I woke up to Wil tapping on my hotel room door. We had driven to the Bell Rock Inn and checked in, and I had turned in before eleven, expecting an early departure but not this early. I glanced at the clock by the bed: one A.M.
“Wake up,” Wil was whispering though the door as I opened it. Hurrying in, he handed me a large pack and some new clothes and boots.
“What’s all this for?” I asked, still groggy.
Wil moved over to the window and looked down toward the parking lot where my Cruiser was parked.
“Take a look,” he said, pointing.
I strained to see in the faint light. “What?”
“Our friends are back. There on the street behind your Cruiser.”
It took a few seconds, but finally I spotted an SUV well hidden among some trees. Several men were gathered together beside it. One was on a radio, looking toward us.
“Yeah. I see them.”
Wil shook his head. “Looks to me like they’re about to do something. Put on the new stuff, and leave your other clothes and boots in the room. Someone may have placed a locator on us since we’ve been here.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you thinking we should do?”
“We have to lose them again, which means we must leave your vehicle here. Don’t worry. The Hopis will keep an eye on it. Rumor has it there’s a group of people camped way up Boynton Canyon who have more of the Document. We need to get our hands on the Third and Fourth Integrations as soon as possible, and we don’t want to chance being detained. We need to get deep into the wilderness.”
Wil was helping me pack my new stuff and inspecting everything else I was placing in the pack. I knew the Boynton area, which was known as a sacred place and held many Native American ruins. I had tried to hike it several times but had always decided to return after only a short walk. Something about it seemed spooky.
“That’s a tight canyon in places,” I said. “We get up in there and we’re trapped.”
He gave me one of those determined looks. “There are ways out, if you know where they are.”
I knew Wil well enough to know this wasn’t a humorous moment. From the look on his face, he was leaving my course of action completely to me. I could come or not. And he would be perfectly fine leaving me right here.
“The Hopis consider this canyon a place of purification,” he finally said. “It may be just the location to understand Alignment and Karma.”
I looked at him a moment more, noting that he had mentioned Karma a second time, then said, “Okay, let’s go.”
We gathered the rest of our things and sneaked out the back door and across the edge of the dark parking lot into some trees. Then Wil led us through the shadows into another lot, where an old diesel Mercedes that smelled like peanut oil was waiting for us. The car was driven by a small, muscular man with long black hair. Climbing in as quietly as possible, I struggled to account for the smell. Finally, it came to me. The car was running on biofuel made from recycled commercial frying oil.
“This is Wolf,” Wil said, introducing me to the driver. “He is my longtime Hopi friend.”
Wolf appeared to be about fifty years of age, except for his eyes, which looked much younger and were light amber in color and very piercing, exactly like those of a real wolf. He gave me a smile and nodded.
No one talked as Wolf drove us down a few streets and then doubled back several times to check if anyone was following. We even stopped for a while, turning the car lights off, just to be sure. When everything seemed safe, we took a road that wove through a section of houses, and then entered the main road heading west out of town.
“Better get centered,” Wil said, and looked away.
I knew exactly what he meant. I took a breath and reminded myself of where we were in the process. Expecting Synchronicity was now fully ingrained in me, so I focused on keeping the truth of our longer context fully in mind. Immediately, I felt more awake and alert, right on the edge of unfolding events.
After a few more miles, Wolf slowly pulled up to the Boynton Canyon trailhead. To our surprise, dozens of cars were parked all along the road. Wil and Wolf glanced at each other. As we were collecting our gear, Wil handed me a flashlight and told me to watch for rattlesnakes.
Wolf laughed and then walked closer.
“Remember,” he whispered, “canyons are for purification, but mountains are for finding Vision.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant, but Wil was motioning for me to follow him. As Wolf drove away, we headed into the canyon. After about a mile, I moved closer to Wil and asked, “Is there a larger mountain near here?”
Wil stopped in his tracks and turned to face me. “Why do you ask?”
“Something Wolf said.”
“There’s a large wilderness called Secret Mountain a few miles north.”
He walked ahead again, then turned and added: “One aspect of Wolf you should know about—he often knows what’s going to happen.”
I had heard of Secret Mountain but knew only of its general location. One thing for sure, the wilderness it was part of was huge. I figured we would have to wait to know what Wolf had meant, and surprisingly, I was content to do so. I should have been apprehensive about our sudden flight into the wild, but the deeper we penetrated into the wilderness, the more energized I felt. And instead of the spooky feeling I had experienced the last time I was in Boynton, I was now feeling the opposite emotion—a sense of being at home somehow, and trusting that whatever might happen here was going to be beneficial.
