plans

• co-operation is planning with other and wiser beings

39:4.104. Quick­en­ers of Moral­ity. On the man­sion worlds you be­gin to learn self-gov­ern­ment for the ben­e­fit of all con­cerned. Your mind learns co-op­er­a­tion, learns how to plan with other and wiser be­ings. On the sys­tem head­quar­ters the se­raphic teach­ers will fur­ther quicken your ap­pre­ci­a­tion of cos­mic moral­ity—of the in­ter­ac­tions of lib­erty and loy­alty.

• suffer less by making fewer personal p. concerning others

48:6.36Even as mor­tals, so have these an­gels been fa­ther to many dis­ap­point­ments, and they will point out that some­times your most dis­ap­point­ing dis­ap­point­ments have be­come your great­est bless­ings. Some­times the plant­ing of a seed ne­ces­si­tates its death, the death of your fond­est hopes, be­fore it can be re­born to bear the fruits of new life and new op­por­tu­nity. And from them you will learn to suf­fer less through sor­row and dis­ap­point­ment, first, by mak­ing fewer per­sonal plans con­cern­ing other per­son­al­i­ties, and then, by ac­cept­ing your lot when you have faith­fully per­formed your duty.

• implementation in ideas, stereotypes, and decisions

101:7.1An idea is only a the­o­ret­i­cal plan for ac­tion, while a pos­i­tive de­ci­sion is a val­i­dated plan of ac­tion. A stereo­type is a plan of ac­tion ac­cepted with­out val­i­da­tion. The ma­te­ri­als out of which to build a per­sonal phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gion are de­rived from both the in­ner and the en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­pe­ri­ence of the in­di­vid­ual. The so­cial sta­tus, eco­nomic con­di­tions, ed­u­ca­tional op­por­tu­ni­ties, moral trends, in­sti­tu­tional in­flu­ences, po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, racial ten­den­cies, and the re­li­gious teach­ings of one’s time and place all be­come fac­tors in the for­mu­la­tion of a per­sonal phi­los­o­phy of re­li­gion. Even the in­her­ent tem­per­a­ment and in­tel­lec­tual bent markedly de­ter­mine the pat­tern of re­li­gious phi­los­o­phy. Vo­ca­tion, mar­riage, and kin­dred all in­flu­ence the evo­lu­tion of one’s per­sonal stan­dards of life.

• begun in time will be finished in eternity – if worth finishing

111:3.7In so far as man’s evolv­ing mor­ontia soul be­comes per­me­ated by truth, beauty, and good­ness as the value-re­al­iza­tion of God-con­scious­ness, such a re­sul­tant be­ing be­comes in­de­struc­tible. If there is no sur­vival of eter­nal val­ues in the evolv­ing soul of man, then mor­tal ex­is­tence is with­out mean­ing, and life it­self is a tragic il­lu­sion. But it is for­ever true: What you be­gin in time you will as­suredly fin­ish in eter­nity—if it is worth fin­ish­ing.

• thwarted by conspiracy of events

154:6.10In pass­ing through these events, Je­sus chose to be guided by the lim­ited knowl­edge of his hu­man mind. He de­sired to un­dergo the ex­pe­ri­ence with his as­so­ciates as a mere man. And it was in the hu­man mind of Je­sus to see his fam­ily be­fore he left. He did not wish to stop in the midst of his dis­course and thus ren­der their first meet­ing af­ter so long a sep­a­ra­tion such a pub­lic af­fair. He had in­tended to fin­ish his ad­dress and then have a visit with them be­fore leav­ing, but this plan was thwarted by the con­spir­acy of events which im­me­di­ately fol­lowed.

• overplanning can defeat itself

160:4.11Abil­ity is that which you in­herit, while skill is what you ac­quire. Life is not real to one who can­not do some one thing well, ex­pertly. Skill is one of the real sources of the sat­is­fac­tion of liv­ing. Abil­ity im­plies the gift of fore­sight, farsee­ing vi­sion. Be not de­ceived by the tempt­ing re­wards of dis­hon­est achieve­ment; be will­ing to toil for the later re­turns in­her­ent in hon­est en­deavor. The wise man is able to dis­tin­guish be­tween means and ends; oth­er­wise, some­times over­plan­ning for the fu­ture de­feats its own high pur­pose. As a plea­sure seeker you should aim al­ways to be a pro­ducer as well as a con­sumer.