“Who wants to play Hide and Seek?”
Actually, you are all doing it already! As soon as you heard the words “Hide and Seek”, your mind started matching up images and personal “film clips” to the words! Who was playing Hide and Seek inside a house? Who was playing outside? Who was hiding? Who was leaning on a tree with their eyes closed, counting to 100? That’s one of my own images, but it is my brother counting and I am running madly to find a hiding spot in the neighbor’s bushes!
The mind is doing the “seeking” all the time. It is always trying to match up what is going on “now” with what it thinks it knows from its stored memories of the past. If we are always drawing on the past, then when do we get to experience “now?”
Anyone want to play with me?
Too late, you’re already playing!
As a matter of fact, you are thinking about what I might say next, and deciding if you really want to listen to it or not, based partly on your memories of other things that I have said, and mostly on whether your mind believes that it is “safe” to listen to this drivel.
That’s right; it’s all ‘drivel’, isn’t it? If ‘drivel’ were the “word of the day”, what would your mind come up with? Would it try to be funny? Does anyone see “drivel” as something like “dribble” – like a dribble on your chin? Like “drivel” is coming out of my mouth and running down my chin? What a great image! And fun! What images came up for you? A baby regurgitating Gerber’s? “Now” what images do you have in your mind? Isn’t this fun? What’s going on in front of you “now” is only partly what each of you is experiencing – the rest of your mind is traveling down the roadways of the past!
But wait, there’s more! We didn’t even talk about the “hide” part of the game!
*pause*
“I’ve got a secret.”
*pause*
Who is thinking that the next words out of my mouth should be spoken in a hushed tone? That if I am going to tell a secret, I should (*in a whisper*) whisper? Notice the associations that come up in your mind with the ideas of “secret” and “whisper.” What if there were no secrets? What if every thought was actually being played on the big screen for everyone in the room to see? What secret could you have then? Did you ever tell a secret to a best friend and that friend actually betrayed you and told someone else? Then that someone made fun of your secret to your face, and you felt betrayed, embarrassed, and wanted to play hide and seek and never be found? What images do you have in your mind, now?
I’m going to tell you a secret. There are no secrets!
Somewhere, somehow, in the Universal mind, everything is available to everyone! That’s right, even your deepest, darkest secrets – I’m not going to ask you to reveal them, now – they are already “out there”! This is a good thing – really!
How could this be a good thing?
Well, if there’s nothing that can be hidden, then there’s nothing to hide!
Who has ever noticed that when telling a story that seems to have happened to you, that the people listening are going “yeah”, just as though they have had the very experience? Well, they have! In a sense, anyway. When you tell your story, your audience is allowing their minds to associate their own experiences with whatever is being said - “seeking”, in other words, to find common ground. It’s automatic – it’s what the mind does! It is how it “sees” and “hears” and “feels”.
Sometimes, it “feels” as if there is a very close connection to the people that are listening to you tell your story. Maybe the story is so universal that everyone has something to recall that is so similar that the “thought pool” creates this “feeling” that seems to be shared by everyone in the room.

“Crash!” (*spoken quickly*) You’re sitting in a restaurant with friends and there is a loud crash off to the left. Your head turns toward the sound automatically. Even if you can’t actually “see” it, you know that someone has dropped a plate or a platter, and there is a feeling of….
*pause*
What are you feeling? Anyone want to speak the secrets of their mind? Did you feel sad for the person who dropped the plate, even thought you couldn’t see him or her?
Did you think that they were in trouble with the boss?
Did you think that they felt badly about dropping the plate or glass?
Did you feel badly for a second, empathizing with them?
Can you still feel that feeling right now, even though we are making this all up in this moment?
Do you think that we are all feeling something similar?

*whisper* So the secret is this: *loudly* There are no secrets!

This is a very “freeing” idea. Yes, it is a bit scary, too, I “feel” that. But on the bright side – that really bad thing that you did that you don’t want anyone to know about and you keep it hidden in the deep dark of your mind – we all know this experience as our own. There is nothing to hide. That is the “freeing” part.

While your mind is trying not to look at any of your secrets, in case someone might actually “hear” what you are thinking, listen to this:
It truly is a game of “Hide and Seek” – only the game can come to an end at any time. Take a close look at what is “hiding” in your mind and then have a good laugh about it!
Because if you hide too well – and you stay sitting in that deep dark place too long – people quit looking for you. The game is over, and you’re still hiding in the bushes.

Listen to the call:
*pause*
*in a whisper*
“Ally, ally in free!”

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives." ~Henry David Thoreau
“Five, Ten, Fifteen, Twenty, Twenty-Five, Thirty…. Ready or not, here I come!” ~Brian