Tell me more about highly evolved civilizations and highly evolved beings. Outside of the fact that they don’t kill each other for any reason, what else makes them different from us
They share.
Hey, we share
No, they share everything. With everyone. Not a be-ing goes without. All the natural resources of their world, of their environment, are divided equally, and distributed to everyone.
A nation or a group or a culture isn’t thought to “own” a natural resource simply because it happens to
occupy the physical location where that resource is found.
The planet (or planets) which a group of species calls “home” is understood to belong to everyone—to all the species in that system. Indeed, the planet or group of planets itself is understood to be a “system.” It is viewed as a whole system, not as a bunch of little parts or ele-ments, anyone of which can be eliminated, decimated, or eradicated without damage to the system itself.
The ecosystem, as we call it.
Well, it’s larger than that. It’s not just the ecol-ogy—which is the relationship of the planet’s natural resources to the planet’s inhabitants. It’s also the rela-tionship of the inhabitants to themselves, to each other, and to the environment.
It’s the interrelationship of all the species of life.
The “speciesystem
Yes! I like that word! It’s a good word! Because what we’re talking about is larger than the ecosystem. It’s truly the speciesystem. Or what your Buckminster Fuller called the noosphere.
I like speciesystem better. It’s easier to understand. I always wondered what in blazes the noosphere was
Bucky” likes your word, too. He’s not attached. He always liked whatever made things simpler or easier.
You’re talking to Buckminster Fuller now? You’ve turned this dialogue into a séance
Let’s just say I have reason to know that the essence which identified itself as Buckminster Fuller is delighted with your new word.
Wow, that’s great. I mean, that’s so cool—to just be able to know that.
It is “cool.” I agree.
So in highly evolved cultures it’s the speciesystem that mat-ters.
Yes, but it isn’t that individual beings don’t matter. Quite to the contrary. The fact that individual beings do matter is reflected in the fact that effect on the spe-ciesystem is uppermost when considering any deci-sion.
It is understood that the speciesystem supports all life, and every being, at the optimum level. Doing noth-ing that would harm the speciesystem is therefore a statement that each individual being is important.
Not only the individual beings with status or influ-ence or money. Not only the individual beings with power or size or the presumption of greater self-awareness. All beings, and all species, in the system.
How can that work? How can that be possible? On our planet, the wants and needs of some species have to be subordi-nated to the wants and needs of others, or we couldn’t experi-ence life as we know it.
You are moving dangerously close to the time when you will not be able to experience “life as you know it” precisely because you have insisted on subordinating the needs of most species to the desires of only one.
The human species.
Yes-and not even all members of that species, but only a few. Not even the largest number (which might have some logic to it), but by far the smallest.
The richest and the most powerful.
You’ve called it.
Here we go. Another tirade against the rich and the accom-plished.
Far from it. Your civilization does not deserve a ti-rade; any more than a roomful of small children de-serves one. Human beings will do what they are doing—to themselves and to each other—until they re-alize that it is no longer in their best interests. No amount of tirades will change that.
If tirades changed things, your religions would have been far more effective long before now.
Whoa! Zip! Zing! You’re getting everyone today, aren’t You
I’m doing nothing of the sort. Are these simple obser-vations stinging you? Look, then, to see why. This much we both know. The truth is often uncomfortable. Yet this book has come to bring the truth. As have others which I have inspired. And movies. And television programs.
I’m not sure I want to encourage people to watch television.
For better or worse, television is now the campfire of your society. It is not the medium that is taking you in directions you say you do not wish to go, it is the mes-sages you allow to be placed there. Do not denounce the medium. You may use it one day yourself, to send a different message...
Let me get back, if I can. . . can I get back to my original question here? I’m still wanting to know how a speciesystem can work with the needs of all species in the system treated equally.
The needs are all treated equally, but the needs themselves are not all equal. It is a question of propor-tion, and of balance.
Highly evolved beings deeply understand that all living things within what we have chosen here to call the speciesystem have needs which must be met if the physical forms that both create and sustain the system are to survive. They also understand that not all these needs are the same, or equal, in terms of the demands they place on the system itself.
Let’s use your own speciesystem as an example.
Okay...
Let’s use the two living species you call “‘trees” and “humans.
I’m with You.
