Perspective

"If you can see your life as part of a Greater Life here in the world and your contribution as part of the movement of your race, then will you have a perspective that will allow you to contribute and to initiate change without so much personal tribulation."

Directives

"You must have this greater perspective. Otherwise, you will not understand the larger context in which your life exists, and you will not understand the movement of the world or the signs of the world. You will think it all a reference to the past—that in some way the present and the future are a fulfillment of the past. "

The Greater Community Perspective

"The Greater Community perspective sees humanity as a growing, evolving race in a larger arena where there are other forces of intelligent life interacting and competing with one another."

The Greater Perspective of God's Plan

"Standing upon the Earth ...you do not see the larger picture of your life, or what God is intending for the world over time, and how the great Messengers come at turning points, at pivotal moments in history, to enliven the human spirit and to keep the deeper Knowledge that God has put within each person alive, where it would most certainly become obscured, diminished and lost otherwise."

"This larger view then is necessary to comprehend the meaning of the Messengers’ appearance on Earth, what it meant and how each is very important in its own right. Understanding this, there would be no contention between the religions over who is the preeminent teacher, who is the greatest Messenger or who is the final prophet.'

A Perspective Beyond the Immediate

"God speaks to the world through these Great Messages. They are beyond the immediate needs of the individual. They encompass the needs of humanity as a whole and are for the welfare and evolution of humanity as a whole. "

"Life is actually conspiring on your own behalf. If you stop attempting to use it for immediate goals, then you will be able to perceive it working on your behalf."

"There are two aspects to service in the world.There is contributing to the world in its immediate needs, which means feeding people and building bridges. And there is preparation for the next step, which means cultivating Knowledge so that it may serve other people."

"When you reach maturity, you are not going for things that are momentary.You want things that last.You want to build something.You are thinking not only of immediate satisfaction.You are thinking of future providership. You are thinking of yourself in terms of making a contribution, not only for the present time but in times to come. Here your life becomes much bigger.You are living in a bigger world.You are seeing yourself participating in a larger time frame.This represents maturity."

"When real meaning, purpose and value are not self-evident, people assign value to their relationships based upon their own immediate needs, preferences and understanding."

"Be aware that what offers immediate allurement rarely offers lasting satisfaction. When you think objectively about this, you will see that immediate allurement and lasting satisfaction are usually incompatible with one another. For how can a moment of pleasure in any way compare to a lifetime of giving and receiving, a lifetime of accomplishment and fulfillment and a lifetime of learning, challenge and success?"

Metaphors

"The emphasis here is for you to reach that vantage point where you can see your relationship with God and with yourself clearly while you are in the world. It is from this vantage point that you will be able to see the relationship of all things. Like climbing a great mountain, you must reach a certain position where the relationship of that mountain to everything around it becomes self-evident. From this vantage point, you will see why you could not have comprehended the overall meaning of your existence before. Previously, you were consumed within a certain stage of development and all that you could see was that stage of development. Yet when you look down from the mountain and see the trail far below, you will say, 'Yes, from that vantage point down below, I could only see the trail and my immediate circumstances.' Perhaps on that trail you lost track of the mountain and its summit altogether. Yet when you reach this higher vantage point, your perspective will be more complete. Therefore, to answer the fundamental questions of life, you must reach the vantage point where the answer is self-evident."