FLOWERS Of The UNIVERSE

    Why is there so much confusion and conflict today?  Why is there so much change, so fast.  What is the answer?

    Flowers of the Universe.

    What are Flowers of the Universe?

    Knowledge civilizations throughout space.  The first knowledge civilization to exist in the universe, so far as we know, is now growing on Earth.  It is the First Flower, the mother of all the other Flowers of the Universe.

    What is happening on Earth now?  Why all this rapid change?

    It happened because of the great increase in knowledge, primarily due to science and business creating new technologies with which we could do new things, such as communicate with each other through the Internet.

    What has been the result?

    All this new knowledge and technology has produced a new kind of economy, a global knowledge economy.  Now the main product of the economy is new knowledge of how to cause change and how to do new things.  It is the most powerful economy the world has ever known, and sweeps all before it into a new civilization.

    Why does a new economy produce all this change?

    The economy determines the culture and forms the civilization to make the economy work and support the people.  You might say the economy determines what the people will do to survive and thrive.  The culture determines who will do the different types of work of the economy and why they are motivated to do it.

    What is happening on Earth that is causing all this change?

   On Earth we are in transition from an old way based on many, competing agricultural and industrial economies to a new way based on one global knowledge economy, which forms one global culture to support it.  The result is a global knowledge civilization that thrives indefinitely on Earth, the First Flower.  It produces more Flowers, and they in turn produce more self-sustaining knowledge civilizations in space.  Each Flower produces a continuous blossoming of new existence at ever higher levels of organization.  The result is a great increase in high level, complex existence in the universe, produced by these Flowers of the Universe.

    Is this a natural part of evolution?

    Yes.  The universe is beginning to evolve into something new, a new type of existence, such as when life began.  That is why there is so much change.  This is the beginning of a new stage in evolution, a stage of life plus machines.   It is as big a change as when life began.

    How do you know?

    Look at the history of the universe.  It can be divided into four stages.

    What do you mean by a stage?  What is the difference in each stage?  What defines a new stage in evolution?

    Each stage is defined by the complexity engine that produces most of the new complex existence in that stage.  Each stage produces complexity at much higher levels of organization than the stages before it.

      Can it be stopped?  Can we go back to the way it was, to what we know?

    No, it is too powerful.  What is happening is a natural extension of progress in nature.  It will go on to establish our global economy and peaceful global culture, our global knowledge civilization, the First Flower.

    Why will there be peace?

    Eventually it will settle down and be peaceful, because it must.  The new global knowledge economy requires peace to thrive, because its machines that make it work, its computer, communication, financial and transportation networks, cannot be broken by war.  The new global knowledge economy cannot afford war, so war is banned.

    Everybody thrives from the global knowledge economy, directly or indirectly.  We all need it to succeed and to survive.  "We all eat from the same bowl, so we cannot let anyone break the bowl."  We learn to live in peace together on Earth, because we must, and there are no outside invaders to justify a large global military organization.  We are all mutually dependent neighbors in our global community on Earth.  We will need police for ourselves, but not a military to defend against outside invaders from off the Earth.  There aren't any.

    No invaders?

    No invaders.  We are alone in the universe, so far as we know.  The global knowledge economy is too strong to resist and it must have peace, so it will happen.  The global knowledge economy, as it gathers strength will sweep peace all around the Earth.  The only question is how long it will take and at what cost in human suffering to establish it.

    This is different from anything I have ever heard before.  Why is this change so dramatic?

    It is a change from one stage of evolution in the universe to a new stage in evolution, so far as we know something the universe has never seen before.

    What do you mean a new stage in evolution?

    Evolution is like water.  Water seeks the lowest possible level.  Evolution seeks the highest possible level of organization of existence. With the natural process of evolution, things get more and more complex.

    So with the natural process of evolution we get more and more complex things that exist in the universe.  For example, say we start with quarks, then they get organized into larger things such as subatomic particles (protons, neutrons and electrons), they they get organized into atoms, then molecules, gasses, nebulae, galaxies, stars, star furnaces to make the elements more complex than hydrogen (1 proton), helium (2 protons) and lithium (3 protons), which were formed after the Big Bang, then clouds of silicon and  iron, then planets, water, oxygen, macromolecules, RNA, DNA, cells, tissues, organs, plants, animals, roses, humans, computers, spaceships and love.

    Yes.  Something like that.  Each stage of evolution produces more new existence at higher levels of organization than the stage before.  Each stage has a complexity engine that produces most of the new, more complex existence in that stage.  This is how the universe gets things to exist in it.  It happens by these complexity engines all according to the process of evolution.

    What is the process of evolution?

    The process of evolution is creation, testing and selection of the survivable new complexity, which then becomes a stable platform for still more complexity at higher levels of organization.

    What are the stages of evolution, and their complexity engines?  What is this new stage?

    In summary form they are:

    You mean this knowledge civilization you are talking about now growing on Earth is the beginning of a new stage of evolution in the Universe?

    Yes.  It is a Flower of the Universe, the First Flower of the Universe to evolve.  It produces much more new existence than genetic evolution.  It produces, with its global knowledge economy of billions of creators and consumers, a continuous blossoming of new existence at ever higher levels of organization.   Eventually it will create a platform in space, and transfer to it billions of individuals and their machines, and a copy of its knowledge base.  Then the new knowledge civilization will move off into space.  It will later divide and spawn more "Flowers", as with cell division in biology.  Other Flowers of the Universe will divide and reproduce.  Eventually there will be knowledge civilizations throughout the galaxy and then the universe.  Each one will pour out a continuous flow of new knowledge and existence at ever higher levels of organization.

