Once again, beloved students, we have the privilege of meeting in the amazing classroom in the mind! The beauty of this classroom is that it requires no physical space and accrues no rental expense. Indeed, this classroom is with you in every moment. Of course, you must enter the classroom to meet the teacher, encounter the teaching, and harvest the intended lessons, but the good news is that you can enroll in personal growth classes any time you choose. We on this plane are most appreciative for the moments when you, as spiritual aspirants, open the doors of your inner classrooms to us, thereby facilitating a plane-toplane meeting within the field of your consciousness.

This month, I want to start in a place that might not appear to be connected to preparing the mind for enlightenment or ascension. During World War II, a number of colloquial sayings were used so much that they became slang expressions in America. One such phrase used quite widely in the 1950s, although rarely today, is: “Wake up and die right!” This was often said to a soldier on the battlefield who seemed disassociated or “checked out.” Clearly, engaging in warfare in a disassociated state could prove quite costly to others in one’s battle group. Thus, when a commanding officer observed a soldier or soldiers appearing to have checked out, the cry of “wake up and die right, soldier,” could often be heard. After the war, it became a phrase that was used to call someone to a greater level of attentiveness.

While such a quote might apply in some of the handto- hand combat settings now occurring in the world’s tensionprone zones, it clearly does not make much sense in the warfare practiced by the West in the twenty-first century. Thus, in the West, this particular colloquialism has fallen from general usage. However, when we move into the topics of enlightenment and ascension, the phrase becomes both relevant and immediate to the mind state of the aspirant. In a most pertinent way, generating enlightenment requires both waking up and dying, albeit not necessarily a physical death.