Obviously, trees do not require as much daily “main-tenance” as humans. So their needs are not equal. Yet they are interrelated. That is, one species depends on the other. You must pay as much attention to the needs of trees asto the needs of humans, but the needs themselves are not as great. Yet if you ignore the needs of one species of living thing, you do so at your peril.
The book I mentioned earlier as being of critical im-portance—The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight—de-scribes all of this magnificently. It says that trees take carbon dioxide out of your atmosphere, using the car-bon portion of this atmospheric gas to make carbohy-drates—that is, to grow.
Nearly everything of which a plant is made, includ-ing roots, stems, leaves—even the nuts and fruits which the tree bears—are carbohydrates.
Meanwhile, the oxygen portion of this gas is re-leased by the tree. It is the tree’s “waste matter.
Human beings, on the other hand, need oxygen to survive. Without trees to convert the carbon dioxide, which is plentiful in your atmosphere, into oxy-gen—which is not—you as a species cannot survive.
You, in turn release (breathe out) carbon dioxide, which the tree needs to survive.
Do you see the balance
Of course. It is ingenious.
Thank you. Now please quit destroying it.
Oh, come on. We plant two trees for every one we cut down.
Yes, and it will take only 300 years for those trees to grow to the strength and size which will allow them to produce as much oxygen as many of the old-growth trees you are chopping down.
The oxygen manufacturing plant which you call the Amazon rain forest can be replaced in its capacity to balance your planet’s atmosphere in, say, two or three thousand years. Not to worry. You’re clearing thou-sands of acres every year, but not to worry.
Why? Why are we doing that
You clear the land so that you can raise cattle to slaughter and eat. Raising cattle is said to provide more income for the indigenous peoples of the rain forest country. So all this is proclaimed to be about making the land productive.
In highly evolved civilizations, however, eroding the speciesystem is not looked at as productive, but rather, destructive. So HEBs have found a way to balance the total needs of the speciesystem. They choose to do this, rather than serve the desires of one small portion of the system, for they realize that no species within the sys-tem can survive if the system itself is destroyed.
Man, that seems so obvious. That seems so painfully obvious.
The “obviousness” of it may be even more painful on Earth in the years ahead if your so-called dominant species doesn’t wake up.
I get that. I get it big. And I want to do something about it. But I feel so helpless. I sometimes feel so helpless. What can I do to bring about change
There’s nothing you have to do, but there’s a great deal you can be.
Help me with that.
Human beings have been trying to solve problems at the “doingness” level for a longtime, without much success. That’s because true change is always made at the level of “being,” not “doing.
Oh, you’ve made certain discoveries, all right, and you’ve advanced your technologies, and so, in some ways, you’ve made your lives easier—but it’s not clear whether you’ve made them better. And on the larger is-sues of principle, you have made very slow progress. You are facing many of the same problems of principle that you’ve faced for centuries on your planet.
Your idea that Earth exists for the exploitation of the dominant species is a good example.
You clearly will not change what you are doing around that until you change how you are being.
You have to change your idea about who you are in relationship to your environment and everything in it before you will ever act differently.
It is a matter of consciousness. And you have to raise consciousness before you can change consciousness.
How can we do that
Stop being quiet about all this. Speak up. Raise a ruckus. Raise the issues. You might even raise some col-lective consciousness.
On just one issue, for instance. Why not grow hemp and use it to make paper? Do you have any idea how many trees it takes just to supply your world with daily newspapers? To say nothing of paper cups, carry-out cartons, and paper towels
Hemp can be grown inexpensively, and harvested easily, and used not only for making paper, but the strongest rope, and the longest-lasting clothing, and even some of the most effective medicines your planet can provide. In fact, cannabis can be planted so inexpen-sively, and harvested so easily, and has so many wonder-ful uses, that there is a huge lobby working against it.
Too many would lose too much to allow the world to turn to this simple plant which can be grown almost anywhere.
This is just one example of how greed replaces com-mon sense in the conduct of human affairs.
So give this book to everyone you know. Not only so that they get this, but so that they get everything else the book has to say. And there’s still a great deal more.
Just turn the page...
Yeah, but I’m starting to feel depressed, like a lot of people said they felt after Book 2. Is this going to be more and more talk about how we’re destroying things here, and really blow-ing it? ‘Cause I’m not sure I’m up for this . . .
