The 12 billion US $ festival of football (the most expensive in its 84 year history) has reached its climax; a month more or less of nationalistic competition has enthralled, appalled and disappointed. The sponsors return with gold galore, Germany triumphantly parks the Jules Rimet Trophy alongside its economic supremacy and Brazil wakes to face the plethora of social ills, chronic state corruption and raging inequality that have been filed away for the duration. It’s ‘the result that matters’, ‘competition is about the winning, not the competing’, ‘football is big business’: clichéd truisms espoused by pundits on all channels in all languages. If competition has a natural home within our society it is surely sport. Under the governing body of football, which is not FIFA, but Corporate Commercialization even competition – itself a social poison – has been polluted; the goal (excuse the pun) is not to compete, but to win, to win at all costs, and these winnings are stratospheric (the average wage for a player in the English premiership is $50,000 per week).
Corrosive competition
Since the ‘Revolutions of 1989’ and beyond, unprecedented numbers of people throughout the world have taken to the streets demanding change. Large groups of demonstrators and activists are calling for a new way of living, a new type of civilisation. One based on social justice and freedom, and firmly rooted in ‘principles of goodness’: cooperation, sharing and tolerance; one which cultivates selflessness and social responsibility that, whilst encouraging the greatest level of diversity, recognizes and works towards a realisation of the underlying unity of humanity.
These are transitional times, and as we move from one outdated inadequate model to a new and altogether different paradigm, creative imagination is required to re-define how we live together. Familiar ways of living and organising society once thought to be positive and beneficial, do not serve the majority of humanity – or indeed the planet; they are detrimental and no longer relevant. They serve as obstacles to the manifestation of the new and need to be relegated to the past and replaced.
One such corrosive element of contemporary life is competition. Together with ambition and reward and punishment, it forms a divisive motive-based system that pollutes action, fuels desire, encourages selfishness, and is, in a very real sense, violent. “There can be no peace, no enduring happiness for man as long as we – the individual, the group and the nation – accept this competitive existence as inevitable. Competitiveness, ambition, implies conflict within and without.” [Krishnamurti] It has infected every area of contemporary society and is a major contributor to the worldwide environment of division and separation. Competing ideologies, religious, social (including environmental) and political, tussle for dominance, each maintaining they are ‘right’ and hold the solutions to society’s ills.
Together with profit, competition is the driving force in business: these ugly sisters of market fundamentalism sit festering behind a plethora of violent practices and conflicts, from corporate government corruption, to the displacement of indigenous people, the abuse of migrant workers, and all points murky in between. It poisons education, has corrupted sport and undermines the arts (the commercialization of the film industry is a key example, as too is the factory production of pop music), and as William Morris made clear in ‘Art Under Plutocracy’, as “long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.”
Competition is the sacred cow of the neo-liberal project; to criticize either, suggesting there are more just, alternative ways of living, relevant to the times, is to be branded a utopian, sandal-clad dreamer. ‘Not only is competition good, it’s part of human nature; it’s the only means to motivate and regulate.’ So say the fundamentalist believers. Competitive markets, from dog biscuits to health care, pension schemes, to education and trafficking of persons, are good, reducing prices and raising standards; it is as Henry Ford put it “the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.” Without it, mediocrity would prevail, apathy and indifference triumph. So argue the deluded yes campaign. Complacent and resistant to change, they fail to recognise the broader negative impact of the doctrine; are unaware that we are living in new times and appear blind to the fact that humanity and the planet need new ideas and revolutionary, re-imagined ways of living.
Together with ambition and reward and punishment, competition is seen as the optimum way of maximizing achievement in any given area of life, forcing the best to surface. The ‘collateral damage’ or ‘dangerous side effects’ of this rather crude outdated approach to human affairs is far-reaching division and separation, leading to conflict, suffering and violence. All attention is focused on the ‘end’, or ‘result’ – on winning, largely ignoring the means. If, for example, driving costs down entails employing children to work in sweatshops for pennies, that’s fine as long as prices are competitive and sales increase. It is a prehistoric method of control and motivation which fails to recognize that the means and the end are one; that the end is inherent in the means. If the means of bringing about peace is to initiate war, the result (as we repeatedly see, but learn not) will be violence and further conflict. ‘Winning’, ‘succeeding’ is all that matters, no matter the impact or effect – human or environmental. “We all want to be on top, and this desire creates constant conflict within ourselves and with our neighbour; it leads to competition, envy, animosity and finally war.” [Krishnamurti] Take the politicians for example. Ideologically driven and relentlessly ambitious they want one thing only – to secure votes and climb the greasy political pole. And as we know, they will say anything to get there. They talk of peace but as Krishnamurti makes clear, “an ambitious man is not a peaceful man, though he may talk of peace and brotherhood.” His motives distorted, his words dishonest, manipulative and hollow, leading in varying degrees to inevitable disharmony – individually and collectively.
