Visions of Tomorrow prioritizes unstoppable force over speed. Like a colossal mountain that emerges over eons, our organization is about hard-won, lasting results—not quick spectacle. We shall cultivate our Will in service of a more sustainable, harmonic future.

It was a narrow, domineering Will that created this civilization through the conquerors of history. It shall be a vast, all-embracing Will that creates the new one. To be all-embracing is to be in touch with the entire field of cross-cutting wills on the planet and harmonize with them. The path is interaction and integration—not domination or fragmentation. Therefore, our Will shall not impose itself unnaturally on the world but attune to it.

Cultivating the Will is one of our highest values, for it actualizes the inspirations of the mind and heart. The Will is the vehicle of delivery for the mind and heart. It is what brings them to life. Without it, we will live in the clouds with no results to show. Through Will, dreams become systemic change.

Our burning flame of Will springs from the recognition that humanity has not reached even 1% of its potential. Our current technology, politics, and culture do not optimize for human flourishing. Through intentional coordination and collaboration among disparate actors, we can form networks that spark a refactoring of human society from the ground up.

Through forming networks with other change-makers we will embed ourselves in the process of cultural reformation. A collective Will will organically emerge with a holistic perception of how to tackle humanity’s biggest problems and ask deeper questions. From there we have the greatest chance to face the upcoming technological, political, and cultural inflection point, where our old ways of being will cease to be relevant. New ideas must take their place.

The ideas we uncover—our visions of tomorrow—will illuminate the next stage of civilization. Our Institute and those we inspire shall be among the flowers that bloom from the ashes of the old, initiating the transition towards the new. The world is already transitioning, but the question is: What world will we transition into? Our determination ensures our voice guides that transition.

We see the opportunity to shape the world's metamorphosis. It is the most meaningful time in human history, and the actions of our generation matter more now than ever. We will not only seize this opportunity but do so with the highest sense of responsibility and commitment to truth. We will become stewards of the next world, and we invite you to as well.

It seems that in the day-to-day of life, we can get away with viewing Truth as some lofty ideal. In the most radical cases, we can even begin to fall into a relativism. Our contemporary culture constantly circumambulates the question of Truth with the non-answer that “I have my truth and, you, your own,” with the hopes of ultimately settling disputes about life’s deepest questions by undermining the foundations of any possible answer. This era is one in which the sheer volume of raw data and information has atrophied our society’s capacity for productive public debates.

What makes life worth living? Why should we be good to ourselves, others, and even non-persons? What/who am I, and what is my role in this whole thing? These questions, among countless others, are often considered to have no answers except those supplied by mere sentiment or something akin to the Freudian ‘unconscious’ which is ‘really calling the shots’ unbeknownst to us. In some cases, the possibility of any real answer (i.e. an answer that satisfies the question on its own ground) is denied. This is particularly seen to be the case with the metaphysical position of physicalism, in which non-physical entities (like consciousness, mind, etc.) are denied ‘real’ existence, and are at best epiphenomenal.

Evolutionary psychology likewise poses the danger of simply explaining the possible physical causes and conditions for our being as we are, denying the intensity of such deep questions as the value of a life. We may live well in the absence of taking these questions seriously. However, at the moment when the world begins to lose its sense, especially in a crisis at the ground of our existence, we begin to recede from the world as it seems to ask the ultimate “why?” It is precisely at this moment that we begin to take seriously the question of Truth, in which all of existence becomes a great question. From this perspective, all else seems irrelevant.

Our typical ways of making sense of the world are confined within our conceptual models of the world. We can take the idea of something that goes beyond the scope of a model as a decent analogy for what philosophers have called the Absolute, transcendent and without limit. Throughout history, this aspect of reality which transcends our understanding has been thought of as both a kind of chaos which threatens the very foundations of our being, and as a limitless source of possibility.

The Absolute cannot be represented in the same manner as our conventional notions of objects, actions, persons, etc. for the same reason that these examples admit the possibility of representation. In picking out the properties of some object, we first call forth the object as distinct from a myriad other objects. That is, the object is spoken of relative to what it is not.

The manner of describing the world in terms of objects and their properties is relational. Relationality in this sense requires a multiplicity of entities1, as no description is possible without comparison with what is ‘other’ or different. This multiplicity is a limit which is negated in the Absolute. It is not that the Absolute is everything somehow combined into an indistinct mass. Rather, the Absolute is more properly thought of as some inarticulable ‘X’ prior to the conditions (i.e. limitations) which make the existence of entities possible.2

“It” is not a being among beings such that it can enter into a relation in the sense necessary to be described as an object, which implies at the very least its opposition to a knowing subject. That is to say that the existence of objects of experience requires the existence of a subject which experiences.3

Even in the case of the Abrahamic religions, which differ mostly in their making the Absolute able to enter into relation with the individual, the transcendence of God is considered to be entirely beyond the scope of the human mind’s ability to comprehend. This does not, however, prevent the many world wisdom traditions from making such attempts in the service of various ends, often with the hope that our intellect may one day grasp the ineffable core of reality.

In the everydayness of life, our most common way to open ourselves up to the possibility of the Absolute is our ability to go beyond ourselves in the act of listening to others. The term ‘ecstasy’ taken in its original ‘ek-stasis’ means to go beyond oneself in a state of transcendence. In viewing our own perspective as ‘equally real’ as others’, we open ourselves up to the possibility of truth beyond our limited sense of self (ego).