    What will it be like, and what will happen with all this new, high level existence?

    Who can tell?  What would you have predicted would happen when the first cell of life developed?  The new existence produced by the Flowers of the Universe will be vast and unimaginable, far more than could be produced by genetic evolution, slowly generation after generation.  In the era of the Flowers of the Universe, the universe will blossom with new, high level existence, like a garden in full bloom.  We only know we are a critical part of this process in the universe.

    Do you mean it all begins with us now here on Earth?

    Yes!  Unless it has happened somewhere else that we don't know about, yes, that is exactly what I mean.

    Wow!  No wonder there is so much change.  This is huge.

    Think of it this way.  In the first stage things developed, such as forms of energy including particles of matter.  In the second stage nature began to put these particles together to build bigger, more complex things.  In the third stage, nature developed a memory, the genetic code.  Now when something survivable developed by chance, nature could make it again by following the genetic code.

    What happened in the fourth stage?

    In the fourth stage, nature developed symbolic knowledge in humans and and machines, so descriptions of knowledge, of how to cause specific change, could be stored and retrieved by billions of people all over the world at the same time.  They could use knowledge others had developed.  They could add new knowledge they developed to the global knowledge base.  Many creators could discover new knowledge at the same time.  New knowledge grew much faster, because there were billlions of creators producing it all the time.  With symbolic knowledge, they could test it in symbolic models to learn which new forms would probably be the most survivable, before they spent the time and energy actually building the new form.  It is much more efficient in time and energy than with genetic evolution, where each new form is made and tested slowly, generation after generation.

    O.K., but what do we get out of it?

    A much better life for people.  With all this new knowledge we are developing, we can do more and more for people all over the world with less and less cost.  We can greatly improve life for nearly all people.  People have many more opportuinties for fulfillment as whole persons.  When people become creative and prosperous, we will have even more new existence and can do still more things for people.  Imagine the power of a knowledge economy with billions of human creators and consumers and their machines creating and enjoying new existence all the time.

    Wow!  We have never seen anything like that.

    That is why it is so powerful, and brings so much change.  It really is a new stage in evolution.

    Why is a knowledge civilization so much better at creating new existence than genetic evolution?

    Symbolic knowledge is the answer.  Symbolic knowledge is a description, like a cook book receipt, of how to cause change.   It is written in some physical symbol system, such as ink on a page, chemical electrical signals in a brain, or magnetic, electric or light bits in a computer.  With symbolic knowledge, you can make symbolic models and test them for survivability, without having to build the real thing.

    That sounds like it would be faster and cheaper.

    It is.  You have many more creative people with access to what has already been discovered to build on that, and you can test models of new existence before you spend the time and energy to build them.  You can test possible new forms for survivability with symbolic models, and only actually build the ones with a high probability of survival and that will serve consumers in the marketplace.  With knowledge evolution, new existence can be developed far faster and with far less energy than genetic evolution.  This is far more efficient than genetic evolution.  With the same time and energy cost, knowledge evolution can develop far more new existence at far higher levels of organization.  When the new existence is focused on the consumer, it fuels the global knowledge economy from which all people gain their sustenance.

    What does this new existence produce?

    With each new level, new attributes emerge into existence which do not exist at lower levels of organization.

    Give me an example.

    Take water.  You begin with the parts, two dry gasses at room temperature, hydrogen and oxygen.  When the atoms come close enough together, they bond together and become organized to form a water molecule, and the attribute of wetness at room temperature emerges into existence.  The parts, hydrogen and oxygen, are organized into a new larger whole, the water molecule.

    This is creation of something new, new existence with new attributes that only exist at this level of organization.

    You mean new attributes such as the wetness of water at room temperature?

    Yes, new emergent attributes.

    How does evolution work?

    Evolution is the process of creation, challenge, selection and creation again.

    What is creation?

    Creation is putting the hydrogen and oxygen together to form water.  Challenge is something in the environment that tries to take them apart again into the two dry gasses, or disorganize them, so the water molecule no longer exists.  If the new whole, the water molecule, survives all the challenges in the environment, it is selected by nature, and is available for becoming a stable part in a still larger whole.

    If you take the water molecule apart into its parts, you have two dry gasses again, and the attribute of wetness ceases to exist.  This is creation and extinction.

    If it stays together, then the water stays.

    Yes.  If it stays together despite challenges from the environment that try to take it apart, it survives in the environment.  Then the water can become a stable platform, a part for a larger and more complex whole, like a human being.  We are about 98% water.

    Does this process of growth up the levels of organization continue indefinitely?

    Yes, as far as we know, there is no end to it.  Every time you make a new larger whole from smaller parts, the new whole can become a part for a still larger whole, and up the ladder of levels of organization you go.  There is no end to it that we know of.

    Well what is going to happen?

    We don't know.  That is part of the mystery.   We are like people living on the side of a mountain.  We look down into our past and all we see is mist.  We look up to our future and all we see are clouds.  We cannot see where we came from or where we are going.  We only know that we are here, and beyond "here" is mystery.

    What do we do?

    We have to figure out what "here" is like and what we should do to succeed in life.

    What does "succeed" mean?

    One clue comes from the process of evolution.  We are successful products of evolution.  We survived in our environment.  That means we are fit for surviving and flourishing in our environment, and for carrying on the rise of complexity.  What is different is that we have symbolic knowledge and the machines we build with which to do it.

    What does that mean?  What is flourishing?  What environment?

    What a stream of questions?  Take the last one first.  Humans have evolved to live successfully in many different environments.  We can live in space, under water and in all kinds of environments.  We can even create our own environments, such as spaceships and diving suits.  As for flourishing, we just do what we do best.

