TradCatKnight: Maitreya's Socialist Solution

The key to achieving these goals is a more equitable sharing of the world’s food and resources. According to Maitreya: “Without sharing there can be no justice; without justice there can be no peace; without peace, there can be no future.”

 

Humanity at a crossroads

Economic injustice and social upheaval: is sharing the answer? 

(An interview with Benjamin Creme)

Humanity at a crossroads

 

Humanity is at a crossroads. One path into the future leads to increasing social and economic division, environmental destruction, war and planetary peril. The other path leads to increasing social harmony, economic and environmental balance, and a golden era of peace.

 

Fortunately, at this critical point in history, we have in our midst a group of extraordinary spiritual teachers to help guide us along the path to peace. But we must willingly accept this guidance and take action to resolve our most dangerous global problems.

 

Among the most dangerous is the growing disparity between the world’s ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ As an example:

 

* The world’s 225 richest people have a combined wealth of over $1 trillion, equal to the annual income of the poorest 47 per cent of the world’s people.

 

* Among the 4,4 billion people who live in developing countries:

* nearly three in five live without basic sanitation

 

* nearly one in three are without safe drinking water

 

* one-quarter lack adequate housing

 

* one in five live beyond the reach of modern health services

 

* one in five children are undernourished, and an equal percentage do not get past grade five in school

 

* Even in the US, the world’s wealthiest country, some 12 million families are at risk of hunger, and at least 700,000 people are homeless on any given night.

 

This growing divide between the wealthy and the poor threatens us all, as the resulting crime, social unrest, civil war and environmental degradation do not respect national or local boundaries.

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Global consumption

 

The greed of a few has placed the future of the planet in jeopardy. Global consumption of goods and services, disproportionately by the world’s wealthiest 20 per cent, topped $US 24 trillion in 1998, twice the figure for 1975. The UN Human Development Report concludes that the “runaway growth in consumption is placing unprecedented pressure on the environment.” This report and others cite the destruction of the world’s forests; depletion of the world’s fisheries and fresh water supplies; pollution of air and water; depletion of the world’s top soil; desertification; species extinction; a dramatic increase in fossil fuel burning and resulting global warming trends. The list of growing environmental problems is nearly endless.

 

Some of the earth’s life support systems are already nearing the “point of no return,” says Worldwatch’s Brian Halwell. “We cannot sustain this level of consumption forever.”

 

Sharing is the answer

 

What could cause humanity, particularly those in the developed world, to change to a less destructive, more sustainable lifestyle before it is too late?

 

The writing is already on the wall, according to former US Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan. “It is not credible that the United States can remain an oasis of prosperity unaffected by a world that is experiencing greatly increased stress,” Greenspan says. But the “stress” of collapsing economies in Asia and Russia ― and increasing turmoil in Latin America and Eastern Europe ― not only affects the oasis of the United States, but the rest of the world as well. The world economy is “in a mess,” concedes a senior official at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

 

Efforts by the Federal Reserve and the IMF to prop up the global economy are dwarfed by the sheer size of the ‘global casino’ that has contributed to the problems in the first place. Some $1,5 trillion in currency changes hands electronically every day in search of speculative profits unrelated to any exchange of real goods and services. This flow of capital, when shifted away from countries like Thailand and Indonesia, has caused severe economic hardships, which have rippled across the globe. With Japan, the world’s second largest economy, already in deep recession, the outlook is not bright.

 

When the US’s “oasis of prosperity” begins to dry up, as it must in the current global financial crisis, stock markets in the West will plunge. This collapse will provide an opportunity for governments to re-evaluate their economic priorities, says futurist Benjamin Creme. The nations of the world will meet together to discuss how to cope with the future in an orderly fashion.

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Solutions at hand

 

Fortunately, the answers to these seemingly intractable problems are readily available.

 

For many years, Creme has spoken and written about the presence in the world today of a group of great spiritual teachers, known in the East as the Masters of Wisdom. At their head is Maitreya, who, Creme says, is here to inspire humanity to see itself as one interdependent family.

