaction to growing spiritual satisfaction, up and up and up, all the way. It’s all spiritual.

It’s been said that it’s a unique gift given to us to have been chosen to be incarnated at this time on the planet. Is this so?
BC: Indeed it is. We have the world to rebuild. We have the chance to build it rightly for the first time in 98,000 years, under the inspiration and guidance of the Masters who are returning to the everyday world.

At the moment, 14 Masters plus Maitreya, and eventually about 40 Masters plus Maitreya, will be in human bodies. This is a unique happening. We have known nothing like it since 98,000 years ago, and here it is happening. We can, through their guidance, enlist their love and concern and build a world like nothing that has ever happened on planet earth before – a world of great beauty.

Before he died, the Buddha, through the prince Gautama, wrote a sutra that said a time would come when a great teacher, a Buddha like himself, by name Maitreya, would galvanize and inspire humanity to create a brilliant golden civilization based on righteousness and truth – and that is what will happen.

Maitreya Buddha is in the world now along with 14 of the Masters , and eventually more will come in. On the Day of Declaration, Maitreya will speak about his group of Masters. They won’t speak then, but one-by-one in the days, weeks or months following the Day of Declaration, the Masters will begin to come forward into the everyday world.

One of the first of these is the one who was Jesus in Palestine 2,000 years ago. He is now a great, highly evolved Master, one of Maitreya’s closest associates. They are inseparable, and they will teach and advise and work with groups of disciples all over the world, and through these disciples the world will be changed. Everyone who is responsive to this reality has the opportunity to lend their all, their energy and their time and their focus, to save the world through right relationship, brotherhood and sisterhood.

Prior to the Day of Declaration, what can an individual do in preparation for the experience?
BC: Be prepared that it is going to happen. You will hear and see Maitreya on television long before that – no one knows how long – but the Masters don’t expect it to be very long. My guess is that they have a working idea of something like two to three years between the now very soon emergence of Maitreya and the Day of Declaration, but that depends on humanity – whether it responds.

I know your government doesn’t even acknowledge that the world is heating up, that global warming is a reality. They think they can overcome it by all sorts of technical advances, but really it isn’t a question of a little fiddle here and a little fiddle there. It is a huge work, and only the Masters know precisely the time involved and the amount of work involved. The sooner the people respond to Maitreya, the sooner they will get the information from the Masters on how to tackle global warming and all that causes global warming.

One of the deadliest issues is the nuclear radiation pouring from every nuclear power station in the world. With every atomic process and experimentation that is going on, high-level nuclear radiation is pouring out at the highest level. There currently is no technology to measure beyond a certain level. Scientists see only three levels of matter – liquid, solid and gas. But, in fact, the Masters and all esotericists theoretically know that there are four etheric physical planes above gas, and that the worst damage from nuclear radiation is on these highest levels.

The incidence of Alzheimer’s disease is growing at a pace like never before, affecting people at a younger and younger age. This is the direct effect of nuclear radiation polluting the air of our planet from the power stations and other nuclear experimentation.

The nuclear power stations they are planning to build by the dozens all over the world to overcome global warming have to be abandoned. The advice of Maitreya right away will be to abandon all power stations of a nuclear type. There is a way to use nuclear energy, but it is a FUSION process, which is cold and simple and can be had from one simple isotope in water, which is everywhere on the planet. That information will be given to humanity when they have abandoned their nuclear fission.

But the true energy of the future is what Maitreya calls the science of light, in which we will receive all energy for every use directly from the Sun – and this will be one of the crowning achievements of our new civilization.

Will this information – the science of light – be spontaneously given to people at some point?
BC: When we have totally renounced war forever that technology will be given to humanity, and it will solve all our energy problems. Otherwise it would be terribly dangerous for any nation to have that technology.

In your two recent books, The World Teacher for All Humanity andThe Awakening of Humanity, you mentioned that people can connect directly with Maitreya. How can this be done?
BC: In 2001 the imprint of a hand appeared on a bathroom mirror in Barcelona, Spain. Since it was in the home of one of our co-workers, a photograph was taken and sent to me. My Master confirmed it was the handprint of Maitreya, given so that people can come in contact with him, on subjective levels, and ask for his help. He says, "My help is yours to command. You have only to ask." People should look at the center of the palm for a few moments and talk to Maitreya. Even if they don’t know it, this alerts him to their presence. He has no sense that we are separate. If we look at the handprint and ask for his help, that help will be given.

