When we keep in mind the universal law which affirms that everything existing in the world is first born, then grows, and at finally dies, we can see in mankind a tender shoot which, even with its still fresh efforts, must continue growing and developing in order to become a tall and strong adult plant. At the same time, as mankind is abundantly furnished with the most precious endowment of creation, the conscience, it's good that it also thinks about how and towards where its further growth and development should occur, along the ultra-millenary time it has before itself.

Observing our world as a whole, we easily verify that many Countries, still now living in a condition of great indigence, nearly do not and nearly cannot have doubts on the nature of their coveted development: whatever it be, it will easily be better than their present state; on the contrary, however, for a numerous group of other, more advanced Countries, the strong necessity has born for them to look about themselves, as a millenary wayfarer, rethinking the way they have covered, trying to understand where they have arrived and where they will go. For these same Countries, the necessity has also been born to look far forward to an aim sufficiently meaningful, in order to better plan its achievement.

Thusly observing our position inside a wide spatial perspective beyond temporal, it is then easy to imagine that the development mankind has before itself in the coming centuries, and longer, could have much to do with the infinite expanses of the Cosmos, which, equally as desirous of us, don't seem to expect anything better than our adequate, enthusiastic though gentle, expansion in them. The whole Cosmos, always an ideal environment and fertile generative terrain for the Earth, now seems to ask nothing better than to accept a flourishing germination of our Planet, of which we and our productions could be considered as worthy layer and seeds.

With regard to this, we will live great moments, as the initial contacts, three decades ago, between our Planet and its Satellite are only the first shy, delicate petals of a flower which will fully open, colorful and joyful, in the new era that appears in front of us: the Space Era. This era already preannounces itself rich, prosperous and happy just as every season of flourishing in nature. As it runs its course, we will grow far more numerous and powerful, than we can ever become on the Earth alone, in places favourable to the exigencies of our biological life which we will meet and will know how to build in Space, reproducing our place of origin as much as we would like.

This is only a transient glance towards what we can expect in the coming centuries, but for now, while the third decennium of this new era is in its close, our task must be much more introspective than expansive, much more self-critical than proud, in order to make our advance into Space looks more like a gentle, iridescent, beautiful, sensual flowering bearer of life, than a violent, inauspicious, mortal explosion.

At the present time, however, mankind seems to be working with greater interest towards the realization of a huge, boundless explosion, rather than to a serene planetary flourishing. Our daily activities are characterized by an extreme competition that often debouchs in an open conflict, by an exasperated haste, by diffuse violence in an environment which we are making more and more noisy, bad-smelling and over-crowded: we are already over six billion people (an average of about 44 people for every square km of emersed and habitable land on the planet) with rapid growth(1)! These are all conditions that seem to be preparing the way more for a tragic final planetary explosion rather than a juvenile flourishing, which should instead be a typically delicate, mild, sweet-smelling, serene, and pleasant expansion.

Mankind today truly needs a phase of deep reflection in order to identify and turn its steps towards a desirable development. In the past, we haven't usually been deep thinkers, as we were pressed by the real and crude necessities of survival. In order to rapidly expand ourselves, we have at various times trampled on (and for the sake of habit we still continue doing so) even the simplest show of good sense and moral code; proceeding in haste, it is known, we can see the gross, but we certainly can't ever notice the subtle. Today, however, the most advanced Countries of the Earth live largely in opulence. They are no longer subjected so much to problems of survival as to problems of lax morality(2) and of very old schemes of social organization, and it is suitable that they begin to urgently occupy themselves with exactly both of these problems.

In reality, the ills and errors stored up during our previous and present development are truly numerous; many are under the eyes of everyone as they are enourmous and evident, many others are more camouflaged (as they are deep-routed in even millenary usages and customs) but equally dangerous, still others are the infinite, apparently little, pieces of mischief to which everyone every day lends himself, that add up until they become huge mountains of evil. For this reason, today, in order to be able to open the doors to a further, more sound outward development of mankind, we must first devote ourselves to a work of careful examination and correction of our social organizations and of our own selves. We must pass all parts of our life through the sieve, healing every damage and offence we caused to the individual, to the society, and to the Planet. Only afterwards can we devote ourselves to a phase of further development, that, as we have already seen, preannounces itself pleasant and exciting, rather than just worthy to be lived.