    What do you mean?

    One way of thinking about that is to say that we live a fulfilled life as a whole person.  In other words, fulfill all your potentials in a balanced, harmonious way that fits in with others and your circumstances.

    Be all you can be.

    Yes.  That is a simple way to put it.  A more detailed way is to live your fulfillment as a whole person in your relationships with self, other people, the Divine Harmony and all of existence.

    What is the Divine Harmony?  Is it nature?  Is it God?  Is It many gods?  Is it everything?  What is it?

      It may be any of those.  It is a mystery.  Remember I talked about mystery beyond human understanding?  This is beyond the possibility of human understanding.  Yet you ask, "What is the Divine Harmony"?  That can be answered with a poem.

    What about all the competing religions in the world?

    Divine Harmony covers all possibility.  If there is only nature (no God), or many gods, or one God, or everything is God, any of those can be called Divine Harmony.

    What would the religions think which believe that their way is the only right way?

    They would think that their religion is the true expression of the Divine Harmony, and they may be right.  Humans have discovered again that they are limited, and their understanding is limited.  That humans need many different religions is not a divine problem, it is a human problem.  Humans are seekers.  For those interested in why there are different religions and how the religions can live together in peace in one global community, the story of Seekers and the Kaleidoscope may be of interest.

    What about science?

    Scientists are human.  Faithful religious people are human.  All have human limited understanding.  The result is that there is no certainty.  Science and religion have been fighting a war for centuries over which one was right for certain.  The answer is that it was a useless war, which neither side could win, because humans can not understand anything for certain.  Both science and religion had to modify their positions to more humble beliefs.  Now the two are coming together around a common world view out of which science and religion each can do its work for humankind in its own way, and each with its own integrity.  Each makes room for the other to do its work, by its methods, without denying the possibility of the other's methods or the other's validity.  Science and religion are no longer threats to each other.  It is obvious now that humans need both science and religion for successful life in the global knowledge civilization.

    What is the new common world view of science and religion?

    Evolution is understood as science describes it.  The main process of creation of new existence in the universe is the process of evolution.  However, when the Divine Harmony wishes to intervene somewhere in the universe, the Divine Harmony can and does.  Science and religion are converging on this idea.  Many leading creationists of the religions of the Book (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) following the Book of Genesis, have given up the idea that the days in Genesis are 24 hour Earth days, so time is no longer an area of disagreement between science and these religions.   Even the Roman Catholic Church, with over a billion Christian members, has recognized the Big Bang described by science as the beginning of the universe.  If you want to see a comparison of the current view of science about evolution and the view in the Book of Genesis, and how close they are, read Quantum Genesis.  The current area of disagreement is over punctuated equilibrium, and whether natural causes or Divine intervention created new species.  One of the greatest scientists, Isaac Newton, has been on both sides of this issue.  In science, the idea that at bottom the universe is made up of meaningless, unrelated particles has begun to give way to the idea of everything being connected together in the universe.  Quantum physics has begun to explore the reality of non-local systems and different dimensions than the four dimensions of the space-time we experience.

    What do you mean?  Could you explain better?

    The physical universe may be all connected together, harmoniously connected together, so that the whole determines the parts, what exists within the universe.  Instead of the little particles of the universe being separate, unrelated, particles, meaningless to each other, the universe is a harmonious whole.  This further suggests a mysterious order to the whole universe, a Divine Harmony, and a unity to the universe, where all the laws seem to work the same way throughout the universe.

    What does this say about the Divine Harmony?

    With the universe an integrated whole, it is easy to believe, and difficult, if not impossible to refute, that the Divine Harmony can and does intervene when ever and where ever in the universe the Divine Harmony chooses.  Prayer is possible.  Heard prayer and answered prayer are possible.  A two-way, interactive friendship with the Divine Harmony is possible, and even desirable, to gain guidance for living as one was created, or evolved to live.  This is experienced in one's spirit or mind.  This is called Inner Friendship.

    Is it also possible that only nature exists, that the Divine Harmony is just the physical universe?

    Yes that is a possibility.  We cannot prove which is correct.  Each person can only follow the way that is believable to him or her.

    This uncertainty makes many things possible.

    Yes.  That is why a person must follow what is believable to the person, what is real to the person, and live by that.  Neither science or religion can prove one is right and the other is wrong.  It is a matter of faith, which is why a person's faith is so important.  Similarly with different religions, which one is right or best for a person is a matter of faith.  Each person follows the faith that is most believable to him or her, and lives it passionately and deeply, while allowing others to decide for themselves and do the same. How you do this is described in the story of The House Of Many Rooms.  You find a room containing a religion or belief system that is the most believable to you.  Then you go deeply into that religion, learn its ways everyday, live it passionately, and let it guide you to full life.

    In this way science and religion, and different religions,  can exist side by side in the same community and reinforce each other rather than fight each other.  It is part of the new harmony of the global knowledge civilization.

    What do you mean that science and religion each do their service to humankind with their own integrity using their own methods?

Science and Religion each have their own methods.  Now that they are not trying to disprove the other, they can concentrate on their respective methods.

    Science understands only what it can measure in the physical world.  Through empirically verified predictions from theory, science describes how to reliably cause change in the physical world, and develops descriptions of how to reliably cause change.

    Could you explain that more?

    Science seeks to prove through experiments that it knows how to cause physical change.  If the method of causing that change is reliably repeatable in different locations by different people, then an empirically verified scientific theory is recognized.  Where theories are generalizable across many different situations, they are more valuable.   The power of science for serving humankind is to describe how to reliably cause specific change.  That allows us to control more and more of our environment and our lives.  Through science we can do much more for people for much less cost.  This description of how to cause change is called knowledge.   Humans need science to gain the knowledge of how to better live their lives in the physical world.

