Open House Series - No. 14
19 February 1987​

[Editor's note: Beginning in the late 1980’s, Ananda conducted a series of Open House  evenings. These were cosy gatherings where Ananda taught using a Question and Answer format, responding to questions asked by the participants.]

Q. Why is the Earth population of 5 billion to be 7.7 billion by the year 2000, and why are so many species of plant life, they say as much as 1 million, going to be extinguished by that time too?

​Who says it?

Participant: ‘The paper said it.’
 
First of all, due to sex, we get children. If the people on Earth did not have sex, we would diminish the population rapidly, but we have sex. We have sex for many reasons. I can’t talk about the reasons here, that’s a whole workshop in itself. But one thing is sure: we will not get to 7.7 billion on this Earth due to certain things that will be happening before the end of the century. It’s not that I’m going to talk about drastic, cataclysmic actions, or warfare, AIDS. I’m not going to talk about that so much because that is a frightening subject – we don’t need it every Thursday. But what I would like to say is that we are rapidly growing. We have children and we live longer, and this will be stopped because this Earth cannot handle many more souls – I mean personalities, because the personalities eat and the souls don’t.
 
So we are nearing, approaching rapidly, the end of the century. Certain things will not be avoided as I was told on Tuesday afternoon by the Avatar of Synthesis. This Earth is a planet where the population, or the desired population, is about 1 billion, and it will come down to that again but how it’s coming down to it is something which is a bit unclear at the moment, because the Hierarchy has many things to choose between. The Lords of Karma, the four Lords of Karma who are deciding what’s going to happen to this Earth more than the negative brotherhood, have many different choices to decide upon in order to remove some of the population from the Earth.
 
There are many ways. The first way is we can remove the departing souls as they depart from the physical shell, so that instead of going to the astral levels of Earth and reincarnating on the physical level, they go out to another planet to live. We are seeing quite a lot of that today, more than you believe. And still we’re having more and more souls incarnating here because the conditions of the Earth at the moment offer the greatest experiences and the most learning that we’ve hardly ever seen on this Earth. So souls are mightily attracted to incarnating on Earth because of the great chance to learn, to experience something outstanding.
 
But we can’t be here, all of us. We can’t inhabit this Earth, all of us. We know this for a fact. We don’t need to be clairvoyant to understand that fact. We don’t even have to be a scientist to understand the fact that the resources of the Earth are running out, and even if we find new resources, man seemingly does not live with other men in peace and harmony.
 
The evolution says this Earth is going to be a peaceful planet. Whatever it takes, this planet is going to be a peaceful planet. It can be a virus spreading all over Earth, extinguishing lives like fire in a forest. It can be earthquakes. It can be the total tipping of the planet.
 
There are many reasons on this Earth for ridding Earth of negative elements amongst the population, and these reasons and the whole subject of what is happening on this Earth, I’m talking about in the workshop on Saturday. I’m talking about the Great White Brotherhood, the negative brotherhood and why we have an Earth where negative forces are so predominant.
 
We will see an end to this growth of population shortly. No end is nice. No means is pleasant. It will always involve suffering and pain, but what we work for within Shan the Rising Light* is perhaps we can get a less painful ending to some parts of the population than more painful ones. That is all I can disclose today. 

[* 'Shan the Rising Light' is a focus manifesting the Rising Light of Maitreya Buddha that was established in 1987. It is also the name that was used for the outer work during the late 1980's.]
​
About plant life, if we have any atomic warfare, any pollution of a certain nature, the plants will become extinguished. I don’t think we shall avoid some bombs on this Earth, but the bombs will not be the cause for destroying the entire population, because the Hierarchy will not allow such bombs to descend onto Earth. It will ruin life on Earth for more than a thousand years or more, and that is not desired by the Hierarchy. What I usually say, not to say too much, is that if it should come to an atomic warfare of any kind, the Hierarchy will use another means to end it. The means, I don’t disclose always every time I talk because I don’t want to create negative thoughtforms on this Earth. 

One thing is certain however, that the virus called AIDS is spreading. And already in the years 1977/78, I knew we would have a virus which would be difficult to combat, and that virus is unfortunately a pure effect of Atlantean karma on this Earth. It’s due to abuse of sex. It hits people who have abused sex on this Earth, either on Atlantis or recently, or still do. And when we talk about abuse of sex, how many people are not abusing sex more or less? – I would say 99% of the population. So we can’t point fingers at anyone because we have all, at some stage,  abused sex on this Earth, and might be hit by this virus. 

