Spirituality 101 for the Dropouts of the School of Life

Solitude

Solitude is a conceptual, not a situational, state. It is the psychic deprivation or alienation of love's primordial nature potentially residing in every sentient being within our universe. Yet, it still exists within the clamorous effervescence of crowds. As in a magical paradox, this feeling of isolation disappears spontaneously when we enter the solace of our inner silence, which makes us feel nurtured and satiated by the pure essence of Love.

After you try this indescribable delicacy, there comes a new way to look at the infinite and variable manifestations of apparent reality, that allows us to observe them without judging their illusory purposes and results. This new vision, born of our hearts and from all beings among our universe, dissolves all traces of suffering away from ourselves when we realize Happiness has always been within us on this timeless path.

Ivan Figueroa-Otero

INTRODUCTION “dropouts of traditional schools” vs. dropouts of the School of Life In traditional schools, a “dropout” is a person who usually has flunked his exams and left school. But in the School Of Life, flunking doesn’t mean failing. It’s more like a learning experience that began at some moment and that hasn’t been completed yet, since the options for repeating the lesson never run out. In the School Of Life there are no grades or organized curriculum. Everyone comes to learn and progress in specific areas, and your lessons are structured by your daily life. It’s as if the curriculum were created while you learn. Each experience is a new opportunity to grow and develop as whole beings, and everyone decides when he or she has learned sufficiently to move on to the next course. Who, then, are the dropouts in the School Of Life? They’re the ones that don’t feel satisfied with their lives. Those who, for some reason, are unhappy, stressed, insecure, sad or angry may feel they have flunked some subject in their personal progress. In those cases, the experiences will be repeated until the blockage is overcome in order to continue progressing. Fully graduating from the School Of Life is a human being’s most important process. The thing is, in that process exams are administered on a same-day basis, just as the class! That’s why when we flunk, things get harder, because next day’s exam will include the material from the previous one. People who flunk without realizing that they can retake the exam, are boycotting themselves when they stop trying to pass it. I’m one of those life dropouts, having repeated many subjects and during that experience, I have learned a bit about how to facilitate the test-passing process (tests which are about overcoming life experiences). This book is one of many that are coming out to help dropouts, and should not be construed as the only way to progress in life. As in every school, in the School Of Life there are levels corresponding to our awakening to the experience of living. In this school, the teachers are the very same students that have passed yesterday’s subjects. This educational system is like an infinite hierarchy comprised by levels, where the person placed lowest learns from the one a little higher than himself, and the latter teaches the next person in descending order. If the School Of Life is full of dropouts, as is happening nowadays, alumni from advanced levels return and share their acquired wisdom cumulatively with large groups in lower levels, to help them pass the corresponding exams. These dropouts perhaps were the ones Jesus referred to when he said: “the poor in Spirit”. They’re also the same ones He was referencing when He said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The topics covered in this review constitute my experience on how I interpreted life’s lessons in class, and how these could guide others in their respective paths along the School Of Life’s infinite chain. I want to express my deepest gratitude to all those who became my Teachers at every stage of my journey and who helped me to better understand my lessons of life. My heartfelt apologies to those whom, because of my lack of awareness, I caused any discomfort during my learning process. I should point out this is not a book about religion, but of spirituality, and I will explain the difference through its contents. I will use tools from different religions to facilitate the understanding of spiritual concepts that unite religions rather than separate them. I hope this book will become one of many ways in which Life prepares us to enjoy universal Love. Hopefully by the end of this book you will all be able have your own answers to life's archetypal questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where do I go from here? And that, as in the included poem, you will find out that the origins of Happiness have never left our side since the beginning of our common and infinite cosmic experience. Let's start this lesson of Love with a joyful heart. Ivan Figueroa-Otero MD