I studied philosophy in college because it tickled my brain. I was working as a live concert sound engineer at the time, so I wasn’t worried about training for a career. After working for a couple of years between high school and college, the major motivation with my studies was engaging my mind with things that were interesting. Philosophy taught me how to think critically and more completely than I had ever been capable of before. Some people can’t stand philosophy because questions it surfaces can’t really be answered – at least not directly and easily. I loved it. I thought I was tickling my brain, but I was being prepared.

When Lin told me I should be working as a healer on September 18, 2007, my inner world and life had been in transformation for some time. I wasn’t consciously aware of to what degree – but I knew things were changing. I had been drifting for years, trying to find “my work” in the world.

I eventually left the music behind because I couldn’t figure out how to have balance. I loved music and doing sound – it was my everything in so many ways – but it also eventually meant that I couldn’t enjoy going to concerts, because I was incapable of just enjoying the music however it sounded. My constant thought was: If only I were mixing this – I could make it sound better. The arrogance of youth!

One powerful anchoring point for me in my spiritual journey came in the early 90s when Waylon Jennings’ tour manager offered me the opportunity to get on the bus and join the tour. I had been their local production manager at a tour stop in Missoula, Montana – and before we finished the loadout he told me I had a couple of hours if I wanted to get my things and join the tour. I was afraid doing so would mean I would be alone for the rest of my life. No wife, no family, and as much as I wanted to get on the bus, my core wound was running the show. Afraid I was fundamentally unloveable, I didn’t get on the bus.

I got into sales because it didn’t seem like there were any other options – and then stayed with it for 13 or 14 years – life insurance, wireless sales and management, and eventually mortgage lending. I was forever looking for deeper relationships with my clients. Eventually I was drawn to mortgage lending because I thought there would be an opportunity for meaningful connection and relationships not only with clients, but also with realtors. In some way, I was being called forward to my deeper purpose without any conscious awareness of where I was headed. Always being prepared.

In the six months before I found myself “randomly” paired with Lin at an in-residence meditation retreat in Sedona, Arizona, I had started spontaneously asking what my purpose was, while working through the exercises in Charles Haanel’s book The Master Key System.

I read that book because in the fall of 2006, my good friend Scott shared a couple of resources that completely changed my life. The first was the book Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. I had been reading Buddhist philosophy for some years prior and kept running into a challenge around the idea of meditating on my death. I couldn’t understand the point. It seemed like such a sad pursuit. Then I read Millman’s passage about watching his body decay (at least that’s how I remember it) and something profound clicked into place for me – something that had been beyond me was now in me.

Scott also shared with me the original version of the movie The Secret – the version with Esther Hicks in it. I also watched the subsequent version. I had several immediate responses to these movies:

1) Finally – I can have my life be exactly the way I want it! I was so excited.

2) I thought the channeling in the Esther version of the movie was a trick. I was convinced she had read a bunch of compelling personal development books and was pretending to “channel” what she had learned.

In other words, I was skeptical about the presentation, but convinced the material had a solid foundation – and so I set myself in motion to discover it. This is what led me to Haanel’s book. And because visualization was a skill that was needed to successfully engage with the Law of Attraction, and The Master Key System was recognized as perhaps the foundational reference on that front, I was all over it. The fact that it was dense and intense wasn’t a barrier to me. I recalled reading Wittgenstein in college and how the text was numbered. Profoundly dense texts were the norm in philosophy. And the book made some big promises. I was very focused on finally making my life the way I wanted it to be, so engaging with the practices from the book was the obvious next step.

It was during this process that the spontaneous question arose in those visualizations: What is my purpose? Initially I couldn’t understand the question – I thought I already knew. It was to help people optimize their assets, debts, and tax strategy for the purpose of growing wealth and leaving a financial legacy for their heirs and the causes they cared most about. I had pursued that purpose with focus and vigor, certifying to the nth degree within my profession. I had even created an infoproduct (DVDs and an ebook) out of the workshop I taught and was going to start selling it online. I KNEW what my life held. I had been visualizing it and bringing it into reality with a new focus and commitment – powered by The Secret! Always being prepared.