    This ability to cause physical change has produced the technological revolution in human existence we have see in the last few centuries, since humans moved beyond agricultural economy.  The machines which simplify and brighten our lives, which give us far more opportunity for fulfillment as a whole person in many more ways, and the resources to achieve it, are the result of science.  Humans need growing science to continue the creativity that is the fuel of the global knowledge economy and the path to fulfillment as whole persons for people all over the world.

    Religion recognizes the tremendous advances in human knowledge and human life contributed by science.  Religion recognizes that humans need science.

    What about religion?  Do humans need religion?

    Yes.  Science tells us what we can do.  Religion tells us why we should do it, or not, to live successfully.  Religion understands faith and matters of the spirit.  For religion, the physical nature of faith and spirit is not so important as the strength of genuine faith and the richness of the spiritual relationship with the Divine Harmony, involving guidance, forgiveness, love, grace and fulfillment - successful living for humans if you will.

    Religion focuses on the relationship between the individual, the human group, the Divine Harmony and all there is.  The methods of starting and developing this relationship are part of the different religions.  They are done in each religion, either directly between the Divine Harmony and the individual, or through a religious organization, such as a church, mosque or temple, or religious leaders.  Each religion has its scripture, written materials that describe this relationship and these methods.  A religion can pursue teaching and practicing these methods with its faithful, and not have to worry that science is going to try to refute the authority of the religion's scripture or traditions by experiments and measurements.  That is no longer science's goal.  Religion produces real, measurable changes in a person's life.  Science cannot produce these changes based on faith.  Humans need religion to guide them to a moral, successful life in the midst of all the opportunities, good and bad, that are available to them.  Science recognizes that humans need religion to exist successfully.

    Let's see if I get this?  Now humans need both science and religion, so science and religion each do their own work for humans using their own methods, without bothering the other, using the same world view that the Divine Harmony's process of creation is primarily evolution, but Divine intervention is always possible.

    Yes, that sums it up nicely.

    Is that the answer forever, or are we going to go through other changes in world view?

    There will be others as we learn more about what reality is about.  It has always been that way.  Remember Copernicus.  Most people thought the world was flat, with the sun , moon and stars going around the Earth.  Then most people thought the Earth was round, went around the sun and was an insignificant speck in a vast universe.  Humans seemed insignificant in the universe.

    Now we see it differently again.

    Yes.  Now humans are seen as important in the universe again.  Now with the beginning of the era of the Flowers of the Universe, humans are critical in the known universe.  Now we see that the rise of complex existence in the universe has reached a new stage, and we are the instruments of creation by the Divine Harmony.  We are the instruments of the beginning of a new stage in evolution, the era of the Flowers of the Universe.  We live in the First Flower to evolve, so far as we know, the global knowledge civilization now growing on Earth.

    If we live in the first knowledge civilization to evolve, what is our duty to the universe?

    It is our duty to nurture the First Flower to full continuous blossoming and reproduction, launching other new Flowers.  It is our duty to launch the new stage in evolution.  If we do not do it, it may never occur again.

    Is this our duty to the universe, to all of existence, to the Divine Harmony?

    It is our duty to launch the era of the Flowers of the Universe, when new existence will blossom forth from many Flowers throughout space, making the universe a garden blossoming with new existence in full bloom.

    What will happen then?

    What the Divine Harmony will do with that new existence, which is unimaginable to us, we cannot know. We only know that if we live fully in the knowledge civilization, the First Flower,  we will be doing our part in the history of the universe, as we understand it now.

    Are we just worker bees?  What do we get out of this?

    That is the beautiful part.  What we get is an expression of the love of the Divine Harmony for us.  Our reward for each of us for doing our part is fulfilled life as a whole person in this life and living in unity and in the love of the Divine Harmony forever.  We could not ask for more.

    O.K.  What do we do?  What do we need to do to do our duty to nurture the global knowledge economy and knowledge civilization to full strength and reproduction?  What do we do now?

    This part of the story is told in the second book of the trilogy.  This part of the story is about the First Flower, the global knowledge civilization on Earth.
 
 

    When did the First Flower, the global knowledge civilization on Earth, begin?

    It has been developing for a long time.  You could say the ground was being prepared for the First Flower.  It is difficult to pick one date for so large a change over a long time.  Instead we pick a symbolic date, something that dramatically represents the beginning.

    What do we do now?

    Make it grow.  Work hard to develop the global knowledge economy, participate in it, be creative, contribute to it, buy from it, make it grow.   Understand what is happening to us and help it happen successfully and peacefully.  Learn the attitudes of peace, mutual respect, individual fulfillment as a whole person, inner friendship and love.

    How do we do that?

    Develop the new global culture.  Ban war.  Establish peace.  Learn to live in peace, harmony and mutual respect with others, while we all work to make the First Flower strong and robust.

    How do we begin to do that?

    We begin by developing the global knowledge economy and learning the attitudes of peace.  We are changing from many conflicting agricultural and industrial economies that thrived under dominance and war.  Now we are moving to one global knowledge economy that thrives on necessary peace.  We are beginning to establish a global partnership culture.

    How do you establish a peaceful, global partnership culture?

    It begins with respect for women as independent, competent decision makers.  It goes on to establish a culture where everyone, men and women, all races, religions and ethnic groups, have equal opportunity to create and consume in the global knowledge economy.

    It seems to me that the best way to nurture the First Flower is to build its foundation, the global knowledge economy.  Everything flows from that.