We were now walking through an area of juniper and mesquite interspersed with huge red boulders and outcroppings. A sky of brilliant stars made the flashlights almost unnecessary.
“Why,” I asked Wil, “do the Hopis believe this place enhances purification?”
“Because of its impact. It repels anyone who isn’t ready for a breakthrough of some kind. But when you are ready, the power of this place helps you.”
“You mean energetically helps?”
“Yes. According to legend, if you go far enough in here, say at least a couple of miles, it inevitably tests your assumptions about life and inspires a reanalysis of how you forge your way in this world. Again, it makes perfect sense that we are being led into this canyon to study the Laws of Spirituality.
“All this is up for people because of the economic downturn. During the material age, we tended to think we were creating our subsistence with our knowledge and reason, the common assumption being that if you used your head and worked hard, you could prosper in life.
“But in reality, everyone knows there are intangibles at work in determining who has success. You can be equally as logical and hardworking as the next person and not do as well. There’s always been an unknown factor concerning who is fortunate and who isn’t in this life, and we’re about to figure it out.”
He stopped suddenly and gazed out toward a flat area above the trail to the right.
“Let’s go up there,” he said, “and set up camp and sleep for a little while before dawn.”
We made our way up to the location, and in just a few minutes we had both tents up and the food bagged and roped in a tree to protect it. Afterward, another question came to mind.
“So you think the missing factor is this Alignment thing?”
He nodded. “According to my Hopi friends, the Third Integration says that during a time of transition such as we’re in, when economies are faltering and people are acting crazy, we’ll all be shown a new way of getting our worldly needs met.”
Wil was already climbing into his tent.
“Let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
The next morning, I was awakened by tree limbs breaking outside and Wil yelling. I pulled on my boots and looked through the tent flap. It was barely daylight, and Wil was running toward the tree where our food was tied. When I got there, I could see the limb was broken and the bag containing our provisions was missing.
“Did you see her?” Wil asked, pointing up the slope. “She was big.”
“I couldn’t see,” I responded.
We looked around until we found some large tracks.
“Strange,” I added. “I didn’t think there were many big bears around here anymore.”
Close by were several freeze-dried meals that had fallen out of the sack as the bear had dragged it away.
“We could track her,” I said, picking them up, “and try to recoup some of the food.”
Wil just looked at me and I knew what he was thinking. Not a good idea. We weren’t armed, and that was a very large bear. Perhaps she even had a young cub.
We made our way back to the tents and Wil got out his cooker and began preparing one of the meals. A chill was in the air now, and a light rain was falling.
“The question,” Wil said, “is what to do? With no food, we have a decision to make. We might have to be in this wilderness for many days. We need provisions. On the other hand, if we go back to get them, we might run into those guys following us.”
“What choice do we have?” I asked.
“We could just keep going. Let this play out.”
I was resisting. “We can’t stay up here without food.”
Wil just looked at me. “Well, it’s a challenge, but isn’t the same thing happening out there in the world? Think about it. Millions of people are experiencing this same situation. They go in to work one day and hear they’re fired, and suddenly, no more money for food. They’re in this same situation we’re in now, only worse.”
“But how will we eat? Are some of your Hopi friends up here somewhere?”
“No,” he said. “They’re already looking for the Fourth Integration farther up north. We’ll have to rely on getting food from strangers.”
I squinted. “That might not be easy.”
“No, but again, in reality isn’t that what we all have to count on? We’re all in business somewhere, aren’t we? Even if we work for the government, if others don’t buy what we’re selling, or no longer need our service, we can’t survive. So to some extent we all have to be fortunate. If the Universe doesn’t smile on you, if you’re not lucky, then you’re in big trouble. In times like these, especially, we come to realize we are solely dependent on strangers showing up to, in effect, give us food.”
I’d never had it put that starkly, but I knew Wil was right. Cut to the bone, we’re all always at the mercy of others.
“So it figures,” Wil continued, “that there are some esoteric rules working behind the scenes determining whether people are going to show up or not—rules that we can figure out and get into alignment with. I’m telling you this because it is exactly what the Third Integration says.”
“Okay,” I said, “then let’s see how it plays out.”
