| Share International Magazine Editor’s Comment |
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If not now, when? If not us, who?
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In the title to this piece there is history and our place in it – and therefore our responsibility. A question surely millions ask themselves every morning as the news headlines roll in: ‘Why isn’t the whole world screaming in protest?’ A horror beyond any nightmare plays out on our screens; do we simply accept a new and degraded definition of what it is to be human and what the rule of law meant and once guaranteed? An ancient evil has been unleashed on the planet. How are we to respond?
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One question must trouble us: as witnesses are we complicit? Are we contributing to the apparently limitless depravity now let loose on the world? Is there an antidote available to rid ourselves of the toxicity of our times?
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“Hague schmague”
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At present, a convergence of many tendencies and tensions together create a climate in which the negative is flourishing at the cost of much that most cultures and countries value as the hallmark of a beneficent civilization. For many, our times seem particularly dark. Now, a more blatant element strides the world stage with swagger and impunity. An insidious attack on spiritual or higher values is playing out before our eyes and this is part of a process of polarization, with positions quickly taken and fanatically held. Values are being warped by the trend towards cruelty, factionalism and criminality – corruption, misogyny and fascism have been normalized. Take politicians, presidents, and elected representatives who make explicit statements about ethnic cleansing, or about abusing women, denigrating and destroying whole populations. As if it is normal. Clear defiance of the highest international court of law (the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague) is apparently ‘not a problem’, derided in comments such as: “Hague schmague”. The slaughter of civilians, starving people of food, depriving them of clean water and medicine, or allowing people to die in deserts, jungles, rivers and seas trying to reach a better life – all of that, too, seems perfectly acceptable.
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The Master Djwhal Khul (DK) writing in The Externalisation of the Hierarchy in 1940, in a section called ‘The coming world order’, raises questions about the origins of the chaos of those times (the ‘war years’). He cautions that “there must be realization of the general guilt and a shared responsibility for the evil conditions…”. But here’s a possibly unexpected challenge: “The tendency to fasten the war on Hitler and his gang of evil men should not blind us to the causes which have made his evil work possible. ….The causes of this rampant evil are inherent in humanity itself.”
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Who else but all of us? How can resolution ever be possible if we cannot accept these truths? If it is always ‘their fault’ there can never be reconciliation or compromise – there must always be enemies.
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This truth must be our starting point, but the evolution of consciousness and the incarnational history of each person is different. The global population can very roughly be divided into three groups. The Master DK describes them as: those tending towards a “spiritual and free way of life; another grouping favouring intellectual unfoldment; and a third group showing a ‘potent trend towards material living and aggression’”. Our problem now is that this still holds true – materialism is rampant and augmented by the intellectual classes tending to gravitate towards the materialistic, broadly speaking. “The war between the pairs of opposites – materialism and spirituality – is raging fiercely.…” (The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, A.A.Bailey)
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Susceptibility to corruption
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As Benjamin Creme and his Master have said: ‘commercialization has humanity by the throat’. Maitreya described commercialization as being insidious and “more destructive than any nuclear bomb”. This is the latest form of a destructive energy older than our current civilization; it works through flawed personalities with narcissistic traits; egomaniacs susceptible to being used by such forces. We are all vulnerable but it acts particularly in and through flawed personalities. It has its anchor in a number of cliques around the world.
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The Master DK describes a pall which hangs over a huge swathe of land from Eastern Europe to Turkey. This ‘veil’ is in reality the tendency towards corruption, a disregard for the rule of law, a susceptibility to the forces of chaos and materiality. It has also rooted itself in Israel and the military-industrial complex in the US (in the Pentagon), in certain media tycoons, exclusive groups of ‘money-men’ who in essence own the world. They themselves are obsessed (if not possessed) by the desire for power over others – whether it is political fascism or commercial tyranny; in one way or another they ‘own’ millions of people. Some of its exponents wield this nefarious energy while others are its automatons. Watch the demagogues manipulate the crowd; follow the network of influence and power buying and selling politicians, dictating military policy and toppling legitimate governments. Disturbingly powerful lobbies are anchor points for this deep materiality.
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Granted, the following passage by the Master DK was written soon after World War II but its warnings and lessons are still relevant – perhaps now more than ever.
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“Humanity has been passing through the tests which are preparatory to the first initiation; they have been hard and cruel and are not yet entirely over. …In the coming crisis, true vision and a new freedom, plus a wider spiritual horizon may be attained. The crisis, if rightly handled, need not again reach the ultimate horror.”
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An area of concentrated difficulty is that of modern Israel and Palestinian lands. The Master DK is clear in his assertion that the illegal and terrorist-type activities used to claim land and form the state of Israel have created a huge challenge to lasting world peace. A fact underlined by the current mayhem and crimes against humanity. In The Rays and the Initiations, he writes: “These Forces of Evil work through a triangle of evil, one point of which is to be found in the Zionist Movement in the United States, another in central Europe, and the third in [the ancient land of] Palestine. Palestine is no longer a Holy Land and should not be so regarded….I would have you bear these points in mind while you investigate the world picture. This picture is taking shape and warrants recognition.”...
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“Will it present a task too hard for correct handling by that inexperienced disciple – humanity?.... It is not for me to tell you what will happen, although the Hierarchy knows.
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“Humanity must (as must all disciples) be left entirely free to settle its own destiny. Humanity has not yet learned the difficult lesson which all disciples have to master: the lesson of the dual life of the man whose soul is functioning and whose physical brain is constantly aware of this fact.” The Rays and the Initiations, Alice Bailey.
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It is in that last sentence the Master DK gives us the answer to questions raised by our moral crisis: we need to learn to live as souls in incarnation. If we did, we could not vaunt a “Hague schmague” attitude, permit genocide, or shrug off ecocide; we could not be complacent. It is that complacency which makes us complicit.
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One solution therefore must lie in taking action and a moral stand, protesting and demonstrating in every way possible against all that works against “the Plan” – the Laws of the Universe, the Rule of Law. Our Human Rights Laws, international treaties and agreements, the laws governing our daily lives are a faint reflection of the Plan and of the Laws of the Universe. They are an attempt to ensure that we live in right relationship as far as we are able. We are clearly not in right relationship – within ourselves or with Life itself.
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“The way to justice and peace is easily solved. It requires only the acceptance of sharing. Share and know the future. Refuse to share and there will be no future for man. …
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Learn, My friends, to live simply and to love one another truly.” (From a message from Maitreya, received by Benjamin Creme during a television interview in Munich, Germany, 26 October 2008, published in Share International, December 2008) See also Share International Q&A sections: November, December, 2023; January/February and March 2024 for Benjamin Creme’s comments and explanations.
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