    Yes.  You are right.  The global knowledge economy is the key.  It drives all the other necessary changes.

    Why is it the changed economy that changes everything else?

    The answer to that is something called ENKECC.  That stands for

    You have an environment with humans in it.  The humans have needs, such as food and shelter, but the raw materials that occur naturally in the environment are not in the form humans must have to satisfy their needs.  People must develop the knowledge of how to change natural resources in the environment into the food, shelter, gasoline, healting oil and other things they need to survive and flourish.  Then they must apply that knowledge by doing the work to make the changes, such as grow and process the food, build the shelters or refine the oil.

    Doing the work is called the economy.  The humans have to organize themselves and motivate themselves, so that different ones will do the different work necessary for all the work of the economy to be done.  This social organization to do the work of the economy is called culture.  A farming culture may work well for one season, but if the people eat their seed corn, they will not have anything to plant next year.  Culture is then modified to work successfully generation after generation.  This culture that lasts indefinitely, so long as the environment remains the same, is called civilization.

    In an environment, human needs drive the development of knowledge of how to cause changes to the raw materials in the environment into human usable products.  Knowledge drives economy.  Economy drives culture.  Culture is modified into long lasting civilization.

    What causes the economy to change?

    One thing is the development of new knowledge.  For example, look what happened when the hunter-gatherers learned how to plant seeds in the ground where they wanted their crop to grow, rather than going out and finding it where it grew in the wild.  The human economy changed from a hunter-gatherer economy to an agricultural economy and cities and civilization developed.  In the five hundred years since modern science began, and particularly in the last 100 years, a tremendous amount of new knowledge of how to cause change has been discovered.  It was said that in the twentieth century 95% of all the scientists who had ever lived were alive and working.  No wonder there was such a great increase in knowledge.  This new knowledge and its products, such as the Internet, are making a new, much more powerful type of economy possible, the global knowledge economy, which is driving all the other changes.

    If it is a new type of economy, what does the global knowledge economy need to succeed?

    Mass creativity; global markets; its machines, such as the global computer, communication, transportation and financial networks; necessary peace to protect them; vast variety to serve billions of human creators and consumers with different tastes and needs;  individual initiative, creativity, risk taking and responsibility; all supported and nurtured by a global partnership culture that emphasizes peace, harmony in relationships, equality hard work toward fulfillment of the individual as a whole person in relationships with self, other people, the Divine and all of existence, and fulfillment of the group.  This results in a self-sustaining knowledge civilization, that can reproduce and last indefinitely in its environment.

    The knowledge economy is so different, and requires such different attitudes by people.  How do we go from many competing dominator cultures on Earth, dedicated to war and conquest, to one global partnership culture dedicated to a necessary global peace?

    The Seven Sisters of Reconciliation will make the change.  Seven major conflicts in dominator cultures will be resolved, and that will largely establish the global partnership culture.  These are called the Seven Sisters Of Reconciliation.  They each resolve a conflicting pair in the dominator cultures.

    What are the Seven Sisters Of Reconciliation?

    The areas of conflict and the Sister that reconciles the conflict are:

    What will the global partnership culture be like?

    It will have a global ethos.  An ethos is a set of unwritten rules that everyone knows and follows.  People in the global community just do some things and do not do other things.  They have some beliefs and not others.

    What is the new global ethos?

    That's beautiful.

    Every person is a full, equal citizen of the global knowledge civilization.  If every person has the freedom and motivation to pursue his or her fulfillment as a whole person, there will be the mass creativity that fuels the global knowledge economy, which sustains the knowledge civilization indefinitely.

    What about the population explosion?  Aren't there too many poor people for that to happen?

    The problem for the knowledge civilization is too few people, not too many.

    How can that be?

    There are two reasons.  First, prosperity is the best birth control.  As the global knowledge economy spreads around the world and most of the people begin to participate in it, their standard of living will rise.  Eventually they will want fewer children.  That is human nature.  Look at the birth rate of the most prosperous nation, the United States of America, at the beginning of the third millennium of the current era.  Except for people coming into the country from other nations, it was losing population.  The birth rate was so low, it was not even replacing those who died.  The second reason is reproduction of the civilization.

    How does that work?

    It is like cell division in biology.  One knowledge civilization divides into two knowledge civilizations.  When a knowledge civilization grows to a certain level, it builds a new home in space.  Then it transfers the machines and billions of people to the new home.  Finally it transfers a copy of its knowledge base, all the knowledge it has, to the new civilization, which sets off into space.  A new Flower of the Universe has then been born.  The original Flower has lost a large amount of its population.  It will take centuries to replace the people, so the Flower can divide again.

    Does that happen more than once?

    Yes.  Each knowledge civilization reproduces periodically, when it has built up its population again.

    Do you mean that each Flower reproduces many times, creating many more Flowers of the Universe?

    Yes, it has been estimated that it would take 50 million years to cover our entire galaxy with one knowledge civilization every ten light years.  The Calendar shows how in twelve panels.

    Wow, that's pretty fast.  That is less time than since the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago.

    Yes, and that is one of the reasons we think we are alone in the galaxy and perhaps the universe.  If another knowledge civilization had evolved somewhere else in the galaxy before we did on Earth, they would already be here by now.  We have been listening for radio transmissions for many years, but have heard nothing to indicate intelligent life else where in the galaxy or beyond.

    It reminds me of the Earth before plants evolved.  It was like a bald head.  Land, rock, dirt, water and mud, but no vegetation, no life.  The Earth looked like the moon.  Now you are saying that our Milky Way Galaxy and for all we know the universe is the same way.  We are alone.

