The Fellowship Primer

Excerpts from the
Paul Solomon
Source Work Readings
for the
Fellowship of  the Inner Light

Compiled and Edited by Grace de Rond

Excerpt from the chapter, The Planetary Mystery School,
Lecture by Paul Solomon

. . . Then, he told me the story of another young man who had gone in search of a mystery school. A young man found himself enrolled in a Pythagorean School of the Mysteries and waited for the classes to start. As this man left his room and walked down the long hallway to the dining room, he noticed a broom sitting against the wall and some dust nearby on the floor. Someone has not finished his work, he thought. This place is a mess. This is no way to run a mystery school.

The young man had his meal and came back along the same hallway. He noticed that the dust and the broom were still there. 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."

And there the young man sits, even to this day, still waiting for the lessons to begin.

Following this encounter with the master teacher, I dropped my search for a school hidden on some distant mountain. I accepted his advice and decided to concentrate on the mystery school hidden within me, within each of us.

Each of us is enrolled in a school that I call the Planetary Mystery School. We entered this school the day we were born. Since our birth, a master teacher has been carefully designing and presenting the perfect lessons that we need 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 mystery school teachers are slight, gentle men bearing tiny trees. Teachers come in many different disguises. The training wires in this school can come in all shapes, sizes and personalities.

No waiter or waitress was ever rude to me in a restaurant for no reason. No cashier was ever impatient for no purpose. No family member ever created trauma for me when I did not have something to learn from it.

In this school, it is impossible to need a particular lesson without that lesson appearing. It is impossible for a lesson to appear without my needing it. The next lesson is always ready and waiting. The mop and the bucket are always out in the hallway. The teacher has placed them there so that 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 broom and start sweeping, or push it out of the way and say, "Isn’t it ridiculous that somebody left this here?"

Enrollment in the school of life 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 they are called on by the teacher. 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 move from feeling like a victim toward becoming a master of our own lives.

When we live consciously, we recognize the presence of a teacher, a guide and a partner in our personal growth. No external teacher can ever teach us more about ourselves, about the mysteries of life or about our creator, than is already garnered within our own hearts.

We are students in the school of life, learning to accept, to love and to serve one another. None of us is perfect yet. None of us has graduated from this great Planetary Mystery School. We are still children—Child-Gods growing up to be what our Father is.