Competition corrupting Education
Perhaps the area where competition has done and continues to do most damage is education. It has poisoned education systems throughout the world, distorting educational methodologies and conditioning students. Students are conditioned into competition from an early a ge – making competition appear quite natural to them, and so fully indoctrinated they step into the marketplace to perpetuate the model. Schools and universities are forced to compete with each other for government approved gold stars, so they attract the brightest students who achieve the best results, enabling the school to ascend to the top of the league and continue to attract the brightest children. Competition has been married with its perfect partner – conformity: together they deny true individuality, inhibit creative thinking and the operation of intelligence and feed into the crippling homogenisation of contemporary culture. Market driven educational methodology which serves well the high priests and devotees of globalization.
Challenging ideological systems should be part of education, yet such a debate is threatening to the 1% whom the system serves; “anyone who has begun to think, places some portion of the world in jeopardy.” [John Dewey] To Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), since 1955, “the goal of education is to produce human beings whose values are not accumulation and domination, but instead are free association on equal terms.” The focus on success at all costs and the cultivation of attitudes designed to exclude others, to see others as ‘the competition’ fuel divisions and separation, leading to conflict and suffering. Children are rarely seen as individuals, with certain innate gifts and talents, but as potential workers or economic assets; “we are turning out, as if through a mold, a type of human being, whose chief interest is to find security, to become somebody important, or to have a good time with as little thought as possible.” [Krishnamurti]
Individuals are encouraged to value their own progress, success and material acquisition over the wellbeing of the larger group, whether that is the class, the family or the community at large. This focus on the self runs in direct opposition to one of the underlying purposes of education – group awareness and social responsibility. Competition is a cornerstone of the neo-liberal ideology, which thrives on greed and selfishness. Contemporary society “as at present constituted is based on ambition and conflict, and almost everyone accepts this fact as inevitable. The individual is conditioned to its inevitability; through education, through various forms of outward and inward compulsion, he is made to be competitive.” [Krishnamurti]
The impact of this all-pervading pressure to compete and conform, to succeed and not fail – at all costs, don’t fail – is immense. The result is inhibition, suppression, anxiety, depression and stress. And whilst individuality and the space to make mistakes – at least up until employment – is superficially encouraged, dissent and freedom (there cannot be true freedom whilst conformity and competition dominate education as they do) is not really tolerated. Indirect, subtle methods of suppression are in place to enforce compliance to all constituent parts of the ideological body. Fear (reflected as anxiety and insecurity) is the major weapon of control. The fear of being different, of being unable to compete and therefore failing miserably; the fear of being marginalized, of destitution and death – not physical death, but being totally marginalized and isolated. Debt is another subsidiary tool, liberally and consistently used to engender and reinforce the primary weapon – fear.
Try Cooperation instead
Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a cave in The Horn of Africa, the urge to compete with the other Neanderthals may well have been a positive and natural instinct for survival. We live in a world of abundance; there is food and water enough for everyone, there is no need for a single child to go hungry, or die of hunger related illnesses, as around 22,000 do today. [Unicef] All that is required is that we cooperate with one another instead of constantly competing, and we learn to share. Share the food and water and other natural resources of the world equitably amongst the people of the world.
