The Twelfth Insight: The Hour of Decision, page 1
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For Kaelynn and Mckenna
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m in gratitude for many people who in some way contributed to this book. First and foremost, I would like to thank the many individuals worldwide, existing across all religions, who keep the idea of an authentic spiritual consciousness alive and thriving. It is your quiet fortitude that is literally saving the day.
Also, special mention goes to Larry Dossey for his book The Power of Premonitions. He somehow always produces a landmark work just when it is time to popularize a step forward in human awareness. Thanks to Dr. Russell Blaylock, who leads the fight against dangerous chemical additives in our food. And Michael Murphy, who holds the space for so many who seek to bridge the great human divides of our time: first the Cold War, and now Religious and Cultural Intolerance. Also I’d like to acknowledge the work of Carl Johan Calleman and John Major Jenkins concerning the Mayan Calendar. And a sincere thanks goes to Phil Cousineau for his brilliant analysis of comparative religious thought.
Closer to home, I must say many thanks to Larry Kirshbaum, and my publisher Jamie Raab, who grasped the vision and helped to shape its ideas; to the many people at Grand Central Publishing who help turn a manuscript into a book; to Kelly Leavitt, whose artful eye always tracks for impact and comprehension; to Albert Clayton Gaulden, for his cosmological timing; and to Larry Miller, whose many conversations have sparked my thinking. Also, thanks to Steve Maraboli, whose Better Today community is a prime example of the emerging Twelfth Insight.
Most of all, I’d like to express gratitude and love to my wife, Salle, whose support and deep insight nurtured my spirit along the way.
In a time of universal deceit, truth-telling becomes a revolutionary act.
—GEORGE ORWELL
SUSTAINING SYNCHRONICITY
I turned onto the freeway and hit cruise control, trying to ease up a bit. There was plenty of time to meet Wil at the airport. So I forced myself to relax and take in the autumn sunshine and the rolling southern hills. Not to mention the flocks of crows slinking along the shoulders of the highway.
The crows, I knew, were a good sign, even if I had been battling with them all summer. In folklore, their presence indicates mystery and an impending rendezvous with one’s own destiny. Some say they will even lead you to such a moment, if you chance to follow them long enough.
Unfortunately, they will also show up in the early mornings to eat the young pea plants in your backyard garden—unless, of course, you make a deal. They laugh at scarecrows and shotguns. But if you give them their own row of plants near the forest, they will tend to leave the rest alone.
Just then, a single crow flew over the car and out in front of me. Then turned completely around and headed back the way I’d come. I tried to follow it in the rearview mirror, but all I could see was a dark blue SUV about a hundred yards back.
Thinking nothing of the vehicle, I continued to watch the scenery, taking in a deep breath and hitting another level of relaxation. A road trip, I thought, nothing like it. I wondered how many people, in how many places, were experiencing this exact kind of moment—getting away from the stress of an unsure world, just to see what might happen.
Only, in my case, I was also looking for something. For months now, I had been running into total strangers all talking about the same thing: the secret release of an old, unnamed Document. Supposedly, it had come from a coalition representing the world’s religious traditions, and word of it was already widespread, at least among those with an ear for such things. Yet no one seemed to have any details. Rumor had it that it was now being released ahead of schedule, out of necessity.
For me, the rumors were both intriguing and slightly humorous. The idea of a coalition among the religious traditions was hardly new, but it had always proven to be all but impossible in reality. The differences in beliefs were just too great. And in the end, each tradition wanted to prevail over the others.
In fact, I had been ready to dismiss the rumors when something else had occurred: I received a fax from Wil. He sent me two translated pages, ostensibly from this old Document. In the margin of the first page was a notation in Wil’s handwriting saying, “This has both Hebrew and Arabic origins.”
As I read the pages, it seemed to be a treatment of modern times, proclaiming that something important was going to begin in the second decade of the twenty-first century. I grimaced at the date, thinking it might be one more end-of-the-world prophecy—another in a long line of doomsday predictions misinterpreting everything from the Mayan Calendar to Nostradamus to Revelation. All shouting to the ends of the Earth: “Haven’t you heard, the world is ending in 2012!”
For years now, the media had been pushing the “end times” scenario, and people, though worried, also seemed deeply intrigued. The big question was why? What could be causing this fascination? Is it just the excitement over being alive at the precise time the Mayan Calendar is scheduled to end? Or was it something else? Maybe, just maybe, our fascination with the end revealed a latent intuition, increasingly noticeable, that something better was about to be born.
The more I read of Wil’s fax, the more the pages began to carry a kind of numinous attraction. The style was upbeat and vaguely familiar in some way, and the authentic tone was confirmed when I saw a second notation from Wil on the last page. “This came from a friend,” he had scribbled. “It’s for real.”
I looked over at the very same fax pages lying on the passenger seat beside me. Light from the afternoon sun flickered over them. Wil’s written comment, I knew, meant that the original was, at least in his mind, well founded—and probably extended the message of what had always been his singular obsession: the old Celestine Prophecy that had been discovered in Peru.
