Up to the end of 2025, 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. From the beginning of 2026, the printed edition is no longer being produced, but the entire magazine is available on this website.
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.
When men look back at this time, they will see it as a time when we displayed, simultaneously, every aspect of our being, both accomplishments and faults. This, of course, is not surprising, for men everywhere stand at various points on the evolutionary ladder but, accepting these natural divisions, which time itself will reduce, there is lacking, still, a unity of approach and an understanding of the needs of all.
Why should this be so? For long ages the teachings of successive religions and the eminence of powerful individuals sustained a certain unity of thought in evolving humanity. There were, of course, many periods of war and dissent but at some level the unifying influence of the great religions was maintained. Today, individuality is so potent, so valued and rewarded, that, despite its manifold achievements, this precious individuality has become man’s greatest danger. Unity in any real sense is all but vanquished, even, or perhaps especially, in the religious field. Few there are who see instinctively, as a matter of course, the essential needs of all men. Therein lies the danger.
The civilizing forces of Justice and Freedom, however, are awakening millions to their birthright. Little by little, the minds of men are turning to the needs of all. This, naturally, runs counter to the rousing call of individuality. Hence the present extraordinary tension and chaotic conditions in the world. The problems, political and economic, are basically of a spiritual nature but can be solved only in the political and economic fields. Unity must be sought and manifested. Otherwise the strains imposed by the present conditions would drive men to the most dangerous actions. For this reason Maitreya calls for Unity, an understanding of the needs of all.
Peace is essential but can only be achieved where Justice reigns. Justice, it will be found, needs the calm waters of Trust for its achievement. Sharing alone is Maitreya’s remedy for our ills. Sharing alone will bring men, trusting, to the table where Justice will be achieved and Peace assured.
(Share International, January/February 2013)
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’.
In 1979, I lived in Germany and had a small second-hand shop. One day, a tall, slim man with an unusual waxed moustache came in and put a silver box on the counter, with a piece of jewellery shaped like a cone with a garnet that looked like an eye. He simply said: “They’re for you.” He accepted no money from me. I had not seen him before, but he seemed to know me. He told me he travelled on ships and had come from Bombay. Who was this kind person?
On 21 January 2008, I returned from a trip and entered a café at our railway station. As I proceeded to drink my coffee, a tall, sturdy man came round the corner. I noticed his wonderful aura. He smiled at me and my heart responded with love and joy. He took a seat elsewhere in the café and, a quarter of an hour later, he was about to leave when again he smiled at me radiating understanding and love. I asked within “Who are you?”
Five days later, during Transmission Meditation, I saw that smiling face again — full of love for a moment. Could it be that I had met the Master Jesus or Maitreya? I would be very grateful to know.
On 15 May 2004, I attended the lecture in Tokyo for a second time to listen to Mr Creme. I was sitting in the first row of the upper tier and could easily see the audience below.
There were two people who caught my attention all the time. A younger man wearing a very red shirt with black horizontal and vertical stripes, who also had a very big purple cap with some orange lines on his head. This young man was sitting next to an older man wearing a green shirt or sweater.
These two people looked very different to the others, especially the way they were dressed. I followed the young man when he was leaving the hall in the beginning of the intermission. I never saw his face, but the way he was dressed gave an impression of a young man. After the intermission, I could not see them any more.
When Mr Creme started his lecture again, he said that Maitreya had attended the first part of the lecture with the Tokyo Master. I wonder, could these two people have been Maitreya and the Tokyo Master?
We present here phenomena which, to the editors, are “signs of hope” and “signs of the time”, but which have not been confirmed by Benjamin Creme’s Master.
We present them for your consideration only, since we cannot now make use of the confirmation and additional information which in the past was always provided by BC’s Master.
We present a selection of quotations about the oneness of humanity. This selection is taken from Maitreya (Messages from Maitreya the Christ), Benjamin Creme’s Master (A Master Speaks Volumes One and Two) and Benjamin Creme’s writings.
We have built systems which are based on the wrong principles: competition, division, separatism and inequality, all in direct opposition to the inner reality. The inner reality is man’s Oneness, a shared divine nature which is potential in every single human being, and which needs the correct outer forms to allow the inner radiance to be expressed. (Benjamin Creme, Maitreya’s Mission Volume One)
When men realize their oneness, and act on that awareness, all becomes possible. (Benjamin Creme’s Master, from ‘A world in change’)
As Benjamin Creme’s Master wrote, “Many times over the years have I said that Maitreya was emerging ‘soon’, and thus has this expectation been kept vividly alive in the hearts of millions. That His full emergence has not yet taken place is not a sign of perfidy on My part, but rather a result of the extraordinary nature and difficulty of this enterprise. Men in general know nothing of the laws which govern such an event, nor of the boundaries to Maitreya’s action which these laws create.