Scott (who is a realtor) and I became good personal friends when I was a mortgage lender – something I felt called to for the relationships. He gave me the keys to unlocking essential aspects of my deeper purpose. The infoproduct for financial services taught me how to have a business online. The empowered pursuit of credentials and certifications to support my credibility as an expert in financial services – a pattern I see played out regularly with spiritual messengers who pursue the same. Always being prepared – the hand of God in everything.

One day I opened the newspaper and saw a headline that resonated to the depth of my being: World Peace through Inner Peace. A talk was being given that night at the local library. I had to go. The person who introduced the speaker seemed conventional and friendly enough – but when the speaker walked in, it was like the atmosphere in the room changed. His presence was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. The embodiment of love. Looking back on it, I would say he was the embodiment of Divine Presence. God was calling me forward.

His talk included experiential breathing exercises. I felt shifts in my body, but the most meaningful thing took place after the talk. I had a question I wanted to ask him. I waited until he was done with the people from the talk and went up to him. I wish I could remember the question. After he responded, he gave me a big hug. I’m a hugger and know a good hug. It was the best man-hug of my life. Before we parted ways he looked up into my eyes – he of modest size, me not so much (6’5”, looking like a very out-of-shape American football player) – and said: Ken, we have a class starting soon. Come learn to meditate. And so I did. Without realizing it, I had taken an essential step towards my purpose.

Learning to meditate changed me. My assistant in my mortgage practice started calling me “Zen Ken” – I was so much more relaxed. I also started doing the things I was most afraid of.

My dad, brother, brother-in-law, and I were supposed to go on a bike ride through parts of Washington. I wasn’t in shape at all. But more than that, I didn’t really feel like I belonged to the boys’ club of the family – the noise of my core wound coming back up to be attended to. I called my dad up to talk with him about it, letting him know I wouldn’t be joining him for the trip. It was a hard decision – and it still brings up sadness in me. As I write this, the last 18 months have been especially rough for him. He had two prior major cancers, and about a year ago he was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It’s been a rough year for him. I love my dad, brother, and brother-in-law.

Looking back on it, I realize I was meant for something different during that biking trip. But I also feel some regret. Time missed out on the road, making memories. Even when we’re following our true path, there are real sacrifices. The empowered and unintegrated self imagines discovering one’s purpose is all cotton candy and Ferraris – or whatever lights you up (for me it’s timberframe homes in the mountains and touring buses as RVs – something about the bus I never got on with Waylon still calling to me). Honoring your call ensures the sharp edges get to be worked. Purpose is rarely an edge that has already been smoothed to a glass-like surface.

After the difficult conversation with my dad, I realized I had time to attend an in-residence retreat, taught by the man who spoke at the library – best man-hug of my life, who taught me to meditate. I made plans to attend, but didn’t fully realize what I was registering for until shortly before leaving when my assistant looked it up online and discovered that I would be doing yoga, in silence, eating vegan food the entire time (none were ways I could imagine myself being for 24 hours, much less the length of the retreat). Scared but feeling called for reasons I couldn’t justify or explain to myself much less anyone else, I headed for Sedona.

God calling me forward.

The retreat group gathered in a yoga studio in Sedona the night before the start of the retreat. A large group of 120 or more people had gathered from around the world to be part of the class. The longer I was there, the more convinced I was that I had made a mistake. A nice woman was sitting near me on the back wall of the studio and struck up a conversation. She was telling me about an ACIM study group she was part of. I didn’t know what she was talking about.

About the time I started thinking I really did NOT belong, the teacher — this beautiful embodiment of Divine Presence walked into the room with his flowing robes. Again, the atmosphere changed as he walked in. He took the stage – a little riser in front. I started wondering if I could drop to all fours and crawl out of there as he was smiling from ear to ear, beaming with love as he looked around the room. He paused at me and the first words out of his mouth – to the entire room – were: “Hi Ken – I’m so glad you’re here.” Gulp. Apparently I wasn’t going to be leaving. God was calling me forward again.