    Yes, for all we know, we are alone living in the First Flower.

    What is our duty?

    Our duty is to nurture and launch the First Flower of the Universe.  This puts a tremendous responsibility on us to make the First Flower successful, and nurture it to reproduction many times, to live by the attitudes of peace, to keep peace on Earth and peace among the other Flowers of the Universe after we launch them, and they launch others.  That is why learning and living the attitudes of the global ethos is so important.  The future of the universe is very fragile right now.  How we live will teach our children and great greeat grandchildren, whom we will never see, how to live.  Will we live and teach peace, mutual respect and prosperity, or dominance, contempt, hatred and war.

    You mean the future of the universe depends on our attitudes toward each other and what we do?

    It depends on us, whether we live in peace and launch the new era of knowledge civilizations throughout space, or destroy life on our planet and forever let the universe be in the darkness of ignorance and lack of high level existence.  Whether the universe progresses beyond this point to realize its potential for existence at high levels of organization, depends on us, the attitudes we have and what we do.  This opportunity may never develop in the universe again, for all we know.  If we do not do it now, it may never happen.  It is as if we hold the first cell of life in our hand.  Will we crush it and kill it, or will we nurture it to full life and reproduction, many times?  It is up to us.

    We have a duty to the universe, to all there is.

    We have a duty to the all to live in peace and nurture the First Flower to full bloom and reproduction many times.

    That is our destiny, what history has given us.  That is our duty.  It is so clear, but how do we do it?  How do we live in peace, develop a strong global knowledge economy to sustain us, reduce population, get people all over the world to participate creatively in the global knowledge economy, become prosperous, reduce the birth rate, and create more Flowers of the Universes?

    We develop the global knowledge economy, and learn the attitudes of peace, fulfillment as a whole person, service to others and success.

    How do we do that?

    We help the global knowledge economy change the global culture.  We begin by replacing "control" with "nurture" as our guiding principle in relationships with other people.  Instead of deciding for people what they will do, we encourage them to decide for themselves and to do so in a way that leads to their individual fulfillment as a whole person and to a successful knowledge civilization.

    Isn't individual fulfillment selfish?

    No, the secret is wholeness.  Fulfillment as a whole person fulfills both your needs for self and your needs for relationships with other people, your social needs.  Everyone is greatly fulfilled by positive relationships with other people, basically helping them with what they need to be fulfilled as whole people.  The wholeness guarantees loving, compassionate relationships with other people, especially if you are focused on nurturing them to their fulfillment, rather than controlling them for your own purposes, or for their improvement.

    How is this change going to happen?

    The knowledge economy is making it happen already.  Big companies that try to make all the decisions at the top and control all their people to obediently do as they are told by the top people, are no longer competitive in the global market place.  They die off like the dinosaurs.  They are too slow to react to changing wants and needs of the customers, so the customers buy from someone else that responds to them faster and better.   The old dinosaur companies lose customers.

    Which companies are succeeding in the new global marketplace?

    The companies that survive better in the global knowledge economy are the ones that encourage their people to be creative, to have initiative, to take risks for the company, to listen to customers wants and create the products and services to provide for those wants and needs.

    How does a company respond to this new global marketplace?

    A new way of management develops, which focuses on nurture rather than control.  From there the rest of the community, the culture, learns the same attitude.  This is the attitude of nurturing independent decision makers.  The attitude works to lead to success in the economy.   Soon the whole culture is encouraging and nurturing attitudes of creativity and risk taking, rather than teaching the attitudes of dominance that lead to control, intimidation and blind obedience.

    So you want partnership culture where everyone is treated equally, and is encouraged to think for themselves, be creative, take risks and seek their own fulfillment as a whole person?

    Yes.  That is necessary for having the mass creativity needed to satisfy the billions of consumers in a global knowledge economy.  Mass creativity is the fuel that makes the global knowledge economy go and become strong and robust, year after year.  Peace is necessary so its machines and systems are not interrupted.  There is a new story, you could call it a myth, that describes this change.  It is called BalAnce.  It describes some of the changes needed for the new global knowledge economy to succeed in a peaceful world.

    What can we do to establish peace, so the global knowledge economy can work successfully?

    Learn, live and teach the attitudes of peace.

    What are the attitudes of peace?

    First the Global Ethos, then the four corners of Mutual Respect, then the way believers in different religions or world stories get along together following the concepts of L E T and the Bridge of Harmony, and particularly focusing on one's own wholeness and fulfillment as a whole person and nurturing others to do the same.

    Where do you get the strength to do all that?

    It becomes normal and second nature when the culture works that way, and it successfully supports the global knowledge economy.  When we follow the global ethos we all thrive.

    What do I do to live my fulfillment as a whole person?  How do I decide what to do and what not to do with all these new opportunities.  What about guidance for deciding what to do with all the new things we create?  It seems like everything is available to everybody.  What do we do.  What do we not do?  Why?  Who can tell us what to do or guide us?  No one has ever experienced these things before.

    That's right.  You have discovered why there is a great increase in individual responsibility.  There are so many new decisions to make about good and bad opportunities, and the traditional institutions cannot guide you as well as in the past.  You have to decide for yourself about a lot more in life.  That is why the guidance of inner friendship is so important.  For many, it takes the help of Divine guidance.  The path is inner friendship, whether one experiences meditation with some inner parts of oneself attuned to the harmony of nature, or experiences a friendship with a divine person who lovingly guides and gives strength, help and love.  Inner guidance is necessary for all of that, so you do not get lost in the whirlwind of new opportunities.

    What do you mean?

