Share International Foundation is a non profit organization founded by Benjamin Creme with its main offices in London, Amsterdam, Tokyo and Los Angeles. The organization has also been referred to as Tara Center, which was a name used for the Los Angeles office for work carried out in the USA.
The organisation believes that a spiritually advanced being named Maitreya, the World Teacher, has returned to the everyday world and has been living among the Asian community in London since 19 July 1977. They assert that when Maitreya first arrived in London he lived in the Brick Lane area for several years before moving to another unspecified location in the city.
Share International's publications claim that the coming of Maitreya (meaning "friendly" in Sanskrit) fulfills not only Buddhist prophecies about the appearance of a future great teacher named Maitreya, but also the prophecies of a number of other world religions - including Christianity (the second coming of Christ), Hinduism (the Kalki avatar of Vishnu), Islam (the Imam Mahdi) and Judaism (the Jewish Messiah). Creme claims that Maitreya manifested himself through (or overshadowed) Jesus 2,000 years ago, that Maitreya resided in the Himalayas, and that in 1977 he descended from his ancient retreat in the Himalayas and took an aeroplane to London. His belief is that Maitreya took up residence in the Indian-Pakistani community of London in the Brick Lane area and has been living and working there, seemingly as an ordinary man, his true status known to relatively few. Furthermore, that Maitreya has been emerging gradually into full public view so as not to infringe humanity's free will. Journalists had been invited to find Maitreya in the Brick Lane area but were unable to do so. According to Creme, Maitreya influenced the ending of the Cold War, German reunification, and the ending of apartheid in South Africa.