Cooperation and sharing unites, encourages trust and builds relationships; competition divides, it sets people against one another and denies that essential ingredient to peaceful living – ‘right relationship’. For social harmony and peace to come about, social justice is essential. Cooperation and sharing are key requirements in bringing this about. Conversely, “there can be no peace, no enduring happiness for man as long as we – the individual, the group and the nation – accept this competitive existence as inevitable.” [Krishnamurti]
The mode of contemporary living is in many ways dysfunctional. There are the obvious and painful daily signs that affirm this: the thirteen or so wars taking place; the fact that half the world’s population live impoverished lives on less than $2 a day, 80% on under $10 a day. Most of us live with financial anxiety and job uncertainty; 22,000 children die every day of poverty related illnesses; 900,000 people in desperation commit suicide every year and 360 million people are known to be suffering from depression (more in acutely materialistic countries – average 20% in America for example), tens of millions go undetected, untreated and uncounted. And then there are the quieter, less quantifiable ills: the repression, the controls of thinking; the propaganda that conditions and inhibits; the education systems and mass media that manipulatively demand conformity, subdue dissent and deny independent thinking. “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” [Noam Chomsky] Clever isn’t it.
Worldwide, life is dominated by an unjust economic model – beloved by all colours on the political spectrum, which has infiltrated every area of life. The preeminent concern of 99% of humanity is the practicalities of daily living – how to pay for food and shelter, education and health care, water and sanitation. There is no time or energy for living, for creativity and self-enquiry, for exploring one’s nature and the world.
Neo-liberal economics, or market fundamentalism, has contributed to extreme levels of poverty, social division and criminality. It is largely responsible for the environmental crisis and man-made climate change and has fuelled worldwide inequality. Not just income and wealth inequality, but inequality of opportunities of access, influence, power and rights, including the observation and enforcement of so-called ‘universal’ human rights. The right to food, shelter, education and health care, for example, ‘rights’ universally available if you have money to pay for them. Inequality distorts democracy; indeed it denies democracy as it limits participation, corrupts free speech, suffocates dissent and perpetuates the concentration of power. It causes resentment and anger and fuels a plethora of social ills, from homicide to depression, community suspicion to substance addiction.
This current economic model nestles complacently at the core of many of our problems. It has reduced everything to a commodity – including people: the economically vulnerable are marginalised and exploited, traded like cattle, abused and violated. The system needs to be re-evaluated and fundamentally changed – along with the worldwide value system (promoting materiality) that flows from its ideological roots, and colours all areas of living. “We have to re-define the meaning of modernity, to redefine the meaning of happiness.” [Arundhati Roy] And re-imagine the world based on altogether different values to the divisive ones espoused by the neo-liberal model. Perennial values that will facilitate the observation of human rights and honour our common humanity: values of unity, tolerance, cooperation and sharing. Principles of goodness held firmly within the hearts of all men and women of goodwill that need to be at the heart of new structures, political, economic and social.
A revolution of ideas is needed; a revolution, the Dalai Lama states, “in our commitment to and practice of universal humanitarian values.” Defined by His Holiness as ‘honesty, morality, compassion and wisdom.’
There are positive signs that suggest we are living in a time when such fundamental changes are not only possible, but that if one looks with an open mind (a rare jewel indeed) – the signs of the new can be seen within the fog of conservatism and extremism.
There is a worldwide popular protest movement, the like of which we have not seen before. It stretches from Thailand to Ethiopia, from Turkey to Brazil; it is an expression of group responsibility, of anger and hope. It is largely peaceful and represents a change of mind, a recognition that, as a great teacher has said, “nothing changes by itself,” that “man must act and implement his will.” Sensing their collective power, huge groups of people are uniting and demanding change, calling for freedom. An end to injustice, to state and corporate corruption, the destructive influence of global institutions – the International Monetary Fund and World Bank – and to be listened to by arrogant governments, who for too long have serviced their own ambitious interests and their corporate bed-mates and failed to serve the people.
The Arab Spring, together with the ground breaking Occupy Movement is, I suppose, the loudest cry amongst a chorus of voices calling for political and social change in recent years. And yes there is turmoil in the region, but it is a time of transition, change takes time and resistance is deep-seated. The revolution in Egypt brought hundreds of thousands, some claim tens of millions onto the streets of Cairo; it toppled two presidents, and “proved that a framework enabling people to self-organise in small but coordinated communities will empower them and set free their creative energies. Yet the political system is built on the opposite idea – of people coalescing around leaders in hierarchies. The struggle is to invent a new system while the old one is attacking you, bad-mouthing you, murdering and imprisoning you.” [The Guardian] The idea of people coming together, uniting under a common cause is a major factor in the times we are living in. Group work, unity and cooperation are essential qualities of the age, themes reminding us of our common humanity that run contrary to the largely divisive individualistic ways of the past. Themes suggesting there is a developing awareness of both the power of collective action and the group or “universal responsibility”, as the Dalai Lama puts it.