The thought spawned a flood of memories as I recalled how quickly word of the First Nine Insights of this Prophecy had circulated around the planet. Why? Because they made sense in a world too shallow and materialistic. The message of this Prophecy was clear. Being spiritual is more than merely believing in some deity in the abstract. It entails the discovery of another, entirely different dimension of life, one that operates solely in a spiritual manner.
Once one makes this discovery, one realizes the universe is filled with all sorts of fortuitous encounters, intuitions, and mysterious coincidences, all pointing to a higher purpose behind our lives, and in fact, behind all of human history. The only question, then, for the seeker who wakes up to this reality is how does this mysterious world really operate, and how does one begin to engage its secrets.
In those days, I knew, something had popped in human consciousness and had led directly to two more Insights: a Tenth and Eleventh. The Tenth delved into the mystery of the Afterlife and chronicled a decadelong focus on Heaven and its inhabitants, forever dispelling, along the way, an age-old repression of death and what happens afterward. Once that block was lifted, an exploration of everything spiritual seemed to begin.
Quickly came the next Insight: the Eleventh, born of a collective knowing that we are all here to participate in some as yet undefined agenda—a Plan of some kind. It involved the discovery of how to manifest our deepest dreams and to lift the world to its ideal. In the years that followed, this intuition grew into all sorts of theories about Secrets and Prayer Power and Laws of Attraction, theories that seemed right but not quite complete.
Those theories, I knew, brought us up to recent times and lasted until the material bottom fell out from under all of us—in the form of a worldwide financial collapse. After that, we faced more immediate matters, such as personal solvency and not letting the doomsayers take us too far into fear. We were still awake, and we still wanted more spiritual answers. But from then on, those answers had to be practical as well. They had to work in the real world, no matter how mysterious that world turned out to be.
I felt a smile coming up…. How interesting that Wil had found these writings now. He had long predicted the emergence of another Insight, the Twelfth—which he felt would signal a final revelation for humanity, picking up where the Eleventh had left off. I wondered, would the Twelfth finally show us how to “live” this spiritual knowledge at a greater level? Would this change begin to usher in this new, more ideal world we seemed to sense was coming?
I knew we would have to wait and see. Wil had said only to meet him at the airport and from there we would head to Cairo, if it worked out. If it worked out? What did he mean by that?
A deer dashing across the freeway broke my rumination, and I tapped the brakes to slow down. The big doe ran full speed across six lanes and jumped the fence on the other side. A deer was also a good sign, a symbol of attention and alertness.
As I looked out at the hills then, their fall colors now bathed in the light of an amber-tinted sunset, I realized I felt exactly that way: more alert and alive. All these thoughts had somehow induced a greater energy level in me, lifting me to a place where I was attending to every detail—the sunset, the landscape whizzing by, the thoughts entering my mind—as though everything was suddenly more important somehow.
Another huge smile spontaneously erupted. This was a state of mind I’d experienced many times before. And every time it happened, it caught me totally by surprise—surprise in one way over its sudden occurrence, and in another way over why I had ever lost it in the first place, it seemed so right and natural.
There were many names for this experience—the Zone, Heightened Perception, and my favorite, Synchronistic Flow—all names seeking to capture its central characteristic: a sudden elevation in one’s experience, wherein we transcend the ordinary and find a higher meaning in the flow of events. This Synchronistic perception “centers” us in some way and feels beyond what could be expected from pure chance—as though a higher “destiny” is unfolding.
Suddenly, a building coming up on the right caught my eye. It was a little sports bar called the Pub that Wil had pointed out years ago as having good eats and homemade pies. I had passed it many times but had never stopped. Plenty of time now, I thought. Why not grab a bite here and avoid the airport food? I took the exit and headed down the ramp. The SUV behind me also took the turn.
After parking under a gigantic oak tree in the fading light, I walked inside, finding the place full of people. Couples talked around the bar, and families with kids ate casually at six or seven tables in the middle of the room. My eyes immediately fixed on two women sitting at a table against the far wall. They were leaning toward each other and talking intensely. As I made my way in that direction, I noticed a small table open beside them.
When I sat down, the younger of the two women glanced at me for a moment and then turned back to her friend.
“The First Integration,” she said, “suggests there’s a way to keep the Synchronicity going. But I don’t have all of the Document. More of these writings exist somewhere. I have to find them.”
My energy surged again. Was she talking about the same Document? The woman speaking was wearing jeans and comfortable hiking shoes, and around her neck was draped a multicolored scarf. As she spoke, she kept pushing her blonde, tapered bangs behind her ears. I caught the faint scent of rose perfume.
As I watched her, I felt an odd attraction, which shocked me. She looked around instinctively and caught me staring, making deep eye contact. I quickly turned away. When I glanced back, a short, stocky man walked up to her table, surprising the two women and creating a round of smiles and hugs. The woman with the scarf gave him several typed pages, which he silently read. I pretended to look over the menu as I waited, sensing all the more that something important was happening.
