Preparing for the Future

At every moment you can live life to the fullest, but you are also here to prepare for the future. Preparing for the future, then, is an integral part of life. Every day you do this in many ways without even thinking about it. And yet consciously preparing for the future is very important and represents an aspect of intelligence.

To live only for the moment is not intelligent, for that is not what life asks of you. For you must be prepared for certain eventualities, and you must be prepared for certain mundane events, which you can even anticipate at this moment.

The future, however, can be overbearing. People often try to escape by believing that God will take care of them, or life will take care of them in the future, so they do not need to plan and to prepare for themselves. They think they do not need to make preparations or acquire provisions for themselves for the future, for God or life will take care of them. Those people try to escape into the present to avoid the burden of their anxiety about the future. But the future need not generate undue anxiety. Concern, yes, but not undue anxiety.

To be responsible to yourself and to others, you must accept that you have a fundamental duty to prepare for the future adequately. This has greater significance now, for you are preparing for a future that will be unlike the past. You are preparing for a world of declining resources, a world whose environment has been disrupted significantly, a world where there will be climate change and violent weather. A world where the risk of competition, conflict and war over the remaining resources will be extreme and very dangerous.

If your life up to this point has not been unduly difficult, then perhaps you will assume this will be the case in the future. But that would be a very unwise assumption.

Your task now is to bring wisdom to bear on what must be done today, and tomorrow and the days to follow. It is not a decision between love and fear. It is a decision between responsibility and irresponsibility. It is a decision between wisdom or anxiety.

For if you do not prepare for the future, you will have anxiety. You will feel that you are missing something. You will feel uncomfortable with yourself and your circumstances because you are not yet responding to what Knowledge, the deeper Intelligence that God has given you, is indicating that you must do and that you must attend to.

So there is no real escape from this responsibility. For if you try to escape, you will feel anxiety, and you cannot escape this anxiety, for it is telling you that you are being irresponsible, that you are not meeting the requirements of life at this time which is you live in the moment and you prepare for the future appropriately and accordingly. If you think the future is going to be like the past, well, whatever plans and provisioning you do will be greatly inadequate.

Today so many people are resting on assumptions that the future will be like the past. It is upon this that they make their financial decisions. It is upon this that they determine what they will do and how they will use their resources and what they will commit themselves to.

But you must know that the environment is changing. Circumstances are changing, even for the wealthy nations. You must be attentive now and become as objective as you possibly can.

When you begin to face this reality, there will be moments of anxiety and apprehension. You will feel perhaps inadequate and overwhelmed. This is understandable. Yet you must get beyond these initial feelings, for they are simply reactions. They reveal to you how unprepared you are even at this moment for the eventualities of life.

You must gain a sober approach. Roll up your sleeves and say, “Well, what must we do here?” And lay out a plan with many steps and begin to do the easy things first. Take care of those, and then take on more challenging projects.

At the outset, you may be completely confounded as to what to do. But this will change as you begin to take steps to correct or change or prepare for immediate things that you can recognize that are well within your comprehension now. That will take you to the next step.

This is not a process where you go out and spend a weekend and buy a lot of things. This is not something where you simply make some grand assumptions and set the whole thing aside for yourself so that you can go back to your previous preoccupations.

This is a process that has many steps. For you must prepare now for a future that will be unlike the past—a future that is far more unpredictable, a future that is far more changeable and a future that is far more dangerous and yet, a future that will provide some remarkable opportunities for you and will greatly assist you in developing your strengths, your competence, your skills, your awareness and your discernment.

If life is too easy, these things never become cultivated, and the whole focus on the path of enlightenment becomes skewed and incorrect. People seek to have greater peace and equanimity. They want to feel better and feel better and feel better, and the reason they do not feel better is in part because they are not preparing for the future and they are experiencing anxiety and discomfort.

For if you do not follow what Knowledge, the deeper Intelligence within you, is indicating, you will be uncomfortable, you will be apprehensive, you will be nervous because you are not following what the deeper Intelligence within you is indicating. You are not paying attention. You are giving your attention to the wrong things, or you are pursuing things for the wrong reasons. Or you are neglecting, in any case, your primary responsibilities.

