The online edition of Share International magazine presents a selection of items from the printed edition. Each online edition includes a complete article by Benjamin Creme's Master. Most other articles reproduced here, covering a wide range of topics, are excerpts. The online edition usually also includes a selection of Questions and Answers, Readers' letters, and photographs of Signs of Maitreya's presence.
See the full table of contents of the printed edition at the foot of the page.
From the inception of Share International magazine, Benjamin Creme’s Master provided an article every month for nearly 35 years. These were intended to be published not only at the time they were written, but also whenever appropriate according to world circumstances.
Many will remember the present time as a time of trial, of tension and upheaval. Actually, seen with the more discerning eye, it is a time of renewal, of preparation for a new beginning. Thus may men take great hope from the present changes. The past has had its day and is fast failing to benefit the race. The young grow weary and fretful from its long dominion, and turn to drugs and crime to ease their souls’ ennui and despair.
Meantime, the Herald of the New is quietly inspiring a new generation of activists who will emerge in every nation, mindful of the needs of men everywhere. Already, as you know, the groups of activists for the new structures are working openly and courageously in many lands, showing a new aspiration which is forming in the hearts of millions: respect for, and co-operation with, all, and an end to the old divisive greed.
Thus are men finding the blueprint of the future time, by renewing themselves in the simple teaching of Maitreya. Peace and Justice are beginning to take centre stage in the minds of millions. When men realize that sharing alone will bring these cherished concepts into being they will embark on a transformation of society beyond anything envisaged until now. Stage by stage, these changes will be adopted and tried out for general use. The pain and sense of loss of today will give way to renewed hope and satisfaction that the world is at last on the right path and thus experiments can be safely undertaken.
Thus will disappear the fear of change. Great transformations will proceed in ordered sequence as men realize the beauty of the new forms. Gradually, the old, divisive ways of the past will be seen as the mistakes of the past and die out, useless to the new unity.
The words and example of Maitreya will hasten the sense of the unity, which will more and more manifest the energies of Aquarius, drawing men into a synthesis unknown today.
At the present time, the Masters in Their various centres work through Their groups to bring about these changes with the minimum of social upheaval. Theirs is the task to empower change at an acceptable rate with evolution rather than revolution. This is not easy to do, for men, when young, are impatient for the new, and when old, are resistant to change. Thus the present turmoil.
Many await this time with hope and joy. Many more are locked in hopelessness and fear. Many are eager to see the future world free from war and destitution. Many more wait wearily for their burden to lighten.
Maitreya will awaken men to their destiny and free them from fear and doubt. He will free them, too, from the constant sense of alienation and distrust. Men’s long winter in the wilderness has prepared them for the simpler, happier times ahead.
(Share International, December 2011)
Men stand at a point of revelation, which soon will sweep away discordant voices and attitudes. They will know more keenly the meaning and purpose of their existence, and the means by which that knowledge is brought into their awareness.
Soon, very soon now men will grow, overnight as it were.
This new knowledge will chasten and surprise many but inspire and enlighten them into a complete adjustment of their understanding. This will give a new value to what they call the meaning and purpose of life. A greater seriousness and a greater joy will permeate their beliefs and actions, and gradually involve them all together in a new dispensation. That time is not far off. The Great Lord is eager to appear and to grace the world by His open, recognized presence.
Have no fear. A new world is in the making, which will restore men’s faith and courage in equal order.
(Share International, June 2015)
These articles are by a senior member of the Hierarchy of Masters of Wisdom. His name, well-known in esoteric circles, is not yet being revealed. Benjamin Creme, a principal spokesman about the emergence of Maitreya, was in constant telepathic contact with this Master who dictated his articles to him.
At every lecture he gave around the world, and virtually every day of his life, Benjamin Creme was asked numerous questions covering a vast range of topics. We draw on this large recorded resource and present here a selection of previously unpublished answers provided over the years by Mr Creme and his Master.
Share International has a reserve of unpublished letters which were confirmed by Benjamin Creme and his Master to be genuine encounters with Masters, or with a ‘spokesperson’.
On 26 September 2007, I attended the lecture by Benjamin Creme in Amsterdam. I was very impressed by the almost touchable experience of the overshadowing. What love! An undeniable blessing, indeed.
One week after the lecture, the following happened. Working in the hall of my house with the front door opened, I was struck by the loud voices of two women outside. They were speaking in a rather common way and I had a judgment about that. It was corrected by a thought: “There is nothing wrong with these women, they are very OK; as everyone, all people are fully OK.” I felt a shift in my perception.
