We must shape our own future, and we can do that by understanding our past and living fully in the present. The now moment, the only time and place we can take a hand in time towards fulfilling our destiny. Understanding ourselves is more than simply a matter of unearthing past achievements of archeological significance, or achieving significant gains in our economic, religious, social, psychological or political status. All these are important indexes of our civilized achievements and cultural attainments, but they are all simply on the human level, and the discourse is limited. The human stage is only one level of our eternal existence. Most of us focus our attention almost completely on the physical, the human stage of our development. But we are far more than that, and we should make the effort to find that out for ourselves. This is what spiritual traditions prepare us to achieve. And if we have not thought about it before, time now to change our thinking. If we need a hand in time, as some of us do, we can take the friendly hand that a spiritual tradition holds out and learn the truth of our existence.