A photograph of this handprint has now been circulated throughout the world, and many people have confirmed that the help they asked for was received. The image is included in both of the books you mention and is also available free of charge from Share International. We have received reports that these handprints are now being discovered in other countries.

What is your personal relationship to Maitreya? Have you communicated in person?
BC: I am a "conscious disciple" working closely with one of the Masters – and all of the Masters are the disciples of Maitreya. (There are many disciples of the Masters who are not conscious of that relationship.)

How does Maitreya share his writing and messages? Does he share them through his disciples and they are given to you?
BC: The first series of messages were given through me by a process of mental overshadowing during my public lectures in London between 1977 and 1982. These 140 messages have been published by Share International Foundation in the book Messages From Maitreya the Christ.

Later, between 1988 and 1993, Maitreya gave another series of messages to a colleague in the Asian community of London where he lives. That colleague was told to give them to either of two independent journalists, with further instructions to pass them on to me.

I published all of them in our magazine, Share International, and sent them, wherever they were relevant, to the media of the world. Maitreya also gave some unique and extraordinary forecasts. There is nothing of this kind of forecasting going back thousands of years. It is so full and so direct, and it has been borne out to the letter. Maitreya gave this information so that we could awaken humanity, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

For complete information on the emergence of Maitreya and the Masters of Wisdom, visit www.share-international.org or contact Share International USA toll-free at 1.888.242.8272. George Catlin, a long-time associate of Benjamin Creme, will present free talks on "The Masters and the Path" from 11 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. and "Transmission Meditation" from 3-3:50 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, at Minneapolis Convention Center. Daily admission is $9, or two for $10. For complete details, visit www.edgelife.net/expos.

The essence of market forces is greed and separatism. The more one is attached to these forces, the more they create cells of imprisonment. This leads to spiritual bankruptcy and mental disequilibrium.." – Maitreya

Scottish-born painter and esotericist Benjamin Creme has spent more than 30 years preparing the world for the most extraordinary event in human history: the return of our spiritual mentors to the everyday world. Creme has appeared on television, radio and documentary films worldwide since 1982 when he announced that the Lord Maitreya, the World Teacher long awaited by people of every spiritual tradition, albeit under different names, is living in London, ready to present himself openly when invited by the media to do so. This event is now imminent.

Creme, based in London, continues to carry out his task as messenger of this news. He has written 14 books, most recently The World Teacher for All Humanity (2007) and The Awakening of Humanity (2008). He is editor of Share International magazine, which circulates in more than 70 countries and is dedicated to the emergence of Maitreya and the political, social, economic, environmental and spiritual changes that are now taking place.

In an interview with Edge Life, speaking by phone from San Francisco during a recent visit to America, Creme reminds us that Maitreya is a teacher who, when he makes his long-awaited emergence telepathically into the consciousness of every human being on the planet over the age of 14 on the imminent "Day of Declaration," he will give each of us a glimpse into who we truly are as human beings and offer us the personal choice of awakening.

The process is described thusly: Maitreya, who can change his physical form at any time, will come forward as a consultant on global issues and will be interviewed on American television. Those public and corporate leaders who have met with Maitreya at a conference in 1990 will come forward and support his ideas. Then, when enough people begin to respond to his ideas, the Day of Declaration will take place and Maitreya will emerge to teach and inspire. Maitreya teaches, among other things, the oneness of all life, humanity’s great spiritual destiny, the Law of Cause and Effect and its corollary the Law of Rebirth, and the absolute need to share the world’s resources more equitably among all people.

Last month, Creme shared with us more about the return of the masters and greater insight on the Day of Declaration. He continues the conversation now, beginning with Maitreya’s views on the current economic crisis in America.

In your book, The World Teacher for All Humanity, you write that Maitreya calls speculation the great disease of humanity.
Benjamin Creme: Absolutely. Speculation for the Masters is anathema and is the greatest disease that humanity has, and it ends up, of course, in commercialization.

What is the future of the financial markets in America and Europe? Having them collapse and then rebuilt with new ideas?
BC: Maitreya says they will never have the same role again. The present stock exchanges of the world have very little to do with the real economy of the world. Trading is a small part of the work of the stock exchanges. They are really to do with financial speculation, and they speculate on the value of the yen, the dollar, the pound, the franc, or the euro, at any given time. Billions are lost and billions are made by this speculation, and that’s what the stock exchanges are about. They are for greedy minds.