Are you up for being inspired? Are you up for being excited? Because learning about and exploring what other civilizations—advanced civilizations-are doing should both inspire and excite you
Think of the possibilities! Think of the opportunities! Think of the golden tomorrows just around the corner
If we wake up.
You will wake up! You are waking up! The paradigm is shifting. The world is changing. It’s happening right in front of your eyes.
This book is part of it. You are part of it. Remember, you are in the room to heal the room. You are in the space to heal the space. There is no other reason for you to be here.
Don’t give up! Don’t give up! The grandest adven-ture has just begun
All right. I choose to be inspired by the example and wis-dom of highly evolved beings, not discouraged by it.
Good. That is a wise choice, given where you say you want to go as a species. You have much you can re-member from observing these beings.
HEBs live in unity, and with a deep sense of interre-latedness. Their behaviors are created by their Sponsor-ing Thoughts—what you might call the basic guiding principles of their society. Your behaviors, too, are cre-ated by your Sponsoring Thoughts—or, the basic guid-ing principles of your society.
What are the basic guiding principles of a HEB Society
Their First Guiding Principle is: We Are All One.
Every decision, every choice, all of what you would call “morals” and “ethics,” is based upon this principle.
The Second Guiding Principle is: Everything in the One Interrelates.
Under this principle, no one member of a species could, or would, keep something from another simply because “he had it first,” or it’s his “possession,” or it’s in “short supply.” The mutual dependency of all living things in the speciesystem is recognized and honored. The relative needs of every species of living organism within the system are always kept in balance—because they are always kept in mind.
Does this Second Guiding Principle mean there is no such thing as personal ownership
Not as you understand it.
A HEB experiences “personal ownership” in the sense of holding personal responsibility for every good thing in his care. The closest word in your language to describe what a highly evolved being feels about what you would call a “prized possession” is stewardship. A HEB is a steward, not an owner.
The word “own,” and your concept behind it, are not part of the culture of HEBs. There is no such thing as “possession” in the sense of something being a “per-sonal belonging.” HEBs do not possess, HEBs caress. That is, they hold, embrace, love, and care for things, but they do not own them.
Humans possess, H EBs caress. In your language, this is how the difference could be described.
Earlier in your history humans felt they had the right to personally possess everything they laid their hands on. This included wives and children, land, and the riches of the land. “Stuff,” and whatever other “stuff” their “stuff” could get them, was also theirs. Much of this belief is still held as truth today in human society.
Humans became obsessed with this concept of “ownership.” HEBs who watched this from a distance called this your “possession obsession.
Now, as you have evolved, you understand more and more that you can really, truly, possess noth-ing—least of all your spouses and children. Many of you, though, still cling to the notion that you can possess land, and everything on it, under it, and over it. (Yes, you even talk about “air rights
The HEBs of the universe, by contrast, deeply un-derstand that the physical planet beneath their feet is not something that can be possessed by any single one of them—although an individual HEB may be granted, through the mechanisms of his or her society, a parcel of land for which to care. If she is a good steward of the land, she may be allowed (asked) to pass stewardship on to her offspring, and they to theirs. Yet if at any time either he or his offspring prove to be poor stewards of the land, the land is no longer kept in their care.
Wow! If that were the guiding principle here, half the in-dustries in the world would have to give up their property
And the world’s ecosystem would dramatically im-prove overnight.
You see, in a highly evolved culture, a “corpora-tion,” as you call it, would never be allowed to despoil the land in order to make a profit, for it would be clearly seen that the quality of the lives of the very people who own or work for the corporation are being irrevocably damaged. What profit is there in that
Well, the damage might not be felt for many years, whereas the benefits are realized right here, right now. So that would be called Short-Term Profit/Long-Term Loss. But who cares about Long-Term Loss if you’re not going to be there to experience it
Highly evolved beings do. But then, they live a lot longer.
How much longer
Many times longer. In some HEB societies, beings live forever—or as long as they choose to remain in cor-poral form. So in HEB societies, individual beings are usually around to experience the long-term conse-quences of their actions.
How do they manage to stay alive so long
Of course they are never not alive, any more than you are, but I know what you mean. You mean “with the body.
