‘There may be such a place,’ he answered, ‘but you are already enrolled in the highest possible graduate school on this planet. You have never been without a teacher. You study at the feet of the Light who created this little Bonsai, who created your body and your mind, who puts before you every day the necessary lessons you need to grow and become more beautiful. Why would you go in search of something less than what you already have?’
Then he told me the story of another young man who had gone in search of one of these hidden, ancient schools in Japan. This young monk had traveled from China, searching for a fabled mountain top Buddhist Monastery where enlightened masters lived. He eventually found the school, was enrolled, and began a lifelong career of study and discipline. His first learning experience was attending dinner. As he left his room and walked down the long, tatami mat hallway to the dining room, he noticed a broom leaning against the wall and some dust nearby on the floor.
He noticed the dust and the broom were still there the next day. He went back to his room and meditated, still waiting for the classes to start. After his afternoon meditation, he went again to the dining room for dinner. The broom and the dust remained, and now a mop and a bucket sat a little further down the hallway.
‘How careless,’ he thought. ‘This school was supposed to be the best available.’
Irritated, he went to eat. When he returned, the mess in the hallway remained. ‘I’m going to tell someone about this,’ he muttered. ‘In fact, I’m not sure I want to stay here. If the masters of this school can’t manage things better than this, they can’t teach me very much.’ Within a week, the young man left the school, unaware the lessons had already been placed before him. Even as he walked out the temple doors, he was waiting for the lessons to begin—still ignoring the mop and the bucket.
Following my encounter with the Teacher, I dropped my search for an ancient school of the mysteries. I accepted his advice and decided to concentrate on the lessons God’s Earth University presented to all of us every day. We entered this school the day we were born. Since our birth, God has been carefully designing and presenting the perfect lessons we need in order to strengthen our ability to master life on Earth—our ability to respond appropriately, with compassion, kindness and wisdom, to every situation that arises. Through this school of life, we are being shaped daily in more beautiful and harmonious directions.
Not all schoolteachers on this planet are slight, gentle, Bonsai masters bearing tiny trees. Teachers come in many disguises. The training wires in this school can come in all shapes, sizes and personalities. No waiter or waitress was ever rude to us in a restaurant for no reason. No cashier was ever impatient for no purpose. No family member ever created trauma for us when you did not have something to learn from it.
In this school of life, it is impossible to need a particular lesson without that lesson appearing. It is impossible for a lesson to appear without your needing it. The next lesson is always ready and waiting. The mop and the bucket are always out in the hallway. God, our source of Life and Light, has placed them there so we will stumble over them if necessary. Each time we walk by without seeing them, the teacher’s purpose is to move them a little closer to the middle of our path. Whatever the lesson we face, we have two choices: pick up the mop and start scrubbing, or push it out of the way and say, ‘Isn’t it ridiculous somebody left this here?’
1981 Paul Solomon. Reprinted with permission from FIL Archives.
Paul continued, ‘Enrollment in Earth University is mandatory. The only elective is whether we do it consciously or not. Some people are sleeping through their classes. Others are awake, paying attention, taking notes, studying old tests, learning the correct answers for when the teacher calls on them. Guess who gets better scores and passes to the next grade? When we make the decision to pay attention and to participate in our lessons on purpose, life takes on new meaning. We feel less victimized when the plumber overcharges, the car breaks down or the promotion falls through. We feel less defeated if our marriage struggles. We feel less alone if we become ill. We are students in the school of life, whose headmaster is the Source of Life, the Source of our Consciousness itself, the Divine we call God. Our Inner Teacher. Take notes.
Paul stopped talking and grinned at everybody. He turned to Felton and cleared his throat, ‘I think dinner is ready. It’s time to eat.’ And with that our evening class was done.1
As I remember that special evening in 1982, I recall feeling I was given a teaching that was very wise-something I should really pay attention to. However, I wondered what I was really striving to learn in that little country school we called Hearthfire Lodge? Was it the Eastern secret to enlightenment? Or the Christian secret of Jesus Christ? The concept of our planet as one BIG SCHOOL is a common theme throughout the Chronicles. Jean sees Earth as a testing ground to apply spiritual lessons:
I was told the Earth is like a big school, a place where you can apply spiritual lessons learned and test yourself, under pressure, to see if you can actually “live” what you already know you should do.2
Another near-death testimony pre-supposes God has laid out our life’s purpose and lessons before we are born. Pat writes:
I was at a water fountain with a man in a long white linen robe tied around the waist with a cord. He told me, ‘Basically, the Earth is a place to walk the walk and literally live the way it should be done. It was made clear to me some people come to the Earth to work on only one aspect of themselves, while others come to work on several aspects. Then there are others who come to not only work on their own nature, but also to help the world as a whole.
The other side does not have the physical pressures having a body has. Here on Earth, you must feed and clothe that body and provide shelter for it from the elements. You are under continual pressure of some sort, to make decisions that have a spiritual base. You are taught on the “other side” what you are “supposed to do,” but can you LIVE it under these pressures on Earth? From what I saw and heard there...on the other side...it is all about relationships and taking care of each other. Perfection is not expected of people...but learning is expected and considered good progress.
