The name Christ is that of the office1 of the World Teacher known variously as the Christ, the Bodhisattva, the Lord Maitreya, and as the Imam Mahdi. As the World Teacher, He is the Master of all the Masters, and the Instructor of the Angels, “and to Him is committed the guidance of the spiritual destinies of men, and the development of the realisation within each human being that he is a child of God and a son of the Most High.”2.
The Buddha and the Christ belong to a great group of beings known as transmitting Avatars who appear at “great cyclic moments of revelation when humanity needs the expression of a new truth or the expansion of an old one in order to progress still higher on the evolutionary ladder.” They acted as transmitters of certain cosmic principles —from the very Heart of God to the heart of man. The Buddha demonstrated in His Own life the fact of God Immanent as well as God Transcendent and stimulated the light in the world, in humanity and in all forms. The Christ transmitted to humanity, for the first time in human history, an aspect and a potency of the nature of God Himself, the Love principle of the Deity.3
But Christ’s greatest achievement has yet to be recognized, and that is “the revelation of the Way of the Higher Evolution.”4 Christ, representing humanity, succeeded in anchoring the first thread of the Will of God on Earth from the highest Center, Shamballa, to humanity, thus the will-to-good of Shamballa can become the goodwill of the Kingdom of God and be transformed into right human relations by humanity.5
It is the teaching given by the Christ which saves humanity. Humanity must save itself by its self-initiated application of the teaching and living example given by the Christ.6
Christ will reappear with members of the Hierarchy and He will restore the ancient Mysteries which contain the entire clue to the evolutionary process; these ancient mysteries veil the secret of humanity’s origin and destiny, and picture to us, the long, long path which we must tread, back into the light.7
When Christ came before, He emphasized two major truths: the fact of the existence of the human soul and secondly, the system of service as a mode of establishing right human relations—to God and to one’s fellowmen. He also taught that all human beings are the Sons of God in the same sense that He was and that we can do even greater things than He did because we are divine as He was. He taught that service was the key to liberation and the life of every day is a divine sphere of spiritual livingness.8
When Christ came before, He taught us the true meaning of Renunciation or the Crucifixion; this time His message will be concerned with the resurrection life.9
“It is light and—above all else—‘life more
abundantly’ which Christ will bring, and until He
brings it we cannot realise the revelation which
this will entail and the new possibilities which
will open before us. But through Him, light and
life are on their way, to be interpreted and
applied in terms of goodwill and of right human
relations” and worldwide cooperation for the good
of all will be the universal keynote.10
1 The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, Alice A. Bailey, Copyright Renewed 1985 © Lucis Trust, p 298.
2 Initiation, Human and Solar, Alice A. Bailey Copyright © Renewed 1979 by Lucis Trust, pp 43-44.
3 The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, Ibid. op. cit., pp 299-300.
4 The Rays and the Initiations, Alice A. Bailey, Copyright Renewed © 1988, pp. 527-528.
5 The Reappearance of the Christ, Alice A. Bailey, Copyright Renewed © 1976, by Lucis Trust, pp. 52-53.
6 The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, Ibid. op. cit., p. 635.
7 The Reappearance of the Christ, Ibid. op. cit., p. 122.
10 The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, Ibid. op. cit., p. 610.