Individual and Society
For there to be sustained substantive social change, a shift in consciousness or awareness is necessary, a change of mind. The great 20th century Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti taught that, “we are society”, that society is not separate from us. He maintained that “this immoral destructive society is made by each one of us, so we are responsible for it,” the crisis, he says, “is in ourselves and we are unwilling to face that crisis and try to escape from that fact through various forms of entertainment.”
Whilst I am reluctant to disagree with the Great man, I suggest that a symbiotic relationship exists between society and us. That the nature of society and the systems under which we live encourage and aggravate certain behaviour, both positive and negative, and that the current systems cultivate and accentuate destructive divisive attitudes and actions. Take as an example tea pickers in Assam earning $2 a day for backbreaking work; they have two daughters but cannot afford to feed them properly, to clothe them and send them to school. So they reluctantly sell one of the girls for $50 to a local recruitment agent. He promises work in a home in Kolkata, but promptly traffics the child into a brothel in the city for $800 and the 14 year old finds herself working as a prostitute within the week. All are victims more or less of the system. The girl is abused, her life ruined, the family exploited, the agent desperate and conditioned into survival no matter what, to think only of himself. ‘It’s a dog eat dog world’, ‘look after number one’. Well, we are not dogs; we are human beings, brothers and sisters of One Humanity. And in the realisation of that underlying unity lies great happiness and the answer to many social issues. As Mother Teresa put it, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other – that man, that woman, that child is my brother or my sister.”
Facilitate a change of mind in the recruitment agent (and the world is littered with such men) by shifting the focus, changing the value system. Establish an economic model that is designed to serve the needs of everybody, that moves people out of harm’s way – removes their vulnerability. A system that is just and fair, that brings people together, fosters cooperation instead of competition and thereby encourages brotherhood – an expression of unity. Place sharing at the epicentre of a new way of living: share the world’s resources, including knowledge and skills equitably amongst the people, based on individual need, and see a reduction in inequality, a lifting of fear, anxiety, stress, and the cultivation of trust and community.
We live under the omnipresent shadow of a political/economic system, which promotes materiality, selfishness and individual success over group wellbeing. It is a model of civilisation that is making us miserable and ill. Dependent on continuous consumption, everything and everyone is seen as a commodity, and competition and ambition are extolled as virtues. Together with reward and punishment this trinity of division has infiltrated and polluted all areas of contemporary life, including health care and education.
It is a system that denies compassion and social unity, unhappiness and mental illness, as well as extreme levels of inequality (income and wealth) flow from the unjust root, causing social tensions, eroding trust and community. Over half the world’s population (3.5 billion people) live in suffocating poverty on under $2 a day (the World Bank’s official poverty line), whilst the wealthiest 10% owns 85% of global household wealth. This level of inequality is growing, is unjust and shameful, and has far reaching consequences. Materialistically obsessed societies such as America (where income and wealth inequality is the highest of any industrialised nation), have higher levels of drug and alcohol dependency, mental illness, crime and incarceration, as well as child pregnancies and homicides, than more equal nations. People in unequal societies are suspicious of ‘the other’ – that’s anyone who looks thinks, and/or acts differently – and generally speaking don’t trust one another. A mere 15% of people in America confessed to trusting their fellow citizens, compared to 60% in less unequal parts of the world. The resulting divisions aggravate social tensions, fuelling criminality and a cycle of mistrust and paranoia is set in motion.
Focus on the material, on self-fulfillment and success places us in competition with one another and strengthens feelings of distrust, alienation and division. All of which run contrary to and move us away from our underlying nature, resulting in the inculcation of fear and insecurity. Mental illness, including anxiety and depression – a worldwide epidemic claiming 5% of the global population – are further consequences of this dysfunctional social model. Millions are hooked on pharmaceuticals (legal and illegal), much to the delight of the multi-national drug companies whose yearly profits in America alone nestle comfortably in the trillions of US $. Suicide, according to a major report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), is the third highest cause of death amongst adolescents (road accidents and HIV are one and two), and the primary cause is depression.