Even if that shouldn’t kill most of the population, we have other diseases like cancer, which also has its origin in Atlantis. So we have the virus AIDS which can cause many diseases in man because it ruins the immune system, but if we look at the viruses and the diseases spreading on this Earth, they are old Atlantean diseases working out in humanity now, and we cannot do much about it. The laws of karma are behind it, not the negative forces. The negative forces prefer that people kill each other in brutal slaughter, as much blood as possible. The negative brotherhood never desire a virus which kills sort of nicely. They want terrifying actions happening, and the more the better.  So the Lords of Karma, who decide the future of this planet, have Their ways and means to do away with the part of the population who can no longer follow this evolution – whether they are going down to a less developed planet or a more developed planet doesn’t matter. They need to send so and so many souls to other planets and the means to do so is sending – when I say ‘sending’ I mean sending millions at a time…

 [Because of the changeover of the tape, there is a gap in the recording. As a result, the talk ends in the middle of one sentence, and begins again in the middle of another.]

 … by God, the Hierarchy, by your inner guide, your Master, does not necessarily mean you will survive because They don’t look at survival of the physical body as ‘survival’. They talk about the soul as the body of survival, never the physical body. They couldn’t care less about the body. The body is not your real self. It is not you. You are the soul, the higher self, not the body. So if They say that you will survive, They talk about your soul, your spirit – never your body. 

But They need people on this Earth to help man, so some will be protected karmically against dying, and others will die as a purification, because death is a purificatory process. And the reasons for dying are many, but diseases are a way of healing the inner bodies, the etheric body. It’s a mighty purificatory process and it is unavoidable. For as long as you are not a Master of Wisdom with pure inner bodies and refined etheric body, you will pass away for some reason or other from your physical shell. And the only thing you can hope is that you do it nicely, beautifully. 

I understand people’s fears. It is not death itself which is painful, it is the fear before death. And so many healers and many spiritual teachers and many goodwill people all over the Earth are being trained in these days to release fear from dying people. It is a mightily important mission for many people, and it is happening now, because many will die. It is unavoidable. The planet Earth has reached its limit. It’s changing from such an Earth we’re inhabiting now to a completely different planet. Millions, several billions, will have to be removed to other planets. 

Well, let us not become too morbid. Let us not think of death and dying, and pain and suffering. Let us think of refining our bodies, purifying our bodies, finding Christ within us, so that we can take with courage anything that’s going to happen to us. Remember that everyone fears pain, even initiates, because initiates have suffered so many torturous lives on Earth, and they remember them. I would say that what astonishes most people is that initiates, high initiates even, have more fear in them than ordinary human beings, because they remember more of departures and how they departed, than others do. That’s why the initiates are greater as human beings, because they are combatting and helping others with their fears, even if they fear themselves. They are not thinking of themselves and their fears; they think of others, of how to release and help others. 

Q. Is there any deeper idea with all the tree cutting, less oxygen for the planet?

That is the negative forces. The negative forces love the people who cut down the forests because they know that that is the end of the planet, in a nasty way. We all know that the cutting down of the trees will provide us with a desert planet – no oxygen for man. 

Sometimes it is the negative brotherhood, sometimes it is the positive brotherhood behind actions done on Earth. And why is this the negative brotherhood?  because most of the tree cutting is done with the motive of making money. It’s greed. If people need timber for their houses, that’s ok, but they’re cutting too much and that will cause, if it’s not stopped, a desert planet. We all know that. 

And still no one thinks about it because the negative forces do this to people on Earth. They use a web of lethargy and apathy, and they cover people with this web of apathy so that people are not thinking of what will happen in the next ten years. They do not care about the future of the family, the future of generations of man. They care about themselves here and now. And for as long as man is not thinking in the future; for as long as man is not thinking about the survival of future generations and how they can survive, how do you expect a positive planet, with positive people?
 
Tree cutting is therefore negative. It is a killing of a planet. 

