Dear Reader,

This is really about all of humanity. A New America: An Awakened Future on Our Horizon offers new research and new insight into U.S. society, the most diverse country in the world. This material demonstrates practical pathways in our personal and social psyche directly leading to a better way of living for all human beings. It is a story based on a remarkable national research study conducted at the turn of the millennium. It is also a story based on many years experience with philanthropy, business, technologies, social/political activism, and spiritual awakening.

We have written this for anyone who cares and wants to make a positive difference – as well as for those people who are in positions of leadership and greater influence to make immediate use of this material. Our motivation in conducting formal research of this scope was to determine the extent to which we could identify and articulate a greater unity within diversity throughout society. We are excited that this research project succeeded beyond measure.

In this story there are ultimately no simple good guys or bad guys. Instead, we offer discernment with compassion to bridge the illusory gulf between people. "Illusory," you say, "aren't these very 'real' differences at the root of conflict and suffering?" Yes... and no. Consider that your consciousness is an aspect of a greater consciousness. This is a non-physical counterpart to the idea that your physical body is really composed of "star-stuff" and that your body's chemical make-up is remarkably similar to the surface of the Earth. It is in this light that our perceived differences can be seen as micro-cosmic variations of the greater whole macrocosm of creation.

Perhaps our differences are simply one way the vast sea of creative consciousness can better understand its cosmic self and the potential of creation. Perhaps human society, as a collection of "micro-wholes" comprising a "macro-whole," got a little too caught up in its own individual "beingness" – as individuals and as a species. This has been the basis for justifying individual gain at the expense of another – and for humans to justify their domination over nature at the expense of the planetary ecosystem.