Then I saw them, walking slowly past my front door: elderly ladies, in their seventies, neatly dressed, walking arm-in-arm. One rather tall, in surprisingly colourful clothes; the other one small, greyish in appearance. In front of my door they halted, talking loudly to each other, engrossed in it. Then they walked on, intensely involved in talking about really nothing. That was my impression, this time without judgment.
After a few yards, they stopped again, so all-important was their conversation; the tall lady loudly giving her view, the other one affirming it. Those funny dear ladies! They walked on. It was raining a little and the tall lady had a very small umbrella, with again surprisingly colourful balls printed on it and much too small to be practical. Then, busily talking, they slowly crossed the street. I went on with my own business. …
All the time I was observing this, I had a peculiar feeling. At the lecture, Mr Creme had remarked that when the Masters appear as familiars there is often something strange about them. Also they may be pointing gently to some traits of the observer. What about these ladies? Were they more than remarkable?
The evening before this incident, something else happened. My wife and I were on the road and, I must admit, quite absorbed in our conversation. We were driving at rather high speed as a traffic light in front of us changed to orange, then red. Reacting late, I saw a pedestrian on the verge of crossing the road. Braking strongly, we came to a stop just a yard or so in front of the lady. I was surprised by the incredibly short time in which we came to a stand-still and the unusual smoothness in the braking. Were we helped?
We, members of the ‘Dublin group’, had a stand at Dublin’s Mind Body Spirit Festival, in March 2008. At the end of the third day, I was packing up to go home. There had been little interest and I was thinking wouldn’t it be great if Maitreya showed up? Then a woman in her late twenties – early thirties, appeared. She had a round, smiling face, brown hair tied in a thin plait at the back, pale blue jacket and plain silk longish skirt. She said: “Where is Maitreya?” I said, “In London.” She said: “Have you met him?” I said no and, as she was about to leave, I asked “Have you met Him?” Giggling, she said: “I don’t know” and left rapidly. Was this a Master?
Before we go to sleep, Ann and I each experience the same energy that we get when we do Transmission Meditation, but we haven’t said the Great Invocation. Why is this, please?
We present here “signs of hope” and “signs of the time” which have not been confirmed by Benjamin Creme’s Master. We present them for your consideration only since we unable to verify their ‘miraculous’ nature.
Academic neurosurgeon Dr Eben Alexander III, whose career includes decades as a physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School and other revered teaching hospitals, was once staunchly committed to the materialist world view – the belief that the physical world is all that exists. His scientific belief system was altered by his 2008 transcendental near-death experience (NDE), an odyssey into another realm during a week-long coma. Despite a bleak medical prognosis, Dr Alexander awoke to make an inexplicable return to full health. His medical case and recovery were validated in the peer-reviewed Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.
Since his NDE, Dr Alexander has been reconciling his rich spiritual experience with quantum physics, cosmology and the philosophy of mind. Dr Alexander speaks around the world to educate about the role that consciousness plays in wellness, healing and recovery….
Shereen Abdel-Hadi Tayles interviewed Dr Eben Alexander for Share International.
“There’s no other way to put it – there was no separation between that God and me.” — Dr Alexander
Share International: In your book, Living in a Mindful Universe, you discuss the experience of Dr Raymond Moody, which led him to seek more on the subject of NDEs. He read Plato’s The Republic, in which Plato shares the story of an Armenian soldier who died, then came back to life, and told his fellow soldiers that when one dies they proceed through a review of the most prominent events of their life and that “the most important quality by which they are judged concerns the love they have managed to manifest while here on Earth.” In your own experience, and others’ who have had NDEs, is this a common thread? That is, in the end, is all that remains Love?
Eben Alexander: I think this is a beautiful question that really gets into the essence of the spiritual realm as revealed through near-death experiences and shared death experiences. To me, especially after I read and met Raymond Moody, and started getting deeply into this work and an understanding of it after my own experience, there was just a tremendous beauty in the fact that Plato had written about an experience that happened 2,400 years ago, and that can easily be the same description of a soldier on a battlefield today.
The most important part of it, of course, is that love is really at the core of it all, this connection that we share, this beautiful sense that we’re all truly in this together. It’s like we’re sharing the dream of the one mind. I love how this Armenian soldier 2,400 years ago, just hit the nail on the head with what was going on with these experiences and what they indicate about our relationship with the universe, and especially our relationship with each other. And I’m so glad that Dr Moody shared that and had the courage to write his book, Life after Life back in 1975. I think that’s what really started this whole tremendous trend of investigation.
