There is a great secret on this planet that virtually no one wants to hear, let alone know. This one secret is so explosive, so dangerous to the social status quo, that billions of dollars are spent every year to ensure that it remains just that, a secret. Entire industries exist to mask the truth of this secret.

What is so unique about this secret is that everyone -- in his or her heart of hearts -- already knows it! They just don't want to know that they know it! Another thing that is so strange about this secret that we don't want to know is that it is the very gateway to the life that we really want -- in that once we would acknowledge it to ourselves, its "dawning" in us would instantly dispel other dark secrets now lodged and living in us. What are these other sorrow-making secrets still hidden in us?

These are the ones that always betray us, that tell themselves out loud in bursts of resentment, fear, impatience, and other acts of intolerance. But think of it! With these enemies of love and light removed from our hearts and minds, what could be left within us other than the pure goodly qualities of soul and Spirit that are strength, contentment, joy, and peace themselves?

So what is this secret that no one wants to know, that applies to all people equally regardless of social or economic standing? What is this secret that if known by us -- if realized in our core -- could not only transform us but help to change the whole world for the betterment of all?

Here it is: Everyone we know... suffers.

That's it. We all have a pain in us that won't go away or that, at best, can only be pushed aside as long as some pleasurable vibration can be sustained through self-created cost or by a gentle natural coincidence of an accidental cause. Why would anyone want to know this unwanted secret about his or her life on earth?

For one thing, its realization sets the stage for being empowered to fulfill the two great commandments that reign as the heart and soul of every true religion: To love God first and foremost, above all else, and to love one another as ourselves.

To know that we suffer as we do because of a nature within us that can love only itself -- and that this suffering persists because it believes it can end its own pain through its own means -- produces the possibility for us to put this backwards nature behind us, where it belongs. And in doing this we do what we have as yet been unable to do for ourselves: Put God first in our lives.

Here is a simple, straightforward inner exercise to help you put these new secrets to work in your life, and with this, to transform the foundations of your world. First, we will look at the exercise in its simplicity, and then we will look at some of the reasons why it is, in too many ways to list, the secret solution that can help to end world suffering.

Twenty-four hours a day, whenever you can awake to yourself and remember that your aim is to know yourself and your God, ask yourself this question: What is it that is in my heart right now?

Then, with this wish to see the unadorned content of your heart -- free of any justification, bare and unprotected -- come as aware of your heart (the emotional center in your solar plexus area) as best you are able. Just see; don't try to be anything. Just watch; don't want anything but to see the fact of what is sitting in the center of you.

It makes little difference what we find there if we are honest and watchful. The beauty of being conscious of either the "low" or the "high" hidden in one's heart is that both states serve to rectify the soul by expanding its need for God -- a need that, by a new necessity, must increase the soul's relationship with God. Here's a brief look at "how" this works:

If one searches his or her heart and comes to see a suffering there -- some sort of "lowness" or "darkness" therein -- this person cannot stand tall; pride cannot be his footstool; the wish to punish others out of a false sense of superiority simply could not be acted out. Such persons would know that they need God (in their life) instead of imagining they already have Him (there).

If, on the other hand, through self-observation we have become a bit conscious of our heart's secret content, and find there, for our work, a bit a grace, of goodness, of a joy not our own -- then we experience a true gratitude that is amplified for this gift in our soul, a thankfulness made sweeter for having already known the lower forms of our former state of the heart.

There are more benefits to this exercise. First, as we learn to listen to our heart, to all of the notes sounding there, we realize that there is no suffering on earth that doesn't also sound itself out in our own heart. With this awakening we become someone who can never again add any more measure to the sum of our fellow human misery. We start to become harmless.

Last, but not least, if we know the content of our own heart, when we can be aware of this telling condition of our own hidden self, then we not only know the secret contents of the hearts of everyone else we meet, but we also know there is no real difference between us and all of these "others" around us. And it is this discovery that fulfills our purpose for being on earth. For with the realization of this undivided life -- that we are not apart, not separate from one another as our suffering makes us believe -- we are awarded the grace of knowing that God is one, and that each and every one of us is a secret measure of His divine life. All of this is in our heart.

This article is an excerpt from www.GuyFinleyNow.org, Life of Learning's Online Wisdom Center directed by Guy Finley.