vegetarianism, advocating the importance of the vegetarian diet."
"Perhaps you are a dietician now, or a doctor of some kind?" someone shouted with a sardonic smirk. "The International Medical Association, together with the dieticians' one, should charge and throw the book at you as an imposter, an international agitator, roaming around the world inciting people in to defiance. They should expose you in all the legitimate institutions, and put you in for life, throwing the keys away to finish with you once and for all."
The chairman silently nodded the Teacher to continue.
"I repeat, man is an evolved being. Even in this matter, he should gradually reduce meat's consumption, consuming smaller portions of meat, from smaller animals. Any gaps, whether it concerns individuals, races, or nations, are bound to bring harm. Whether a nation adopts suddenly a foreign language, foreign clothes, foreign music, and whatever is foreign, ignoring traditions, which took thousands of years to shape each culture and ethnic group according to its characteristics, are harmful in the end. The diet tradition of man that took thousands of years to evolve is not an exemption."
"This man is using our tolerance towards freedom of speech, and makes a mockery out of it," said the smirking man. He started walking out, but turned to address the panel in a loud voice. "It is your duty to expose this guy, this imposter, for he is detrimental to progress, to development, to the beginning of the new age, the new epoch we enter now. I don't know about you, but I will fight with all my strength to expose him, to put him back where he belongs." He walked away.
"Do you repudiate the new age movement? All the new teachings they advocate, vegetarianism for instance; is it not this new age that man is supposed to enter, to prepare for this new epoch? I thought that you would be for it," said a woman from the panel.
"Any conceivable or inconceivable group of people gathers under the umbrella of the new age groups. They are so sure of themselves; as sure as the Pharisees were in the time of Christ.
"If you want proof of it, try to confront their beliefs. You'd better be prepared to duck for cover, for the dirt they are going to throw at you will be sufficient to cover you to your neck."
'Don't you understand there are people trying to improve things concerning religion and in various other fields? They feel they have to intervene in order to straighten things up!"
"No doubt there are some among them going quietly and seriously on their way, trying to uplift things and spread some of the knowledge they possess steadily and wisely, but the majority live in a vanity world they have created. They consider the rest of the world backward. In their magazines and literature are the most naïve and ludicrous stories, and although they are supposed to bring people towards new spirituality, they send thinking people away."
"Can you give us some examples?"
"There are countless examples I could give you, but one shall suffice. The atheists refuse to acknowledge God. The skeptical and the agnostics refer it as a 'power', a vague form of power that makes everything go round. Some, because they don't know, stay aloof.
The new age advocates, although they talk about spirituality, will not acknowledge God either. They will talk about 'energy', a vague abstract form of energy somewhere there, but not God, for they are far too clever to concede. I want to ask them one thing. Say they are in a critical situation and need help, how are they going to call for it? 'Oh, please energy help me'?"
"But isn't this what you advocate? Surely all this new era, whether it is dealing with astrological matters, spiritualism, mediums, astral travelling and your teachings, belongs under the umbrella of the new age group?" the chairman said in a bewildered manner.
"The 'new age' group has nothing new about it. The reason I repudiate them is the same reason I repudiate the religious organizations, scientific groups who went over top, and the so-called 'progressives'. I expose their shortcomings in that they portray partial knowledge as the ultimate truth. Thus, we have the scientific groups together with the intellectual elite, accepting as truth anything they can perceive with physical means. They ignore the ethereal and spiritual happenings around them. The 'progressives' believe in nothing, in a free-for-all attitude, because they are incapable to perceive the consequences of it."
"Do you include religious people in these groups?"
"Some religious organizations try to conserve with teeth and nails all illogical things, to the point that some of them believe Earth is several thousand years old. The new age group brand partial knowledge as the ultimate truth. This medley of groups, although distanced from each other, join hands to fight the common enemy, for the saying; the enemy of my enemy, is my friend, applies here. So why do you think there is so much interest in what an old man is saying? Why is this hall filled to the brim? Why do the international media, and turning to the cameras and the reporters bother with an insignificant old man?"
"You tell us. This is why I asked this question," replied the chairman.
"Because they are feeling threatened."
"Threatened by whom?"
"Let me come to your question, Chairman, about this new age group. Astrology for instance; although I don't deny its importance, nevertheless man cannot rely on the calculations of the astrologers."
"You don't know what you are saying," intervened someone. "Astrology is of the utmost importance."
"Quiet please," said the chairman.
"By saying that alone," went on the Teacher, "think how many astrologers are threatened now because, besides the known factors astrologers use, there are others factors of which they are unaware. For example, there are stars that have not been discovered yet, but which still affect the particular individual. The different magnetic fields of the area in which each individual is born, and the one he occupies now have an effect. So does the food he eats, his karma, and many more. All this can bring different results from the astrologers' calculations in fact, the complete opposite. How then can anybody be a zealot about astrology?"
"Does this justify the strength of your feeling about the new age group?"
"Partly, but there is another factor still. Man incarnates on this Earth, and grows spiritually by decisions he takes daily, by weighing and examining different situations, and by being physically, and spiritually alert. This growth is being taken away by reliance on the advice given by new age people. That alone is enough reason, even if astrologers were perfect on their calculations, to avoid them."
"We have heard all this before. We want to listen to something fresh. Have you got something new to tell us?"
"What I say has reappeared many times in different manners, but with the same substance, over the history of mankind. The source of the message is the same, so the meaning of the message is bound to be the same. It may differ in the manner of presentation according to each different era, but the substance is the same. This is one of the weapons the opponents use to oppose what I say; that all this has been stated before. They do not realize that truth is unchangeable, whether it has been told thousands of years ago or now. The only things that change are the manner and form of each epoch."
"How shall we prove to the rest of the world that there is life after death?" a priest asked. "Is there a way to do it?"
"It is futile to force someone to believe in anything, and certainly man cannot gain much from spirits that hang around the vicinity of Earth. I have stated that the spirit of man, through his free will, creates the environment into what awaits him when he passes over, according to his inner life. It is not hard to imagine that spirits that happen to occupy such low spheres are not of the highest kind. Nevertheless, as far as they can tell, they are alive, and there is real life over there. As far as they know, they live in a real environment, unaware that they created this environment which is really an imaginary place, far away of the real life which is man's destination."
"Do you imply that this is the norm also on this Earth, and that it should not be so?"
"It is the same with those here on Earth who believe that the real
life is here on Earth, ignoring that this is only a minuscule part and a transient one. They are incapable of seeing the whole picture."
Someone from the Rainbow Movement stood up and said categorically, "You must be ashamed of yourself. You agitate people in the most careless way. I heard you say in one other country the most absurd things about homosexuality, things that agitated the gay community so they drove you out of that country. In fact you are considered persona non grata in that country."
There was total silence, interrupted by the ringing bell of the chairman's voice asking an answer from the Teacher. "Well?"
"Well? What?" answered the Teacher.
"Are you not going to answer these accusations?"
"I always answer the questions. If I was to answer all the accusations made, I would need the rest of my life for it."
"What is homosexuality anyway?" the chairman asked. "Is that a choice? Is that sickness? Is someone born with it or what? And how should the state approach it?"
"Homosexuality is definitely not sickness. I can say that someone is born with it, or flirting with the idea of becoming one. I can also say it is a choice, a wrong choice, but nevertheless a choice."
"What is a homosexual then?"
"A homosexual is someone with a distorted soul. It is not as tragic as it sounds, for as the individual allowed the