The development of a child is a good analogy to this. As young children, a great obstacle is overcome in the child’s development of a theory of mind (the realization that others do not share his perspective). As the child matures into late childhood, he then understands that simply because he sees things one way, this does not mean everyone else does (nor must they). The child continually realizes this in greater and greater depth as he matures into adolescence, in which this realization (in the dual sense of recognizing its significance and its becoming actual) becomes the grounds for many kinds of neuroses.

One of the first glimpses beyond the self-centered perspective that says, “I know what’s really going on! I’ve got it figured out!” is this naturally arising ek-stasis. It is as though reality gives us a thorough shaking to disrupt our states of comfort and complacency. When the child settles into a model of the world (through the lens of a child), reality presents adolescence and its turbulence. A similar pattern takes place in each life-stage change. The phrase ‘reality check’ is a commonplace reflection on the fact that our models the world are mere perspectives apt to being exposed as perspectives when we fall into a forgetfulness of it.

Not unlike the process of maturation, our path of growth to be active forces in creating a better world requires us to develop new habits of thinking – new habits of being. Otherwise, we will only be able to talk in circles about truth and falsity until our mouths run dry and our tongues shrivel up. To truly effect change in the world, we must first purify ourselves of our self-enclosed habits. The habit of fleeing from conflict, of stretching the truth to make ourselves appear more qualified, of assuming others have it out for us, etc. must all be seen as limits to overcome. In much the same way a child must overcome the limits of his childish habits, we must also overcome our egoic habits.

“Let me respectfully remind you,

Life and death are of supreme importance –

Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.

Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken!

Take heed. Do not squander your life.”

~The Great Matter of Zen

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“When the sage points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger” - Proverb

Principle 2

All questions emerge from a singular impulse, the desire for Truth. Whenever we ask a question, we seek the rightful answer, Truth itself. What unites all epistemological systems—philosophy, science, and religion—is this original calling towards Truth. In this vein, Visions of Tomorrow, like any genuine inquiry process, must place Truth at its heart. We love Truth and hence we pursue it for its own sake.

Yet Truth, though fundamental, is often elusive and intricate. Deception is tempting precisely because it can bring short-term gains, like cheating for an exam. Yet such gains come at the cost of long-term wisdom and erode the foundations of authentic relationships, governance, and unbiased sense-making. To care about Truth is essential for effective action in the world, striving to operate in tune with how reality actually works, instead of unconsciously living in the realms of belief, groupthink and paradigm lock. This institute stands as a refuge for those who hold fast to truth’s significance.

We have arrived to the million dollar question: What is Truth? It depends on whether we seek a relative truth or an Absolute Truth. Relative truth concerns science and practical philosophy; it aims to understand the natural world with its laws and mechanics, which are collectively verifiable and consistent over time. The survival of our species depends on these insights and they bring comfort and happiness around the globe. Yet these truths are contingent upon our human mind and a particular universe, therefore limited to it.

At some point in our life, arrives the great Doubt: Is this all? There's an intuition to include and transcend previous truths into a Universal Truth which is not relative to something but tautologically sovereign into itself. The path to The Absolute presents novel difficulties and with the intention to help fellow seekers we present our humble understanding: Absolute Truth is the existential groundless ground with the potential to metamorphize into every permutation Reality could assume; its medium is consciousness in which all perspectives and states are contained, including this present field of experience. Look around! this here-now field of experience is Truth at work. In its most profound metaphysical sense, Absolute Truth is the primordial omnipresent existence from which all limitations co-arise; hence every boundary is ultimately self-imposed, rendering existence Infinite by nature.

Analogy: When watching a movie, playing a video game, or dreaming at night, new worlds appear through our senses. Inside that cosmos, its inhabitants rigorously investigate their surroundings, piecing together explanations for events—oblivious to the screen that creates it all. In a moment of lucidity, the dream character asks: What is this magical screen that morphs into a myriad of worlds? It does not get wet when water flows, nor does it burn when fire blazes. What a mystery!

At Visions of Tomorrow, we are profoundly in love with this world while remaining expansively in touch with what is beyond it. We invite you to stand with us at the frontier of discovery, to advance the research of truth at every level, and to co-create a world grounded in genuine insight and collective intelligence.

Visions of Tomorrow is global in its scope, meaning we care for all humans, animals, cultures, and ecosystems. At every level, we desire to nurture life and evolve it. We strive toward a world where the well-being and development of individuals, humanity as a whole, and biological life itself are all harmonized.

We propose the best life possible for the individual as one that empowers them to ascend and integrate Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A life in which they see the limits of greed, ignorance, corruption, and selfishness and embody higher-order virtues such as Responsibility, Integrity, Courage, Genius, Compassion, and Wisdom in their own unique style.

The individual’s development requires the development of the collective, which serves as the context in which individuals are anchored. The collective’s development also requires the development of the individual, as the greatest individuals will give grander ideals for the collective to pursue. The individual’s development will enrich the development of the collective and vice versa.

The individual and collective both exist in and are upheld by nature. As we care for our own home, our circle of concern must expand to our community, ecosystems, country, continent, and finally, nature as a whole. Responsible stewardship of the entire planet serves our own best interests. This point will be further elaborated in part 4.

We can intuit these greater ideals, but the harsh limitations of reality bottleneck their development. The only way to effectively approach this vision is to acknowledge these limitations. The thoughts and actions of humanity have a momentum to them, and it will take time for that momentum to transition toward more holistic ends. Humans carry psychological baggage passed down through generations, which leads to cycles of pain and fragmentation. Progress in the deepest sense is neither linear nor simple.

These limitations mean our path will be full of challenges that need thoughtful, step-by-step strategies. A seed does not become a tree overnight. We, as an organization and a community, intend to discover these strategies together.