“Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday.” Baha’u’llah

The question of inner work is always singular.  How do I get out of the stuck state that I am currently in?  There is large body of literature and work about the importance of being present in yourself,  but this should  not in anyway exclude the importance of having a very positive future.    One of the major issues that I see in people’s dreams is that they are relating to the future as if it is going to be the same as the current structure of the world.    This means that we often project the future as having the same issues that we currently face because we are so stuck in the present.

There is no doubt that there are a lot of negative aspects of the current world.  It is too hierarchical, too many people in competition for too few spots, too obsessive about being first,too much comparing, and too much greed that seen as a virtue because the person on top is worshiped like a god.  I heard an absurd thing yesterday about the greediness.   It said that the winner of the U.S. Open golf tournament will win more in one tournament than an average person earns in 32 years of work.

The future world is not going to be like the current world.   All of the negative elements of the current structure are going to change because it is our human nature to strive for a better future and transformation.   It is not our nature to be stuck in a bad state in the present tense forever.    When you are stuck in a really negative state, like when you are really depressed about your current life, it is because of things that have already happened to you.   I work with a lot of young children and I can tell you that very few five year olds are depressed.  They all look to the future with great anticipation.  When you tell a 5 year old about a game that they are going to play, they all cheer wildly with enthusiasm.   You only get depressed when bad things happen to you and then you remember them.  5 year olds don’t have enough bad memories to be depressed.   When  bad things occur, which is inevitable even in the very best of worlds,  they can create fear about the future and then stress in the body.    The key to unleashing a positive future is to process the memory until it becomes a positive resource.   When we do this, the tension in our body releases, and the future becomes amazing.

Who could have imagined even 15 years ago that ordinary people could write a blog and have an audience of thousands of people.    Before all of the media was in the hands of a very small number of people.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the hierarchy has crumbled this much in a couple of decades that the future is going to be even more horizontal.    Right now when you want to publish a book there are still some large publishers who choose what people read,  but in the future who chooses what is read is going to change even more.    If you live only in the present tense that is largely controlled by hierarchies, then you will be paralyzed by having to act as if they are the future.

It is much more helpful to see the future as different than the present.   In the 1980s Russia and America were enemies.   Now they are not.   The future is going to be characterized by much more cooperative relations so why not see the future as it really is going to be and start living in it ahead of time.     When I first moved to Malaysia, there were about 500 people in every running road race.   Now there are several thousand and entries close quickly because the number of spots fill up so fast.   And that is just in 8 years.  This just shows that the future is so much more participative.

To live in a positive future the single most important process is the capacity to ignore the current structure as if it does not exist.   It only really exists because we keep attending to it.     If I see the present as being controlled by a few greedy people, then that is true.   When I see the future as cooperative effort, then that becomes true in the present tense.   

Every dream that you have at night is ultimately trying to take you to a more positive future, one in which today is a little better than the previous.    So see the future with the quality that would most make your life work right now and then live inside that quality.   If, for instance, you see the future world as being in a state of peacefulness, then you can just imagine yourself in that world in that state, then you will be there right now in the present.   If you see it as adventurous or loving or friendly, then you can live in it right now.