World Teacher

World Teacher means a Bodhisattva, or enlightened being Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater used the term to indicate the potential of Jiddu Krishnamurti.

When The Order of the Star in the East was announced, C. Jinarajadasa wrote:

The message we are proclaiming to-day that a Great Teacher will come to help mankind is but the re-utterance of old things. Every religion has taught and teaches that One shall come, in the power of Whose word is salvation for all men. Hinduism prophesies that the next Avatara is Kalki, who shall come riding on a white horse; Buddhism foretells the coming of the “ Teacher of Gods and men,” the Bodhisattva Maitreya. The Zoroastrian is taught to look to the coming of the Saoshyant, “the Saviour,” the Jews to expect the Messiah, and the Christians the Christ. Muhammadanism, too, speaks of the coming of another Prophet of God, and already by the side of Muhammad’s grave at Medina is prepared an empty tomb where shall lie the body of the Lord after His death; in Persia and elsewhere the Shiahs know well of the Imam Mahdi who in 940 a.d. disappeared from the sight of men, but now awaits, in the mysterious city of Jabulka, to come once again, when faith wanes, to lead men to God.

Additional resources

• "World Teacher" in Theosopedia.
• Wodehouse, E. A. The Taking of a Body by The World-Teacher: What it means and implies. Adyar, Madras, India and Eerde, Ommen, Holland:Order of the Star in the East, 1927. 24 pages. Available here.