The feeling of oneness in an NDE is something that is universal indeed — that feeling of love and the healing power of love. And in that whole life review that happens. One of the essential pieces is that the life review is prescribed not from the perspective of one’s own view, but of those around them who were affected by their actions and thoughts. So the life review shows that the boundaries of self that we assumed to be so impacting these bodies are really a kind of a fiction that supports the drama we’re living. At a deeper level, those boundaries of self are false and we’re really all part of this as a learning-teaching thing together. People don’t have to have an NDE to understand this — just knowing about this and then exploring your own consciousness is what can often give you all that you need.
In many ways, this modern study of NDEs and the science of consciousness is absolutely converging towards this notion of the one mind — that we’re sharing one mind. And you realize that in the life review described by that Armenian soldier 2,400 years ago, but also described by so many experiences today. That is really the golden rule — treat others as you would like to be treated — written into the very fabric of the universe. …
For more information: ebenalexander.com
Nations vary greatly in their approach to criminal law and justice practices. The way prisoners are treated and who is put in jail reveals much about a country’s attitude towards its inhabitants.
Throughout the world the over-use of imprisonment is causing overcrowded prisons with inhumane, degrading and dangerous conditions, impacting mental and physical health and the safety of prisoners and staff alike. …
If the purpose of punishment and detention is to reduce crime, boost rehabilitation and cut re-offending, then few people really believe that the prison-based model of justice works. Prison is simply not an effective way to reduce crime, and many claim that it only enhances criminal identity and connections. For inmates who suffer from drug addiction or mental illness, being in custody certainly does not help. Imprisonment also destabilizes family life and often leads to the loss of job, home and social relations.
The changing views on correctional facilities have led several countries to adopt a less punitive approach and to treat detainees with greater humanity, seeing that a more humane approach has a big impact on how these people will behave when returning to society.
In Europe, the Netherlands is one of the countries with the lowest incarceration rate, at 60 per 100,000 inhabitants. In comparison, the imprisonment rate in the UK is 131 per 100,000, and in the United States it is 629 per 100,000, the highest rate in the world.
The changes in criminal policy in the Netherlands have resulted in offenders being much less likely to receive a prison sentence, as the tendency is to avoid jailing people unless it is necessary. Fines or community service are more common, as well as court-ordered mediation. If prison sentences are given, they are mostly kept very short. Soft drug use and sex work have been decriminalized.
Half of the people in Dutch prisons have received a one-month sentence, and there is an increased use of alternatives to imprisonment, such as electronic tagging. There is much investment in youth intervention schemes, and, for offenders who do end up in prison, personalized intervention programs which focus on the individuals’ strengths, talents and possibilities. These are aimed at helping people to access the skills and networks they need in order to rebuild their lives and break the re-offending cycle. Prisons are also generally of a much higher standard and better staffed than in most other countries.
For convicts with mental health problems and drug addictions, a special psychological rehabilitation programme known as TBS is part of the criminal justice system. The aim is to prevent another crime and to address the psychological conditions and the social problems that follow. These detainees, who have complex and difficult backgrounds, stay in treatment centres where they receive specialist help to work on themselves in order to become able to re-enter society. …
Universal Basic Income as a solution to our major social and economic woes is a concept whose time has definitely come. To quote a recent article in Time magazine, “Universal basic income may well be the Swiss Army knife of policy proposals.”
Universal Basic Income (UBI) can be defined as “Periodic, universal, unconditional cash payments to individuals to provide an income floor for all citizens.” It is ‘universal’ in that it goes to all members of society. It is ‘basic’ in that it is enough to meet all of an individual’s or a family’s basic needs. And it provides unconditional, recurring ‘income’ payments.
Approached intelligently, an inclusive form of UBI could be politically viable, a much more efficient use of public funds than current social welfare programs, and a much-needed response to the many social imbalances that the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed with unavoidable clarity. Given Maitreya’s priorities of “an adequate supply of the right food, housing and shelter for all”, it could also be a way for humanity to begin addressing those needs widely, even before His open emergence. In doing so, we would also, no doubt, be demonstrating our readiness for Maitreya’s message of sharing.
UBI is currently gaining popular political traction, and being implemented experimentally in some locations throughout the world. …
Since everyone would benefit from a Universal Income, the stigma attached to current social welfare programs would be eliminated, and there would be far less likelihood of the program being dismantled later. UBI would also quite simply add tremendous stability to the economy.
UBI supports entrepreneurship. People inclined to start a business are offered enough of a boost (and decreased risk) to make it viable, along similar lines as successful programs in microcredit. At every level, UBI actually encourages engagement and participation in the economy — by allowing people to relocate to find jobs, to complete education for higher skilled jobs, or by providing the capital and stability to start their own businesses.
