For four decades, at his public lectures and in Share International magazine, Benjamin Creme gave answers to a multitude of questions from audiences and readers. These reveal remarkable insights into the problems facing humanity and the often simple solutions to those problems. Here you will find questions and answers on a wide range of topics.
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The aim of Transmission Meditation is service, not upliftment. I do not know the questioner but nevertheless I would suggest that the ‘upliftment’ experienced during ‘daily contemplations’ is the result of his/her astral aspiration, probably with some degree of heart input. Transmission Meditation is a scientific process by which the energies of Hierarchy are transformed — stepped down — and made generally available to humanity. It works on mental levels and does not involve ‘experiences’, uplifting or otherwise. However, perhaps because they are somewhat more astrally polarized, many people do claim to find Transmission Meditation very ‘uplifting’ and rewarding. (1) No, not at all. (2) My advice would be to continue – without looking for ‘experiences’.
Only by practice. It is really a process of self-selection. You go to a Transmission group or form a group, and do it a few times and either you are attracted by it and find it useful, satisfying and really rather pleasurable, or you find it such a terrible bore that you never go back. There is no glamour, there is nothing to talk about, there are no stories, no gurus, no devotion. It is a purely objective, scientific process; it is work, a job. You can do it in any degree of intensity — up to three times a week, for three or four hours. Of course, not everyone can maintain that intensity or rhythm — and so it tends to be a self-selective process. Those who cannot do it keep away. Those for whom it is natural tend to be the ones who do it.
This is an act of service. It is service given to you ‘on a plate’. Many people today want to serve. People say: “I long to serve but I don’t know how to begin.” Well, there is a world to save. There are millions of people starving in the world. There are countless millions who are poverty-stricken, and so on. There is a whole world to change and save and transform. So you do not have to go further than next door to serve. You do not have to go further than your Transmission room to serve. It is service given to you; the simplest, easiest form of service that exists. I can vouch for its effectiveness and its simplicity, but it is not for everyone, because some people want more. They want to have something to talk about: “Where am I? Who am I? Does my guru love me, does he not love me? Is he a higher or a lower guru? Is he bigger or lesser than so-and-so? Did you get that marvelous feeling when he looked at you?” and so on. There is none of that in Transmission work — it is a pure act of service to the world, and so it tends to be self-selecting.
Transmission Meditation will not interfere or work against any other spiritual practice you may do. On the contrary, it will enhance the value of every practice. However, they should not be done at the same time.
Then you will have Transmission Meditation with two people. It is possible to do Transmission by yourself also. But, of course, only so much energy can be placed through one person, or through two people. Being a triangle potentizes the energies out of all recognition.
You may mentally link up with other groups which are meeting at the same time. There are Transmission groups now over much of the world. Transmission is fundamentally taking place on the soul level.
Sooner or later we have to come into a state of alignment between the physical brain and the soul. That is what meditation does. By meditation you gradually build a channel called the “antahkarana”, which is a channel of light from the physical plane up to the soul. Simultaneously, the soul is building the same bridge down toward the physical. This channel, when formed, provides a link between the soul and its vehicle, and vice versa. This is the process whereby the man or woman gradually becomes at-one with the soul. The soul ‘grips’ the vehicle and reflects itself through it. By the use of the mantram OM and the holding of the attention at the ajna centre between the eyebrows, an alignment is created between the brain and soul.
Very important. It is the alignment between the brain and the soul which allows the Masters, working from the soul level, to channel the energies through the groups.
No. The breathing should be natural, light, high in the chest and silent. With experience you will find that the breathing becomes so light it practically stops for quite long periods. These are often ended with a sudden, strong ‘gasp’ of air intake.
If you are aligned, yes. The Transmission comes mainly from the Buddhic level. It is stepped down for us by the Masters and we step it down further. Alignment is necessary to transmit it.
Maitreya said that the first stage is knowing who you are and accepting who you are. You have to be who you are without imitating anyone. Everybody imitates everybody. Everybody imitates people they admire, people who they think are great — movie stars or pop stars, or somebody better looking or richer, or whatever it is — anything they admire, and [then they] imitate these images. So they lose their ability to identify with their individuality, lose their spark. You cannot progress if you lose that spark of individuality. Maitreya says that, in the first place, you have to have self-esteem, and crime and violence, drug-taking and so on are always from the loss of self-esteem. So self-esteem has to be restored to overcome drug addiction and violence and crime in our cities. Then that self-esteem gradually becomes self-awareness. Self-awareness gradually becomes Self-Realization. Meditation is a path to that Self-Realization but quite apart from formal meditation, it is a question of who you really are.
But also practise honesty of mind; people think one thing, say something else, and do something else again. That is dishonesty of mind. Honesty of mind is saying what you really think and being who you really are and not pretending to be what you are not.
People live a dream. There is an American Dream. It is lived out in all the fantasies. People strut about like cowboys with their hands close to their sides ready to pull their guns, or they live their dream and they get out their gun and kill everybody in the playground. You’ve all seen the films and you all read your newspapers. People all over the world are living out their dream, their fantasy life. It is not real but a fantasy.
You have to be who you are, and that means recognizing who you are, identifying with the real aspect of yourself, not with the body. If you identify with the body, you’ll express all the ills of the body. But it leads nowhere. If you identify with your emotions it leads you into total chaos. This is not you. You’re identifying with the structures and the constructions of your mind. “I’m a Christian”, or “I’m a theologian,” or “I’m a Democrat.” You are none of these. You are an immortal soul and that is the only thing you can realize and when you do realize it, then you have salvation. Nothing else is salvation. That is Self-Realization.
Now if I were Maitreya, I could probably tell you how to achieve Self-Realization but I’m not Maitreya. He has said these three things — honesty of mind, sincerity of spirit and detachment — are essential. Detach yourself from identifying with your physical body, with the energy of your emotional system and from the constructions of your mind. You are none of these. You are the Self, and knowing the Self you can come into Self-Realization. At that time, you become enlightened, and I have no need to tell you anything else.
Certainly Transmission Meditation helps you to come into contact with the soul. That is what meditation is for — any meditation. It is the means, more or less scientific, depending on the meditation, of bringing the person in contact with their own soul; the first way to find yourself is through meditation.
There is a meditation for everybody and eventually, as you reach farther along the path of evolution, the soul directs the person, the man or woman on the physical plane, into meditation of some kind. It may be very fleeting in the very beginning but eventually it becomes a powerful part of that person’s life and this connects it with the soul. The soul then can grip its reflection which is the man or woman on the physical plane and bend it to its will and purpose. The soul’s purpose is to serve and as soon as you make contact with the soul you desire to serve. It’s automatic because the purpose of the soul is to serve. It’s not the personality that desires to serve. It is the soul and you cannot have soul contact without the desire to serve. You may serve or not — it depends on you but if it’s your soul purpose, it’s wiser, of course, to do it than not.

Latest edition highlights:
September 2023
- The Master —: Continuity of consciousness
- Kenny Stancil: Experts call on rich nations to invest to combat climate crisis and inequality
- Catherine Wilson: International inertia follows Israeli assault on Jenin in the West Bank
- Raymond Shaw: Mutually assured survival
- Sheida Kourangi: Iran rising for “Woman, Life, Freedom”, The art of protest — Part Two
- Dr Janice Holden interviewed by McNair Ezzard: After-effects of the Near-Death Experience — Part One
- Compilation: Education in the New Time