The Secret Word by Which All May Be Accomplished

This is Dr. Miller. What if there actually is a secret word, a magic word that can enable us to heal and accomplish what we really want to accomplish, to achieve what we really came here to do?

Imagine for a moment that there is a word that can help solve our problem. Maybe it's not exactly a word. Maybe it's a magic sentence or prayer or ritual or other internal process that could open our eyes to the field of infinite possibilities and take our creativity beyond those limitations that we've been programmed into. Maybe there are many such words or rituals. Are you old enough to remember this fellow? This is Captain Marvel, one of the heroes of my youth. When I was a kid, I was captivated by the story of Captain Marvel. The notion of there being a magic formula by which one could be transformed fascinated me. The story goes like this: Billy Batson's an orphan boy who's guided by a stranger to a cave. And in the cave he meets this old wizard who's been on a 3,000-year crusade against evil. He recruits Billy because it's time for him, the wizard, to die. Billy can now achieve superhuman strength, including the ability to fly. By simply saying the name of the old wizard, whose name was Shazam. I used to imagine that it might be possible to call on such powers. You might say that one of my early spiritual rituals was Shazam. Shazam, which just by chance is an acronym for the wisdom of Solomon, S, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. So Captain Marvel was a bad dude. Of particular interest to me, however, was the notion of the wisdom of Solomon. Perhaps you're aware of what is commonly referred to as the Judgment of Solomon. Solomon, of course, was the biblical king who built the First Temple of Jerusalem, and who is revered in Judaism and Christianity for his wisdom, and in Islam he is revered as a prophet. It seems that one day Solomon was called upon to adjudicate a disagreement between two women, each of whom swore that she was the mother of a certain infant. Since there was no evidence that could prove which woman was the actual mother, Solomon proposed that the only fair thing to do was to chop the child in two and give each woman a half. One of the women thought this was a great idea. The other was horrified, and she begged King Solomon instead to give the living child to the other woman. At once Solomon decreed that this must be the mother, because no true mother would ever consent to allowing her child to be put to death. To me, the essence of the teaching of Solomon's judgment is that there are elegant and wise solutions to most problems, but those solutions are often hidden in plain sight, requiring only patience and wisdom to discover them. What enabled Solomon to solve the problem was that he went beyond the apparent irresolvable polarity in the situation. And by examining the predicament from a higher or broader perspective, he could see that there was a solution. And this, of course, like all parables, is meant as a metaphor, a metaphor about the importance of going beyond the seeming polarity of the situations we encounter in our own lives, and also about the power of love to bring about healing. Here's another little story that demonstrates the same principle. It seems that two sisters entered the kitchen at the same time. Right there in the middle of the kitchen table was an orange. Both sisters saw it, they both jumped for it at the same time. They soon ended up squabbling over who was going to get the orange. And at that point, the father enters the room and says, "Wait a minute, hold on, you're sisters, and therefore you should share equally." So he took a knife, cut the orange in half, and gave each sister half an orange. And that seemed like a pretty good solution. At least each sister was happy the other one didn't get more than she got, but each was sort of eyeing, wishing that they could have the whole orange. And at that point, the mother comes into the room and she asks the first sister, "What did you want the orange for?" The sister says, "I wanted to use the flesh of the orange because I'm making a fruit salad." She asked the other, "What did you want it for?" She says, "I was making marmalade and I wanted the rind of the orange to make the marmalade with." So the mother took the same orange and divided it differently. And both sisters got twice as much. Both were twice as satisfied and neither had any resentment or envy. Can you see the pattern here? In these cases and in many of the others I will present to you, there's an apparent polarity that seems to be irresolvable. Yet when there's openness to seeing beyond, the believing that there's a possible resolution, then suddenly a solution can appear. A solution in which two apparent opposites turn out instead to be two vital parts of a certain whole. Two parts that can work together, guided by their common values, and provide so that each side can have what it really wants. The ability to see a deeper and more important truth took place in both these situations as a result of going beyond the apparent polarity to look for a level of wholeness and balance that includes everyone. Perhaps you recognize this same truth as being fundamental to many religious and philosophical traditions. In Taoism, we speak of the yin and the yang, the receptive and the creative, represented by the black and the white halves of the circle in the yin-yang. Now notice that there's a white dot within the black area and a black one within the white. This represents the notion that in everything is the seed of its apparent opposite. The wise path to take in our lives, according to Lao Tzu, is the so-called middle path, or as one of my mentors, Alan Watts, referred to it, the watercourse way, the path of balance, balance between the hot fire and the deep water. Now imagine this: what if most or even all of the obstacles and apparent polarities we encounter in life have an elegant solution that becomes visible when we discover how to see black and white not as opposite, but as essential parts that when balanced can lead to a healthy, high-functioning whole. Or what if, as Rilke said, it could be that all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love. Perhaps every problem that seems unsolvable is, at its deepest essence, offering us an opportunity to see a fuller, more integrated, beautiful whole, to see beyond the apparent duality and polarization, and discover a beautiful solution. Can you imagine that such a thing could be literally true? I can. Watch me. There, that was easy.

Relaxation and imagination is only the first step. To turn this into reality, you only need to learn how to use a few simple mind tools to enter the mental programming state through mindfulness and deep relaxation, then to reprogram your biocomputer, rewire your brain through guided imagery. I'll show you more in the upcoming issues of this newsletter.

Better.

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