Yes. How do they manage to stay with their bodies for so long? Why is this possible
Well first, because they don’t pollute their air, their water, and their land. They do not put chemicals into the ground, for instance, which are then taken up by plants and animals, and brought into the body upon consumption of those plants and animals.
A HEB, in fact, would never consume an animal, much less fill the ground, and the plants which the ani-mal eats, with chemicals, then fill the animal itself with chemicals, and then consume it. A HEB would correctly assess such a practice to be suicidal.
So HEBs do not pollute their environment, their at-mosphere, and their own corporal bodies, as humans do. Your bodies are magnificent creations, made to “last” infinitely longer than you allow them to.
HEBs also exhibit different psychological behaviors that equally prolong life.
Such as
A HEB never worries—and wouldn’t even under-stand the human concept of “worry” or “stress.” Neither would a HEB “hate,” or feel “rage,” or “jealousy,” or panic. Therefore, the HEB does not produce biochemical reactions within her own body that eat away at it and destroy it. A HEB would call this “eating itself,” and a HEB would no sooner consume itself than it would con-sume another corporal being.
How does a HEB manage this? Are humans capable of such control over emotions
First, a HEB understands that all things are perfect, that there is a process in the universe that is working itself out, and that all they have to do is not interfere with it. So a HEB never worries, because a HEB understands the process.
And, to answer your second question: Yes, humans have this control, although some don’t believe they have it, and others simply don’t choose to exercise it. The few who do make an effort live a great deal longer—assuming chemicals and atmospheric poisons haven’t killed them, and also assuming they haven’t voluntarily poisoned themselves in other ways.
Wait a minute. We “voluntarily poison ourselves
Some of you do, yes.
How
As I said, you eat poisons. Some of you drink poi-sons. Some of you even smoke poisons.
A highly evolved being finds such behaviors incom-prehensible. He can’t imagine why you would deliber-ately take into your bodies substances that you know can’t be doing you any good.
Well, we find eating, drinking, and smoking certain things enjoyable.
A HEB finds life in the body enjoyable, and can’t imagine doing anything that she knows ahead of time could limit or terminate that, or make it painful.
Some of us don’t believe that eating red meat plentifully, drinking alcohol, or smoking plants will limit or terminate our lives, or make them painful.
Then your observational skills are very dull. They need sharpening. A HEB would suggest that you simply look around you.
Yes, well . . . what else can You tell me about what life is like in the highly evolved societies of the universe
There is no shame.
No shame
Nor any such thing as guilt.
How about when a being proves to be a bad “steward” of the land? You just said they take the land away from him! Doesn’t that mean he’s been judged and found guilty
No. It means he’s been observed and found unable.
In highly evolved cultures, beings would never be asked to do something they’ve demonstrated an inabil-ity to do.
What if they still wanted to do it
They would not “want” to.
Why not
Their own demonstrated inability would eliminate their desire. This is a natural outcome of their understanding that their inability to do a particular thing could potentially damage another. This they would never do, for to dam-age the Other is to damage the Self, and they know this.
So it is still “self-preservation” that drives the experience! Just like on Earth
Certainly! The only thing that’s different is their defi-nition of “Self.” A human defines Self very narrowly. You speak of your Self, your family, your community. A HEB defines Self quite differently. She speaks of the Self, the family, the community.
As if there were only one.
There is only one. That’s the whole point.
I understand.
And so, in a highly evolved culture, a being would never, for instance, insist on raising offspring if that be-ing consistently demonstrated to itself its own inability to do so.
This is why, in highly evolved cultures, children don’t raise children. Offspring are given to elders to raise. This doesn’t mean that new offspring are torn from those who gave them life, taken from their arms and given to virtual strangers to raise. It is nothing like that.
In these cultures, elders live closely with the young ones. They are not shuffled off to live by themselves. They are not ignored, and left to work out their own fi-nal destinies. They are honored, revered, and held close, as part of a loving, caring, vibrant community.
When a new offspring arrives, the elders are right there, deep within the heart of that community and that family, and their raising of the offspring is as organically correct as it feels in your society to have the parents do this.
The difference is that, though they always know who their “parents” are-the closest term in their lan-guage would be “life-givers”—these offspring are not asked to learn about the basics of life from beings who are still learning about the basics of life themselves.
In HEB societies, the elders organize and supervise the learning process, as well as housing, feeding, and
caring for the children. Offspring are raised in an envi-ronment of wisdom and love, great, great patience, and deep understanding.