The Masters say that perhaps some segment of it might be retained for these greedy minds to play with, but for humanity as a whole, they have no major part to play. The Masters, through their disciples, have worked out various interrelated plans that will solve the problems. Any one of them would solve the problems of distribution, which are at the heart of the economic problem.

It is not economics per se, it is non-distribution. There is more food in the world than we could possibly use. There’s a huge surplus of food per capita, but it’s locked away and rotting in the storehouses of the Western world, whereas in the East, in many parts of Africa, India and South America, people are starving to death. Millions of people are dying of starvation in a time in which there is a huge surplus of food.

Maitreya says, "Nothing so moves me to grief as this shame. The crime of separation must be driven from this world. I affirm that as my purpose." So the saving of the starving millions of the world is the number one priority. After that, the number two priority is the saving of planet earth from decay and death, because this is a very sorry state.

Capitalism, as it’s practiced in America, seems to go against these values shared by Maitreya.
BC: Yes, it does. But Maitreya asks us to think of the problem of the world as a cart. It has to have two wheels. If you have one wheel, the cart doesn’t go. If you have one wheel called socialism, it doesn’t go. If you have only one wheel called capitalism, it doesn’t go. It needs two wheels. These two wheels are capitalism and socialism.

Because of what they call the "new economy," the economy of market forces, the world is moving more and more toward a complete commercialization of life on earth, and the Masters find this a desperate state of affairs. One Master has said that commercialization has humanity by the throat and is removing humanity, men and women, out of life.

Others say life is not about commercialization. It is not about market forces. Maitreya calls market forces the forces of evil, because they benefit the few at the expense of the many. How long do we expect the many to go on? He says it’s reaching a point when these many will not put up with this state of affairs forever and will revolt. There will be massive upheaval, social destruction, revolutions of one kind or another, and eventually war – and that war would destroy all life.

We have no alternative but to share, and sharing is the divine plan. The Plan of Evolution is the plan destined by the Logos (God) of our planet for the evolution of the earth, and the governments of the world try all they can to make the economy work, but they can’t. Nothing works anymore, because it’s of the past. All the technology, all the ways, all the ideas, all the theories of economics don’t work. They work for a time and build for certain people a lot of money, and then there’s a depression and the whole thing collapses for a time, and then they build it up again, and for a time it works for a few, and then again collapses. This same pattern is repeated year after year, decade after decade.

Maitreya says governments are dealing only with the ways of the past, and we have moved into a new cosmic cycle. Humanity is no longer the same. Its needs are no longer the same, and the needs of all around the world are recognizable. We need jobs. We need food. We need shelter. We need health care. We need education. These few things are the absolute necessities of all people everywhere, and yet even in the most-developed world, like America and Europe, no one has all of these things by right, unless they have money – and this is the rub. Unless you have money today, you cannot live life according to your need.

Politically it seems as though we have a candidate in this nation who is encouraging a renewal of hope through the removal of fear. Is this in line with Maitreya’s blueprint?
BC: All the thoughts and ideas that move in that direction are the result of the effect of Maitreya’s ideas. They saturate all the planes, from the dense physical to the high spiritual planes, and people respond to them according to the state of their heart. If the heart is relatively pure, they respond to the highest level, and downwards to just common sense – although it takes heart sensitivity at times to recognize it as common sense.

Politics seems to be a part of Maitreya’s message in terms of how to lead people responsibly. What has Maitreya thought about the course of these past eight years of America’s leadership, in proclaiming a war on terrorism?
BC: America, like all nations, has to renounce war. It’s an utter, utter necessity to renounce war forever. And nothing new can be built until this is done. The wars of today, the terrorism of today, are the result of injustice, and that injustice is the outcome of our greedy, selfish, competitive way of working through commercialization and market forces. They no longer work and have to be seen to be of the past, and relegated to the past, so that we can build new structures, new forms of living together and sensing our common bonds of brotherhood and justice and freedom for all peoples – not just some of the people, but for all people.

One of those ancient civilizations, the Mayans, have their calendar ending around 2012. What’s the significance of that time period from Maitreya’s perspective.
BC: None at all. There’s no significance. The Mayans disappeared as a culture, which was for the time extremely high. People have asked me this question many, many times, and the Masters say that when you wake up on the next day, the sun will rise as usual and you’ll have your bacon and eggs as usual. Life will be the same as what we have reached by 2012.