Desire division discontent
Over 2,500 years ago, the Buddha taught that desire and attachment to the object(s) of desire is the root of all suffering. His message of moderation and balance is more relevant today than perhaps at any other time.
Those who love material objects are less inclined to love other people and the natural environment. So says Tim Kasser of Knox University, Illinois in ‘The High Price of Materialism’ after various studies. Love of objects strengthens the desire principle, causing fear and dissatisfaction, giving rise to anxiety, stress and unhappiness. Desire entraps: insatiable, it breeds fear and is the underlying cause of discontent and all manner of associated sufferings. “Abandoning all desire and acting free from longing, without any sense of mineness or sense of ego one attains to peace.” [Bhagavad Gita 11, verse 71] Such perennial truths expressed by the Buddha, Christ and other visionary teachers as well as Krishna are ignored in the search for immediate happiness derived from sensory pleasure.
The neo-liberal model promotes such short-term artificial goals: goals that strengthen desire, greed and dissatisfaction, pre-requisites for encouraging consumerism and materialism and the perpetual expansion of the ubiquitous ‘market’. In a detailed study by Baylor University, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience Jo-Ann Tsang found that materialistic people “are more likely to focus on what they do not have and are unable to be grateful for what they do have, whether it is their family, a nice house or a good job.” Contentment is the natural enemy of the system; discontent is it’s life-blood, serving well the ‘Masters of Mankind’ as Adam Smith famously tagged the ruling elite and their ‘vile maxim’ – “all for ourselves and nothing for other people.”
In ‘The Good Life: Wellbeing and the New Science of Altruism, Selfishness and Immorality’, Graham Music refers to a study at Berkeley University that seems to demonstrate Smith’s truism. “The higher up the social-class ranking people are, the less pro-social, charitable and empathetically they behaved … consistently those who were less rich showed more empathy and more of a wish to help others.” [The Guardian] Self-centered behavior, motivated by reward, not only erodes any sense of community and social responsibility, it breeds unhappiness. Music, a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist at The Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London, makes the point that our “monetised western world is going to make us more and more lose touch with our social obligations.”
With its focus on the material – including the physical aspect of our-selves – the ‘monetised’ system encourages vanity, selfishness and narcissistic behavior. Further strengthening division, separation and aloneness, feelings that are in opposition to the underlying truth of human unity. “All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.” [Swami Vivekenanda] This is the view repeatedly enunciated by those great men – divine men some would say – who have freed themselves of all limitations and have shared their wisdom with us.
We are one, brothers and sisters of One Humanity. As Mahatma Gandhi famously declared: “all humanity is one undivided and indivisible family.” Separation from one another, from the natural environment and from that which we call God is an illusion. This is the perennial lesson proclaimed loud and clear by an army of Teachers of the Race, who have sought to guide us.
A materialistic value system with its focus on the individual as opposed to the group, inevitably feeds a consciousness of separation, strengthening what Esotericism calls ‘The Great Illusion.’ If humanity is in fact one, it follows that our nature is to be unselfish, socially responsible and helpful. In a series of fascinating behavioral studies The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology observed that 14-month-old babies spontaneously acted with kindness when an adult in the room needed help. Children love helping, and they do not need a reward. Actions, which are inherently selfless, offer an intrinsic reward because they facilitate relationship with our true nature. In fact when material rewards were introduced the children’s focus shifted, they lost interest in the act of kindness and became fixated on the object of reward. Their action became conditioned and in a very real sense polluted. Observing this fact, Graham Music concludes that, “rewards don’t make anyone happy and something very fundamental is lost when we reward for certain behaviors.” And adds that, “other studies have shown that toddlers feel happier giving treats than receiving them”. [Mercator Net]
With reward and punishment come desire and fear, desire for the reward and fear or anxiety over possible punishment if we fail. The effect is individual discontent and collective disharmony. Selfishness is strengthened, and, in opposition to the underlying impulse to be helpful, kindness is sacrificed, creating the conditions for depression and stress. Studies undertaken in San Francisco found that those members of the community who “volunteered and engaged in other forms of giving when they were adolescents were much less likely to become depressed, even as they got older. New research suggests there may be a biochemical explanation for the positive emotions associated with doing good.” [Healthy Living] Serving the needs of others is de-centralising, it shifts ones focus away from the self, with its petty, albeit painful anxieties.