The young ones who gave them life are usually off somewhere, meeting the challenges and experienc-ing the joys of their own young lives. They may spend as much time with their offspring as they choose. They may even live in the Dwelling of the Elders with the children, to be right there with them in a “home” en-vironment, and to be experienced by them as part of it.
It is all a very unified, integrated experience. But it is the elders who do the raising, who take the responsibil-ity. And it is an honor, for upon the elders is placed the responsibility for the future of the entire species. And in HEB societies, it is recognized that this is more than should be asked of young ones.
I touched on this earlier, when we talked about how you raise offspring on your planet, and how you might change that.
Yes. And thank You for further explaining this, and how it could work. So, getting back, a HEB does not feel guilt or shame, no matter what he does
No. Because guilt and shame is something which is imposed on a being from outside of itself. It can then be internalized, no question about that, but it is initially imposed from the outside. Always. No divine being (and all beings are divine) ever knows itself or anything it is doing to be “shameful” or “guilty” until someone out-side of Itself labels it that way.
In your culture, is a baby ashamed of its “bath-room habits”? Of course not. Not until you tell it to be. Does a child feel “guilty” for pleasuring itself with its genitals? Of course not. Not until you tell it to feel guilty.
The degree to which a culture is evolved is demon-strated by the degree to which it labels a being or an ac-tion “shameful” or “guilty.
Are no actions to be called shameful? Is a person never guilty, no matter what he does
As I have already told you, there is no such thing as right and wrong.
There are some people who still don’t understand that.
To understand what is being said here, this dialogue must be read in its entirety. Taking any statement out of context could make it not understandable. Books 1 and 2 contain detailed explanations of the wisdom above. You are asking Me here to describe the highly evolved cultures of the universe. They already understand this wisdom.
Okay. How else are these cultures different from our own
In many other ways. They do not compete.
They realize that when one loses, everyone loses. They therefore do not create sports and games which teach children (and perpetuate in adults) the extraordi-nary thought that someone “winning” while another is “losing” is entertainment.
Also, as I said, they share everything. When another is in need, they would never dream of keeping or hoarding something they had, simply because it was in scarce supply. On the contrary, that would be their very reason for sharing it.
In your society, the price goes up for that which is rare, if you share it at all. In this way you ensure that, if you are going to share something which you “possess,” at least you’ll be enriched doing it.
Highly evolved beings are also enriched by sharing rare things. The only thing that is different between HEBs and humans is how HEBs define “being en-riched.” A HEB feels “enriched” by sharing everything freely, without needing to “profit.” Indeed, this feeling is the profit.
There are several guiding principles of your culture, which produce your behaviors. As I said earlier, one of your most basic ones is: Survival of the Fittest.
This might be called your Second Guiding Principle. It underlies everything your society has created. Its eco-nomics. Its politics. Its religions. Its education. Its social structures.
Yet, to a highly evolved being, the principle itself is an oxymoron. It is self-contradicting. Since the First Guiding Principle of a HEB is We Are All One, the “One” is not “fit” until the “All” is “fit.” Survival of the “fittest” is, therefore, impossible—or the only thing that is possible (therefore a contradiction)—since the “fit-test” is not “fit” until it is.
Are you following this
Yes. We call it communism.
On your planet you have rejected out-of-hand any system which does not allow for the advancement of one being at the expense of another.
If a system of governance or economics requires an attempt at equitable distribution, to “all,” of the bene-fits created by “all,” with the resources belonging to “all,” you have said that system of governance violates the natural order. Yet in highly evolved cultures, the natural order IS equitable sharing.
Even if a person or group has done nothing to deserve it? Even if there has been no contribution to the common good? Even if they are evil
The common good is life. If you are alive, you are con-tributing to the common good. It is very difficult for a spirit to be in physical form. To agree to take such a form is, in one sense, a great sacrifice-yet one that is necessary, and even enjoyed, if the All is to know itself experientially, and to re-create Itself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision it ever held about Who It Is.
It is important to understand why we came here.
We
The souls which make up the collective.
You’re losing me.
As I have already explained, there is only One Soul, One Being, One Essence. Some of you call this “God.” This Single Essence “individuates” Itself as Everything In The Universe-in other words, All That Is. This includes all the sentient beings, or what you have chosen to call souls.
