This foreword to the printed edition of Lessons applies also to the Website edition. Except for some corrected typo’s and only a couple of changed wordings, the two are identical. Also their purpose is and how they came into being and should be used. They have the same e-mail address and are both financed by private funds. (February 2004)

L.S.,

These ‘Lessons’ follow closely, in time, content and purpose, the ‘12 Booklets’ which were published a year earlier. The content of both has the same origin and part of their structure is the same. They are put on paper by the same person. They also share that they are not for sale. Copies can be requested by e-mail. The Lessons can be copied and handed out for free to whoever shows interest in them. The clear message is that they are not to be used for discussion or comparing. No analysis or explanation of their possible meaning is helpful or valid, as they are exclusively addressed to the individual who reads them. And that can be anybody.

If a passage is difficult to understand or holds no interest, one can just skip it. Or one can access one’s personal innermost ‘sanctuary’ to gain insight there. The e-mail address provided is not to be used for information about the content of the Lessons. Each reader is completely free to take the lessons seriously and accept the message they convey, or not. E-mail correspondence can serve to answer questions about availability, distribution, translation, copying, etc. The first printing of 1000 copies is financed by private funds. So are the costs of having a website.

It is quite a unique feature of both the 12 Booklets and the Lessons that they discourage sharing their content with others. This is not because there is anything secretive about them or because they are meant for only a happy few. On the contrary. The reason for not sharing with interested people is that it will add nothing to the richness of what is presented. If a person senses the truth of the words, he or she will start approaching life in a new way. If that is noticed, one could say that some indirect sharing is taking place.

When starting to read the Lessons, the first thought will be about who it is who asks the questions and who produces the answers. There will be immediate skepticism about the source of all these ideas, especially because they are presented as final statements. Let me shed some light here, as I am the one who compiled these Lessons. They did not come to me by way of inner voices, being taken over by another entity (channeling), automatic writing, conversations in a state of trance or by similar mechanics that wholly or partly bypass our usual ways of thinking and creative activity. For a while I took it that the dynamics of communicating with the ‘unseen’ Presence were like what artists and other creative people experience when they are consciously or unconsciously ready for it. It makes sense that also training, talent, past activities and ambition play a role in the creative impulse. In my case, I had no inkling that I could be instrumental to put words like these - quite outrageous in their pretense - on paper. For one, I do not write easily, besides the fact that English is not my native tongue. On the other hand, I can see that certain elements in my personal and professional life have been leading up to this.

I always was aware of my wondering about the customary answers given to life’s core issues. But it remained a mere footnote in my thinking, as I did not follow up on it. That is, until about fifteen years ago when for no particular reason I know of, my spiritual side seemed to ‘act up’. I do not think it is helpful for anyone to hear how I processed this. The 12 Booklets and Lessons make it clear that interest in other people’s spiritual journey easily get in the way of unearthing one’s own self as the unique, unrepeatable, choosing - and often disappointing - person one is.

This foreword to the first printing is written after I finished the manuscript. When I started, I had not the faintest idea to where it would lead or what information would become available. I only was clear about using the same division in 7 chapters as in the 12 Booklets. While putting on paper the Lessons, I was very aware of three things. One, the ‘Presence’ supported and appreciated my doing it. Two, to write down this information was totally my choice and responsibility - I did not have to do it. Three, the conveyed message addresses every human being alive today, without any exception.

So who is the author of these 147 Questions and Answers and of the 12 Booklets? I can only say that the information came from a Presence - on my level - I was in communication with for some time. The words seem the result of my spirit merging with the Spirit of life It/Her/Himself. In the Lessons several descriptions are used for the One Who speaks the Answers and formulates the Questions. It may be confusing and unsatisfactory that no leading name is used. Easily, one could be borrowed from those religion or science use. The reason for this is explained in the Lessons. It has to do with the situation that nobody or nothing can step outside the presence of life’s Totality, so labels or names, which tend to ‘objectify’, differentiate or create a distance are useless.

The seven names, used as themes for the chapters, are not meant as appellations. Together they function as representing the fullness of the I AM of all existence. Let me quote from the introduction to the 12 Booklets: “The Names ‘grew on’ me over a period of several years, until the moment I realized that these seven were ‘it’. They are not my invention, but, as it were, they allowed themselves to be ‘discovered’.”

The amazing and liberating news of the Lessons is for me that they point out that each human being is in exactly the same position in terms of her or his belonging to life. Listening to the One Who speaks through these Lessons allows anyone who wishes, to experience some of the true and full reality, which on earth is obscured to say the least. I alert readers to the fact that the Lessons alternate between speaking of life in its true nature and appearance and as we experience it today on our isolated planet.

P.N., Los Angeles, Spring 2002
E-mail: noomenp@aol.com