Within minutes, we had consumed the stew, put the tents and water in our packs, and headed up the trail. After a while, Wil looked back at me.
“There’s something else. Remember that other cultures have awakened in history in the same way we are now. These cultures have always been smaller and somewhat isolated, but they have always discovered the same basic spiritual principles that operate in this Universe.”
I ran up beside him. “So you are sure the Third is going to tell us what the laws are?”
“Yes, the basic laws are known. The Hopi told me some of these principles have aspects that aren’t fully complete yet, and of course, they have to absolutely be proven out in one’s own life before they can be believable. But yes, we know what the basic laws are, beginning with the one we’ve already been using.”
“What is that?”
“The Law of Truth. We used it to keep our Synchronicity going, and it governs the situation when we swap truths in Conscious Conversation. Just remember that it’s easy to stay in truth when the Synchronicity is flowing to help you. It’s much harder to maintain the habit when the economic stakes get high.”
Suddenly, in the distance, I saw two people walking along the trail in front of us.
“There are some people up there,” I said to Wil.
We sped up until we could see them clearly. Two men were walking together, dressed in hiking gear and floppy hats and bearing large, expensive packs.
I looked over at Wil. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “They look okay to me. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling for some reason I should handle the matter. “I’ll go ahead and talk to them about buying some food.”
Wil looked slightly surprised that I took the initiative, but smiled and nodded.
Campers, I knew, were usually extremely friendly and helpful. I was sure that, as long as I didn’t appear threatening, they would share some of their food. When I reached them they both turned around. I gave them a big smile and introduced myself, and they told me their names were Paul and David from California. I knew immediately that they were tourists and probably knew nothing about the Document.
At first they seemed very friendly, but just as I gathered my thoughts to bring up the issue of food, they looked at me suspiciously and began backing away.
“Listen, something has happened,” I said. “We were supposed to bring some food to friends camping up here, and our food was stolen. It’s really important that we get there right away.” I was pulling my wallet from my back pocket. “I was hoping you might have extra food I could buy.”
“We have to get moving,” Paul said, fidgeting. And his friend, David, added quickly, “There are park rangers on this trail all the time. I’m sure one will come along any minute.”
Both of them were almost running up the trail now, looking back as if they thought I might give chase. They hurried ahead until they were completely out of sight.
Wil came up behind me with a perplexed look on his face.
“That didn’t look like it went well,” he said. “What happened?”
I was just as confused and told him every word of the conversation. He was shaking his head, smiling. When I got to the part where I had told them our food had been stolen and we needed more to take to some friends, Wil grimaced noticeably. I felt embarrassed but rationalized the fib by saying I was afraid they would think we were crazy or unstable, since we hadn’t just hiked out to get more food.
Wil stared at me, remaining silent, still shaking his head in disbelief. At the same time, I realized how weak and nervous I had become. I had lost all my centered clarity.
“We were just talking about telling the truth,” Wil said.
“I guess I outsmarted myself,” I replied. “It really brought me down.”
He looked at me sympathetically. “Once you elevate your clarity and energy in an authentic way, then it’s pretty dramatic what happens when you lie about something. It’s an immediate crash.”
I moved over and sat down on a rock, and Wil sat beside me.
“Look,” he added. “It’s the canyon. It accelerates everything. It doesn’t feel good, but what happened is a helpful Synchronicity just the same. You just have to see what it’s showing you. During the Modern age, we’ve been bending the truth for our obsessive personal gain, or to further some political end. That’s why, as we wake up, we see corruption and greed everywhere.
“But as you can see, at higher levels of consciousness there’s no such thing as a lie or a distortion that is okay. The Law of Truth is absolute. If we don’t stay honest, to our best awareness, it hurts everyone: us individually, because it collapses our energy and clarity; and others because we fail to give them the benefit of our truth and positive influence.”
He was up and heading down the trail again and I followed along.
“This brings us,” he said, “to the next spiritual principle the Hopis told me about: the Law of Connection.”
Just at that moment, we caught sight of a crowd of people in front of us. Walking closer, we realized everyone was looking in one direction, farther into the canyon. Then we heard the object of their attention: the sound of a helicopter in the distance.
Wil gave me a look, and we eased up slowly to where the others were. From here we could see the chopper hovering only several hundred yards ahead. It stayed there a few moments more, then slowly descended to the ground and cut its engines.