One thing that some of us do feel is that time is speeding up. Is that actually happening?
BC: That is literally true, yes. Maitreya has created a new relationship between this planet and the Sun. It is so slight that you could never measure it, but we are slightly closer to the Sun than we were before, and this speeds up the evolution of the planet. Therefore, our sense of time is speeding up.

But for the Masters there is no such thing as time. For them, what we think of as the past, the present and the future are all one. There is only this moment of time. That is it, all of it. I have been shown by the Masters that the past is still going on as if it were happening, and the future is already happening, although from our point of view it has yet to arrive. But on the level from which the Masters work and from which they look at the world, these are all now, just everlasting permanent now, and there’s nothing else but now.

Next month: Maitreya’s views revealed.

For complete information on the emergence of Maitreya and the Masters of Wisdom, visit www.share-international.org or contact Share International USA toll-free at 1.888.242.8272. George Catlin, a long-time associate of Benjamin Creme, will present free talks on "The Masters and the Path" from 11 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. and from 3-3:50 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, at Minneapolis Convention Center. Daily admission is $9, or two for $10. For complete details, visit www.edgelife.net/expos.

What was the most sacred moment you have had in your life?
Sunny Dawn Johnston: The most sacred moment I have had in my life was the day my ex-mother-in-law transcended her body. It was a day I will never forget. The synchronicities of the days events began at 10 a.m. with a phone call. She had no brain activity, was comatose and being taken off life support. The doctors said she would not live five minutes after taking her off support, but they didn’t know the spirit of this lady! I immediately flew from Arizona to California, drove two hours and when I arrived she was still alive… five hours after being disconnected from life support. I knew she would wait for me to be there with her. When I arrived, I climbed into bed with her, held her hands in mine, and could feel the sacredness of those hours. I had 18 more hours with her, a miracle, the doctors said! She waited for me…to give me the gift…the gift of the sacred moment when she took her last breath on earth, and began her journey home. The moment she left, I felt her spirit move through me; my body trembled with an energy I had never felt before. That moment changed who I was and who I would become!

Why are you optimistic about the future of humanity in this time of uncertainty and fear?
SDJ: I am optimistic about the future of humanity because we are in a time of change. Change is happening…people are becoming more aware! It is a beautiful thing to see people moving towards their spirit! I truly believe that humanity is learning that "we must be the change we want to see in the world," just as Gandhi said.

What holistic practice is a part of your life to help you maintain health and wellness and to connect with your spiritual Self?
SDJ: The holistic practice that is part of my everyday life that I use to maintain wellness and connect with my spiritual self is Gratitude. I believe that gratitude allows me to move through things with greater ease and awareness. I know that everything happens for a reason! Therefore, I can look to each situation, see a divine purpose, and be grateful for it.

What single message do you want to share with us from your heart?
SDJ: The message that I want to share with you is that the times have changed. You can no longer close yourself off and hold back – physically or spiritually. You are needed! You are in a changing time…and you have chosen to change this time and to change this time!

You have the gift! You have the knowledge! You have the wisdom! You have the awareness! You have the heart! You have it all within you!

When did it become OK for you to come from a place of fear? When did it become OK to hide who you truly are and all that you have to offer? When did you decide to allow this fear to take over? Love heals…Fear harms!

Are you ready to Love? Are you ready to Live? There has never been a more important time on our planet. Listen now….

Listen closely…. Can you hear that soft, gentle, quiet beat of your heart? The one that tells you that it is safe, that it is time, that all is well, that you are ready.

Now…Listen even more closely… even more closely and you will hear them…The ones that need you…the ones that need you to share…the ones that need your gifts…your wisdom…your awareness. Can you hear them? Your voices are one and the same! This voice is calling you forth! NOW!

Sunny Dawn Johnston will present "CONNECTING WITH YOUR ANGELS" at 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9, tickets $26 now, $29 at door. • She also will present a Post-Show Event: "AN IN-DEPTH JOURNEY TO COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR ANGELS at 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 10, Marquette LaSalle Room, Minneapolis Hilton, tickets $44 now, $49 at door – As a loving and caring Spiritual Teacher, Sunny Dawn Johnston has helped thousands of people across the country find their inner truth. As a national speaker, Sunny’s dynamic methods effectively reach out to help people to help themselves by discovering that the answers are always within. She is a Certified Spiritual Counselor, Certified Medium, Reiki Master/Teacher, Ordained Minister, Hypnotherapist and has created five Guided Meditation CDs. In December 2003, Sunny founded Sunlight Alliance, a spiritual teaching and healing center in Glendale, Ariz. Sunny also volunteers her time as a psychic investigator for the international organization FIND ME. This is a not-for-profit organization of Psychic, Investigative and Canine Search & Rescue (SAR) volunteers working together to provide leads to Law Enforcement and Families of missing persons and homicide. Visit www.sunnydawnjohnston.com

