The 2011 Light of Peace Ceremony, Photo by World Peace Initiative

Life and maturity, willpower and reason, knowledge and virtue, station and rank, piety and reverence have all been entrusted to human beings by God. The failure to fulfill one's duties toward any of these therefore amounts to a betrayal of that trust.

Accordingly, to neglect health is to betray life; to be capricious is to betray maturity; to be obsessive is to betray willpower; to be narrow-minded is to betray reason; to be base is to betray virtue; to remain ignorant is to betray knowledge; to be oppressive is to betray station and rank, to engage in debauchery is to betray piety; to be blasphemous is to betray reverence. . . ." ~ Ostad Elahi

These simple truths of life and living can be found in almost every culture and faith. Whether a person belongs to organized religion or not, there is some calling in each of us that desires to achieve success in life.

Although, success is seen increasingly with respect to the accumulation of wealth, most people desire personal growth, for just as many seek to go to "heaven" or move forward on the karmic wheel by learning all the lessons this life has to offer before leaving the world and all whom we encountered in it, better.

There is no single attribution for the list of inspirational life lessons below; however, it is purportedly handed down from Ancient Sanskrit.

Twelve Rules For Being Human

1. You will receive a body – You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons – You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called LIFE. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think of them as irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons – Growth is a process of Trial and Error and Experimentation. The “Failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “Work.”

4. A lesson is repeated until learned. – A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When 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 nothing better than “here” – When your “there” has become a “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 something that you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make 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. Life is exactly what you think it is – You create a life that matches your beliefs and expectations.

10. Your answers lie Inside You - The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

11. You will forget all this.

12. You can remember it whenever you want.

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