It’s likely that, if the United States or one or more of the other G7 countries were to implement a full, national UBI program, other countries would quickly follow suit. While different countries each have their own unique issues surrounding poverty and would therefore require differing approaches to a basic income, there’s little question that establishing UBI would quickly reduce or even eliminate poverty, reduce income inequality, and alleviate the myriad related social ills.
Admittedly, implementing UBI widely would require the endorsement of politicians and stakeholders across the political spectrum and a comprehensive public information campaign to mobilize support. But neither of these are insurmountable. They simply indicate the required path forward. We can all help by becoming better informed on the benefits and practicalities of UBI and urging its implementation as widely and as actively as possible. …
Jane Goodall, world renowned naturalist, has gifted the world The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for trying times in the form of personal conversations with writer Douglas Abrams. At 87 years of age, most of which have been spent in the wilds of Africa with her precious chimps, she has, she says, learned that without hope we cannot survive. That realization and its corollaries — determination to overcome obstacles and resilience in the face of defeat — flow gently yet powerfully through the stories of experiences that formed her reliance on the life-sustaining power of nature. …
Of particular interest is the discussion of what hope is and is not. Goodall explains the difference as she sees it between faith and hope. Faith, she says, is based on belief — in The Creator or life after death or some doctrine. We don’t know for sure, but we have faith that these things are true. Hope, however, is active and based on the desire for such and such to be the case. Animals, for example, search for food based on the hope that they will find it. Hope is a survival trait that drives you to act. Productive action nourishes further hope, as does support from others and personal resilience that enables you to persevere in the face of obstacles. Hope, she says, is not based on idealism, which “expects everything to be fair or easy or good … a defense mechanism not unlike denial or delusion.” Hope, she adds, “does not deny evil but is a response to it.” …
As Goodall relates the many examples of hope, even in ‘hopeless’ times such as those we live in today, she gives four reasons for us to be hopeful: the amazing human intellect; the resilience of nature; the power of young people; and the indomitable human spirit.
We have little time to repair the damage we have done to our Earthly home, but she adds, there is still time and there is still hope that we will succeed. Human intellect can solve most every problem, and nature gives back bountifully in increased populations of plants and animals for every effort at reforestation, restoring the waters and the soil, and cleaning up the air. The young are primed and are taking their places on the world stage, holding politicians’ feet to their fiery demand for action. The human spirit may dim from time to time, or be slow to respond to danger, but where there is hope, there is determination to awaken our fellow humans and enlist their efforts to overcome any adversity no matter how severe. Hope is a survival trait, built in by nature to ensure our continued existence.
The conversations in this book periodically turn to philosophy and spirituality… the fight of good against evil, optimism overcoming pessimism, bringing the light into the darkness of our times. Goodall says: “It is important to take action and realize that we can make a difference, and this will encourage others to take action, and then we realize we are not alone, and our cumulative actions truly make an even greater difference. That is how we spread the light. And this, of course, makes us all even more hopeful.”
January/February 2022
Full contents of the printed edition
- The Master —: The Herald of the New
- The Master —: A gift from the Highest
- C.J. Polychroniou: Environmental and labor movements need to join forces by embracing the global Green New Deal
- Editorial: "Don’t forget how powerful Maitreya is!”– Maitreya
- Brett Wilkins: Jimmy Carter warns: US Democracy ‘Teeters on the brink’
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu 1931-2021
- Shereen Abdel-Hadi Tayles: “There’s no separation ...” Interview with Dr Eben Alexander III
- Mountain Top, by Benjamin Creme, painted in 1965
- Graham Peebles: The fundamental law: Cause and Effect
- Greenwashing alert
- Elisa Graf: The true value of leisure
- Jake Johnson: Global celebration follows leftist victory in Chile
- Graeme Maxton: How the free-market addled your brain, and why it can’t fix climate change
- Ana Bie: When prisons become redundant
- Signs of the time
- Cher Gilmore: Regeneration: Ending the climate crisis in one generation, by Paul Hawken
- Five of world’s most powerful nations pledge to avoid nuclear war
- Mitch Williams: The surprising case for Universal Basic Income
- Nobuko Itoh: Lessons learned from the great East Japan earthquake
- Trends
- Betsy Whitfill: The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for trying times
- Vincent Mathos: The R-Urban project – recreating community connection in the city
- Thom Hartmann: There’s never been a more important time to look up, wake up, and get active
- Aart Jurriaanse: The Science of Contact and Communication
- Letters to the editor
- Benjamin Creme: Questions and answers
