The Founding of the Present Hierarchy
Forms of the One Teacher
The highest plane of creation is absolute and beyond time and space. It is called the eternal existence or the seventh plane of creation. It exists as the one Cosmic Person who pours out its love over the beings of all planes. Only the Cosmic Person is at work in all forms and through all beings. There are people who come down to earth and live in a physical body with the awareness of this seventh plane. They evoke the same consciousness in others, and they show the way to live life according to Eternal Existence. They call it “The Law” or “Sanatana Dharma”, the Eternal Wisdom. They are all forms of the One Existence, the One Teacher, the World Teacher.
Already 18 million years ago, in Lemurian times, a group of great beings descended to earth to endow humans with wisdom and help them overcome their imprisonment in matter. They descended together with Sanat Kumara, and they are the original founding members of the Spiritual Hierarchy. Some of them returned to their own planes of existence. Some of the great Teachers remained on earth to train people who aspire to light and deeper knowledge, and to train disciples to become Masters of Wisdom.
The Truth is always the same, for the Divinity is one, but the language and symbols used are changed in accordance with the time and space. The Truth is imparted in a language that can be comprehended by the people of that time. Each of the World Teachers has his own way to invoke the beings into the eternal life and transmit wisdom.
The Hierarchy we have today was created by Vasishta. He is the head of the Himalayan Hierarchy on the supra-cosmic plane. Vasishta is a World Teacher who embodies the cosmic Mitra principle; Mitra means “friend” in Sanskrit. It is the ray of consciousness that governs the principle of friendship. Today's World Teacher, whom we know as Lord Maitreya, embodies the Mitra energy on the planet during the Kali Yuga, the dark age, as a friend to all beings. Maitreya was appointed as the World Teacher by Lord Krishna at the beginning of the Kali Yuga about 5300 years ago.
The World Teacher Lord Krishna also has his own way of liberating people from the bondage of their limitations and he calls it 'The Music'. With the music of his flute, he was able to evoke the experience of the bliss of existence in the souls of those around him. Through the Music of the Soul, he permeates beings and transforms them. Krishna is regarded as an avatar, a descent of the Cosmic Person. But he is also considered to be the Cosmic Person himself, embodying the totality of the cosmic, solar and planetary devas, the synthesis of the universe.
Parasara
Before Maitreya was appointed by Lord Krishna for the role of the World Teacher, he was well prepared by his teacher Parasara. Parasara was the son of a great seer of the solar plane named Shakti, and Shakti was the son of the great sage Vasishta. Parasara imparted wisdom on the planet for the previous cycle of humanity.
In the early years of the incarnation where Maitreya became the World Teacher, he was a young and capable prince of Benares. He was considered beautiful, virtuous and wise. His father Divodasa had Maitreya, his only son, trained in all the arts and sciences of the time, introduced him to the wisdom of the Vedas and made him an expert in Ayurveda. After completing his father's training, Maitreya was sent to the forests of the Himalayas, where he served the sage Parasara for a long time. Maitreya thus became an adept of the eightfold path of yoga. He was able to transcend body consciousness and work with his subtle body at will.
When his father called him back and asked him to practice the use of weapons, Maitreya told him that he was not born to rule but had another task in life. He asked his father for permission to join the work of the World Teacher, and Divodasa accepted his son's request.
Parasara was a seer of the highest order who could see beyond the ages. He saw a great confusion of humanity and a break in the old traditional wisdom and human values by the political and financial powers. He wanted to preserve the oral tradition of wisdom by systematizing it in the form of books and training many sages. Parasara was also the first to foresee the arrival of Lord Krishna as the eighth child. Parasara had four main disciples. Maitreya was the most important among them. One was his own son, Vedavyasa, who organized the Vedic wisdom into 18 Puranas, and he also composed the great epic Mahabharata with the Bhagavad Gita as well as the Bhagavatam. Vyasa knew that he was not the World Teacher; he was not an eighth child about whom predictions were made. For 50 years, Parasara taught Vyasa and Maitreya the wisdom of cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis in a sacred cave called Sravasti, but somehow it was not the time for both of them. Neither of them could be initiated into the path of Presence and Synthesis. It was only many years later that Maitreya was installed as the World Teacher by Lord Krishna.