People think there is something wrong with them when they are feeling uncomfortable, and they try to get comfortable, so they try to run away from the very thing that is trying to communicate to them. The very advice, the very message, the realization that is trying to reach them, they want to now run away from this. They want to be comfortable. Such foolishness. And so they compound their problem. Now they are even more uncomfortable.

There is no escaping your responsibilities. God has given you this greater Intelligence, the Intelligence of Knowledge, to guide and protect you. You have a fundamental responsibility to build a connection to this Knowledge, to connect your thinking mind—your personal mind, your worldly mind—with the deeper Divine Mind of Knowledge within yourself, which is trying to guide and prepare you, to take you to the right places, the right people, the right circumstances and to free you from the burden of all the things you have added on to your life which are non-essential or which are harmful for you.

So do not try to be comfortable. Try to be responsible. If you are really uncomfortable, there must be a reason for it. Ask yourself, “Why am I feeling so uncomfortable? Is there something I need to see, know or do?” Keep asking yourself these questions until you make a connection within your own experience.

The longer you are in denial, the longer you remain obsessed with non-essential things, the longer you are involving yourself in relationships with people, places and objects that are inappropriate for you or which are weakening you and taking your attention away, the more you will feel out of sync with yourself. You will feel disconnected from your own deeper experience.

Indeed, this is the condition of most people in the world today. They are uncomfortable. If they are not in terrible circumstances already, they are uncomfortable.

Even the wealthiest people—very uncomfortable. Now they want to buy more things, have more stimulating experiences, go see more movies and have more exciting adventures or more romance. They are simply delaying the recognition that there are things they need to see and know and do that they are neglecting. If this persists, it becomes very chronic and very disabling.

Your first responsibility in life is to build a connection to Knowledge, to take the Steps to Knowledge, for this is how God is going to help you. You can pray to God for many things. You can pray for success. You can pray for health. You can pray to avoid disaster. You can pray for your friends and your family and loved ones. But if you want to allow God to guide you, you must build a bridge from your worldly mind where you live to the deeper Mind of Knowledge within yourself. For it is Knowledge and only Knowledge that can guide and protect you in the difficult and uncertain times ahead.

Fervently believing in God, fervently believing in the teachings of the savior or the prophet or the enlightened one will not prepare you for the future and will not provide you the wisdom of what you must see, know and do now to live your life responsibly.

These fervent beliefs will not bring you closer to God unless you can build a bridge to Knowledge, for it is through Knowledge that God’s Will can speak to you in your circumstances. It will not be God speaking like a person speaking to you. It will be the thoughts, the images, the urges, the restraint, the encouragement—all coming from a deeper, more mysterious Intelligence somewhere within you, somewhere beyond the grasp and control of your intellect, your ideas and your beliefs.

If you want to be close to God, you must build a connection to the wisdom that God has placed within you. If you want to allow God to assist you, you must build a connection to Knowledge and take the Steps to Knowledge and build this foundation in Knowledge.

For only Knowledge knows what is coming. Only Knowledge can tell you what to do at the difficult moments of decision. Only Knowledge will take you to the right people, the right places and the right situations and circumstances. Only Knowledge will pull you out of disaster and prevent you from leading yourself to disaster.

God does not need your belief. God does not need your worship. God does not need to be celebrated. God needs to be followed.

You follow God most profoundly, most purely, not by believing in the edicts of religion necessarily, but by building a connection to Knowledge. If religion is functioning correctly, it is helping you to build a bridge to Knowledge, to your own conscience and to live responsibly, ethically and beneficially, both for yourself and for others.

When religion does not do this, it is not serving its primary purpose, the purpose that was established by God. But in so many cases, religious leaders and institutions have lost this fundamental understanding, and now they use religion for other purposes—for political purposes, for economic purposes, to corral people and to direct their thoughts and behaviors for the interests of the state or the interests of a church or the mosque or the temple. This is not religion’s real role and task. It is an aberration. It is a misuse. And in many cases, it is an abomination.