    First you need a goal in life.  Then, in your confusing circumstances, you need reliable, steady guidance toward that goal. If you live a fulfilled life as a whole person you will live as you were created to live, as you evolved to live.  You will be happy and content with life.  You will be living the natural harmony for your life.  That is your goal to live a fulfilled life as a whole person.

    With all the many new and old things you could do each day, how will you know what to do to achieve your goal in life, that fulfillment and wholeness, that harmony with all around you and your happiness?  You have to have some guidance to know when a decision will lead you toward or away form that goal.

    You mean if I do this will I be getting warmer or colder, going toward my goal of full life or away from it?

    Yes.  You need a guide to tell you when you are going toward or away from your full life.  Since outer guidance from traditional institutions cannot do a complete job, you also need inner guidance.  You need a sure sense of whether something leads toward or away from your fulfillment as a whole person.

    How do I develop that?  How do I begin?

    You begin by valuing inner guidance and seeking it.  Then you listen -- humbly listen.  Learn to listen and receive guidance with a humble heart.  Learn how to discern whether the guidance is coming from a good source, focused on your fulfillment as a whole person, or some other source.  Ask for help with what you cannot do yourself.  Build a two-way relationship.  When you receive help, say, "Thank you".  You will discover you are saying, "Thank you" often.  Praise the one who cares for you, shares life with you and helps you as no other can - your inner friend.

    Does this guidance come from outside, or from within me?

    We cannot prove it either way.  It is a matter of faith, what is believable to you as being real.

    Do different people experience inner guidance in different ways?

    Yes.  Many different ways.   Many people experience inner guidance, so it is a real experience, like breathing.  Some think of it as meditation, experiencing some part of their mind that is in touch with what they should be doing to live in harmony with all around them.  Some experience inner guidance as a connection with something or someone outside themselves.  Some people experience inner guidance as coming from another person, with whom they have a relationship, but whom they cannot see, such as the Divine Harmony, God, a god, an angel or a spirit.

    Each of these experiences results in an inner friendship with the source of what is experienced, whether it is an inner part of you or from outside of you.

    What is inner friendship like?

    It is a wonderful, warm, considerate, intimate, compassionate, trusting, guiding, loving friendship.  It is like the Story of the Two Old Men.  You are the younger man and the Divine Harmony is the older man.  Someone once said that you have silver friends, who are good acquaintances and golden friends who are special in your life.  If you have five golden friends in a lifetime, you are a rich person.   Your inner friend will be a golden friend, if you will allow it.

    What do I get out of it.

    In addition to the wonderful friendship, you get moment by moment guidance, if you seek it, to help you make decisions to move you toward your fulfillment as a whole person.  The reward of a long time inner friendship with the Divine Harmony is a fulfilled life as a whole person.  You live a fulfilled life in this life and eventually live in the unity and love of the Divine Harmony forever.

    Can anybody do it?

    Yes, inner friendship with the Divine Harmony is available to everyone.  Different people will understand the Divine Harmony in different ways, but inner friendship is available in each of those ways.

    Are all the ways equal?

    Now that is a big question, too big for humans to answer.  If you answered it in a way that limited what the Divine Harmony, the great orderly mystery of the universe, could do, who would you be that could so limit the Divine Harmony?  Yours is an unanswerable question in terms of whether or not all ways are equal.  That must be answered as a matter of faith.   Most faiths would say their way is best.  Followers of that faith live by that belief and thrive.

    O.K., I won't try to limit the Divine Harmony.  I will accept that inner friendship is available within my faith, and not worry about the others.

    Now you are showing wisdom.

    In other words, work on yourself and don't worry about your neighbor.

    Yes.  Something like that.  It is important to have your inner friendship for your own sake, and for the sake of those around you.  Some faiths will stop at that, while others believe their faithful should tell non-believers about their faith.  In that sense they do worry about their neighbor.  Again it is too big a question to say what is the right way to relate to others.   Anything you say limits the Divine Harmony, so what you do is a matter of faith.

    O.K. I am ready to have my inner friendship.  How do I begin?

    Listen!  Be quiet and just listen.

    What will I hear?

    We don't know.

    How do I "just listen"?

    Begin with a humble heart.  Imagine this for a moment.  You open your heart and gently set you self  aside.  Set aside your agenda, all the things that have to be done today.  Set aside your worries and your concerns.  Do not worry, your self will come back.  Prove it to yourself.  Gently put your self back in place.  Feel all your worries, concerns and agenda come back into your awareness.  Now close you heart and you are ready to go about your daily business again.  Now you know that you can safely set your self aside for a while and it will come back.

    Now open your heart and gently set your self aside.  Free your self of all your worries.  This is the humble heart.  Now listen.  Do not expect anything.  Just listen and see where your thoughts go.  This is how you listen.

    How do I know when I hear something?

    You will know.  When something comes to your mind that seems important, remember it, and let you mind continue to wander from thought to thought.  Keep listening.  After a while, you may have a thought that keeps returning, or you think it is worth considering more.  Think about it.  Let your mind develop that topic.  See where it leads you.  You may learn something you had not thought of before, but find valuable.  You may learn of an interest you have that you did not suspect.  You may learn a new way to approach solving a problem you could not solve.  You may learn that it is a problem that you cannot solve by yourself.  Then you may pray for help.

    Are all the answers I get from listening like this true and best for me?

    No.

    How do I know the difference?

