This is the god Khidr, who was believed by the Sufis to be a righteous servant and messenger of God who possessed great wisdom.

A well-known old Sufi story concerns the time that Khidr came to earth with the intention of teaching mankind the word by which all could be accomplished.

As he was on his way into town (Sufis call human cities “The Land of Fools”), he happened to meet three older gentlemen, the three wisest men from the land of fools. They asked who he was.

“I am Kidhr and I have come to share with mankind the word by which all may be accomplished.”

They replied, “Well, you are fortunate indeed, for we are the three wisest men in the land. Surely we are the ones who should hear it first.”

“Very well,” responded Kidhr, and he told them what the word was.

When he heard it the first wise man responded, “That can’t be the word, I’ve heard it before. Certainly the word by which all might be accomplished would have to be a brand-new word. It’s” The second wise man chimed in with, “That can’t be the word, because it can be written. Certainly the word by which all might be accomplished would be incapable of being written.” “But that word could be spoken by anyone,” added the third wise man, “The word by which all might be accomplished could only be spoken by ones as wise as we are; Any man could say that word.”

But before Khidr could explain more to them they were distracted by a group of citizens from the land of fools . . . so they excused themselves and hurried off to share their wisdom with the people . . . and Khidr, I am told shrugged and went back to heaven, taking the word with him.

The message in this metaphorical story is that profound truths may be missed if we turn away because these truths are stated in simple, familiar terms that anyone can understand. Similarly, the mind-tools that can set us free from the pain and dysfunction that plague us today don’t require unusual abilities. They are simple to understand and to use. And they are FREE! All they require is that you use your imagination.

Imagine, for a moment, that there could be a magic word that we could use to help solve all our problems (individual and collective).

Now, when I say magic word, I’m speaking metaphorically. Imagine that what we’re talking about is not precisely a single word. Imagine that it might be a magic sentence, or a prayer, or ritual, or a sequence of mental images we can access (E.g., guided imagery), that has the power to open our eyes to the field of infinite possibilities . . . and take our creativity beyond those limitations of the learned helplessness trance we have been in.

Or, to state it in more modern terms, perhaps there is an algorithm that can free us from these mental bugs the way an antivirus program eliminates your computers “infection.” do this. An algorithm is a series of steps for solving a problem (a recipe is an example of an algorithm). It first occurred to me back in 1970 that there might be a program for the human Biocomputer that could enable it to heal itself the way a repair program guides a computer to diagnose and eliminate glitches.

When a computer crashes or is behaving weirdly, we use a repair program (algorithm) to enable the computer to fix it. Likewise, I reasoned, there should be an algorithm that can enable the human mind to repair behaviors that are causing pain, illness, and dysfunction.  This algorithm, which has been my “unified field” theory, starts with the simple step of paying attention. This means bringing your awareness into the present moment. You learned one way to do that with the Island of Peace meditation last issue. Now here is another way. It is called mindfulness, a concept I introduced as Selective Awareness with my first book in 1973. Voluminous research has demonstrated its ability to heal mental, physical, emotional, and behavioral problems.

“Mindfulness” is another way of pronouncing that “secret word,” secret because so few take the time to learn it. This short video clip from one of my professional training courses will explain further what mindfulness is and offers an experience of how to do it. This should be fairly easy if you have worked with Island of Peace. Practice this technique a couple of times daily, or alternate it with the Island of Peace meditation, especially when you have only a few minutes to spare.