Krishna and Maitreya
After Maitreya had attained powers through yoga, he came to his teacher with the suggestion that he would like to work for the Light and destroy evil. The teacher said, “Destroying evil is not your work, but transforming evil into good. It is the work of the teacher to transform ignorance into knowledge, darkness into light, and evil into good. Destruction is not the work because there is a purpose for duality in creation.”
When a member of a school of black magic tried to destroy Krishna, the touch of Krishna's Presence transformed him and changed his entire outlook. He became a collaborator in the Plan and became the great Master of the Seventh Ray we know today as Count St. Germain. When instead of seeing evil and energizing it through our thoughts, we see the underlying Divine, we stay in touch with the Divine.
When Lord Krishna was about to leave his physical body, he was followed by two disciples, Maitreya and Uddhava. Krishna told them that he was leaving according to the Law. Uddhava was not willing to let Krishna go, as his devotion was more to the form than to the principle of the Lord. Maitreya could transcend the attachment to form more easily and realize that there is no death. Krishna gave both of them the key to synthesis and said to Maitreya, “There is another disciple, Vidura, who has been in a kind of dream state for 36 years because I have not done what he expected me to do. When I am no longer there, he will ask for my presence and come to you, and you will give him the teachings. So he too will be fulfilled. In my mind, I see him as a great light in the Kali Yuga. Through him I will establish the administrative aspect of the Eternal Law.”
Lord Krishna communicated the Plan for the future to Maitreya and appointed him as the World Teacher to carry out the Divine Plan for the Kali Yuga. He gave him his supramundane causal body, the radiant white robe of the Cosmic Christ, which was later also given to Jesus.
Krishna also indicated that Maitreya would receive competent support. Among them, Maru (Master Morya) and Devapi (Kut Humi) are foremost. The present Hierarchy was established through this triangle. These three were joined by two more disciples initiated by Lord Krishna, the present Masters St. Germain and Djwhal Khul. Later, Master Jesus joined them as the sixth. Together with Gautama Buddha, the great intermediary between Shambala and Hierarchy, they form a group of seven who work for the welfare of the planet. Thus, the groundwork was established by the World Teacher to ensure the Path of Light in the dark age. Today's World Teacher Trust is named after the World Teacher, and its members strive to follow the path of the World Teacher.
Vidura
After Krishna's departure, the sages did not know for a long time that he had appointed Maitreya as the World Teacher and that there was a core group of Masters. There was a great vacuum for the sages, especially as other great Sons of Light also left. Maitreya created a hermitage near Prayaga, on the banks of the Ganges. There he worked on the plan in deep contemplation and awaited Vidura's return.
At the time of Lord Krishna, Vidura was First Counsellor at the court of the blind king Dhritarashtra, his half-brother, a nephew of Maitreya. But the king never listened to Vidura and even insulted him. Deeply disappointed, Vidura wandered for many years on a pilgrimage without a goal, until he suddenly realised that his disappointment had been blocking him all this time. Full of remorse, he inwardly asked Krishna to awaken him from his nightmare. He wanted to see Krishna again and met Uddhava near Dwaraka. Uddhava explained to him that Dwaraka had sunk into the sea and that Krishna had spoken about Vidura before his transition. Uddhava accompanied Vidura to Lord Maitreya. Vidura asked Maitreya many questions. Maitreya cleared all his confusions and gave him the knowledge of cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis. Maitreya's grace made him a great initiate and enabled him to join the Plan as Mahachohan to guide the evolution of civilisation.
Sources used: K.P. Kumar: Doctrine of Eternal Presence, Dhanishta Publications; div. seminar notes / E. Krishnamacharya: Man Sacrifice; The World Teacher. Advent of Lord Krishna. Kulapathi Book Trust, Visakhapatnam, India. (www.aquariusbookhouse.com).