I hear no voices in my head
I see no images in the frame
Yet, when I ask questions
The answers are always there
Someone once asked with great curiosity and kindness, “How do you know the things you speak about? Do you read about them? Do you follow a guru?” The truth was simple: there was no voice or teacher, as one might imagine. The answers were already there, waiting for the right question. I wrote this short poem to explain myself further, but it was not enough. Years later, I realized Manly P. Hall had perfectly captured my predicament in his magnum opus, The Secret Teachings of All Ages. In the opening paragraph, the twentieth-century mystic observed that eternal truths, like many great thinkers, are clothed in shabby garments. Hall wasn’t implying these truths were unworthy; instead, our limited cognition renders them so. And so the question arises – if these truths have always been with us, how and why have they been overlooked or dismissed?
The first reason might be the impenetrability of the mundane. Take, for instance, a seed. It may seem insignificant, but within it lies the blueprint for an entire tree—its fruits, flowers, branches, and leaves. Only through patient observation do we appreciate the hidden connections between its parts. The seed, like truth, conceals its depth. What seems ordinary and small holds the potential for something vast and transformative. Imagine the awe when the process of “treeing,” from seed to fruit and back again, was first revealed. The initial reaction of the fortunate seer would likely have been an attempt to describe his profound discovery, perhaps attributing it to something beyond human capacity. One can easily imagine how difficult it must have been to convey this groundbreaking concept, and how perplexed the listeners must have felt upon hearing it for the first time. Just as a seed conceals its intricate blueprint, the world often hides profundity beneath the surface. We only discover it through the patience to look beyond the mundane.
Second, language itself often stands in the way of understanding. Even the most carefully crafted ideas can be misunderstood due to the inconsistencies and limitations of grammar. The rules of grammar evolve, and words change meaning. A statement that makes perfect sense today could become incomprehensible in a thousand years. Many struggle to grasp the subtleties of their own language, let alone the ancient tongues of Sanskrit, Greek, or even the complex English vocabulary of science and philosophy. Misunderstanding can quickly give way to disbelief.
Finally, there is religion. Many of us grow weary of the despair in our lives, yet remain irresistibly drawn to it. In our search for solace, we settle in dark, frigid, and inaccessible places— in the perfection of the word, in solitary caves in the Himalayas, the feet of long-dead seers, or in service of prophets and gods who offer rewards after life. We gather in large numbers, all loyal to these comforting ideas, and we discover the power we can exercise to banish that which exposes the incoherence of our views. Revolutionary ideas are dismissed as madness, and visionaries are condemned as heretics. Those spared the worst punishment are forced to give up and renounce the world. The few who leave a legacy are often misunderstood, their expression buried beneath layers of misinterpretation. The struggling masses must settle for lies, forced to ignore the invisible truth that reveals itself when the visible world fails the test of coherence.
What are we to do? We must learn to recognize when our understanding falters, and when the cracks in our illusions begin to show. Then, we must force them open and peer behind the veil. History is shaped by such moments—Arjuna realizing his duty, the Buddha awakening to the nature of suffering, Einstein unraveling the mysteries of light, and the theory of evolution dawning on Darwin. These rare breakthroughs reveal the truth hiding in plain sight. Such breakthroughs are rare, so we must seek them out constantly and cherish them when they are manifest.
And finally, a few of us who can see right through to the other side must dress up our insights in the fashion most suited to the present. I know this is easier said than done – I would most likely be ignored or scorned if I attempted this. Those who have known me would dismiss me quickly—after all, in their memories, I am nothing more than a sickly, suburban bore with little to say and barely the spirit to wonder. Some would immediately call me a fraud. Most of the world would simply yawn and move on. And so I cannot ask you to trust me based on titles or expert authority. I have not spent years in an ashram or undertaken pilgrimages to sacred mountains. Some of my experiences are so far outside the ordinary that I dare not try to explain them, and I never will. Instead, I will let my ideas speak for themselves. If they spark a question, shift a perspective, or stir a curiosity within you, my work will be mostly done. I will give you the tools to find your secret truths. When you uncover them for yourself, those discoveries will be far more valuable than anything I could do. And that will be my consecration.
I leave you with some lines from the 20th-century fable Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who learns about freedom and self-realization. It turns out that seagulls are not so different from us, and some of us are a bit like Jonathan.
"My brothers!" he cried. "Who is more responsible than a gull who finds and follows a meaning, a higher purpose for life? For a thousand years we have scrabbled after fish heads, but now we have a chance, let me show you what I've found... "
"And with one accord they solemnly closed their ears and turned their backs upon him. Jonathan Seagull spent the rest of his days alone. His one sorrow was… that other gulls refused to open their eyes and see."