Wil leaned over and whispered, “That isn’t a tourist helicopter. It’s military.”
Some of the people who seemed like tourists began to walk casually up the trail again. But two groups held back: us and a group of about a dozen men, all of differing cultural backgrounds. Some were clearly Europeans and Americans, but judging from their speaking patterns, most of them seemed to be from out of the country, probably the Middle East. As they moved around, I saw two women with them as well.
One of the women turned to face us, and I recognized her immediately. It was Rachel, the woman I’d seen at the Pub. She walked away then and began talking to the other woman in what sounded like Hebrew. As I watched, I suddenly felt a rush of emotion toward Rachel similar to the one I had felt before.
I quickly looked away just as Wil grabbed my shoulder. Many of the men in Rachel’s group had spotted us looking at them and were staring hard in our direction.
“Let’s walk on,” Wil whispered.
We headed deeper into the canyon, wanting to put some distance between the men and us. Out of the corner of my eye I could see them glaring at us as we walked. Finally, when we were out of sight completely, Wil darted off the trail to the right.
“I think we should get off this trail,” he said, and led us straight up the slope about a hundred yards, where we ducked behind a large rock outcropping. Once there, I felt more hidden, yet we could still see some of the main trail down below through the scrub pines and junipers. The eastern wall of the canyon towered behind us.
I told Wil I’d seen Rachel.
“Really,” he said. “That was her, huh? I wonder who those people are she’s with.”
“They looked none too friendly,” I remarked.
We waited there for a long time as more people came walking down the trail. There was no more noise from the helicopter, so I figured it must still be sitting where it landed. The question was, who was in it? And where are they now? Was it the same group that had been following us?
Finally, Wil said, “Look, I think you have to understand what the Hopis told me about the Law of Connection.”
“Okay.”
“You said those two guys you asked for food earlier had started to back away from you even before you began talking.”
“Do you have any idea why?”
“Not really.”
“It was because of the Connection we have with one another. It’s built into our brains. The Document says that because we’re all connected, we sense what others are feeling and thinking. As we progress through the Integrations, it says we will develop this sense even more. But everyone already has this basic perception.”
“Are you telling me they could tell I wasn’t going to give them the exact story? My intent wasn’t to harm them. I wanted to give them money for their food. I just left out some of the details.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that they knew what you were doing exactly. They could feel what you were feeling, and as the lie you were contemplating brought you down, they felt that drain themselves, and thus became more confused and unclear—which was an unconscious signal to them that something was wrong, and that you were probably up to no good. So they backed away.”
He paused a moment as if to let his words sink in.
“And this sensitivity,” Wil went on, “increases as our consciousness increases. Humanity is reaching the point where you’d better not lie, even a little bit, because if you do, there will be more people every day who will be able to sense it. Lying is just not going to work much longer.”
We were interrupted again as we noticed other groups walking by on the main trail below us.
“A lot of people are coming into the canyon,” Wil said, suddenly concerned. “And many of them are packed for long-term camping, probably all without permits. Eventually, they’re going to draw the attention of the park rangers. We’d better find out what we can before they show up. Time to move.”
He gave me a serious look. “Keep your eyes open. Watch everything that happens.”
We carefully walked down to the trail again. There was no sign of Rachel or the group she was with. As we walked slowly forward into the heart of the canyon, we began to notice people sitting around talking everywhere. We found a spot out of the way and stopped.
“Listen,” Wil said. “I feel I should walk up ahead alone and see if anyone knows what that helicopter is about. If you’ll watch the packs, I’ll go do that, and be right back.”
I nodded and sat down. Staying here was fine with me since I wanted to think more about the Law of Connection. If this was a true principle of our spirituality, it meant that it was the same for all of us. How far could we develop this Connection with each other, I wondered. Would we eventually become telepathic? For a long time, I pondered what that would be like.
Suddenly, I heard someone walking up behind me and turned around to see an upbeat man of about thirty smiling and offering me his hand.
“I’m Jeff,” he said. “How’s it going?”
I shook hands with him and introduced myself. At first, I felt a slight downturn in my energy, but the more he talked enthusiastically about how beautiful everything was in the canyon, the more I began to think he was okay.
At one point, I even asked him if he knew anything about the Document, but he said he wasn’t aware of it. After we talked a bit more about Sedona, he said, “I see you have a knife. I wonder if I could borrow it for a few minutes.” He was pointing toward my belt at my prized eight-inch hunting knife that I always carried in the woods.
