Time for change

Let’s summarize the previous discussion: From the basic rights of existence each being derives the equal right to live, to develop and to carry out its tasks. Every being can thereby decide for itself what it wants to do or not do (the principle of self-determination). He who is free to decide for himself what he should do or not do is naturally also responsible for the consequences of his decisions. Who otherwise would be responsible for the consequences of a decision if someone can freely decide? From the principle of self-determination there follows therefore the principle of self-responsibility:

From the above thoughts we can conclude that the desired state of harmony on the earth can only be achieved if the basic rights of existence are followed one hundred percent. The less frequently we violate the basic rights of existence, or the better we live a life of unconditional love, the closer we find ourselves to our highest of all goals, internal harmony as well as harmony with our environment. If other beings violate the basic rights of existence, this only influences us indirectly at the most. We can decide for ourselves whether we wish to respect the basic rights of existence in a given situation or not, therefore the achievement of lasting harmony for ourselves and for the environment depends entirely on us! It is entirely us alone who can control how quickly, or whether, we wish to achieve the highest objective of all people. We will come back to this in later chapters.

"There are no knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns - that is to say, there are things we now know we don't know but there are also unknown unknowns.

There are things we do not know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year we discocover a few more of those unknown unknowns."

As many and diverse as we human beings may be once our existential needs are satisfied we all strive for the same thing: We want to feel happy and satisfied the whole time and to be able to live our lives without fear and worries. This search for harmony and inner peace, for self-fulfilment, for calmness, or however we may wish to describe this condition, is indisputably the top goal in the case of virtually all models of human needs.

Could for example someone with a high awareness help other people unnoticed to select the basic rights of existence as their guideline for decisionmaking? Would it not be possible in this way to improve the whole world?

In connection with the recent G8 summit in Germany, the following article about globalization, its shortcomings and future is a recommended reading:

Walden Bello, "Globalization in Retreat " (Silver City, NM and Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, December 27, 2006).

It is not that difficult to see as an observer what we or others should actually do in order to live the basic rights of existence in a given situation. However it is exactly what we really should do which is generally the main difficulty. The difficulty doesn’t lie in the theory or in the strategy but in carrying it out in practice.

In many cases therefore sooner or later arises the desire to convince other people of his path. This person also wants to help others to find the «right» path. This often ends in great disappointment if the closest people such as his life partner, his children, parents, good friends etc. react negatively. Especially if they don’t wish to know anything of the «only correct» way, the best path or goal.

  In past chapters we have emphasized again and again how important it is to set your own personal goals for life. In addition of course it is also necessary to carry out regular checks on, or to monitor, whether we are also really getting closer to our goals. In the case of most companies for example objectives and budgets are set for one year and the achievement of these objectives is periodically reviewed, at least once each year. What has proved to be useful for companies can also be very helpful for us personally.

The monitoring of our progress must thereby be adapted to the selected goals. We must be clear about how we want to measure our development, according to which criteria we wish to make the assessment of whether we have got closer to our goal. The goal and the respective assessment criteria for progress on the way to the goal belong closely together. If we have set ourselves the goal of learning to play the piano, then we can for example measure our progress by using pieces of music which we are able to play. Our body weight or the state of our savings account have little to do with this, and are hence unsuitable as assessment criteria for progress in piano playing. What appears so obvious in this example however often leads to difficulties and problems in our daily life.