 

Maitreya will help us see that the world’s food, raw materials, energy and technological resources belong to everyone and must be shared equitably. These resources, Maitreya says, are given by divine right for the sustenance of all humanity, not for the use and misuse by a relative few. He will recommend a re-ordering of economic priorities so that adequate food, housing, education and medical care become universal rights.

 

The next steps

 

The immediate priority will be the saving of millions of people now starving to death in the developing world. Maitreya will propose a crash program of aid on a world scale to alleviate this suffering.

 

As humanity begins to accept the Principle of Sharing, and people call on governments to implement this principle, each country will make an inventory of its assets and needs. These statistics will provide a United Nations agency, set up for this purpose, with the information required for a rational redistribution of the world’s resources. That which each country has in excess of its needs will be put aside, in trust for the world.

 

The plans for such a redistribution program ― drawn up by economists, financiers and industrialists of great achievement ― are already in existence, awaiting only the demand of humanity for their implementation. A sophisticated form of barter, on a global scale, will eventually replace the present economic system.

 

There will be opposition to such plans from some of the more privileged members of society who will see a loss of their traditional status and power. But the need for change will become so obvious that they will find themselves increasingly powerless to halt the momentum.

 

Another top priority will be saving, protecting, and healing the environment. This will require the creation of economic systems based on the principles of sustainability and sufficiency, rather than the present system of overproduction and waste, Creme says. The goal is to supply the needs of all while maintaining the planet’s health.

 

With the transformation of economic structures, people throughout the world will increasingly be able to live decent, dignified lives. The incidence of large families will diminish, particularly in the developing world, where it is mainly an insurance for old age. The earth’s population will gradually decline to a more natural level.

 

Humanity’s choice

 

The bright future ahead for humanity is dependent on the decisions we make today. Maitreya and the Masters will advise and guide, but the future rests in our hands.

 

Maitreya will present humanity with two alternative scenarios of the future ― either to continue in the selfish, greedy ways of the past and destroy ourselves, or to accept the Principle of Sharing and create a brilliant new civilization where all may participate as full members of the human family.

 

Maitreya is in no doubt about the choice humanity will make. He says: “The success of my mission depends on you: you must make the choice ― whether you share and learn to live peacefully as true men, or perish utterly. My heart tells me your answer, your choice, and is glad.”

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Economic injustice and social upheaval: 

is sharing the answer?

 

Monte Leach, US editor of Share International magazine, interviews Benjamin Creme 

[from the July 1993 issue]

 

Monte Leach: According to the World Bank, there are now 1,7 billion people throughout the world living in poverty. In the developed world, economic recession is pervasive. What are we doing wrong? In your view, what’s the problem?

 

Benjamin Creme: The major problem is the fact that we have come to the end of our civilization. We are witnessing the breakup of the civilization of the last 2,000-odd years and the beginnings of the process of creating a new civilization. This is why Maitreya is in the world, to inspire and guide us, to educate us in the creation of the correct structures ― political, economic, and social ― which will allow us to go forward in our evolution on the right premises.

 

At the moment we see a super-division of the world, a separation into major groups ― the developed and the developing world. The developed world usurps and wastes three-quarters of the world’s food and 83 per cent of the resources. The Third World, as it is called, has to make do with the rest. As a result, 38 million people are, at this moment, starving to death in a world with a huge surplus of food. We have a 10 per cent per capita surplus of food in the world, so no one need starve.

 

What is required is a reassessment of who and what we are in our relationship to each other. Maitreya says the first step we have to take to address these problems is to see ourselves as one, brothers and sisters of one humanity. We have to get that sense of globality, that we are one people, one group ― and therefore the food, raw materials, energy, scientific know-how and educational facilities of the world belong to everyone. These resources are given so that all people may evolve correctly according to the plan which underlies our evolutionary process. As a result, we must share these resources more equitably. When we share, Maitreya says, we will create justice in the world, and when we create justice, and only then, will we have peace. He has come to show us how to have peace. If we do not accept the process towards peace, there will be no world, because we can now destroy all life on this planet many times over. We have the nuclear arsenal to do this.

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ML: The major threat, as you see it, to international security is not nuclear arms per se, it is the tension which underlies the economic situation….Read more »