Early in the morning, a person went out to his field. He walked through it and carefully examined the soil. Then, he took a handful of soil and rubbed it between his palms. He looked at the sky and the trees beyond the field. He listened to the birds singing. In nature, everything is interconnected not only in the present but also in the future. Will there be severe frosts or not? Has the current spring strengthened enough to start planting seeds? The person recalls the omens that were known to his father and grandfather. Omens are signs that connect the present with the future. There are certain days when the connection between the past and the future becomes much stronger. If on some day the weather is cold and cloudy, it may indicate a late spring. The mystical connection that links all past and future events undoubtedly exists. For humans, this concept is known as fate or karma. The concept of «karma» is not limited to a single lifetime; it reveals the connection between thoughts and feelings with a person's health and destiny not only in this life but also in the next.

In the Old Testament, there is the concept of the connection between parental behavior and the fate of their children, expressed in allegorical form. For the sin, that is, the wrongful behavior of parents, God punishes their children to the third and fourth generation. All of this suggests that the universe is unified and holographic not only in space but also in time. If the future is inseparably connected to the present, then by transcending the superficial view of the present, we can perceive the future.

Let's begin with a basic understanding of the law of cause and effect. A person sows wheat seeds and hopes to harvest in the autumn. However, if the seeds turn out to be rotten, there will be no harvest. A person can diligently plow the field and regularly water it, but if the seeds do not sprout, there will be no crop. In that case, the person will suffer in the autumn and starve in the winter. If they survive until the next spring, they will borrow seeds from someone but will be very attentive in inspecting and evaluating them, as their future will depend greatly on this present moment.

Another person, their neighbor, did not make any provisions for the winter. They ate well, enjoyed themselves, and spent all their grain. Knowing his character, the neighbors did not lend him any seeds in the spring. He can also plow and water his field, but he has no seeds, and this year it is impossible for him to obtain a harvest.

Our behavior and our attitude towards the world determine the harvest we will reap in the future. And any wise farmer, in order to not only survive but also prosper, must know the rules of influencing and managing the future through the present. The best seeds should be preserved until the next spring. The seeds should not be damp and should be stored in a dry place. Using omens, they should be sown at the right time. But the soil must also be well-prepared, fertilized, and loosened. The seeds should be planted at a certain depth and at a certain distance from each other. We are now talking about the elementary laws of cause and effect. The clearer we see the connection between the past and the future, the more fully and accurately we can influence the present, survive, and thrive in the distant future.

Now, listen to another story. One day, the same person sowed the best seeds, having prepared the field beforehand, and did all this carefully and conscientiously. However, for inexplicable reasons, most of the harvest perished. The small portion he managed to gather helped him survive the winter. But if he hadn't made provisions earlier, his family could have perished. The next year, he takes even more care of the new crop. The weather favors him, and the harvest grows splendidly. However, when there are only a few weeks left until the harvest, the sky becomes overcast with clouds, lightning flashes, and thunder rumbles. Then a severe hailstorm sweeps through his field and destroys the entire harvest. Once again, what the farmer gathers is only enough for survival.

But life must go on, and he must take care of his loved ones. He must salvage at least the remnants of the grain and prepare for the next year. And so, the following spring, the man goes out to his field once again. He borrows seeds for planting and must obtain a large harvest in the autumn, or else his family may perish. There is one week left until planting. He must gather all his strength, enlist the help of his two sons, and start managing the future through the present. The next morning, the man gets out of bed, and suddenly sharp pain pierces his body. He realizes that he is sick and won't be able to help his family. But that's not all; both of his sons are also ill.

The man lies in bed for a day, then another. He stops thinking about material things and a piece of bread. A vague suspicion that our soul is connected to our destiny becomes clearer. The man looks around and notices a Bible next to him, which he had never paid much attention to before. With trembling hands, he takes it, opens it randomly, and reads: «If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land»... (Leviticus 26:3-6).

Suddenly, a revelation comes to the weak and sick man. He used to constantly slander and condemn his wayward neighbor. He was constantly dissatisfied with himself and his destiny, believing that the harvest was not large enough. He was resentful towards people who behaved improperly. Instead of sincerely telling them about it and dissuading them from wrongdoing, he got angry and condemned.

The farmer puts the Bible aside and reflects. He feels a change happening within him. Once again, he randomly opens the Bible and begins to read. Struck by it, tears in his eyes, he reads: «You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another... You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of him who is hired shall not remain with you all night until morning. You shall not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but shall fear your God: I am the Lord. You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor... You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself»... (Leviticus 26:11, 13-14, 17-18).

It turns out that the laws of spiritual interconnectedness are no less important than the connection between physical phenomena. It turns out that the spiritual and the physical are closely intertwined. The physical can influence the spiritual and shape it. And the spiritual can influence the physical and control it. But, it turns out, the spiritual is much more important. The physical is actually just a complement to the spiritual and a tool for its development.

The farmer looked around in amazement once again and noticed that the world had become beautiful. He realized that he loved his wife, although before he only reproached her and demanded her submission. He understood how much he loved his children, whom he hadn't noticed before. Unexpectedly, he realized that he regarded his awkward neighbor as a foolish child who should not be condemned but also should not be spoiled with constant assistance. Assistance should be directed not to his body, but primarily to his soul. Therefore, the best help is the upbringing of another person. And to help the soul, the body needs to be indulged at times and sometimes restricted.

On that day, the man went to sleep happy, despite having no future. He won't be able to sow seeds for a new crop, and he is unlikely to recover. But now, a piece of bread is no longer the main measure of his happiness. He now realized how everyday concerns about material well-being had obscured his own soul from him. And only now did he understand that he had been unhappy for the past few years.