At this moment you do not know what to do completely to prepare for the future because you do not know what kind of future you are preparing for. And even if you could find that out and have greater clarity here to know what is coming over the horizon of your life, you do not know all the steps that you will have to take to prepare for this.

Therefore, you are going to have to learn to be attentive and patient and responsive. There are things you must do today and tomorrow and in the days to come. Right now you cannot see all of it. But these things will reveal themselves to you if you can proceed accordingly, building your connection to Knowledge and preparing your life for the Great Waves of change that are coming to the world.

For humanity has two great challenges. It has to face the results of centuries of environmental decay and destruction, the results of its own misuse of the world, the results of its lack of wisdom in the past. The results of so many of these things will be coming due. It will be a great threat to the well-being of people everywhere, even in the wealthy nations.

The second great challenge is humanity’s contact with intelligent life from the universe, from the Greater Community of life in which you live. A dangerous Intervention is already occurring in the world and has been underway for several decades.

Together these represent the greatest challenge to humanity’s well-being, freedom and sovereignty in this world than has ever occurred before. An unprecedented set of circumstances, when taken together, can seem truly overwhelming and daunting, overwhelming and daunting to your mind and intellect, but not to Knowledge.

For you have come into the world to meet these challenges. You have come into the world to serve the world and to assist humanity and all life here according to the specific role you are meant to take and the specific people that you must find and build a true connection with.

It takes a Greater Plan here, not a plan that you make, not a plan that you invent, not a plan that you read about in the newspaper or the magazine.

At any given moment in following Knowledge, certain questions will be answered and certain questions will not be answered. If you are to take such a journey to gain such wisdom, to learn of a Greater Plan of which you are a part, you must have an openness of mind. You must avoid making premature conclusions and living on assumptions. You must have the courage to face the uncertainties of life and the great uncertainties that the future will create for you and for everyone.

Here you must accept that the things that you believe will provide for you and take care of you may not be there for you in the future, or for your children and your loved ones.

The supermarkets may not be full of food. The government may not be able to help. There may not be medical care available to you at all times and all circumstances. You may not have a job. There may not be a job. The environment will be changing.

How people respond to this remains to be seen, but certainly there will be social disorder. Certainly, there will be great political and economic instability. Certainly, many people will not respond wisely or appropriately to these circumstances.

Many people’s circumstances, their personal circumstances, will change dramatically, even very suddenly. It will be great travail for them, for they are unprepared. They did not see what was coming and they did not prepare.

You will see this all around you, and it will be very disheartening and, in many cases, very tragic. That is why preparing for the future is of such great importance for you because you must be in a position, not only to navigate the difficult times ahead, but also to support and assist others who will be facing great difficulties.

Therefore, do not be dismayed that you perhaps are the only one you know who is taking these preparations, who is looking into the future, who is seeing what the New Message from God is revealing about what is coming for humanity. You may be the only one who is looking and reading and studying the signs of the world, the signs of nature, the cues and messages that you are receiving, that you must receive and recognize and face.

Many people will not look. They will not prepare. They will live on their assumptions. They do not want to be troubled. They do not want to put in the extra effort. They do not want to deal with anxiety and uncertainty. They do not want to have to make difficult decisions or give up things that they think they want or need for themselves.

Right now you cannot help them. You must build your own foundation, a foundation in Knowledge and a foundation in the Four Pillars of your life—the Pillar of Relationships, the Pillar of Health, the Pillar of Work and the Pillar of Spiritual Development.

You must build your own life raft if you are to be in a position to assist others. You do not want to be a victim of the future. You want to be a beneficiary of the future and a contributor in the future. That means you have to prepare now, for the hour is late, and the Great Waves of change are coming.

Already, you can feel the impacts. Already, if you look around the world objectively, without insisting on your beliefs or ideology, if you look objectively, you can begin to see the evidence that great change is just beginning.

This will perhaps be disconcerting to your mind, but to your heart it will be a confirmation, for this is why you have come. You did not come all the way into this world to give up your Ancient Home and your Spiritual Family to enter here to simply acquire pleasantries for yourself, simply to enjoy life’s sweets and life’s many little pleasures. You came for a greater purpose. And in your heart you know this to be true.