“We’re setting up camp over there,” he continued, “and I just need it for a few minutes to cut some rope.”
I looked through some mesquite and saw two men and a woman in that direction putting up a tent. Figuring he would be close where I could observe him, I took off the knife and gave it to him in the scabbard—then watched as he walked back and began working with the two people.
A fresh breeze was blowing up, and I took a breath. The morning rain had cleared and the sun was beaming down. Slowly, I felt myself recovering my lost energy and noticed how beautiful this particular area was. Small pine trees and junipers dotted the entire canyon floor.
Just then Wil came back and sat down beside me.
“No one seems to know what the chopper is doing,” he said. “I kept my distance from it, but I could see it was empty. And it’s definitely military.”
He was sitting on his pack. “Let’s just wait here for a while.”
I smiled. “You could tell me about the next spiritual law.”
As Wil formulated a sentence, I again looked over toward the campsite where the man had been working, only to find that he was nowhere to be seen. I jumped up and ran to the campsite and asked the couple where he was. They told me they didn’t know, that he wasn’t really part of their party.
“He just came up to talk,” the woman said. “He offered to go borrow a knife for us, to help us cut some rope. He seemed to be a little down on his luck.”
I was about to go look for him when Wil came up, and I quickly filled him in.
“He stole your knife?” Wil remarked, a look of wonder and amazement on his face, as if something important had happened. I brushed it off and proceeded to look all around the area. There was no sign of him anywhere. After about twenty minutes, I returned to where the packs were, finding Wil sitting patiently, waiting for me.
“I’ve had that knife a long time,” I said, sitting down next to him.
“Well,” Wil offered, trying not to grin, “you wanted to see how all this would play out.”
I was in no mood for analysis. I just wanted my knife back, but Wil was persistent. “Right before you saw the guy was gone, didn’t you ask me what the next law was?”
I remained silent, still sulking.
“Well,” he continued, “it’s the Law of Karma.”
It was past noon, and Wil had left again, telling me he was going to look for food. For a long time I just sat around, wondering what kind of purification was going on here in this canyon. Then, about the time I was ready to go look for him, I saw Wil coming back. He sat down and looked over at me.
“Find some food?” I asked.
“Yeah, a little bit. I had lunch with some people I met. I wanted to bring you some but there wasn’t enough.”
I just looked at him.
“Why shouldn’t I find food?” he responded. “I have good Karma!” He was using an overly dramatic tone to his voice, then burst into laughter, barely able to control himself.
As usual with Wil, his humor was so contagious I couldn’t help but laugh, too.
“Okay,” I said. “What did the Hopi tell you about Karma?”
Instantly, he was serious. “The Document says that it’s real, and in our time, it responds to our actions more quickly than ever before.”
“So I’m the poster child for it.”
“Well, take a look at what has happened. You tried to steal food from someone, and that created a karmic response from the Universe that resulted in some guy stealing your knife.”
I began resisting again. “What about him? Maybe he’s just a serial thief.”
“Maybe, or maybe he’s a nice guy and he decided to move up the trail somewhere or go back to town, and he just forgot to give back your knife. Either way, you have to ask why this happened to you right now, just when we’re talking about all this and right after you tried to steal from someone.”
“Wait a minute. Stop saying that. I wasn’t trying to steal from anyone.”
“No? Didn’t you tell a lie in order to try to manipulate someone out of his food? Trying to do it and doing it is the same thing karmically.”
“The Document says that?”
He nodded and then stared at me for a long time.
“Look,” he finally added. “These laws seem hard to believe because we’ve all been trained to think the Universe only has physical laws. And the reason people are slow to put this together is that we all shade the truth at times, especially in business, or to save face, and we all have things happen to us that are bad. So there seems to be no relationship between the two. We think it doesn’t matter if we lie a little bit, because bad things happen to everyone anyway.”
He looked at me hard. “But according to the Document, that isn’t true, and anyone can prove it to himself by just being observant. Because Karma is speeding up, the consequences from an untruthful manipulation come back very quickly.”
“But why is it speeding up?”
He stopped. “I don’t know. I asked the Hopis the same question, but they said the Document didn’t say. They only hinted it may be part of the energy that the Calendar is pointing to.”
“You mean the Mayan Calendar? What do the Hopi know of that?”
