The Great and Ancient Secret

Tony Crisp

Part One


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If we look beyond the blaring events of war and change even a casual study of history reveals to us a frequent mention of secrets. The secrets might connect with ancient mysterious cults, such as the Eleusinian mysteries, the Rosicrucians or the Freemasons. But those are occidental mystery schools, and there are plenty of oriental secrets and secret societies also.

David V. Barrett, author of Secret Societies: From the Ancient and Arcane to the Modern and Clandestine, defines such societies as giving, "carefully graded and progressed teachings" that are "available only to selected individuals". These teachings lead to "hidden (and 'unique') truths" that bring "personal benefits beyond the reach and even the understanding of the uninitiated."

But why were they secret and what did they teach?

The two questions are linked because they relate to each other. The organizations were secret because they led individuals to a completely new way of experiencing themselves. They led to freedom of the mind and spirit. In societies governed or even enslaved by the state or religion, that was a very dangerous thing to offer.

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Virtually every society up to our present times has been built on a hierarchy. The upper levels of the hierarchy usually do everything in their power to maintain their advantage. To do so they live on the work and productivity of those in the lower levels of the hierarchy. In the U.S. and the UK today, recent figures show that the gap between the very wealthy and the middle and lower wage earners has widened enormously in the last 20 years. The struggle is still on to maintain the status quo. i

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Persecution of a Bahai

In the past, becoming conscious of this system, and showing signs of freedom from it, often meant death. It was wise to keep the organisations, the teachings and the techniques that led to freedom of mind and spirit secret.

In recent times Steve Biko said that, "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." ii

But what were the secrets that were so carefully hidden and protected?

Well, sometimes they were information and sometimes they were techniques to be practiced. Strangely enough, after studying the secrets for 50 years, it seems to me that they are incredibly simple. So it doesn't appear they were hidden because of their complexity. They were hidden because of the revolutionary change they could affect in the life of the person.

A case in point is evident in the book titled, The Secret of the Golden Flower. It is subtitled, A Chinese Book of Life, and was written by an unknown author in the 700's to record what had been a long oral tradition. In very symbolical language it describes a technique that transforms the practitioner. The language used is often as follows; 'In the square inch field of the square foot house, life can be regulated. In the middle of the square inch dwells the splendour. In the purple hall of the city of jade dwells the God of Utmost Emptiness and Life.'

Commentary in such books helps, but to most modern readers that language is totally obscure. However, if one has read widely enough the similarity between this and other traditions becomes obvious, and it is seen that this Secret has been stated in every language, and in countless ways.

So What is the Secret?

If you were told the Secret straight out you would probably either not recognise its importance, or would not really understand it and how it works. So some background is necessary.

The fact of life on our planet is fundamental to understanding the Secret. All the countless bacteria, viruses, lichens, moulds, plants and creatures proliferating on our world all started from the same simple beginning of single celled organisms. If we look at the phenomenal range of life forms these became, and if we remember that as far as we know, this variety developed from bacteria and single cell creatures, we can see that the process behind the variety has infinite possibilities. The process behind the emergence of life can as easily become a flea as an elephant, a human or a bird.

The important point being made is that this variety could not have developed if there was not a potential for its appearance. The shaping influence of evolution then played its part in directing or expressing aspects of the potential. Some of the latest findings in regard to the quantum level of the universe and our being, suggest that at base the universe can be thought of as infinite potential.

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The next step in understanding the Secret is to remember that as a human person you are an animal - a mammal. What you are today has largely been shaped by the condition, size and features of our planet, the environments and changes your ancestors met and survived, and to a smaller extent by human action and intelligence.

That background and its shaping influence has been called evolution; and without arguing the correctness or otherwise of that theory, let us use the word for convenience. Let it mean the shaping influences and the effects of past experience and conditions.

What is important here is where it has placed you, and in what way your body and experience have been shaped by whatever shaping force you accept. Comparisons with other living creatures help us gain an insight into where we stand as far as equipment and awareness is concerned. For instance we cannot smell nearly as acutely as a dog, nor see distances with as much detail as a hawk. We cannot hear in the same way as a bat, nor swim under water like a dolphin. But we do have self awareness and the ability to create complex constructions in a way animals do not.

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What we understand from this is that evolution has shaped us in a particular way, mostly to survive in a dangerous world and to respond quickly and intelligently to threat and needs. This has given us eyesight to see food or threats. But it is sight that only shows us a tiny fraction of what is there in light. Huge areas of the 'world' are either invisible, unheard or unfelt. Nevertheless this is what we call 'reality'. And it is upon this impoverished awareness of the universe around us that we base our understanding and response to life and what faces us.

Also, research has shown that what we know of the world is incredibly misleading if we do not understand how our senses work. As an example, take the texture of an orange skin. Really this is a mystery to you. Texture depends entirely on what you approach the fruit with. Your fingers and nerve endings are designed to give you a rough approximation of what your body contacts. This again is designed principally for survival and food gathering. If you examined the orange skin with an electron microscope, then the texture is one of shifting swirling atoms and subatomic particles. If you were tiny the orange would have a very different appearance than it does to you at your present size.

Remember also that you never actually know what the orange feels or looks like directly. Your eye takes in streams of light that are translated into nervous impulses and transmitted along the optic nerve. In the brain these nerve impulses are again translated, this time into an image that enables you to have some relationship with an apparently external world. In the same way the nerve endings on your fingers transmit signals that are translated into sensation. What your brain shows you is not the external world, only a sort of virtual reality of it.


Notes

i The day of Friday the Thirteenth, 1307, which began so uneventfully, was the beginning of one of the world's most enduring mysteries, and one of its greatest tragedies. On that morning, Philippe le Bel, the King of France, in collusion with the Pope, gave orders for the arrest of over one hundred knights of the Order of the Temple, on charges of heresy. Over the next seven years, dozens were tortured, tried, and executed. Many more were imprisoned. The Grand Master of the order, Jacques De Molay, was broken and burned at the stake.

ii Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population.

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