The word educate comes from the Latin word educare, which means to draw out. This implies that knowledge comes from within us and that facts act as catalysts to activate the knowledge that is already there. This leads us to think that learning is more of a remembering than it is an accumulation of new ideas.

Of, course, this flies in the face of the conventional wisdom, which places great importance on deriving knowledge from the world of objective sensory experience. Knowledge isn’t knowledge unless it comes from the world “out there.” Ironically, this belief is held by a world whose major scientific discoveries have come through flashes of insight, dreams and hunches, more than it has through rational deduction and objective evidence. Nevertheless, the world persists in believing that the mind is a blank slate, a tabula rasa, built up from birth out of input from the senses. Most of today’s learning methodologies are based upon this premise.

We are now compelled to consider an alternative: There is nothing to learn. Everything that has ever existed, does exist or will exist actually exists now. In a way that is perhaps impossible to articulate, for existence does not relate to time. The principles of electromagnetism were just as real for the Neanderthals as they are for us today. We did not invent them — they have always been, and they will always be. Likewise, the principles of cold fusion, anti-gravity, the cure for cancer and physical regeneration are real now, existing right under our collective nose, waiting only for the proper insights that will bring them to light.

The total spectrum
The second premise to be considered is that what we call the mind has its origin in the total spectrum of existence. It functions as an ethereal organ of reflection, a cosmic web browser that, depending on how it’s configured, sorts out and interprets the One as the Many (the “ten thousand things” of Lao Tzu). Why it occurs this way is anyone’s guess, but it does present us with a whole new way of learning, because knowledge does not originate with the senses.
If everything that can exist already exists, then learning about a thing happens when we focus our attention upon it. We simply look in that direction. The only hindrance to this process is our own preconceptions. Instead of simply looking, we try to superimpose our ideas onto what we’re seeing — we try to make reality conform to our ideas about reality. It is only when we can, as William Blake put it, “cleanse the doors of perception,” or as Emily Dickinson said, “see with the unfurnished eye,” that we can re-relate the parts to the whole.
The new model for learning, therefore, is to UNLEARN — to take our mind and “wash it down” of the opinions and preconceptions that prevent our vision. Daisetz Susuki called this “beginner’s mind,” which strips away the superficial clutter of collected facts and uncovers the total spectrum that forms the foundation of our experience.

The silent depths
The ancient rite of baptism reminds us that underneath the encrustation of earthly, sensory interpretation lies the direct perception of the total spectrum — not as a new insight, but as the very water out of which we are born. All we need to do is immerse ourselves in the silent depths and release our preconceptions and opinions. This is important. The Sufis say that what you are looking for, you are looking with. The mind, and, by extension, the objects of learning are not “out there.” Everything, again in a way that cannot be articulated, exists right here, right now. Part of that “everything” acts as a reflector of itself, and that part we call the mind. A good analogy is the surface of water and the way it reflects our image. But when we go beneath the surface, we are left with the one thing and not the reflection.

Can you do that now? Can you release your ideas about “baptism” as something done to you? Can you unlearn what you “know” so that you can see it with an unfurnished eye and perhaps glimpse the reality that it affirms, that we are not born of flesh and blood, but that we are children of the Infinite?

Our senses and their cranial counterparts tell us things that the heart cannot reconcile — that we are separate, that we are different, that we are isolated and alone. Can we unlearn this? Can the mind realize that it reflects that which is “above” and that it is not merely an aggregation of sense-born data? When the mind pulls back the veil and finally knows its origin, it will never again hold itself separate and apart. It will stand aside and let the Thinker, the User of the mind, come forth in fullness and in joy to experience the multifaceted splendor (Indra’s necklace), which It has created.