So “God” is every soul that “is
Every soul that is now, ever was, and ever will be.
So God is a “collective
That’s the word I chose, because it comes closest in your language to describing how things are.
Not a single awesome being, but a collective
It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Think “out-side the box
God is both? A single Awesome Being which is a collective of individualized parts
Good! Very good
And why did the collective come to Earth
To express itself in physicality. To know itself in its own experience. To be God. As I’ve already explained in detail in Book 1.
You created us to be You
We did, indeed. That is exactly why you were cre-ated.
And humans were created by a collective
Your own Bible said, “Let Us create man in Our im-age, and after Our likeness” before the translation was changed.
Life is the process through which God creates Itself, and then experiences the creation. This process of crea-tion is ongoing and eternal. It is happening all the “time.” Relativity and physicality are the tools with which God works. Pure energy (what you call spirit) is What God Is. This Essence is truly the Holy Spirit.
By a process through which energy becomes mat-ter, spirit is embodied in physicality. This is done by the energy literally slowing itself down—changing its oscil-lation, or what you would call vibration.
That Which Is All does this in parts. That is, parts of the whole do this. These individuations of spirit are what you have chosen to call souls.
In truth, there is only One Soul, reshaping and re-forming Itself. This might be called The Reformation. You are all Gods In Formation. (God’s information
That is your contribution, and it is sufficient unto it-self.
To put this simply, by taking physical form you have already done enough. I want, I need, nothing more. You have contributed to the common good. You have made it possible for that which is common—the One Common Element—to experience that which is good. Even you have written that God created the heavens and the Earth, and the animals who walk upon the land, and the birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and it was very good.
Good” does not—cannot——exist experientially without its opposite. Therefore have you also created evil, which is the backward motion, or opposite direction, of good. It is the opposite of life—and so have you cre-ated what you call death.
Yet death does not exist in ultimate reality, but is merely a concoction, an invention, an imagined experi-ence, through which life becomes more valued by you. Thus, “evil” is “live” spelled backward! So clever you are with language. You fold into it secret wisdoms that you do not even know are there.
Now when you understand this entire cosmology, you comprehend the great truth. You could then never demand of another being that it give you something in return for your sharing the resources and necessities of physical life.
As beautiful as that is, there are still some people who would call it communism.
If they wish to do so, then so be it. Yet I tell you this
Until your community of beings knows about being in community, you will never experience Holy Commun-ion, and cannot know Who I Am.
The highly evolved cultures of the universe under-stand deeply all that I have explained here. In those cultures it would not be possible to fail to share. Nor would it be possible to think of “charging” increasingly exorbitant “prices” the more rare a necessity became. Only extremely primitive societies would do this. Only very primitive beings would see scarcity of that which is commonly needed as an opportunity for greater profits. “Supply and demand” does not drive the HEB system.
This is part of a system that humans claim contrib-utes to their quality of life and to the common good. Yet, from the vantage point of a highly evolved being, your system violates the common good, for it does not allow that which is good to be experienced in common.
Another distinguishing and fascinating feature of highly evolved cultures is that within them there is no word or sound for, nor any way to communicate the meaning of, the concept of “yours” and “mine.” Per-sonal possessives do not exist in their language, and, if one were to speak in earthly tongues, one could only use articles to describe things. Employing that conven-tion, “my car” becomes “the car I am now with.” “My partner” or “my children” becomes “the partner” or “the children I am now with.
The term “now with,” or “in the presence of,” is as close as your languages can come to describing what you would call “ownership,” or “possession.
That which you are “in the presence of” becomes the Gift. These are the true “presents” of life.
Thus, in the language of highly evolved cultures, one could not even speak in terms of “my life,” but could only communicate “the life I am in the presence of.
This is something akin to your speaking of being “in the presence of God.
When you are in the presence of God (which you are, any time you are in the presence of each other), you would never think of keeping from God that which is God’s-meaning, any part of That Which Is. You would naturally share, and share equally, that which is God’s with any part of that which is God.
This is the spiritual understanding which undergirds the entire social, political, economic, and religious structures of all highly evolved cultures. This is the cos-mology of all of life, and it is merely failure to observe this cosmology, to understand it and to live within it, which creates all of the discord of your experience on Earth.