Every day of my working life I see and work with human beings who are suffering and in pain. Usually it is the case that either life has brought them a series of unwanted and difficult circumstances and conditions or they, themselves, have made choices (ways of being or operating that they may not even be aware of) that have caused or contributed to their own and others’ suffering and pain. Life has become unhappy and often unmanageable. All personal resources seem to have failed. There seems to be no way out or around or through.

To me, these are critical rites of passage in the emotional and spiritual journey of a soul through time. It is in these crises that we are forced to grow. We must change. In some significant emotional or spiritual way we must be someone new, someone we have not been before. We must see or do things differently if we are to ever find meaning and even value in the adverse circumstances and conditions that have been presented to us. We must heal ourselves if we are to stop hurting ourselves or others. We must find our way in an unplanned and uncharted land.

It is my belief that human life is a school and that all of us are its students. The curriculum we will be asked to master in the Earth School (credit goes to Gary Zukav for this way of putting it) can be very challenging, at times even seemingly impossible to succeed at. Yet it is my belief that the curriculum, though mysterious, is not random. It is chalk full of lessons tailored uniquely for each of us to rise, expand, heal, release, grow and find greater love and peace to give and to receive. It is my belief that it is these lessons - the mental, emotional and spiritual choices we are making in the classroom while living - that is the deepest purpose for our being here. We have chosen this particular school to get the best education we can get.

Perhaps the best received newsletter to date has been the one containing, one of my professional role-models and mentors, Sheldon Kopp’s, Laundry List Of Eternal Truths (see January, 2007 Volume 1, Newsletter 11 on my website). It is a wonderful source of wisdom and guidance for trying to find our way in the Earth School. In his later years, as his own life became more and more spiritually-based, he wrote one last, lesser-known list. I find it more inspiring than the one he composed in mid-life. I present it to you lovingly now to help you through the more difficult aspects of your higher education.

.... Page 2