What to learn
If everything that can be known is already known, and if the word “educate” means to draw out, then it makes sense that some forms of learning help to draw out the total spectrum of real knowledge, and some forms actually hinder the process. We have seen through the study of Zen, the mindfullness teachings of Thich Nhat Hahn, and the quiet mind spoken of by Eckhart Tolle that the vision of unity comes upon us when we let go. As all of these people will attest, this is easier said than done. Even when we are able to do this for brief moments, we are quickly pulled back into the thrall of objective, sensory stimuli. Fortunately, there are systems of thought that are designed to “activate” the wholeness that forms the foundation of the mind and thus transform it from within.

Wholeness is a powerful elixir – it knits together the fragments of what we have “learned”, fills in the missing pieces in our knowledge of ourselves and the world, and eliminates the repetitive and superficial facts that relate to nothing but themselves. Anything that can spark that wholeness within us and fan it into flame is worthy of our most careful attention. You might think that I’m referring to symbols or rituals, and, yes, these can act as activators, as long as they are intelligently constructed and carried out. But the Infinite is not a static thing – it is alive. So in order to activate it and bring it to awareness, the activators have to be alive as well.

How do you have a living symbol? A living symbol must have movement. It must have a pattern which progresses through space and time. It cannot simply repeat itself, because that would be a static condition. It has to have a sequence, like the notes in a piece of music, before it can animate the mind. Not only does there have to be a sequence, but the sequence must have an order to it, like DNA. How does this relate to learning? It relates in that it not only matters what pieces of information you learn, it also matters in what order you learn them.

The road back
Consider this: we did not lose our vision of unity all at once; it happened over a long period of time and in a series of interrelated steps. It stands to reason that the road back will also consist of separate steps, each one building upon the other. This, of course, is the message of religion – not just one religion, but all of them. They all have a “program” or a prescribed way in which to learn their truths. Some religions have a well-defined catechism, a step-by-step process for spiritual realization. Others have stories, the characters and actions of which lead the reader or hearer through a series of ideas, pictures, and feelings designed to awaken the inner consciousness to wholeness. If the stories are tampered with, if the elements are changed or rearranged, the process that the story was designed to activate will be altered and lose its effectiveness. This drives the fundamentalists of the world to insist on the integrity of their teachings, which they seek to validate by interpreting them a s literal events.
This is no different from societies that relied on the oral transmission of their mythologies. They had strict rules about accuracy and even stricter rules about artistic license. Scribes and storytellers had to toe the line, or they would lose their heads. It’s no wonder that fictional writing took so long to appear on the scene. Stories were meant to relate eternal truths, and as such had to be well-crafted by those who knew how.

Once the world was interrelated; now it is fragmented. The modern and postmodern views of the world have blown the vision of unity apart. Even before the modern era, we tended to separate our inner experience from the outer. In short, we saw ourselves as separate from God. To find our way back, we need tools of consciousness that catalyze the foundation of wholeness that lies beneath the surface of our human experience, tools that peel back the layers of interpretation one at a time, that take us from where we are and lead us back step by step into our original vision of unity.

The task before us is not to create the correct order of learning (or maybe it is) but to look at the written traditions that we already have, with an eye for their elementary concepts and principles, and especially for the sequential order in which they are presented.

A maturation cycle
All living organisms have a maturation cycle, the driving information for which comes in “sets”. Humans, for example, have a seven-year cycle of development, each cycle differing qualitatively from the next. We lose our baby teeth at the close of the first cycle, come into puberty in the second, reach the age of majority in the third, and so on. Each cycle has its own “set” of in-formation. Logic dictates, and intuition confirms, that these physical cycles, which differ markedly from each other and build one upon the other are reflections of a process of spiritual maturation whereby Spirit gradually reclaims and manifests Itself in the flesh in an intelligent sequential order.
The ancient seers and shamans knew and understood these cycles and passed on their knowledge symbolically within the stories and “historical” accounts that we now know as scripture and myth. This is not new information. What is new, or rather what is now being re-revealed, is the knowledge of the sequential order contained within these symbolic representations.

It might look like I’m proposing two contradictory models for learning, one of unlearning and the other of in-depth study and interpretation of sacred writings. And in fact, when unlearning is complete, there is no longer any need for study. But the mind is tenacious, and must be persuaded on its own terms. It can only be turned by degree, and will never let go as long as the dots of one plane are left unconnected to the dots of the next. This is why there are stories and myths. Besides, the mind cannot escape its own cycles of development, and the stories and myths mirror these cycles, adding their catalyzing images and concepts in order to dress the mind in progressively finer and finer garments. All of this in preparation, of course, for that high state of spiritual union wherein garments are no longer needed.