The Ageless Wisdom Teachings

From ancient times, a body of spiritual* teaching known as the Ageless Wisdom has been handed down from generation to generation. A systematic and comprehensive account of the evolution of consciousness in man and nature, it describes how the universe came to exist, how it operates, and man's place within it.


The Ageless Wisdom has provided the inspiration for the arts and sciences throughout the ages and is also the common foundation of all the world's religions. 'Esotericism,' as it is sometimes called, is also the art of working with those energies which emanate from the highest spiritual sources.As humanity matures, further aspects of this previously hidden knowledge are released in a wider, more open manner. Throughout the last 100 years, the Ageless Wisdom Teachings have been communicated through individuals such as Helena Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, and later by Alice A. Bailey and Helena Roerich.

God and man

Esotericism defines God as the sum total of all the Laws, and all the energies governed by these Laws which make up everything in the manifested and unmanifested universe ― all that we see and cannot see. God is also the great Cosmic Being Who ensouls this planet.

Man, in turn, is a 'Spark of God,' a spiritual being expressing itself through a physical body. Each one of us is essentially divine but, compared to the great achievers throughout history in all religions and fields of human endeavor, most individuals recognize and demonstrate this divinity only to a limited degree.



Law of Rebirth

The process by which we gradually manifest more of this divinity is rebirth (reincarnation). Like children entering the school system at kindergarten, we begin at a very basic level of human expression, not realizing our true spiritual heritage. Through the experiences of countless lifetimes lived in many countries, with different cultural and religious upbringings, in both male and female bodies, we learn many lessons through successes and failures, and move forward on our evolutionary journey back to our Source. The gains in each lifetime are carried over to the next.

Law of Cause and Effect
The 'method' used in this educational system is the Law of Cause and Effect (or, in Eastern terms, 'karma') which the Bible would describe: "As you sow, so shall you reap." In terms of modern physics, the Law of Cause and Effect could be summarized as: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Every thought and deed sets up a cause that inevitably leads to certain effects for better or worse. By understanding and working within this impersonal Law, we learn to make better choices and gradually take control of our own destiny. Through experiencing all that life in this world has to offer, we ultimately acquire total mastery over ourselves and become perfected beings ― Masters of Wisdom ― fully manifesting the divinity that dwells in each of us.

Spiritual Hierarchy
The Masters of Wisdom, together forming the Spiritual Hierarchy, are the custodians of the Divine Plan for this planet. They have inspired all the great human achievements, working from behind the scenes through their disciples in every field of endeavor. The Masters guide and teach, but it is humanity itself, responding of its own free will to their stimulus, which creates each new civilization. Today, the Masters are returning to the outer world as a group for the first time in countless millennia.



Continuity of teaching

Throughout history, when humanity has reached a major point of crisis, the Spiritual Hierarchy has sent a Teacher to show the way forward. The most well-known of these divine messengers are Krishna, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus and Mohammed. Each of their teachings gave birth to a new religion.

Virtually every spiritual tradition now expects the return of their revered Teacher to validate the past and to carry on the teaching. Christians await the Christ; Jews, the Messiah; Muslims, the Imam Mahdi or Messiah; Buddhists, the Fifth Buddha; and Hindus, the Lord Krishna. In the esoteric tradition, one individual ― the World Teacher ― is seen as the fulfillment of all these expectations.

The World Teacher for the current time is Maitreya, the 'eldest brother' in the human family and head of the Spiritual Hierarchy. Preferring to be known simply as the Teacher, Maitreya has not come to found a new religion, but to act as a guide and counselor for all humanity ― regardless of religious affiliation.

Having perfected and fully manifested within himself the Divine Will, Love, Wisdom and Intelligence of God, Maitreya will reveal a new aspect of God. He will lead us to the recognition of our own divinity and our true identity as souls. Out of this greater spiritual understanding and creative power will come a new livingness, harmony and joy.