“The classical Maya were Native Americans, too, you know.”
“Anyway,” Wil continued, “prove it to yourself. The Document says that when enough of us realize this is the way Karma works, it’s going to lead to a new era of Integrity to replace the corruption we have now.
“And there’s more. It’s important to see that the Law of Karma is designed not for punishment, but to affect a positive correction. It apparently works this way: the Universe is set up spiritually to support and encourage our spiritual growth. If you center yourself in truth, then your Synchronicity will soar. If you participate in untruth, then you draw into your life a person who does the same thing to you, again not as punishment but to show you how it feels, so you can move back toward truth.
“What happens,” I asked, “if we don’t get the message?”
“The Document says the response of Karma gets more extreme in an effort to get our attention, something, again, that we can also prove to ourselves at this moment in history. All we have to do is pay attention to what happens in relation to our own behavior.”
“Okay, what if one is randomly selected and murdered by a serial killer? Is that payback for something we did earlier?”
“No. Remember, Karma has nothing to do with payback. It reflects back to you what you’re doing. If you are an armed robber, for instance, you are standing for the untruth that says that behavior is okay. It’s the same as a lie or deception to get the money, only worse. And you will have money taken from you to show you how it feels, so you can change. The problem is that some people just use the Karma as an excuse to keep the same behavior going, thinking everyone is doing it to me, why shouldn’t I do it to them as well? They’re missing the fact that they are being shown something so they can change.
“When someone becomes the victim of a serial killer, unless the person is a serial killer himself, it’s a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s the result of chance, not Karma, and happens because of the current state of the world’s imperfection. We know psychologically and genetically what’s going on with serial killers, from studies of childhood trauma and genetics. In the ideal, someone would have noticed these factors and intervened with the person early, so he wouldn’t have been able to hurt anyone. Unfortunately, we just aren’t enlightened enough to institute those kinds of interventions yet. Hopefully, one day we will be.”
“I guess, until then, we have to hope we’re lucky.”
“Yeah, at least until we can move through the Integrations enough to realize we can be ‘protected.’ ”
“What do you mean, protected?”
Wil leaned toward me. “My Hopi friends told me that these kinds of random accidents and mishaps aren’t supposed to happen. The Document says that, as spiritual consciousness rises, we will learn how to detect the hunches and premonitions that allow us to avoid impending accidents and attacks. They said we’ll get to that level at the Fourth and Fifth Integrations.”
Abruptly, we heard the raspy engines of several ATVs coming up the trail behind us. In the time it took to grab our packs and duck into the thicker brush, they were driving up.
“Those are Park Service four-wheelers,” Wil shouted, leading us farther up the slope away from the noise. As we hurried away, we could see people scurrying for cover everywhere. Once near the canyon wall, we saw two men up ahead attempting to climb the steep face of a wall of rock.
“They’re sport climbers,” Wil said, urging me along. “They probably have permits.”
Suddenly, as we watched, one of their rope anchors ripped out of the rock, flipping one of the climbers upside down and threatening to drop him fifty feet to the jagged rocks below. Then another anchor broke free and dropped him another ten feet. He screamed in terror.
Without thinking, I dashed toward the cliff. The second climber was pointing frantically toward something on the ground near their tent. I immediately saw a full length of extra rope. I picked it up, then quickly made my way up the rock and out on a ledge to within ten feet of the helpless climber.
I threw his buddy the end of the rope and he knew exactly what to do. He put the end through a solidly hammered anchor near him, pulled it through, and lowered the end to his friend—who, despite his panic, was able to tie it around himself. After that, all I had to do was hold my end of the rope tightly to secure him from falling any farther. After a minute, he was able to cut himself loose from the other ropes. With the help of Wil, I lowered the man safely to the ground.
As we gathered up our stuff, the traumatized climber was so upset he was unable even to talk. His friend gave him some water and spoke with him privately for a minute, then pulled us to the side. We could hear the four-wheelers all over the canyon floor below us, but the climber seemed not to notice.
“If you hadn’t come by,” he said, “I don’t know what might have happened. I’ve got to get him back to Sedona. I wish there was some way to repay you.”
Wil and I glanced at each other.
Then I told them the truth of our situation, that we needed food.
“Well,” the climber said, “we can sure help with that. We were going to stay here for four days, but my friend is too shaken. He wants to leave tomorrow. We have lots of food you can have.”