People have difficulties. They look out of the window and say ‘I’ve got trees in my garden. What do I care that the Amazon forest is cut down (or wherever they cut)?’ because people’s minds are not far-reaching. They don’t think about what happens in another country – it’s too far away. They only think about here, now, the garden, the house they live in. Their minds do not expand to other countries and other people. 

It is therefore that if you look at television and you see millions starving to death, well it’s like another film. I mean you’ve just had lunch, and the lunch was good – a pleasant lunch, stomach is full. We have great difficulties thinking and feeling ourselves into others’ situations. But not when you’re a disciple of the Hierarchy, not when you’re an initiate because then you live others’ feelings and thoughts. You can live with them, you’re becoming one with the suffering on Earth, and you are striving the very best you can to help out. 

But we have to be more caring now. We really have to expand our consciousness, our awareness to other people on the Earth. 

If you have a question, write it down dear.
 
Participant: ‘Just a comment: we might not be necessarily involved in cutting down trees ourselves but using disposable plates and cups puts us into the same region too.’ 

Not quite the same. Not quite the same. Some of the scientists on this Earth are working under the Lord Hilarion on the 5th ray, and they’re finding means on this Earth – new means to dispose of certain things, new means/new energies for heat, new energies for other things, but you can’t just create new trees, because they take a long time to grow. Not even scientists can find a tree which grows in five years to be a big tree. So, there are levels of danger on this Earth – levels of danger of actions, and one of the most dangerous actions is to cut down trees.​
Q. We have here another question that says, ‘How can we best help the Hierarchy on Earth?’

The best way of helping the Hierarchy is by unselfish service. Unselfish service is top priority. They need people – not necessarily disciples, not necessarily highly developed souls, not at all. They just need people who will work more for others than for themselves; who will feel more for others than for themselves, think more about others than themselves; who will give out of the means they’ve got to spare to the work of the Hierarchy; who will meditate, to later – perhaps many lives hence – be able to be contacted by the Hierarchy. But top priority is unselfish service. Without unselfish service, without forgetting oneself in one’s dharma, in one’s duty, you will never be of any help to the Hierarchy. 

So the Hierarchy have many helpers even if, when viewing the whole planet, it looks bad. People are selfish, but some are less than others. So what the Hierarchy do is They use the less selfish people, who can be utilised for perhaps a couple of minutes or hours a day. And I would like to disclose to you, that we are all more or less selfish. We do not lose selfishness altogether until we are 4th initiates. And, as the number of 4th initiates is very small on this Earth, we are more or less selfish. So if the Hierarchy are looking for unselfish people, They have to go and look on another planet than this one. 

And I know They’re utilising many, many people, so They are using the less selfish people. 

It’s an interesting thing I usually tell my servers in the church:  a priest, an ordinary vicar or minister, with basic or no understanding of the divine laws or oneness with Christ or anything – a human being  like a vicar, just an ordinary human being, perhaps not even a nice human being in his private life, can be used by the Hierarchy at the moment of the Blessing. The moment he invokes the Christ Jesus and talks in His name, he has a good energy. This goes for other people too. People who may not have much understanding of the divine laws, haven’t read many books, are not trained healers really – just ordinary people, nice people, but they are, some of them, thinking positively. They are doing some affirmations, they are into a little bit of divine wisdom, healing, they bless in their thoughts. Such people are very much used by the Hierarchy. 

It is not the divine wisdom only that makes you into an instrument for the Hierarchy, it is your goodwill. It is how many good deeds are you performing – and many are performing excellently without having any knowledge of the Hierarchy, divine wisdom, or anything about reincarnation or karma.

I’m often thinking about the selfless, faceless people of this Earth: doctors, nurses, priests, carpenters, teachers who are going to other countries in the world to help the poor, the needy; helping out for a whole life, in a little community somewhere in a Persian village; never becoming known for their efforts, except where they work. And these are the people who are the pillars of society. These are the people whom the Hierarchy can use, and They do, because They find it most difficult to use the so-called disciples, for the disciples have very often come to the point where they say, ‘I know all. I know everything there is to know. I don’t need any more training. I don’t need the Hierarchy. I couldn’t care less about the Christ and His laws. I’ve made my own yesterday…’ and so on. 

