Guidance for being human

My friend, Derek Walllman, who was a guest on my “Living from the Heart” podcast in March of 2020, has an absolutely huge heart filled with love. Derek truly lives the Shin Dao – the Way of the Heart. Last year, he established his own podcast and fb page  The H.E.L.P. Podcast (Human Empowering Life Practices) | Facebook .

Last week I came across a post on Derek’s page that really resonated, so I thought I’d share it here:

The ‘Rules’ for Being Human

Handed down from ancient Sanskrit

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or not, but it will be yours for the entire period round.
   
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time, informal school called life. Each ay in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
   
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial and error, experimentation. The ‘failed’ experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately works.
   
4. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it, then you can go on to the next lesson.
   
5. Learning lessons does not end. There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
   
6. ‘There’ is no better than ‘Here’. When your ‘there’ has become ‘here’, you will simply obtain another ‘there’ that will again look better than ‘here’.
   
7. Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
   
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need, what you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
   
9. The answers lie inside you. The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

I found this to be simple, yet profound guidance for getting through this human lifetime. And as I read through them, I realized all these points are concepts that Neil and I have shared in the various programs we’ve hosted over the years, in particular the intensives we hosted, The Sage Within, The Spiritual Warrior, and The Sacred Journey.

Reading this post on Derek’s page made me realize how much I miss those days of taking people out of the city, into a nature setting, where they could focus on what’s truly important in life.

May these ancient teachings be ‘fused to your cells’ (as we say in Nia) so that you remember them at a deep level and allow them to guide you into a graceful and easeful life.