“Why are you going to Arizona?” the man asked.
“Because it keeps coming to mind, over and over again,” she replied. “I have to go with it.”
I listened intently. All of the people at the table seemed to be at the same level of flow that I was.
“I have to understand why my mother contacted me,” the woman continued. “These writings are going to tell me. I know it.”
“So you’re leaving right away?” the man asked.
“Yes, tonight,” she replied.
“Just follow your intuition,” the man interjected. “Synchronicity seems to be happening for you. But be careful. Who knows who’s looking for this information?”
I couldn’t stand it any longer. I was about to say something to them when a large, muscular man at a table near mine mumbled, “What a crock!”
“W-w-what?” I stammered.
He nodded toward the women and whispered, “What they’re saying. What a bunch of bull!”
For a moment, I didn’t know how to respond. He was tall and about forty-five, with unruly brown hair and a frown on his face, leaning toward me in his chair.
He shook his head. “This is going to be the death of our civilization, this kind of magical thinking.”
Jeez, I thought, a skeptic. I didn’t have time for this.
He was reading my face. “What? You agree with them?”
I just looked away, trying to hear what the woman was saying, but he scooted his chair closer.
“Intuition is a myth!” he said firmly. “It’s been disproved many times. Thoughts are just nerve firings in the brain reflecting whatever you think you know about your environment. And Doctor Jung’s crap about Synchronicity is just the act of seeing what you want to see in the random events of the world. I know. I’m a scientist.”
He grinned slightly, seemingly pleased that he knew the origin of the theory of Synchronicity. I, on the other hand, was getting more irritated.
“Look,” I said, “I’d rather not talk about it.”
I turned to listen again but it was too late. The woman and her friends were up and walking toward the door. The skeptic gave me a smirk and then got up and walked out as well. I thought about following them but decided against it, concerned I’d look like a stalker or something. I sat back down. The moment had been lost.
As I sat there, I knew the energy I had marshaled in the car had totally vanished. I now felt flat and uninspired. I even pondered, fleetingly, whether the skeptic might be correct in his assessment, but quickly shook off the idea. Too much had occurred in my life for me to believe that now. More likely, what I thought had happened, had happened. I was on the verge of finding out more about the Document when I was bushwhacked by the bane of my life: a skeptic out to debunk everything spiritual.
I might have gone on in my funk had I not suddenly noticed an individual staring at me from the corner of the room near the door. He was dressed in a brown leather jacket and had short hair. A pair of sunglasses hung from his shirt pocket. When our eyes met, he stepped behind a group of people bunched up at the bar.
Carefully, I looked around the room and caught two more people looking at me, all dressed in varying casual attire but sporting the same monotonal stare. They also looked away when I saw them.
Great, I thought. These were professional operatives of some kind. I got up and eased toward the restroom. None of them reacted. Walking past it down a small hallway, I found what I was hoping for, a back door. I walked out to the poorly lit parking lot, seeing no one. Then, as I got closer to my vehicle, a figure ducked behind a panel truck. When I started walking again, the person began to walk as well, angling to cut me off.
I stopped and he stopped, and then I saw something familiar in his posture. It was Wil! When I got to him, he pulled me down and looked back at the Pub.
“What are you into here, my friend?” he asked in his customary half-humorous tone.
“I don’t know,” I blurted. “I saw several people watching me inside. What are you doing here, Wil?”
I noticed for the first time that he was carrying a large trekking backpack.
He nodded toward my vehicle. “I’ll tell you later. That’s your Cruiser, right? Let’s get out of here. I’ll drive.”
As we entered the automobile, I looked over at the far end of the parking lot and spotted the woman with the scarf standing with several others. Shockingly, one was the skeptic.
I wanted to continue watching, but I saw something beyond them that startled me even more. The blue SUV I had noticed behind me earlier was parked a hundred feet away, near a back fence. Even at this distance, I could see two men sitting in the front seats.
I grimaced. I should have known.
As I watched behind us, Wil drove us to the freeway and turned north. No one seemed to be following.
“Why did you come here to the Pub?” I asked again.
“Just a hunch,” he said. “I didn’t know how else I could find you. I began to see people watching me, too, so I didn’t want to use a cell. A friend was driving me to the airport, and I remembered this place and thought you might have stopped. When we found your car, I had him drop me off.”
He looked closely at me. “What about you? Why did you decide to stop here?”
“I saw the Pub from the freeway and remembered you pointing it out. I thought it would be a good place to grab some food….”
He smiled at me knowingly. We both knew it was pure Synchronicity. As I looked at him, I noticed that he had aged well in the past few years since I had seen him. There were more lines in his tanned face, but his movements and voice made him seem like a man much younger. His eyes still sparkled with alertness.
“There are more people looking for this document than I thought,” he mused. “Better tell me everything that’s happened to you.”
As we traveled north, I relayed all of it: the ideas that came to me while driving, the blue SUV, the sudden flow of Synchronicity, and every detail of what I’d experienced at the pub—especially the part where the skeptic brought me down and the men were observing me.
