Schools are Lighthouses for Humanity

Schools are Lighthouses for Humanity

When thinking about the topic of Schools, I was pondering how I could write about the palpable yet invisible effect that conscious influence has had on my life. Afterall, a School is not something external like the large brick building down the street from my house, which would be relatively straightforward to describe. Just as a house is not a home, we might describe the more conscious human energy living inside the house as what makes it alive and transforms it into a home – it is the mortar that holds the bricks in place so to speak. By the same token, there can be an external expression of higher consciousness found in “forms” like edifices, paintings, cathedrals, poetry, sculpture, and music, to name a few. These art forms can be the result of a group of people working together in a School toward a common conscious aim, but they are only the outer face of internal development, a sort of exoskeleton.

Museums are treasure houses of schools. Our school thrives in them. — The Teacher

The thought occurred to me that air is invisible to me, yet I breathe the air and feel its unmistakable power in windstorms and the effects it has on my hair blowing in the breeze. I cannot see gravity, but I witness its influence every day, even as my pencil falls from my desk or as I take for granted what is thrown in the trashcan will fall rather than rise into the air. So, I will try to give you a blueprint of how to recognize a conscious School, from evidence left by external forms to inner development as I have experienced it. In other words, both the visible results as well as the invisible effects of conscious Schools.

Schools are always hidden behind life’s unconscious scenes. — The Teacher

Schools keep a conscious spark burning from one civilization to the next. Their light guides the psychological evolution of a group of people who treasure from this life the only part of it that cannot perish; that is, consciousness. Schools begin from conscious influence and are taught by conscious teachers, someone who has achieved living permanently in Higher Centers.

Higher centers must be connected to higher school. — The Teacher

Conscious Teachers or “spiritual adepts” are guides and masters of spiritual traditions. Some of the more well-known ancient Teachers are Socrates, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad, and Confucius, each of whom formed a hub of followers around them who helped carry out their conscious vision from higher school. Because the School of Hinduism dates back to nearly prehistoric times and is considered one of the world's oldest religions, it lacks the name of a singular Teacher, yet the markers pointing to the emergence from a conscious source seem evident. Similarly, the mystical branch of Islam, Sufism, is thought by some Muslims to be traced back to Mohammad as its Teacher while others assert that this mystical tradition existed before Mohammad.

All the different schools are just variations on a conscious theme. — The Teacher

My journey into meeting a conscious School had a sort of resonant frequency or “fragrance” that attracted something in me – perhaps the “god particle,” not so unlike meeting a soul mate who makes me feel whole. Finding a community of seekers whose consciousness I felt as an awareness of seeing deeply into themselves and also into me. A place where essence finally felt it could exist without unnecessary protection or fear of vulnerability. It opened me to the reality that we can live right now, right here on earth more consciously rather than wait for the hereafter. It was an introduction to a harmony that does not exist on our usual plane of everyday existence.

Schools are for ordinary people, and we are ordinary people—with presence. — The Teacher

When I joined the School, one of the most alluring attractions was that there was little propaganda or pressure to pull me or anyone else into the School. In fact, quite the opposite. There was more neutrality to my arrival and whether I joined or what I gained once I became a member was up to me, though I was warmly welcomed. The aim of the Work is to verify everything, and the goal is not “conversion” of others through trying to convince them that the path is the only true way of consciousness. But through self-observation and awareness, experiencing states of higher consciousness with others who valued it, I felt a connection to the thread of conscious influence – as easy to lose as it was hard to find.

The secrets are the same in all schools. — The Teacher

From my own first line (work on myself), to second line (work with other students) to third line (working in consort with the vision of the Teacher), higher states were more frequent, deeper, and abiding. Exactly what is my daily life like in this modern School? I read the writings of conscious teachers, buy groceries, feed myself and my family, walk with neighbors, clean my house, work as an educator, stay in touch with family and friends, gather for meals, discussions, meetings and recreation with students, enjoy hobbies, take vacations, host visiting students from all over the world in my home, check and respond to my email, and pay my bills. Does this sound like you? The Fourth Way takes place in life, in the circumstances we find ourselves, adding presence and efforts to live all of these activities with more consciousness and mindfulness.

In schools, everyone becomes present. That is what schools are. — The Teacher

Just as the Tower of Hercules is the oldest functioning lighthouse in the world, Schools are also from ancient roots and functioning in our world today. I was inspired to read that this lighthouse is a fully preserved Roman lighthouse that is still used for maritime signaling and it has been a beacon of light for 2000 years. It stands in A Coruña, Galicia, in northwestern Spain, and was built in the 1st Century by Gaius Sevius Lupus originally dedicated to the Greek God, Mars. Like Schools, it has had other names throughout history, but the same light still shines.

Schools are a lighthouse for humanity. — The Teacher

Join the discussion

The Tower of Hercules, Gaius Sevius Lupus, A Coruña, Galicia