Vision Magazine

World Teacher Emerges: U.S. Diplomat Tells Amazing Story

by Kendall Klug, 20 June, 2000

"When you see me you will know why I have come, for I shall appeal to you in these terms: save my little ones; feed your brothers. Remember that mankind is one, children of the One Father. " - Maitreya

Wayne Peterson, a 32-year career U.S. diplomat with experience in Asia, Africa and Latin America, who has recently retired as a director of The Fulbright Scholarship Programs, has come forward to speak about his extraordinary experiences with influential world figures. He asserts that many of them believe, as he does, that a group of highly evolved spiritual teachers are about to make their presence known on a worldwide scale.

In numerous interviews across the U.S., Mr. Peterson has candidly explained how these teachers, led by one referred to as the World Teacher, Maitreya, will show us how we can solve our most difficult problems and build a civilization based on sharing, justice, and global cooperation.

"My work," says Peterson, "has allowed me to come into contact with a wide variety of influential people, including personal friends of the Pope, businessmen close to the President, and leaders of foreign governments, including reigning monarchs: these people share what I know and have experienced."

Mr. Peterson will be in San Diego to give a free lecture on Monday, June 26 at the Scottish Rite Center. I recently spoke with him by phone about his experiences of Maitreya.

KK: Why does someone such as yourself suddenly make this dramatic life change, retiring and deciding to speak publicly about Maitreya?

WP: Well, it is a rather dramatic change. After listening to Benjamin Creme for a number of years talk about this topic, I realized that there were a number of people who knew this story and, unlike Ben, I had come face-to-face with Maitreya on numerous occasions. Many who have experienced him as well, have name recognition in our country or even internationally. But many refuse to speak out publicly on this issue because of fear that it would create havoc in their work. I think there is also a fear that people who know and respect these individuals who have met Maitreya and who come out and start telling of their experiences: for example, that they have had a spiritual being named Maitreya come and speak to them in their bedroom wouldn't t sound very logical or sane for an important political figure or a person in a position of power or leadership. I felt that although I may not be the ideal person to be talking about this publicly, that as long as no one else was confirming what Benjamin Creme was talking about and that this is really happening, I would. I thought I would be talking to a few small groups, yet a few small groups have now turned into large public lectures and radio shows. One thing just opens a door to something else. Once in a while, I do recount incidences publicly about some of the people I have met Maitreya without using their names, so they would not be embarrassed or ridiculed. At the same time I've had plenty of my own experiences speaking with Maitreya and some of his associates who travel with him. I know what we can expect down the road and this is what Mr. Creme has talked about for years: A total transformation of our society and the way we live is very close. For those who read the news and watch television these things become obvious very quickly, especially if you know what to look for. Very often I tell people to just watch the news. Because Maitreya is not on television doesn't mean that he is not occupied with his teachings. His so-called "emergence" into the everyday world of humanity continue to take place. And many of the world events are some sort of proof that he is working in the background and with and through people in leadership positions to make things happen.

KK: Could you give me an example that the average television viewer is seeing right now that is a reflection of that change.

WP: First, we have to keep in mind that the entire consciousness of humanity is changing right now. We don't recognize it on a day-to-day basis, but the way we think about ourselves and who we are in the world is rapidly taking a new focus and a new direction. Just look at the polls, depending upon which one you look at, somewhere between 60-80 percent of the (U.S.) population believes that there are angels. People are no longer locked into dogmatic beliefs as much as they were before. This is evident in the growth of spiritual groups, holistic medicine, personal growth, all of this. People are not willing to simply accept something because someone has told them that that is the way it should be; they are out there experimenting on their own.

Of course if you look at our international political scene this is changing, the international economic scene is changing, and the social institutions are changing. When we saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and then the collapse of the old Soviet Union, many people said, "Oh well, that's capitalism winning the day." It is far deeper than that; it's about what we don't see. We are can be blind about our own institutions. It's easy to see the problems in someone else's culture; someone else's political system. But it is far more difficult to look at our own and analyze it properly.

So, what we don't see, for example, is that the international market system needs to be examined with reference to its affect on developing countries, and this only recently came to the surface with the protest against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Benjamin Creme had been talking about this for 18 years and nobody recognized it. And it is only recently that the consciousness has shifted to where people are beginning to say that "Yes" there is something wrong with these international institutions we have created: they have been harmful, especially to much of the Third World.

KK: I believe Mikhail Gorbachev has publicly stated his belief of the existence of Maitreya. Do you know if this is true?

WP: He is a pretty extraordinary person. I know that from people I have talked to at the Pentagon that they have heard Gorbachev and his advisors speak about the "Christ who has reappeared." I also have friends who had gone to south-central India to the ashram of Sai Baba years ago when Gorbachev was still in power and there they saw Gorbachev's wife Raisa having interviews with the avatar Sai Baba. He is very closely associated with the work that Maitreya is doing. So they seem very closely connected with this work.

I have one little story I could tell you about Gorbachev. A friend of mine who was worked with the World Bank went to a "heads of state" conference in Europe and gave a speech where he borrowed many of Maitreya's ideas for economic reform out of book by Benjamin Creme that I had given him. He told me that he had read the book on his flight to Europe and realized that his keynote address to these world officials, especially presidents and prime ministers (it was a very high level meeting) was going to be very boring, with many having heard similar sentiments over and over. So he thought he would throw in some of Maitreya's ideas into his speech. The country he was in had a reigning monarch who invited him to lunch the next day. When he showed up for lunch there were 16-20 people there including Mr. Gorbachev. The monarch of this country said to him (my friend), "I suppose your wondering why we invited you here today? Well, we are all curious about where you got those ideas for your speech which you presented yesterday." He said that "My friend Wayne gave me a book written by Benjamin Creme about Maitreya's mission," immediately they nodded their heads. "We thought so," was the apparent response. "That's why we invited you here. We all know of Maitreya; and we're doing what we can for him but we are not able to say anything publicly because we are world leaders. We each have our own public to deal with. Only one person there stood up and said that they could use his name to legitimize these sightings and that was Mikhail Gorbachev. He was the only man in the room who would say, "Use my name if you want."

KK: Do you think President Clinton has had an experience of Maitreya?

WP: I don't know if President Clinton has. I believe that former President George Bush has. We used to have Transmission Meditation groups that Maitreya had asked us to do around Washington D.C. People who were interested in Maitreya and the reappearance story would get together once a week in Georgetown, in the home of President Bush's main counselor at the White House. President Bush came over to this house for dinner one night, and the hostess was in the dining room as President Bush asked her "What do you think? I'm running against Clinton in this election, am I going to win?" She said, "No, Mr. President you are not. Maitreya has already said you are going to lose to Clinton." Bush never challenged her, but merely said, "Yeah, yeah." He didn't ask who Maitreya was? He was very quiet and then said "I think I've got to go now."

Benjamin Creme has said many times that he had heard from one of Maitreya's associates that Maitreya had appeared to Bush and that they had had discussions in the White House. So that incident with my meditation group seemed to confirm that Bush did in fact know of Maitreya.

I do know people in the White House have been visited by Maitreya many times. And the people I'm talking I've seen on the front page of the Washington Post standing next to the president.