All of our experiences in a lifetime tend to follow some sort of pattern...and often will recreate the same lessons...only in a different way, and under various circumstances. This is how you know what you are here to learn and test. If you examine the patterns...certain themes will become clear.
I was shown a library filled with gold covered books. These are the lives of people on Earth where their life plan is laid out and what they hope to achieve through certain key experiences. From what I was shown, people have free choice as to how to get to these preset key experiences. They can take a meandering path of experiences or a more direct route, but there are certain events that are preset and will happen...no matter what. Each of those key events are benchmarks and one’s reactions to them will show how much they have learned and what more needs to be done, or learned. 3
Sue reiterates the importance of learning our lessons:
From these two near-death experiences, I have learned a couple of things. From the first, in good child form, I got the impression there were lessons I needed to learn and if I learned them quickly, I could play the rest of my life. It seemed there was a certain amount of time allotted to this lesson learning and if I was astute, I could get through it and then play. (I do not believe I have been very good at the lessons. However, quite a few folks have said it looks a lot like I’m playing all the time these days. Who knows, maybe I am?) 4
One Dead Saint commentary communicates the concern many may have about mistakes we have made in life. Can we flunk out of Earth University? Sure we can. Some of us may feel we have already, but it is not a sentence to a dark place in eternity. During Bridget’s NDE, Jesus explained to her to be ‘flesh’ is to ‘sin’:
‘You were flesh. And with flesh is biology and psychology and
instinct and desire and mechanism and ego and the serving thereof. To be flesh is to sin and that is the nature of being. There is no fault in being human.’5
It perhaps also gives an answer to the question, “If we are automatically forgiven for our sins and mistakes, why should we care about paying attention to our lessons in life?” From a spiritual perspective, the idea of Earth University makes a lot of sense. However, from a Christian perspective, why should we concern ourselves with mastering the lessons of Earth University? We are going to Heaven anyway, right? What difference does it make?
Parable of the Scuba Dive6
Entering Earth University with all its quizzes, exams, and finals, is analogous to Scuba Diving. When you plan a dive, you usually choose a beautiful setting, like the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, or the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Ideally, you wait for a peaceful, clear day, with bright blue sky, with the island and palm trees in the distance, warm sunshine, and beautiful aqua, green, and blue waters of the reefs.
Then you put on heavy, restrictive, cumbersome equipment. You strap tanks on your back, and put a mask over your face, which limits your vision. You put a regulator in your mouth that allows you to breathe but not talk, and fins on your feet that make it awkward to walk.
Then you fall off the boat, usually backwards, and tumble into a different world. From that moment on, the world you were living in no longer exists. Your experience of this exciting “underwater” world is limited to the equipment you are occupying, but as you adjust to your equipment, it feels less and less restrictive. You are neutrally buoyant and can easily float through “inner space” and…quickly…almost too quickly…it becomes difficult to remember what it was like “up there” in the sunlight. You don’t have much time to think about it because you are focusing on breathing, how much air you have left in your tanks, kicking your fins, and taking in the beautiful, sometimes dangerous underwater life.
It is very much like this when you are born into a physical body in Earth University. Taking on a body is restrictive and cumbersome; a prison compared to the pre-conception freedom “on the boat” before our descent into the terrestrial waters.
And as long as we struggle with our need to breathe, and move around in this world; our need to make a living guaranteeing personal security; getting distracted by entertainment and excitement, depending on our lizard “human” brain to survive, we forget the spiritual world we came from.
However, the Dive Master, who planned our dive, our excursion into Earth University, knows why we came down here. He knows the life purpose we once understood, what we had to explore, and what Mission we were supposed to accomplish. He is still there providing us with air to keep us alive and pertinent lessons to help us learn and grow.
It is interesting to hear what people talk about when they come back up to the boat after a dive. Coming back up is remarkably like a near-death experience. After you resurface, you take off your scuba gear (physical body), recover your natural ability to breathe air-–the breath of your Source of Life, —and jabber about what happened “down there.” Do you know what divers talk about? You would think the conversation would be dominated about the exhilarating reefs and the fabulous Technicolor fish—and it is, if that is all the divers experienced. However, when a diver encountered threatening things, the electric eels, the poisonous scorpion fish, the barracudas, the sharks-the dangers down there become the exciting things that animate us.
That seems to be what fascinates, even obsesses us in life-the dangers and the problems. We are so wrapped up dealing with dangers and problems, and just struggling to survive in Earth University reality, we forget why we were put here.
Waking Up in Heaven
The dive led by the Dive Master is still, always, underway. We are all still breathing. If we recollect hard enough, we may remember that heavenly boat waiting on the surface. However, if we have plenty of air left in the tanks, what’s the hurry? The underwater garden we have been swimming through has captivated our thinking since the day we were born. But that was so long ago we have almost forgotten the sunshine and the friends we left behind on the surface. We have become so mesmerized by our Earth University reality that we think it is not only real, but is the only reality.