These people, and there are quite a number of them, cannot be utilised by the Hierarchy as much as ordinary goodwill people. That is why you may feel yourself saved by your interest in the spiritual; you may feel yourself saved because you can heal a little bit, and you stand there and lay your fingers and fingertips on people once every fortnight – but you are not. It takes a much greater effort. It takes the effort of forgetting yourselves and working for a good cause, wherever it is, and the Hierarchy are behind you. Whether you know it or not, the Hierarchy are behind you at all times. 

So to best help the Hierarchy on Earth, I suggest that you find out how much time you can give Them, and you do it. But you don’t think of rewards or gratitude. They won’t send you postcards every month saying, ‘Thank you for your great effort this month.’ But there is a festival once a year called the Wesak Festival. Once a year, in the full moon of Taurus, every human being, every aspirant, probationary, disciple, initiate and Master will be reaping the seeds sown over the last year. And this is one of the most important festivals a year, especially if you are meditating properly, you have open eye and ears, because you will very quickly find out if you have worked well on that day. If you haven’t, there’s no reward, no more energy given to you. You feel lonely, something’s wrong, like dried–out parchment. And sometimes you feel a most warm, wonderful encompassing love: you’ve done well, continue! 

It’s an interesting festival, because there you will know whether you’ve done well or badly over the last year, and if you’ve done badly, do something about it next year. 

The Masters don’t stand before you and take your hand and say, ‘thank you’. As I often mention, the way you are given thanks for your work is the initiations you get along the way: the knowledge, the understanding. When you discover yourself to be able to radiate more love, that is the ‘thank you’ from the Hierarchy. When you lose some of your fears and your doubts, that is the ‘thank you’ of the Hierarchy. 

But remember the Wesak Festival which we celebrate each year. In Shan Church Universal, the Temple of Shan celebrates that day. It’s a very important festival. 

Participant question: ‘What date is that?’
 
The 13th of May this year. I think it’s a Wednesday. 
Q. The next question here is ‘What does it mean that a person is a family member of a Master?’ 

It means that the Masters who have lived on this Earth, walked the Earth as human beings, have intermarried and had relationships with many of Their disciples. A disciple may therefore have a family relationship to the Master from a past life. You see, this family relationship is very important because the Master utilises a family member of a past life to work through much more easily than a person that He/She has not been in family with. 

If we take as an example, Alice Bailey. The Lord Djwal Khul, who wrote through her, has been her father in a past life. If we look at Grace Cooke, White Eagle, she has been a daughter in a past life of the being that wrote through her. It is like that all over. If a Master, or guide or teacher is using you, it is very often a very strong family tie that connects you to each other. You may have had several incarnations in a family situation, even hundreds of incarnations. 

That is why the Masters and I know each other so well, because I have been a member of Their family since I came to Earth. And also before coming down to Earth, I was within the family, so to speak. See, this is the difference between when I talk about the Masters and when you talk about the Masters – most of you – because I know the Master to be a brother of mine, a father, a relative, and I recognise Him as such, and I’ve had so many lives that the Masters and I know each other like father and daughter, so to speak. And because I’ve had all these relationships with Them, to me it is like meeting with a dear father, mother, sister or brother in this incarnation. It’s very difficult for me to teach about the Masters of the Hierarchy when people know Them not. When  I’m dealing with a soul who has never come across the Master in any life, apart perhaps from just a very far-off distance, it’s very difficult for me to make this human being understand about the functions of the Hierarchy and what a Master really is, because a Master is not what you call ‘master’. 

Many, many days in the newspaper I’ll read that here we have a Western master, an Eastern master, teaching divine wisdom; here we have another master; he’s a master; he’s a cosmic conscious master. You read that a lot these days. 

But you see, these people are not Masters. A Master is between the 5th and 6th initiation of the Hierarchy and usually never appears on Earth except for specific reasons and when They do, They are usually not public figures. A Master is therefore not such a human being whom you consider to be a ‘master’. 

We very often look up to our teachers and say, ‘Oh master’. We have Zen masters, we have yogi masters, but they have nothing to do with the Masters of the Hierarchy – they are not on that level of understanding, initiation or anything else. 

You think, therefore, when I talk about these great, great beings that They are similar to the people you have met on Earth over many lives, calling themselves ‘masters’. They are more like apprentice than master. You learn a trade; you learn a meditation; you learn from what you may call a ‘healing master’, but these people have nothing to do with Masters of the Hierarchy. What you term ‘master’ on this Earth is usually a probationary or a minor disciple of the Hierarchy, and therefore you do not understand what a Master is. 