The following morning, after an early morning meditation that involved greeting the sunrise, as we were all leaving the tent that would serve as our primary workspace for the next five days, I saw a man and woman walking together. It was clear they were romantic partners – but how it was clear, I don’t know. More than this, I felt drawn to him, profoundly so. I went up to him and asked: How do I know you? He said – I don’t know you. I pressed him further – and again he said we didn’t know each other. At that, some words came out of my mouth I’d never thought, much less said out loud before: “We must be familiar souls.”

I didn’t know his name, but in my mind, he became “the dude” as we moved through the retreat. Gathering for lunch – and randomly, there was the dude. Satsang in the evening, there was the dude. Seva in the garden, there’s the dude. You might imagine with a relatively small group that these types of encounters were inevitable, but to my recollection we would randomly be assigned to this eating time or that, this seva group or that. And through it all, the dude.

The five-day retreat flew by. Reflecting on it later, I said it felt like I was a garbage collection truck driving down the highway at high speed, and all my noise was getting sucked out without my being consciously aware of what the noise was, or how it was departing. It was wonderful, cathartic, extraordinary.

By far the most extraordinary thing that happened took place in the closing ceremony. The entire group was randomly paired up. In the first iteration, I was paired with a woman I hadn’t noticed before. I should say that the one spiritual gift I had some awareness of was that I could look into the eyes of the person I was with and know how they were feeling, emotionally speaking. It was mostly super annoying, and not something I consciously understood. Imagine being told by your romantic partner – why are you upset? What’s going on? And when you deny anything is the matter, they push on you. Several days later you become aware of something, and in the meantime, they are agitated that you held out, despite the fact that you were completely unaware anything was amiss. I was that annoying person.

So – as I was gazing into her eyes, following the directions of the guided meditation – I saw so much hurt and pain, and so I poured love into her. Not the human-to-human or romantic kind of love. Something different – something I had begun to receive or experience for the first time during the retreat. She started sobbing; the pain left and was replaced by peace. I thought: this is an amazing retreat! The second person I was paired with was the dude! When I looked in his eyes, I saw and felt nothing. So I thought I would pour love into him all the same.

As we got towards the end of the process, he pulled out a piece of paper and wrote on it: “You should be working as a healer.” I didn’t know what the word “healer” meant – still, I started sobbing uncontrollably.

When we came out of silence, he said to me: “You’re going to discover you’ve done this in many prior lifetimes, and this is more natural than breathing.” I started sobbing again, even as I was thinking: “I wonder if he needs a psychiatric hospital?”

This is how I became consciously aware of my purpose. Six months earlier, while doing Haanel’s visualization exercises, I had spontaneously begun asking the question: “What is my purpose?” Lin answered it. A messenger from God, sent to gently guide me to my path, no matter how absurd I thought it was, no matter how much I rejected it.

For the first number of years, as I explored and shared God’s expression through me, I was preoccupied with whether I would be rejected by those closest to me, whether I would be cast out, alone, and unloved. The beauty and persistence of the core wound ensuring integration would take place. The memory of the bus I didn’t get on with Waylon became a major fulcrum for me early on – no matter what the price, I wasn’t going to avoid this second bus.

Years into my work as a spiritual messenger I still was confused about what the through-line of my life had been. In some way, it felt like I had lived a number of disparate lives, cobbled together with no coherent theme. A life played out like a pinball game – a ball bouncing off of barriers and rewards randomly, trying to stay in motion. Then I attended a retreat put on by some friends of mine and brought the question with me. I came out with such clarity. A life of resonance. The resonance of relationship. Of nature. Of music. Of God’s expression in everyone and everything. Everything preparing me for my purpose. Philosophy and sales. Intimacy with God, and the questions and discomforts of the choices we all make as we navigate our lives looking for a way to be who we really are.

I believe God expresses through each human being in a unique manner. And one of the ways we refer to those unique experiences and expressions is as our gifts and purpose.

Looking back on it, it’s clear to me how each part of my life has led me to this expression and experience, though as it was unfolding, it rarely presented as clear or as a straight line to where I was headed. It still seems circuitous, even though in the rearview mirror it is always a straight line to greater intimacy with God.

That’s all for now. From My Heart.

Love,

Ken