After packing the food, we left hurriedly toward the northeast and found another place where we could hide in the rocks. From there we had an even better view of the canyon floor, where people were being detained or turned around by the rangers. I looked hard for the group Rachel was with but couldn’t see any of them.
“We should stay here for a while,” Wil said, “until all this dies down.” He was still giving me that look of astonishment over what had occurred.
“I know. I know. All this means something,” I replied.
“Means something? It’s the most pointed run of Synchronicity I’ve ever seen. Remember when we were driving away from the Pub and I made all those moves to lose the car behind me, and you thought the speed of the Synchronicity was amazing? Well, you’re now operating at just that level of speed.
“Think about it. You were shown the Law of Truth when you tried to manipulate for food. You were rejected by the tourists in a perfect illustration of the Law of Connection. Then, right after, you had something stolen from you, through similar false pretenses, illustrating the Law of Karma. And now you’ve just secured our food, which is what you were trying to do all along.”
I looked at him, not quite getting the last one.
“Don’t you see?” he pressed. “You aided those people by intuiting immediately how you could best help. It came to you how to help, and you did it, fast.”
I knew he was right. I didn’t really even think much about the actions. Somehow, I just knew.
“It’s called the Law of Service. And again, it’s built into the way the Universe operates and how our minds are designed. We somehow know what others around us need, and when we act in response, we fall into alignment with this law. All you have to do is think, ‘How can I be of service?’ And something will always come to you. All the resources you need will be provided in order to help, and you’ll feel like you’re always in the right place at the right time to make a difference.”
He paused for a moment and then asked, “Do you see now what the Third Integration is, in total? It’s all about getting into Alignment. And again, you proved it to yourself. You played it out right here in this canyon. And anyone else who observes sincerely can see it just as clearly in his or her own life.
“It’s the next step in our awakening. Like I said, during this material age, we have grown to think a little lying, a little shading of the truth, is okay, even expected. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, right? Salespeople are trained to practice shading the truth. Politicians get elected doing it. Contracts with fine print are a way of life.
“Yet think about the world right now. Corruptions are immediately found out. Scandals erupt daily. The swindlers get swindled. This is what happens when most of the culture is bombarded with a Karma that is coming faster and faster. It’s there to show us the imperfection so we can do something about it.
“But once you begin living the best truth you know and see that being of service to others and setting a good example are the best things you can do for yourself, well, everything changes. You move into Alignment with the way the Universe is designed to operate. You stop manipulating, and so you no longer draw manipulators into your life.
“In fact, the opposite occurs. When you seek Alignment and think how to be of service, you begin to draw people into your life who are there to help you. And then your Synchronicity and your dreams really take off.
“When everyone gets this, the human world will immediately change. Businesses will change how they operate. Doing business in Alignment means always telling the truth about your products and always being service-minded. And if you do, others who need what you offer will show up mysteriously.”
I had never seen Wil this excited before. I thought about the idea of tithing and asked him about it.
“That’s just part of being of service,” he said. “Money is only a form of stored energy, and it follows the currents of Karma in one’s life. If you manipulate for money, you get manipulated out of money—or suddenly have a wave of breakdowns and unexpected expenses. Tithing is a way to right the ship quickly. Instead of spending every dime, deny yourself a little and save ten percent of your income one month.
“Then just wait for an intuition of whom to give it to. You’ll get one. Someone who needs an angel will cross your path, and you’ll get the thrill of having the means to be of service. And again, it will just accelerate the flow of help coming back to you. You’ll get more opportunities to be successful.”
He stopped and looked at me. “I’ve never known anyone who tithed in this spirit who didn’t prove to themselves that it works.”
For a long moment, Wil and I just looked at each other. I knew he was feeling the same sensation I was: another rise in consciousness and energy. We had fully integrated the Third step, and added one more piece to the puzzle of spiritual reality—Alignment.
“Did the Hopis,” I asked finally, “say anything about the next Integration, the Fourth?”
Wil nodded, his face turning serious. “They said the Fourth Integration is perhaps the most important part of ‘the foundation,’ because it will show us what is fully at stake. Once we’re able to stay in Alignment, in truth, we will see how pervasive some systems of untruth are in the world.
“We can’t go forward until we understand these growing ideologies and see how dangerously they are polarizing. Only then will we know how to separate ourselves from this untruth… and break through to a place where we can stand up to it.”