You do not want to allow yourself to become decadent and corrupted by these pleasures, even the ones that seem very simple and harmless. They are fine in their place, but they cannot be the focus of your life. If they are, it means you do not know your life. You are not connected to Knowledge. You do not know your own heart. You are not properly engaged in the world at this time.

So you must find the courage within yourself to face the Great Waves of change and to keep looking to allow your understanding to grow and to become more complete. You must begin to take the steps that you will have to take to fortify your life, to alter your life, to reinforce your life, to redirect your life and to prepare for what you will see is coming over the horizon.

Here you cannot simply pack up a lot of food and go hide somewhere. That will not work. You cannot simply move to the country and think you will be safe, for you will not be safe there. The Great Waves are too great.

There is no place to hide. All the reassurances you give yourself will be inadequate to deal with the circumstances that are coming to you. You are going to have to become more sober and more serious about this matter, more careful and more patient.

As We have said, you do not know all the things you will have to do, but you must begin the process—begin to take the Steps to Knowledge. Begin to assess every activity you have in your life and ask yourself: “Is this activity appropriate for me and will I be able to maintain it in the near future?”

Go around your house and ask yourself about every possession that you have: “Does this possession really serve me? Will it serve me in the future?” Begin to sort out, for you cannot be given a new realization if your life is full of relationships with people, places and things that are not right for you, or that will not help you.

Every relationship you have should give you the strength to do this. Every possession you have should either be useful or inspiring to you. Every commitment and obligation must help you to prepare and to gain a foundation in Knowledge.

For there are no neutral relationships in life. All your relationships with people, with where you live, with your possessions, with your activities, are either strengthening you or weakening you in taking the Steps to Knowledge and in building a real foundation for your life.

Here you must learn to become inner directed rather than outer directed. Here you will find out as you proceed that even the experts really do not know what they are doing—those people who seem so self-assured, who have such strong views or vaulted opinions—they are only living on assumptions. These assumptions are very doubtful.

Here you will see that you cannot simply follow someone, believing that they know the way. You can only follow someone who is strong with Knowledge, but if you are not strong with Knowledge yourself, how will you know who they are? How will you know how to be with them? They will not lead you around as if you were a little puppy, a little pet.

You yourself must become strong, stronger than you are today—not fearful, not full of trepidation, but clear, objective, open and observant. All the energy you spend today condemning people and governments—all that energy now has to be saved to prepare you for the future. All the time you waste on your hobbies and your meaningless conversations with people—all that energy is going to be needed for you now. You cannot be wasting it in all directions.

Every day is important. Every month is important. Every year is very important. You have your wonderful times and your pleasant moments, and as you proceed, you have less and less anxiety because your life is becoming [more] in keeping with Knowledge within yourself. You actually feel freer and more confident, whereas before your life was governed by fear and avoidance.

When you are moving with life, you gain a greater confidence in life and a greater confidence in yourself that you will know what to see and do. But you must be moving with life. You must be building and learning to use your time and your vital energy meaningfully and appropriately.

You cannot sit on the side of the road and have someone else build for you a foundation for the future. Many people will try that, of course, but that will not lead to success, and for many people it will be disastrous.

You must learn to be open. You cannot control this process, but you must control your thoughts and your mind and your actions. That is where your self-control really will make the difference. You must learn to be able to restrain yourself and hold yourself back from giving your life away in premature relationships or in outrage against the world or in following people who really do not know where they are going or what they are doing.

Do not assume that others know. You must know. Not all the facts. Not everything about the future. But you must sense what is coming, and you must realize what you have to do to respond to that, what is within your power to do each day. Then, and only then, will you begin to feel that Knowledge is a presence and a power in your life, and not simply some remote possibility.

Here it is necessary to get people moving. If people are asleep by the side of the road, or they are standing around not knowing what to do, you have to get them moving. You have to get them involved.