His soul stopped singing, and the world lost its subtlety and depth of colors. He constantly convinced himself that barns full of grain were the ultimate happiness. But now, sick and dying, he suddenly realized that his soul had also harvested, but in recent years, this harvest consisted of indifference, growing resentments, and greed.

When the soul suffers, there is a simple and reliable way to alleviate this suffering: switch to the material, convince yourself that the ultimate happiness is money, material possessions, and sexual pleasures. If we forget about the soul, its suffering becomes imperceptible.

And now, sick and dying, the farmer remembered an old proverb: «The most terrible losses are the ones we don't notice». Now he understood that the greatest happiness is when the soul is happy. And despite the inevitability of his situation, he went to sleep happy. That night, he slept peacefully and serenely, and the next morning, when he woke up, he was surprised to find that he felt much worse. The whole day was difficult to breathe due to the paralyzing pain in his body. But at the same time, something had changed. Troubles, losses, and even physical pain no longer caused him despondency, irritation, and dissatisfaction with fate. Pain made him kinder and more compassionate. Pain made him forget about the body and strive towards his soul.

If bread is needed to save and survive the body, then love is needed to save the soul. And these seeds, given by the Creator, are always pure and redemptive. The more a person suffered, the greater the love for God he felt. He was still ill for a few more days, but he already felt better not only mentally but also physically. He was surprised to see that his children had also recovered, and he realized that his attitude towards the world was not only killing himself but also his own children. And after a week, he went out to the field and, together with his sons, began sowing the seeds. There were unexpected frosts and untimely rains, but despite that, the harvest was larger than the previous one, and the ears were magnificent, and there were no rotten grains.

And now, let's step away from this story and return to the present day. Every spring, people continue to sow seeds in the ground. Humanity has been very successful in knowing what needs to be done for a rich harvest. And every day, we sow the seeds of our destiny in our souls. I used to be very interested in books that talked about people of the future. And now, many are interested in what the person of the future will be like. But I would like to ask a different question: will there be a person of the future? Every person is a part of society, and for a person of the future to appear, at the very least, contemporary civilization must survive.

Three and a half thousand years ago, the Jews began to strictly observe the commandments given by God. They tried not to steal, not to rob, not to indulge in sexual desires, and not to worship money. They did not eat pork because this meat was considered unclean, and therefore harmful to the soul. And if someone from that time tried to imagine what people would be like in two and a half thousand years in a free Israeli state, then, I think, Moses' contemporary would have imagined them as «angels who have no sin». But if we open the New Testament, we will see that it tells how Christ casts out demons sitting in a person and transfers them into a herd of swine. And there were more than two thousand swine, by the way. That's already quite a large herd by today's standards.

This means that internally, people stopped following the Divine commandments, and this began to manifest itself externally, in the disregard for the main commandments. It was a serious crisis of faith in God and Judaism as a whole. If Moses' contemporary tried to see what a person would become in three and a half thousand years, he would probably have thought that he had gone mad.

«These people worship vices», he would say. «They indulge in their sins and flaunt them. Even art doesn't cleanse their souls; it disfigures and pollutes them. These people have invented mechanisms and devices that begin to devour them». It's interesting to think about what the prophet Daniel would say about today's person. After all, to speak about the person of the future, one needs to envision that future. Who else but the prophets should tell us what the person of the future will be like?

There is a remarkable vision of the future through the interpretation of dreams described in the Old Testament. The Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar prospered in his kingdom, and this prosperity blinded him to higher connections. He ordered a huge golden statue to be cast, and those who refused to worship it were killed. He did as he pleased, and no one could oppose him. However, misfortune settled in his soul, and he began to have strange dreams that left him bewildered. In these dreams, his future was foretold: the empire's collapse, the death of his children, madness. When the prophet Daniel told him about it, the king fell to his knees before him. But habits cultivated over decades are difficult to change. And when a few people refused to worship the golden statue, believing in the One God, he ordered them to be thrown into the fire. The flames were so intense that they killed the servants who cast the offenders into the fire. But these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell into the fiery furnace bound. They walked in the midst of the flames, praising God and blessing the Lord (Daniel 3:23-24). Astonished, the king forgave them and showered them with mercy.

However, acknowledging a miracle does not necessarily mean that a person has changed. To make the land yield a harvest, one must constantly care for it. To make our souls yield a good harvest, we must care for them even more. The Bible describes a remarkable scene where Nebuchadnezzar's sins are transferred to his son, who inherited the kingdom. And it was precisely when his son arranged the grandest feast for a thousand of his nobles, when the table was laden with gold and silver vessels filled with various foods, that the king received a message about his imminent death.

As they drank and praised the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone, a human hand appeared opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the wall and wrote the following words: «Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin» (Daniel 5:25). Astonished and frightened, the king summoned the prophet Daniel, who explained the meaning of the written words: «God has numbered your kingdom and finished it; you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting; your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians» (Daniel 5:26-28). Daniel was generously rewarded because the king realized that Daniel spoke the truth and accurately predicted the future. That same night, Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain.

When trying to imagine the person of the future, we must first understand what that person should not be. We must envision what society of the future should not be like, study the mechanisms of the collapse of civilizations, understand how a person's soul is connected to their destiny. We need to clearly define the most important traits that can erase the future of both an individual and all of humanity. We must ask ourselves not what the person of the future will be like but what they must be like to survive. The harvest will depend on the seeds we select, how we store them, and in what soil we plant them. To speculate on what the person of the future will be like, we must look around and look at each other. We must understand how we should be in the present to have a future tomorrow.