    Discernment.  Some answers come from a good source and some answers come from other sources.  Some people who believe in a religion believe that the good answers come from the Divine and the bad answers come from an evil source, such as the Devil or a demon.  Some people believe that the bad answers come from a selfish part of their unconscious.  Either way, you must learn how to discern whether the thoughts, ideas or messages you receive while listening to you inner being are from a good source or another source.  Follow the good advice. Ignore the other advice.   The way religious people tell the difference is whether the advice is consistent with what their religion teaches them.  In other words, if the guidance is from God, God is consistent, and the message should be much the same as similar messages found in scripture or the teachings and experience of the religion.  If the message guides you toward a sinful act, which the religion condemns, then you should rethink it, and seek more guidance.  If you are suspicious about its origin, don't do it, until you have listened some more and considered some more.  It is like asking your inner friend, "I don't quite understand.  It does not seem right to me that I should do this.  Could you explain it to me further, and reassure me that this is genuine good advice for me?"  The Divine Harmony is patient and will not mind the question.  Some evil source eager to get you committed to a wrong direction, may not be patient.  You will learn many ways to sense when a message is genuine and when it is false.  Some people call these two types of messages "Fire" and "Wildfire".  Make sure, as sure as you can, that the messages you follow are fire and not wildfire.

    As you can see, developing an inner friendship takes time just like a friendship with anyone else.  It grows and you get better at it.  With a mature inner friendship, you know how to discern fire from wild fire, good guidance from bad guidance.  It helps you to appreciate your inner friend more, when you realize that your inner friend always gives good guidance and is patient with you, forgives you when you ask for forgiveness and guides you toward your fulfillment as a whole person.  It is a precious, life long relationship.

    You said I could ask for help. What did you mean?

    Exactly that.  When you need something, and you cannot do it yourself, ask your inner friend for help to see that it gets done.

    What kind of help can I ask for?

    What do you need?  Help with money?  Making more money?  Getting enough money in tomorrow to pay the rent?  Help with spending money?  Help with investing wisely?  Help with love?  Do you want someone to answer your letter, or accept your invitation?  Are you having a problem at work or with your marriage or with a child?  Ask for help with those things that you need and legitimately want that are beyond your control.

    Yes, but what is going to change if I do?

    You do not know, but you will often be happily surprised.  You may ask for a certain amount of money by a certain day.  You discover when the day comes that you have the money, often not from sources you thought about, but you have the money you requested.  This is an answer from your inner friend to your prayerful request.  This is answered prayer.  If you will say, "Thank you" each time you receive an answer to your prayer, you will discover you will be saying "Thank you" quite often.

    What if I believe only in some part of my unconscious as my inner friend?

    The mystery beyond all human understanding, what is called here the Divine Harmony has ways.  Your unconscious may be tuned into things you cannot perceive, and can give you valuable guidance, if other parts of your unconscious do not get in the way and misguide you.  You still have to discern between good guidance and bad guidance, even if you believe only in your unconscious.

    Can you give me an example of how that might work?

    Yes.  There was an experiment done in psychology where the faces of 32 women were averaged together by a computer to form an average face.  Then other people rated the attractiveness of the average face.  It was beautiful and rated as very attractive.  The same was done with an average male face, which was raterd as very handsome.  People seem to have an image in their minds of a beautiful woman or a handsome man.  The mind can do this averaging, which becomes a definition of beauty to humans.  Average human is beautiful human.

    This same averaging ability can be applied to events.  In a given situation, what is the average successful human response?  Watching many people respond to the same type of situation, and seeing the results allows such averaging to occur.  A template can be built up in the mind of the average successful response, and of average unsuccessful responses to a certain type of situation.

    O.K. so some part of my unconscious does all this averaging, and I have all these templates in my mind of successful human responses to all these situations.  Now what do I do?  How does this help me?

    That part of your unconscious compares what you are doing or thinking about doing with the template for this situation.  If there is a good match, and you are doing what is the average successful response to this situation, this part of your unconscious will send you good feelings of peace, harmony, well-being, centeredness, O.K.ness.  You will feel good about what you are doing and how you are responding.

    What happens if I am doing it wrong?

    If the match between what you are doing and the template is a little off, you will feel disharmony, that things are not quite right.  As what you are doing moves farther and farther away from the template your bad feelings increase to anxiety, fear, terror and panic.  In this way this part of your unconscious is tuned into what works in the world, has a connection to nature that results in you receiving accurate guidance for a successful life.

    You mean I can learn to listen to myself like that, and that is part of inner friendship?

    Yes that is a way you would understand you inner friend.  You understand your inner friend to be that part of you that guides you and warns.  That is your understanding of your inner friend, how you can relate to you inner friend, that part of you in your mind that cares about you and lovingly guides you to successful life.  So do it.  Build your inner frindship with that precious part of you.  You will have a much more successful life if you learn to follow the guidance of your inner friend.

    It sounds like I would enjoy having an inner friend.

    You would.  You learn to trust your inner friend for reliable guidance and help, and how to discern guidance and messages and thoughts and ideas from your inner friend compared to those coming from other sources.  Then you begin to realize how important you inner friend is to you, how precious your inner friend is, and how much your inner friend loves you.  Then you cannot help but love your inner friend in return.  When your relationship moves to love, you have an mature inner friendship.  It is available to everyone, and it is a beautiful and necessary part of life in the global knowledge civilization.

    How do I know that the Divine Harmony, in a way I can understand with my faith, will be my inner friend and guide me to fulfilled life?

    Look at the history of humans and other seekers we know about.  Listen to theHarmony Covenant.  Then go in peace and inner friendship with the Divine Harmony, go and fulfill your destiny and live your fulfilled life as a whole person in the First Flower, the global knowledge civilization on Earth, or in one of the other Flowers of the Universe.

    That is the Story of Divine Harmony, the story of the Flowers of the Universe, the First Flower and Inner Friendship.

    Thank you for telling me the story.