Life Enhancing Principles

Most gardeners have the sense to give plants what they need in order to flourish. Azaleas require acidic soil; oregano requires alkaline conditions. In the natural world, to insist on a standard regime for the entire garden would be insane because you cannot, even if your rationalizations are clever, force nature to obey your will.

Better than teaching nature to conform to your requirements is accepting nature as your teacher. If students use their own intelligence and experiment and observe the consequences, they don’t even need to depend on authorities. People who tenaciously defy the experts and trust in their own intelligence are often called brilliant scientists, creative poets, or innovative entrepreneurs.

Because all living things reveal their intelligent design to a sensitive, patient observer, the act of simply witnessing the life process (in oneself, in others, or in any living thing) creates a field of intelligence. Our school teaches students to get in touch with their own intelligence and rely on their own instinct and intuition. It guides them to honor life, to cooperate with life and other human beings, and trust in their own self-knowledge.

We will never understand others unless we use power of love that lies within our being. Without love, without sympathy, understanding of oneself or of others is impossible. Ignorance, blame, denial, isolation, and aggression are natural consequences of a failure to apply the life-enhancing principle of compassion to whoever or whatever life brings to us.

The simple process of conscious breathing connects us with our inner being. To focus on the nature of natural process is meditation. To align with our inner nature and natural world connects us to living genius.

The acorn will transform to the oak, the larva will become the butterfly if life-sustaining conditions prevail. Youngsters will become fully empowered and fully integrated human beings if the conditions for transmutation are met. It is all according to nature’s plan.

An “education” at any level that shapes children for specific ends forfeits human potential and possibility by enslaving the individual to the system. Our commitment is to awaken students to discover their own individual path and become fully empowered.

The mission we embrace at NEI it to provide the conditions for integrated growth and unlimited human development. We subscribe to creating and sustaining a community based on love, inclusion, truth, and beauty because we believe that such an environment provides the conditions for optimal human growth and personal transformation.