Reward and punishment are major weapons of neo-liberalism, which has infiltrated almost every area of contemporary society. The destructive duality is a methodology common in many areas of education, and of course saturates corporate life. Goals bonuses, commission, perks: these are the language of business, the motivating force for and of activity.
The present unjust economic model has fostered a value system rooted in materiality that is a major cause of unhappiness, anxiety and depression. Change is urgently needed; change rooted in justice and the wellbeing of the group and not the individual; change imaginatively designed, which sees the economy as a way of meeting human rights and addressing human need, not one that plays on and inflames human desire.
The materialist may hold that mankind is naturally selfish, and that competition, reward and ambition are necessary and good. Without them we would do nothing and society would grind to a dysfunctional halt, goes the narrow reactionary argument. This conveniently cynical view of man’s nature (usually one held by those who are more or less economically and socially comfortable) is fundamentally wrong and is used to perpetuate the divisive model. The damaging effects of this model are being revealed by a range of studies, which substantiate the ancient message that human kindness, selflessness and community service are not only positive attributes to aspire to, they are the healthy, natural and peaceful way for humanity to live.
There is a controversial story abroad, which says that in our midst lives a great and wise teacher, a Self-realised man of infinite love, intelligence and wisdom. His name is Maitreya, he is the World Teacher for the New Age or cosmic cycle we are now entering into, the ‘age of Aquarius’. It is a story circulated far and wide over the last thirty-five years or so by the British artist and writer Benjamin Crème. It is a story I first heard in October 1987, which for me had the ring of truth; it is an extraordinary tale of hope and wonder that if true, must be the single most important event of our time.
The Coming One
The coming of a Guide, or Teacher, sits within a long-held tradition that recognizes the cyclical pattern of such momentous events, known in the East as ‘The Doctrine of Avatars’, in the West as ‘The Doctrine of The Coming One’. “Whenever there is a withering of the law and an uprising of lawlessness on all sides, then I manifest Myself. For the salvation of the righteous and the destruction of such as do evil, for the firm establishing of the Law, I come to birth age after age” [Bhagavad Gita (Book iv, sutra 7 & 8)]. The ‘I’ refers to Krishna, a manifestation of Vishnu, or Love – the Christ-consciousness or principle of the Christian theologian. The ‘age’ alludes to the particular astronomical conjunction brought about through the movement of the sun around the heavens in relation to the 12 signs of the zodiac: the precession of the equinoxes, a journey from one constellation to another, which takes around 2,200 years.
In every age Teachers have come forth; we know these Great Lives historically as Christ, the Buddha, Krishna, Sankaracharya, Vyasa, Mithra, Rama amongst others. They set the tone of their time and revealed some new aspect of reality. They are the perfected men from whom millions of people throughout the world seek comfort, guidance and peace. Maitreya, it is said, is one such man. According to Benjamin Creme [editor of Share International (SI)], Maitreya is the Coming One, awaited by Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus: the World Teacher for the age. Not a religious leader, but a guide for all of humanity, religious and non-religious alike, and, Creme states, He has been in the world since 1977, quietly going about His work of inspiring and guiding outer events from behind the scenes.
Signs of the Time
It is an extraordinary story with a certain arguable logic, and looking at recent world events it seems clear that something unusual is taking place. Perhaps there is a connection, a relationship between the Maitreya story and the tumultuous events witnessed in many parts of the world. The worldwide protest movement (of which the Arab Spring has to be the greatest example), which has seen millions take to the streets demanding social justice, greater levels of equality, an end to corruption and freedom from repressive levels of government control; the repeated collapse of what many of us see as a defunct, unjust economic system; a growing environmental awareness; and the rise of the Occupy Movement. Key happenings in what appears to be a world undergoing accelerated change. In many cases, state violence and social turmoil has been the result of the people’s call for change, as the reactionary, conservative forces, fearful of losing power, resist.
