“The Great Secret” Reveals Itself in Our Longing

It is my sense of it all that we are moving into a space of solving what Peter Kingsley calls The Great Secret… “Source” isn’t where we think It is – out there. It is in here – within you, me, everything – and continuously revealing Itself to us… not so much through our rational, logical minds as through our senses and our intuition… our longing. Kingsley tells me that the ancient Greek prophets, Parmenides and Empedocles, were given the key to the Secret 2500 years ago. It was more than the later, Socratic, Greeks, could grasp… they’ve misled us into believing that we can know Source through rational and logical thought. The “Secret” is neither rational nor logical: it is a “Mystery” found only by going within to the depths of our sensing/feeling and intuition. So, maybe, just maybe, those feelings you may feel – fear, anger, shame, blame, and guilt – for instance – are invitations to go to those depths and find that you are not alone, as the man in the first story discovered in his Hanoi Hilton imprisonment. You are never alone in your deep longing and when you own that, the door to the Mystery opens.

Here are five stories of people who found and followed their deep longing; and none of them were ever alone after the Mystery revealed itself to them. (These stories, except for mine, have all been published before with the author’s permission.)

1. A Navy F4 Phantom pilot flying a combat mission early in the Vietnam conflict got shot down over Hanoi. His ejection–seat parachute saved his life, but he was captured and sentenced to isolation in the prison that came to be known as the “Hanoi Hilton”. His isolation was so extreme that he felt he would either go crazy or die. Facing those fears, he developed a determination to meditate deeply and regularly to “find myself” (as I later heard him say). When he finally found himself, he became aware that he “was not alone.” As I listened to his account, I got the sense that he became aware of the longing that we all have and have always had… to know that Mystery and live it because it has always been with us.
2. Peter Kingsley, early in his college years, went to a bookstore looking for an interesting book to read. A book jumped off a shelf onto the floor at his feet, open; so, he picked it up and read that to which it had opened. It became a clear–cut instruction for him to study the works of the prophets, Empedocles and Parmenides. (If you should be curious, go visit http://peterkingsley.org . You will see where his longing has taken him.)
3. I, Ken, your author, having grown up in a family of spiritual healers, allopathic healers and atheist social healers… am aware of my longing to help humans everywhere “get on with their lives”. (These quoted words were given to me in second – year medical school.) The longing has come to me several times in my life, weaving its way through a variety of situations. This time, I recalled it when I read the September 2006 Parabola essay, As Far as Longing Can Reach by Peter and Maria Kingsley. I had gone into a bookstore on a 23 December several years ago to buy a Christmas present paperback for my wife that she said she wanted for Christmas. The bookstore was crowded, and I did not know where to find the book; so, I started looking for a clerk. Due to the size of the crowd, progress was slow, and at one point, I found myself standing still next to a narrow display rack with shelves of paperbacks stretching from floor to ceiling. Suddenly, I saw a movement above me… a paperback jumping off the top shelf to land at my feet… the very book I was looking for!
4. Meg C, a close friend and colleague of Ojibwe extraction, who had been trained in the Ojibwe Midewiwin healing traditions, found herself in a stressful situation while she was slicing carrots in preparation for a meal. Momentarily distracted, she sliced a finger to the bone. She put pressure on the cut, stopping the bleeding. Her partner suggested they go to the hospital and get it sewn up. She responded with, “Not now, I have work to do.” She became “Present and let go of all fear” for the next fifteen minutes, at which time, she knew that the work was “done”. She took the pressure off and saw that there was no sign that the finger had ever been cut! When she told me that story, she showed me the finger… there was no scar! With this, she knew she was being called to practice her native ways – her longing – and was able to successfully combine the practice and raising a family.
5. Evy M, a graduate nurse in a teaching hospital, developed a symmetrical weakness of her arms that was an aggressive form of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). When the paralysis put her in a wheelchair with useless arms and legs, she saw herself in the mirror in her hospital room and said to her reflection, “God, Evy, how I hate you!” She had been deformed by polio in her youth, and always had a limp and could never find clothes that fit properly but had never acknowledged self – hatred. She swore then that she would not die hating herself, and, because “love” was the opposite of “hate,” she was determined to come to love herself before she died. It was a difficult and challenging process that involved looking at her naked body in a full-length mirror every day for one whole hour and extending love into it. It took several weeks. When it was nearly complete she stopped, wondering if coming to love herself was going require her to like the disease that was killing her. She persisted, and when the love was complete, she no longer identified herself with her disease! The disease progressed over the next week or so to the point where she had the strength to breathe for no more than ten minutes… she stayed in that state for 36 hours! Then, to her surprise, having accepted her death with grace, her strength began to return! It took two full years for the recovery to complete itself. She knew then that it was time to change her career and go into the one that she had always wanted – a Christian ministry. It was successful, and she went on to become the ordained Methodist minister of a parish in Newburgh, New York. She had found her longing and had followed it. She lived for many more years in good health. I have not heard from her since 2008. I heard from her old Parish that she had a health conditions that made her go to the Southwest. I have just now found her, living out there, alive and well.

I found the Kingsley’s’ Parabola essay yesterday and sensed it was what I’d been looking for as context for this blog. Am I surprised? I am delighted… it is my sense today that we are moving into a time of breaking open “The Great Secret”… Source has its own longing… to be intimately known by all sentient beings – including humans! It has imbued itself in you, in me… in everything. The “Secret” isn’t a secret… It is the great Mystery of The ONE!

I offer you these questions: Are not fear, depression, and anxiety all expressions of a deeper, oh-so-very human longing? Has that longing not been with us forever? Is it not to be found in the works of poets, artists, composers? Do we not flood ourselves with ever more distractions today, smiling whitely during an epidemic of violence in a myriad of ugliness that rises out of our own longings? Is this not what underlies addictions and suicide? Are we not like the solitary rat in a cage choosing cocaine-laden water over unmedicated water, who stops the cocaine choice within days after a second rat is put in the same cage with the same choice of waters? Are we not exploring what motivates the suffering of the world today and finding it to be a longing to be close to Source and Source’s own great longing to be known and loved by us, the product of Its divine imagination.

Finally, could it be that Source was at work with its own longing when it expressed itself through the remarkable (and improbable) life of Stephen Hawking? Could it be that Source was at work with Its own longing when It expressed Itself through the remarkable, one–of–a–kind life It gave you?