The anti-christ

The anti-christ is not a man who will come out before the Christ, and could even be mistaken for the Christ. This idea comes from an interpretation of the Revelation of St. John: the beast, 666, is unchained for a time, and then chained down for a time and half a time. This passage actually refers to the release of the energy we call the anti-christ. It is not a man but an energy, a destructive force which is deliberately released to break down the old order, the old civilization. It was released in John's own day, through the Emperor Nero, to bring about the end of the Roman dispensation, to prepare the way for Christendom. It was released again in our time through Hitler, a group of equally evil men around him in Nazi Germany, together with a group of militarists in Japan and a further group around Mussolini in Italy. These three groups, the Axis powers in the war from 1939 to 1945, embodied the energy we call the anti-christ. That destructive force was released to prepare the way for the return of the Christ to the world now. And it was, indeed, in June 1945, precisely at the end of the war, that Maitreya announced his intention to return at the earliest possible moment, and this time to bring his group, the Masters of the Spiritual Hierarchy, back into the world ― in their case for the first time in some 95,000 years. With the defeat of the Axis powers during World War II, the work of the anti-christ energy was completed for this age and will not manifest again for over 3,000 years.



*The term 'spiritual,' usually associated with some form of religion or religious practice, actually has a much broader meaning: "All activity which drives the human being forward towards some form of development ― physical, emotional, intuitional, social ― if it is in advance of his present state, is essentially spiritual in nature." [The Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul] By this definition, every word, thought and action is potentially spiritual and capable of improving the human condition.

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Religion and science join forces on the environmental crisis by Cielito Pascual

A report on the World Religions and Ecology Series, sponsored by Harvard University, emphasizing the urgent need for fundamental change in the way people consume the earth's resources.
New York City, USA
In New York City, in the autumn of 1998, scientists and religious leaders met before the public, intent on addressing the environmental crisis in a way that scientific data alone has yet to achieve: by calling for a change in the way people treat the earth.

Speakers acknowledged religion as a rich source of insight into man's relationship with nature and the cosmos. It has the potential to counterbalance the dominance of the profit ethos and inspire people to be better stewards of the planet. Religion can also be a medium of communication, with a reach and influence unrivaled by television or the Internet.
So, drawing inspiration from a diverse range of faith traditions, these scholars are in the process of formulating a set of environmental ethics that they hope will set the pace for an eventual transformation in the human/earth relationship.
This transformation is the central endeavor of the World Religions and Ecology Series sponsored by Harvard University -- an on-going project which has brought together people the world over, to engage in scholarly discourse on a range of religious practices and theological views of the natural kingdom. The New York meetings, held at the United Nations and the American Museum of Natural History, moved this burgeoning partnership of religion and science from academia onto the public stage.
It was a heartening program for the audience of students, advocates and concerned citizens gathered to hear what was at once a motivational rally and a grim reporting on the state of the earth by some of the foremost names of the environmental movement. The obstacles that activists face are tremendous. In recent years, world concern for the environment has languished beneath the push for global market growth while advocates for commercial interests have launched campaigns to discredit scientific proof of global warming.
Ultimately, ethics-based solutions to the earth crisis will demand a fundamental change of course away from many dearly-held assumptions and life choices. As one participant put it: the biggest hurdle we face may be ourselves.
Redefining the good life
"Whatever happened to the virtue of frugality? This used to be a very strong Protestant virtue and a Catholic tradition as well. We've lost any sense of knowing when enough is enough," said Sallie McFague, Professor of Theology at Vanderbilt University. With the eminent journalist Bill Moyers as moderator, McFague and a panel of religious scholars discussed the perilous effect of over-production and over-consumption on the ecosystem and the ways that religious tradition can motivate people to see life in terms other than consumer-based.
"As religious leaders one of our jobs is to give a vision, especially to our young people, of a different kind of abundant life," McFague said. "A life where a person has satisfying work, they have their basic needs met, they have time for their relationships and they can pursue opportunities that they want -- that can be called 'the good life'."
In Islamic culture, the issue is not a disconnection between economics and ethics, according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University. He pointed out: "It is not a problem to get people to realize the correct balance between the spiritual and economic. It's the other way around -- of trying to prevent modernized minorities, influenced very strongly by the West, from corrupting the natural and normal view of the Islamic majority."

