11) Planning for the future
Concern for the wellbeing of all allows each group or government to plan for the welfare of all in a way that maximizes the use of existing resources without the desire to give to the present all that exists and disregard what is to come. The self is one not only with other lives in the present, but with all the lives of future generations. For this reason, concerns about the environment and care for the preservation of planetary resources is paramount in taking care of the life of the planet and in taking care of the life of future generations. There is no longer a disregard for the impact of the behavior of oneself on the resources of a planet that is shared by all. The planetary environment is safeguarded as the body is safeguarded. It is the essential material form that allows life to continue and is perceived as sacred.

    With respect to planning for the future, the absence of separation from all future generations is the basis for the conservation of resources at all levels of planetary functioning. There is no longer a need to pretend that resources are infinite in order to justify the economic aggrandizement of a few - a pattern that was very prevalent in the past. In the past, separation into the extremely wealthy and the very poor gave rise to a willingness to ignore the very real needs of the entire planet in order to maintain the stability of an unequal distribution of wealth. With the awareness of unity with others, however, comes the understanding that resources must be shared, not only in the present but with the future as well. Clarity regarding the specific needs of the moment is invested in those who are most capable of planning for the distribution of resources in particular areas of energy, water, atmosphere, etc., and such planning is joined in a cooperative way with those who are in charge of industrial production of goods that may affect the supply or purity of the existing resources. There is no longer conflict about pollution or contamination of resources, since all are committed to the abandonment of ways of operating that detract from the health of the planet and from the wellbeing of the future.

Emotions that limit the willingness to plan for the future:

• Satisfaction with the status quo and a desire to perpetuate the absence of change
• A willingness to usurp what does not belong to oneself
• The capacity for indifference to the needs of others, brought about by separation from the heart and a misunderstanding of what ‘mastery’ in life really means. Such a desire for 'mastery' cannot take place in the absence of unity with others.
• The willingness to take without a sense of gratitude. This is caused by lack of realization of the sacredness of what is given. Its healing can only be achieved by a deepening sense of God's reality.
• The absence of humility. Healing, too, in this area, can only take place with a sufficiently deep experience of God's reality.

Resolution within the capacity for humility:
    To see oneself as part of a greater Whole creates a new perception of one's role in life and the behavior needed to support life, rather than detract from it. To perceive the self as smaller in relation to something greater is the essence of humility. Such 'smallness' does not mean that the self is inadequate, insufficient, incomplete or not Divine in origin. It means that the self is part of the fabric of Creation, not the whole of Creation, and that the idea that the entire universe revolves around oneself in the sense of maintaining a separate and private world, is replaced by the more potent idea that the universe is interactive, and that each lifestream makes a contribution to something that is vast, beautiful, and holy. This occurs by being oneself in the fullest way while at the same time being part of the vastness.

    The problem, so prevalent in the past, caused by holding a view that one's personal sphere was the entire world, was that the striving for mastery over this personal world and for success within it, because it was separated from the Whole, gave rise to a feeling of identity that was unbalanced.

    When mastery, that is, the desire to attain one's self-chosen and self-created goals, is not joined with unity and humility, then the inner core of the human being cannot find full expression, no matter what success may be achieved on the outside. ‘Mastery’ - the desire to attain one's self-chosen goals, and 'humility' - devoted service toward the needs of the greater Whole, are in an essential and sacred partnership which the consciousness of unity brings into awareness. This relationship must be preserved in its integrity in order that the full flowering of soul-expression becomes possible and in order that caretaking of the earth that goes beyond the special interests of particular groups becomes a reality.