We are talking about you. Your life has to become uniform and strong. You have to see where you are losing energy to people, to situations, to obligations, to activities, to jobs that are really not right for you. It will take a lot of strength and a lot of effort to make the necessary adjustments to your life.

You must have this strength and this energy. In gaining this, you will see how you are wasting your strength and your energy, how you are giving away your life to others, how you follow needlessly and heedlessly what other people want you to do or tell you you must do. That will not help you now. In fact, it never helped you at all.

You will need to learn to live using much less energy. You need to live near where you work. You will need to be able to get around without the automobile to a far greater degree than at present.

You must be employed in work that has a future in a declining world, providing fundamental services to people—goods and services that people will always need, not simply what they can afford with their spare time or their spare money.

You must build some real skills. You will probably need to learn how to grow at least part of your own food and learn some basic skills that have been lost in your modern cultures.

Your life will have to become much simpler than it is today, much more efficient than it is today. You will have to learn how to use your time and your financial resources much more carefully, and to find pleasure and joy in simpler things.

You will need to own far less, for you will not have room for things in the future. You will need to have some savings. You will need to have financial resources available to you. And you will need to have such strength that you can assist others who have genuine needs, the very young and the very old in particular.

This is what will redeem you to a true life, to an authentic life, not a life of obsessions and addictions, a life of personal avoidance and irresponsibility, but a real life with real relationships, meaningful work and deep, simple pleasures.

Humanity has used up much of its endowment in the world. Now it must face the consequences. It is also facing competition from the Greater Community in the form of Intervention from groups who are here to take advantage of a weak and divided humanity for their own purposes. You must learn about these things, as bravely and as objectively as you can.

Regarding the Greater Community, only God’s New Revelation can show that to you, for humanity is ignorant and vulnerable in the Greater Community. You will need a New Revelation to understand what you are facing and what is occurring here now. Such an understanding you cannot find in your textbooks, your colleges, your universities or your popular magazines. Even in esoteric writings, the truth of this is not clearly revealed.

This may seem overwhelming at first, but it is what will save you from an insipid and mundane life. It is what will free you from bondage and obligation to others that can only weaken you and waste your time and your energy.

Allow the challenges of life to clarify your life, to unify your life and to strengthen your life. Do not worry about what will have to be given up. Things fall away along the way.

Already there are things you are doing that you are ambivalent about because they are not really meaningful. You are only involved to please some expectation of yourself or someone else’s expectation of you. Preparing for the future will free you from the ravages of the past and from the dissolution of your life.

You want God to save you? You want God to redeem you? You want God to give you strength, purpose, meaning and integrity? Then this is it.

Knowledge will carry you forth, and anything that is not of Knowledge will fall away or become far less important to you as you proceed. This is how your life is brought back to its Source. This is how your activities are given clarity, uniformity and direction.

You must face the future or it will overtake you and destroy your life. Do not think that because you live in a certain country or you believe in a certain political system or you adhere to a certain religion that you will be exempt from this. There are no exemptions.

Before coming into this world, you knew you were entering a time of great change and difficulty. You came with this understanding. That understanding is still within you, kept for you by Knowledge, the great endowment God has given you—this deeper Mind. It has the memory of your Ancient Home and the memory of those who sent you into the world.

But your intellect cannot find this memory. Your worldly mind cannot grasp it and claim it. It will reveal itself as you proceed, as you take the Steps to Knowledge within yourself and as you begin to focus your life on the outside.

God’s New Message has been given to alert you and to prepare you and to bless you. It is here to alert you to the realities of life both now and in the future—realities that most people cannot see or will not see. It is here to prepare you by teaching you what spirituality means at the level of Knowledge, a Teaching that has never been given to all of humanity before. And it is here to bless you, to give you the strength, the protection and the guidance that only Knowledge can provide.

For Knowledge is of God. It is not a human invention. It is not something that was made up by some institution or a group of people. It is the foundation of your life. It is your guiding light.

It is Knowledge that will give you the courage and the commitment to follow what you most deeply know and to do what you see that you must do. This is God’s blessing for you. It has always been with you. And now you need it as never before.