The Secret Within

My summer sabbatical from weekly blog posts was energizing.

After several false starts, I finally started progressing on my new book, The Secret Within, which explores the challenge of finding happiness and peace amidst personal difficulties. As promised, I’ll be sharing draft installments on this blog. 

This week, I’m sharing the preface to the book.

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Preface

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I started a weekly blog. Initially, I was nervous to share my thoughts in writing, but a dear friend prodded me to move forward. On April 9, 2020, I emailed a few close friends a link to my first post on Towards A Life Well-Lived.

As of September 2024, the blog had seventeen thousand views from fifty countries. That is amazing. A post titled Happiness and Hard Times is among the most popular. That resonates because happiness is an ongoing challenge in my life. 

Someone once said that a parent is only as happy as their most troubled child. Those words took on new meaning following the birth of our disabled son. I’m determined to prove them wrong. 

The chorus from the Indigo Girls song Closer To Fine chronicles my journey:

“I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains

I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains

There’s more than one answer to these questions

Pointing me in a crooked line

And the less I seek my source for some definitive

Closer I am to fine.”

Forty years ago, I attended an executive retreat that featured a New York Times best-selling author who discussed the power of purpose in one’s life. At a break, I asked him what was the most impactful book he had ever read. His reply was Viktor Frankl’s Mans Search For Meaning. 

I purchased the book, an autobiography detailing Frankl’s experience of spending three years in four Nazi concentration camps. Frankl’s mother, father, brother, and wife all perished in those camps. His main message was this: Regardless of what happens, we are always free to choose our response to life. Frankl believed life’s meaning is found through purpose, even amid immense suffering. 

I had never questioned the meaning of life. I didn’t have a purpose; I was too busy living life. But the circumstances of my life changed after the birth of our son. Meaning and purpose became more relevant. I embarked on a journey in search of joy that transcended circumstances. I kept a journal along the way. 

The insights in this book came slowly over many years. Many surfaced in the first moments of awakening before dawn and the return of life’s challenges. I don’t know their origin, but mystics and philosophers reiterate similar insights throughout the ages. This leaves me with the inescapable conclusion that the foundational truths of life reside deep within us all. 

This is The Secret Within.

Every person is unique. Our circumstances differ, as do our knowledge, backgrounds, and beliefs. Yet, in a silent place in the center of our being lies unity and peace. But there’s a catch: we find our center only in the absence of the ego-centric Self. 

Perhaps you have experienced fleeting moments of ecstasy that defy explanation. That’s a clue to what lies deep within us.

This book is a collection of experiences, insights, and practices that are direct and personal.

I hope my reflections enhance your journey. 

Next week, we begin with Chapter 1.

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Installments of The Secret Within can be found here. 

Former blog posts can be found here by subject category and here chronologically. 

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My first book, Towards A Life Well-Lived, can be purchased by clicking this link. Proceeds from sales are donated to Peace In Schools, a Portland, Oregon-based organization supporting mindfulness training in high schools.