With regard to our development, it is not a bad thing to think of it as to a bipolar process. On the contrary, the seing of our development as breathing, tipically characterized by a phase of breathing in and a phase of breathing out, can help us to better understand what we have done to this point and in what we must now engage ourselves. Until now we have lived a very long phase of breathing in, during which we have incorporated in our society riches without end, discovering, creating, inventing, and building, all in a rising vortex of activities of every kind and value, often positive but many times negative. Now, in this highly particular historical moment, even marked by the turn of a millennium and by the dawning of a new era, we must engage ourselves in an accurate phase of breathing out. During this phase we can expel all the toxins, all the harmful things to which previously, for hunger and urgency, we have tolerated, but also all that which by now has exhausted its nourishing contribution and must finally be abandoned.

Solely in this way, solely after a thoughtful and honest phase of purification and renewal of our social organism, we will again be able to return to a phase of further breathing in, of further enrichment, of further expansion, knowing that, putting in beautiful order and separating the two phases, their consequent expressive purity will multiply their potentialities, exactly as it happens every time we concentrate ourselves on something. If we should continue to dedicate ourselves to expansive activities, we would experience the clarifying sensation that every one of us can personally experience when we continue trying to breathe in when instead it is time to breathe out. No human can continue breathing in for ever, much less a society of humans.

If our society should continue to develop and expand itself in today's conditions of confusion, disunity, disorder, discord, restlessness, superficiality and scarce moral awareness, as well as in the conditions of a widespread unawareness that a great part of what is today called development is in reality merely waste and productive degeneration caused by a cultural subjection to wrong aims (which certainly do not enrich but impoverish all of us), and in the prospect of the enormous scientifical conquests and the relative technological achievements we are fast approaching and that presumably will make blush with shame our present potentialities, global and individual, our society would run a great danger, and the problems of the individual, the society, and the Planet, already today very important, would then become irrimediable.

Mankind today cannot continue to accent and devote itself so much to its further exterior, material development. Our greater common engagement today must instead be an inner development of ourselves and of our social organizations. By that, we mean the attainment of such a total skill of social analysis and interaction that every problem, from the smallest to the greatest, existing and future, is lead to a full and immediate solution, with complete efficacy and everyone's full satisfaction. At the same time, we mean the spreading, locally and globally alike, of such a reciprocal comprehension and respect, of such an agreement and harmony of thoughts and aims among the various parts of the society of humans that our well-being and our potentialities automatically multiply a hundred fold, without us even having concentrated on a further material development. The development we need today is intellectual, mental, not so much cultural (understood as acquisition of other people's reflections) as personally thoughtful, meditative, then moral, and aiming at the acquisition of an holistic, natural and genuine vision of things that at long last lift the veil of the partial and specialistic, faked and artificial, ancient and traditional vision presently prevailing, which still hides the deep origins of our evils and the efficacious systems to find their remedy.

Only thanks to this particular kind of development, to this empowerment, will the society be able to become so righteous and able to prevent the generation of any more hungry, any more neglected, any more illiterate, any more superstitious, any more corrupt or criminal, any more culprit not punished, any more valorous not rewarded, any more discontented or dissatisfied; only thanks to an inner development, to an increase of its skills, will the human society be able to prevent the creation of any more lying, any more injustice, any more violence, any more unpleasant disequilibrium, any more strident disharmony. Only then will everyone on the Earth succeed in listening and understanding each other and be well disposed to brotherly confrontation; only then, once we have become a united, in tune, powerful orchestra rich with six billion original, vibrant nuances, will we again be able to play and sing the hymn of our outward development.