Heaven and the sparkling Light is waiting for us on the surface. However, as I said, most of us believe we have plenty of air, so there’s no rush to swim back to the surface. And, frankly, because we are still here, our life purpose and Mission are not yet finished.
That’s just the big picture. At any moment, despite our Earth University syllabus, we can “change our major,” and graduate with honors.
It is the ultimate conundrum.
We don’t have to run out of air, have a near-death experience, or have a terminal illness to discover Heaven. Christ taught, and I paraphrase Luke 17:21, “Heaven is also right here, right now, not only swimming in front of you in the beautiful underwater garden of life, but swimming within you.”
We’ve read it. We’ve heard it. And perhaps, we think we intellectually understand what Jesus said, but do we really believe it? The Dead Saints insist Heaven is not separated by religion, and is more about the state of love we achieve, than a place we go. The states of love we can attain are many (“In my Father’s House are many mansions”); they are separated by love, not according to belief system.
Readers of every faith and belief should consider paying attention. Earth University is real. The school is real. Someday, when you die, you will stand before God and review every action and non-action, every thought and dream, their consequences for both good and evil, and you will realize God spoke to us every day in the mop and bucket lessons he presented to us in Earth University, lessons designed to make you more realized; lessons carefully crafted to help you overcome fear; lessons personally designed to teach you the laws of love and about the Planetary Headmaster in charge of those laws.
—
Endnotes
1Felton was born on a farm in eastern North Carolina in 1921. Educated at Duke University, he majored in botany and minored in zoology and geology. Although interested in Bonsai in his early teens, he wouldn’t actually start studying it until the mid-1950s when Frank Nagata of Los Angeles took him in as a student. Felton would subsequently study with John Naka, before he opened his own Sho-Ko-En School of Bonsai in Atlanta in 1967.
2Story excerpted from Paul Solomon lecture 1982. The Planetary Mystery School. See also, De Rond, Grace 2000. The Fellowship Primer, Paul Solomon. Ireland, UK. The Paul Solomon Foundation. pp. 19-33.
3Jean R NDE, #2932, 01.18.12, NDERF.org
4Sue C NDE, #2927, 01.18.12, NDERF.org
5Pat P NDE, #1228, 10.11.07, NDERF.org
6Bridget F NDE, #1654, 07.21.08, NDERF.org
7Based on the scuba diving analogy, Paul Solomon, Gary and Mary Anna Keller 1985. Love and Fear, Only Two Powers Exist. Timberville, VA: The Master’s Press. pp. 7-8.
— 5 —
Rice Paper Teachers
David Solomon’s Crayon drawing of Mt. Fuji at nine-years-old. Premonition of going to Japan later in life?
Prolific writer, near-death researcher, P.M.H. Atwater, uncovered previous near-death research showing a link between NDE states and transformation of first-century Buddhism in China and Japan: Mahayana Buddhism suddenly merged at that time, a reflection of near-death “visions” that depicted caring and enlightened individuals reaching back to help others less fortunate. Before then, only Hinayana Buddhism existed—a singular path that encouraged severance of all earthly ties.1
Kwai Chang Caine, fictional hero of the 1970’s TV series, Kung Fu, was a young monk studying martial arts in an ancient Chinese Shaolin Temple. One of his first instructors was blind, old master Po.
Caine was the grandfatherly Po’s favorite pupil and it was he who bestowed upon Caine his curious nickname “Grasshopper.”
That was deri
ved from an exchange where the naive young Caine asked the old blind master how he could function without seeing. Po asked Caine to close his eyes and describe what he could hear. Caine reported he could hear the water flowing in a nearby fountain and birds in a nearby cage. Po then asked if Caine could hear his own heartbeat or the grasshopper at his feet (Caine hadn’t noticed the grasshopper until that moment). Incredulous, Caine asked Po, “Old man—how is it you hear these things?” Po’s response was, “Young man. How is it you do not?” From that point on, Po affectionately called Caine “Grasshopper.”
It was the first of many tests, trials and initiations. However, in order to graduate from the Shaolin Temple, Kwai Chang had to pass the “rice paper test.”
“Only when you can walk across the rice paper without tearing it, will your footsteps not be heard,” old Po explained. Initially failing, years later the young monk tried again; this time he walked the rice paper without leaving a trace, and was allowed to graduate from the Temple.
That story is an excellent example of the student on the arduous path to “becoming conscious” who, in mastering the lessons of life, becomes a Teacher in turn.
Thus, teachers who have mastered an art or craft on Earth University, I call “Rice Paper Teachers.” I use the term to separate them from the myriad other teachers we may meet over the course of our lives and who teach us. Not only the formal teachers in our schools and universities who guide our academic progress, and our parents, family and friends, who do so much to shape our characters, but also the uncredentialed, and often-unwitting “professors” of Earth University we stumble across on our path. Some may be homeless people; some ex-wives, some business associates…a janitor; a gardener.
The Dead Saints Chronicles: A Zen Journey Through the Christian Afterlife Page 7