It is a world in transition, moving (let us hope) from an outdated model of civilization based on competition and division, which has failed the majority and poisoned the planet, to a new fairer way of living, in which sharing, cooperation, justice and freedom are the guiding principles. Such ideals of brotherhood and justice have of course been banded around for some time – two thousand years or so, when the previous World Teacher in the form of Christ came. He laid out a set of common-sense guidelines for human affairs; don’t kill, practice honesty, avoid materialism and greed, love thy enemy, do unto others, as ye would have others do unto you, cultivate forgiveness and live in peace. All great ideals, that have remained largely unexpressed, un-manifest and therefore of little (if any) value.
Alongside unprecedented worldwide social movements for change, a plethora of miraculous ‘signs’ have been recorded over the last 30 years or so, which also suggest something is afoot.
In July 1991 Life magazine’s cover story asked: ‘do you believe in miracles’ – apparently most people do. They reported that, “thousands of unexplained miraculous phenomena [are] occurring worldwide,” and in 1995, Time Magazine devoted eight pages to its cover story on miracles, and concluded: “People are hungry for signs.” Miraculous crosses of light have been springing up in homes in America, Australia, New Zealand, India, the Philippines, Britain and Germany. Unexplained healings have been attributed to these crosses of light; mysterious and beautiful patterns of light have been photographed on buildings and pavements all over the world, throughout Europe, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada; icons of the Madonna, Jesus, and the Buddha are discovered weeping – water, oil or blood; and in what is perhaps the most widespread example of an unexplained phenomenal event, The Hindu ‘Milk Miracle’ on 21 September 1995, in which millions testified that Hindu deities around the world drank milk offered in worship.
On Saturday 11 June 1988 a man miraculously appeared at an open-air prayer/healing meeting on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. Many of the 6,000 assembled cried out ‘Jesus, Jesus’. Job Mutungi, editor of The Kenya Times, witnessed the event and wrote: “The tall figure of a bare-footed, white-robed and bearded man appeared from nowhere and stood in the middle of the crowd.” He disappeared, literally, into thin air: “several people who witnessed this were astonished by his mysterious disappearance.” According to Benjamin Creme the ‘tall figure’ was Maitreya.
Such events and there are lots, have convinced large numbers of people from varying backgrounds that the appearance of the ‘Coming One’ is imminent. Many people of different religious backgrounds “now expect the return of their awaited Teacher,” states Crème. Indeed in the US alone, a staggering “79% of Christians say they believe that Jesus Christ will return” [Pew Research Center]. And interestingly 50% of those polled believe that “people and nations can affect when Christ returns”.
A new Civilization
We are living through times of tremendous opportunity and, as the forces of the past resist the demands of millions for a new and just way of living, times of great tension. “The outer signs of turmoil and violence, of hatred and fear, are but the death-throes of a dying civilization under the impact of the new” [Share International/A Master Speaks]. Which is emerging, slowly and surely.
With increasing momentum, ideas of the new time – tolerance, cooperation, unity and sharing – are colouring thinking, generating alternative ways of working and living and challenging the existing outdated methods. The repressive pillars of civilization though – the decaying, albeit revived and g rowing, economic system of market fundamentalism; corporate influenced/controlled state Government and a value system rooted firmly in materialism, which sees everything and everyone as a commodity and has created a civilization in which competition saturates every area of our lives causing division and conflict – remain largely intact.
The crisis facing humanity is a spiritual crisis, albeit one that is focused in the political and economic sphere and it is here that it must be resolved. It is a crisis of ideas and values. A new imagination is required to transform the existing economic and social structures; an imagination which recognizes the inherent unity of humanity, understands that social justice and freedom are human rights and that with freedom goes responsibility – for one another and for the natural environment. Principles of Goodness, which every great Teacher throughout the ages has articulated, including Maitreya, whose commonsense, dogma-free message extolling “the need for sharing and right relationships [and] the oneness of humanity” [SI], many of us would agree with. We are indeed living in extraordinary times, and for a new civilization to emerge we must build it, if indeed the ’Coming One’ is in our midst, and there are certainly signs that support what is a story of great hope and if His role is in keeping with the Teachers of old, He will offer guidance only. It is for us to throw off the shackles of the past and together create a new and glorious civilization, allowing people everywhere to live happy and dignified lives, “a simpler life” as Maitreya puts it, “where no man lacks, where no two days are alike, where the Joy of Brotherhood manifests through all men.”