A Master is something that can never be described in words. It’s such a great being that He or She can overshadow hundreds of beings at the same time, talk to millions of souls at the same time and is never working through His physical body, except in very rare cases. The Masters I talk about are beings who are to you near God-stage. That’s why They are called ‘supermen’, ‘superhumans’. And the masters you think are masters, are nice and fine students of initiates or Masters. Therefore, people on this Earth have got a wrong impression of the Hierarchy, because many people have said ‘I’m master; I’m a master; you’re a master; I’m an ascended being’, and they are not. But people believe them, not understanding what a Master is, and that causes confusion on Earth because they don’t understand the difference between a Master and a so–called human ‘master’. 

But when I talk about the Hierarchy, I’m talking about beings who are so great, who are so divine that if you saw Them, you would lie on your knees or you would fall down straight away. The energy within Them, the God power, does it to you – you understand the difference. You can’t even look Them in the eyes because Their eyes are God looking at you, and you can’t face that unless you are very near that stage yourself. 

And as the Masters say, it takes a disciple to recognise another disciple; it takes an initiate to recognise an initiate; and it takes a Master to recognise another Master. That is why you must never look upon a human being as a perfected God-man. You’ll be disillusioned and disappointed. You will never be disillusioned with the real Master, because a real Master is no longer a human being. He only utilises a human form through which He can talk to you. There’s no more ‘human’ in a Master of the Hierarchy. 

But if you expect a human being like me, even if I am what I am – if you expect from anyone here, perfection; if you expect that a person in physical form, not being a Master, will always act wisely, will be 100% positive, you will be disappointed.
 
And this is the last thing I will say to you today:  never look upon a human being as God. Never expect perfection from a human being with human consciousness, however great it is. You can expect a greater consciousness and more perfection than in other people, but never total perfection. If you expect from me to be like God to you, I cannot help you, because there is only one God in this Universe and that is the Solar Logos –and I am not that. 

But I am a child of God, and as such I can help you. I am an old soul with more experience than you have here, and more learning from past incarnations and as such, I can help you. But if you expect from me perfection at all times, no human qualities like irritation, a little bit of anger and so forth, you haven’t come to the right person. 

And if you look for such a person, you will never find him/her because only when you’ve come to this understanding that we’re all to a certain extent imperfect in our human bodies and our personalities, and God alone is perfect, you will never meet the Master. The Master will appear only when you are ready for it. When you least expect it, He will stand before you – and you will cry. I’m not talking about an astral cry now, I’m talking about a cry of soul. When you one day stand before a Master, you will understand the difference. The Master is the one you can trust forever, who will never let you down, who will be always…
 
[Because of the changeover of the tape, there is a gap in the recording. As a result, the talk ends in the middle of one sentence, and begins again in the middle of another.]
 
…  send you one of His initiates to help you, from the inner levels or on Earth. 

You come to me for tuition and training for I teach for the Masters. I am a Hierarchical trainer. I am chosen by the Hierarchy to teach you something of the divine wisdom and of life, but I’m not the Master Himself. Even though I am an avatar, I am not a Master in my physical consciousness. An avatar is not necessarily a Master. An avatar is an embodiment of a divine quality – a virtue – and mine is justice, and though I am a Master in my soul, and something greater than that, I am in this human body an initiate, and if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t sit here today.
 
So, you come to me for the specific reasons of me helping you to reach soul, or something higher in you. But you do not expect perfection from me. Go beyond me. Go beyond my form to the Master and expect perfection, and you will never be disillusioned or sad or disappointed because a Master will never let you down.
 
[Participant says something indiscernible.]
 
Yes and no. We teach people to contact soul and spirit, and the Master utilises the souls of man. A Master is never contacting a personality. The Master contacts your soul, and if your soul is not experienced or knowledgeable enough, He cannot use it, and you will never hear Him. The Masters only talk to your soul, never this personality. He talks to soul, and if you have meditated and you’re a disciple of some kind, you will hear the Master talk through your soul, and you will get it down to the physical brain, the transmitter. But we do teach people in our meditations, in our tuition, to reach soul and spirit, and thus the Hierarchy of the Earth.