Religion can remind us of those values, and sensitize a society of American voters to expect environmental leadership from their elected officials.

Indeed, it is a Western nation that is the world's largest polluter and the most recalcitrant on issues of the environment. The United States, by a vote in Congress, refuses to enter into any treaty to protect the earth that is perceived to be damaging to the nation's economy. It's a policy that many would say follows economic logic. But that logic reduces a person to a mere unit of an economic transaction motivated solely by price and profit entirely bypassing the range of spiritual and social values that motivate human life. Religion can remind us of those values, and sensitize a society of American voters to expect environmental leadership from their elected officials.
But religious ideals alone aren't enough to save the planet. The investigative vigor of science is needed to report what we're actually doing to the planet. Jane Lubchenko, Professor of Marine Biology at Oregon State University, described the magnitude of the "human footprint" on the planet: half of the planet's land surface has been transformed by humans; nearly half of its surface fresh water is used by humans; 30 per cent of the contents of the earth atmosphere has been altered since the Industrial Revolution; two-thirds of the ocean fisheries are fully overexploited or depleted; and 30,000 species a year, or three species per hour, are lost due to human activity.
Offering hopeful news, Dr Lubchenko noted the "remarkable progress" of nations to control the release of ozone-destroying chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons. And among the major oil corporations, British Petroleum and Shell have taken prompt action to begin converting to sustainable practices.
Civil society network
Linking the aspirations expressed in New York with the world community is the Earth Charter Initiative, a project launched in 1995 to define the principles of a planetary ethic based on worldwide participation. It was the brainchild of Mikhail Gorbachev and Maurice Strong, the man considered to be the most influential figure in contemporary environmental advocacy.
Steven Rockefeller, Professor of Theology at Middlebury College and the director of the Earth Charter drafting process, invited the New York audience to read the latest draft and contribute their own ideas on common goals for humanity. Distinct from the World Religions and Ecology project, which is primarily an academic endeavor, the Earth Charter Initiative is a people's treaty which seeks to involve the ideas of the largest possible number of people, from individuals to international organizations, representing a broad range of cultures, religions and groups of society. Professor Rockefeller sees the Charter as a demonstration of a "powerful civil society network", and because of it, he says, the nations of the world were moved to accept the landmark treaty in Kyoto, Japan, for the reduction of greenhouse gases.
The Earth Charter drafting process will continue with extensive consultations and reviews which will bring a finished document to the United Nations General Assembly for endorsement by the end of 1999. Professor Rockefeller believes the Charter is generating international consensus on environmental issues but cautions that opposition is strong: "There are many people who would rather exploit the earth than respect it."
Considering the urgency of environmental challenges, an onstage invocation for divine intervention might not have been out of place. But there was recognition that the human species is not laboring alone. Journalist Bill Moyers asked rhetorically: "If the wisdom of the religious traditions could speak with one voice, through the centuries and across the varieties of human experience, what single question on this issue of the environment would it put to the human species?" The philosopher Brian Swimme suggested the possibility of an interactive cosmos: "If we regarded ourselves as a subsystem of the whole earth community, what guidance would the governing tendencies of the universe offer us?" And Thomas Berry, the elder statesman of environmental ethics, in closing remarks of encouragement said: "We are not left alone. The powers of the planet, the powers of the universe, are ready to support us."
Shaping the ecological debate was a role that religious communities on the whole did not initiate on their own. In fact, it was a direct appeal to the faith traditions made by the Union of Concerned Scientists which inspired the genesis of the World Religions and Ecology Series. Through this project, scientists and religious leaders are boldly stepping out of their conventional domains, understanding that a single specialized view can no longer adequately address the multitude of challenges that make up the earth crisis.
There's no lack of conferences calling for a revolution in consciousness but can it happen soon enough? Said Professor Nasr of George Washington University: "I believe there's no possibility of healing the earth within the modern paradigm. We need really heroic people to be able to challenge the world view at its very foundation but it takes a lot of courage because you are now not the voice of the majority. We need a few voices crying in the wilderness."

From the May 1999 issue of Share International.