Also, We, your Elder Brothers, work outside and beyond the notion of time, and find difficulty in placing Our insights and information before men whose understanding is still governed by the ‘fact’ of time.” (Benjamin Creme’s Master, from ‘See Him and rejoice’, Share International, September 2008)
Advice and prescience
In July 2016 Benjamin Creme (BC) told his wife, Phyllis, and me that the version of the Reappearance of the World Teacher as he had always presented it might be open to change: “Don’t be worried or afraid if things work out differently.” He encouraged us, and by extension anyone who knew of his information and set store by it, not to give in to fear or anxiety if it turned out that life, events and the development of humanity, didn’t follow the course he and his Master had laid out up to that moment. We understood, too, that obviously Maitreya’s emergence had already started and could possibly be a very gradual process as opposed to anything spectacular or announced, perhaps a series of progressively more inclusive overshadowings. This was not clarified further.
Now, eight years later, it is obvious that Benjamin Creme and his Master’s prescience and forewarning were entirely accurate since it is clear that “things are working out differently” to paraphrase. In the ensuing time some have tried to come to terms with and accept the inevitable — that he was right and his cautionary words were meant to be taken seriously as wise and kindly guidance into the future.
What was the context and what were expectations in 2016? Many hoped and believed with varying degrees of certainty that Maitreya would become known to the general public through more frequent media appearances within a year or two of Benjamin Creme’s passing, if not sooner. However, the question of timing has always been mainly in the hands of humanity. The first article written for Share International magazine by BC’s Master in 1982 was about time — ‘A New Age concept of time’. It could provide a key which may help us come to terms with the extraordinarily dominating yet unreal aspect of modern life that is our sense of time.
A realistic look at the daily news today can leave no one in any doubt that so far things are very definitely ‘different’. What is incontrovertible is that no one can claim that the world has changed for the better and one thing we cannot say is that it has worked out along the lines enunciated for many years — not only by BC but also by his Master and Maitreya the World Teacher himself.
Some have puzzled: “What did BC mean?” He meant that people should not expect the world and its future to unfold precisely as he had always presented his information. It meant that perhaps it would be wise to let go of dogmatically held assumptions and beliefs and accept reality as it develops. Life, the Masters’ various plans and projects, including the work of this group, are all in the nature of an experiment. BC frequently talked of the Masters being ‘opportunists’, meaning that from their vantage point they see possibilities which may warrant an experiment and some effort.
Why?
Benjamin Creme’s statement should have raised some questions: “Why?” and “What factors are at play here?” Surprise and disbelief were only to be expected, at least for a time, to allow for re-assessment. To answer those questions it might be useful to take into account a number of issues which confront the Masters at times of such great significance. We are in a period of upheaval created partly by the transition from one age to another — Maitreya referred to this time as “an epic period in the history of the world”. Obviously, we cannot concern ourselves with matters about which we can know nothing, such as planetary, systemic and cosmic energetic conditions, windows of opportunity, how powerful a hold the Forces of Chaos have over leaders in various governments, groupings and influential focus groups; nor can we say much about the mental and emotional state of receptivity or otherwise of people around the world.
But what we can examine is whether humanity has succeeded in putting in place the basic conditions required to make possible the externalization of the Hierarchy. The primary conditions to make possible the publicly acknowledged presence of Maitreya on the world stage as they were laid down by the Spiritual Hierarchy are not yet in place — at least, not discernible to the average human eye. There is no measure of peace in the world; men’s minds are not open to the principle of sharing the world’s resources equitably; the grip of authoritarian power-hungry tendencies in all fields — politics, economics, religious and societal — has not weakened but grown stronger and more widespread than they were in 2016, creating further divisive social tension around the globe. Added to that is the sad fact that we have seriously compromised the health and future of our planet and all life on it.
Free will
The major deciding factor is us, humanity. And in particular our free will. We have free will — a marvellous gift by which we evolve into our true nature as gods in the making. We can choose in favour of the whole human family and the health of the planet — that’s the hope we all look for. We are, fortunately, and equally most unfortunately, free to choose. We can choose to live, to organize society, to formulate values, to set standards, develop cultures and habits which are aligned with what the Ageless Wisdom Teachings call “The Plan” or the Will of God.
“Millions of people do not know that there is a Plan. That is an unfortunate state of affairs. I think it is probably the most unfortunate, second to the almost total ignorance that we are souls. The first thing, it seems to me, that everyone should be taught is the human constitution: that we are essentially spiritual in nature, and that that divinity or spirit reflects itself at a somewhat lower vibration as the human soul, and that the soul reflects itself on the physical plane as a man or woman. …
“If everyone in the world knew that, or could even take it as a hypothesis, the world would be extraordinarily different. Because people do not know that there is a Plan, they have no idea where they are heading. They are driven along by the great magnet of evolution, and the result is they have really no free will. They are simply driven by circumstance, and they react to the circumstance, of course, from the point of evolution that they have reached.
“What is needed, I would say probably above everything else, is a re-education of humanity so that we know that evolution proceeds according to a Plan, and that we can take part in that Plan. We can become conscious and work according to the Plan. The chaos, aggression and war, the conflict and strife, are the result of ignorance of the fact of the Plan and its nature. Therefore, we do not know how to live. There are great laws governing this process of evolution, and the soul provides its vehicle with the means to evolve. The key to this development is called aspiration.
“The more of that Plan we understand, the more intelligently we can work with it. The Masters know the Plan. They are living gods and can work intelligently with the plan through humanity and the lower kingdoms. We are not quite as inert as the lower kingdoms but pretty inert, and our difficulty has been that for at least 100,000 years we have lost touch with the plan. We have lost our way.” (Benjamin Creme, Share International, January/February 2003) …
In our hands
Share International co-workers are sometimes challenged these days: “So where’s your Maitreya then, this Christ of yours?” Quite logically, particularly in times of genocide with impunity or climate disasters, people question the existence of a loving God, including everything that has been said about the World Teacher and the Masters of Wisdom. The difficult truth is that the Masters are not saviours; it is true that they daily save and help the innocent who are suffering so unimaginably. But they cannot and may not interfere. The choices, the failures and potential triumphs are ours to make. Nothing, no delay, no amount of suffering means that the Masters are not real and present in our world now. To paraphrase: their hands are tied by law and they must wait until we come to our senses and, when we do so, ask for their help and guidance. We determine the pace of change; the present and the future are in our hands. Many believe that we are waiting for Maitreya but in fact it is Maitreya and the Masters who are waiting for us.
That the Masters and Maitreya are real, present on our planet, here to encourage, to advise and guide us into a new civilization is not in doubt. The question is not: When will Maitreya and the Masters — the Lords of Compassion — come and save us, but: When will we find in ourselves the compassion and recognition of the Plan — the Will of God — to save ourselves — our human family and our lovely suffering planet? The answer lies in our acceptance of the gift of free will and in acting on what we know and hope.
Imagine a forest, a stand* of aspen trees, its canopy shimmering bright green and silver, rustling and whispering in the gentlest of breezes, turning to glory in its autumnal robes of yellows and golds — and all of it coming from the root system started by just one parent tree. Every shoot that grows from the same aspen rhizome is effectively part of one organism made up of genetically identical clones; an organism that can cover large areas and quickly recolonize them, even after being razed by fire, because the life force is in the root, not the trunk. Pando, the vast aspen stand in Utah, US, is said to be the largest living organism on the planet, and more than 80,000 years old. With more than 47,000 trees, the stand on Colorado’s Kebler Pass, US, is a close competitor. (*A forest stand is a contiguous community of trees sufficiently uniform in composition, structure, age, size, class, distribution, spatial arrangement.)
Conservationists like Will Roush, Wilderness Workshop Executive Director, describes working among aspen stands as “magical … almost like being in a cradle” — one that plays a crucial role in nurturing the growth of many other plant species, including rare ones that depend on the aspen ‘nursery’. Unlike other deciduous trees, aspens grow throughout the year, producing sugars under their thin white bark that are a crucial food source for a wide range of animals in hard winters. But the effects of climate change are weakening their age-old resilience, leading to a sudden increase in dieback; alarmingly so in both these forests.
The plight of the Kebler Pass trees brought potentially opposing interest groups together to do what they could to help the aspens. On their own, conservationists like Roush couldn’t fix climate change, but resolved to reduce the environmental stress caused by increasing resource exploitation across the 250,000 acres of the Thompson Divide, where the Pass is situated. After nearly 20 years of persistent campaigning by the Thompson Divide Coalition (TDC), on 3 April 2024, the US administration announced a further 20 years of protections from new resource extraction, giving cause for hope that more extensive and permanent legislation will be possible, even reaching beyond the Divide.
Other groups campaigning across the US West have also had success, seeing the TDC’s strategies as a blueprint for fending off developers; one that uncannily mirrors the nature of the great aspen stands. …
“We were fighting tooth and nail at every opportunity,” said Peter Hart, Wilderness Workshop. “But it was the community that gave this effort the profile and volume that we really needed to flip the script.” An open review period ended in January 2023 with more than 65,000 comments submitted, forcing the US Forest Service to cancel leases and pressure the Bureau of Land Management to do the same.
John Todd, Executive Director, Wild Montana, emphasized the role of Indigenous people: “Victory on the Rocky Mountain Front was a long time coming, nearly as long as I’ve been alive, demonstrating that we never give up on the places we work to protect. It will forever exemplify the resolve and perseverance of the people of Montana, especially the Blackfeet, when beloved wild public lands and waters are at risk of industrialization.”
“These places inspire these coalitions. … they represent this broad spectrum of people, and what brings people together is the place itself. That speaks to the power of natural landscapes and public lands and how these forests make people willing to set aside differences.” (Will Roush)
(Sources: Inside Climate News; usda.gov; Wild Montana; National Forest Foundation; US Forest Service; The Denver Post)
