The Secret City

Aaron Krinsky
Aug 8, 2017 · 7 min read

There is a Secret City.

Around the world people are tuning into its frequency. Part Eden, part Atlantis… part Shambhala, part Shangri-La. It has no beginning; it has no end: it belongs to an Ancient Future.

From one vantage point, it is a city of pure, whimsical fantasy. From another, it is a place as real as the ground beneath our feet.

I can see it, now. It is a City of Peace.

What is Peace?

Someone’s Dream City… was this the Pardes (paradise) of mythical lore?

There’s the story of an ancient Hebrew mystic. His name was Rabbi Akiba. Four men tried to enter the gates of Paradise. Only Akiba survived. It was said:

“Four men entered pardes (Paradise)— Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Acher (Elisha ben Abuyah), and Akiba. Ben Azzai looked and died; Ben Zoma looked and went mad; Acher destroyed the plants; Akiba entered in peace and departed in peace.”

This story is usually noted as a commentary on the study of mystical doctrines. It makes me think of… transitions.

The lesson here is that the real Master maintains awareness/ equanimity/ presence through all states of consciousness.

Pay special attention to those transition states, it’s where things get real slippery. It’s no wonder the word in Hebrew for hello and goodbye is “Shalom”.

It also means “Peace”.


The I-Ching is called “The Book of Changes”. It consists of 64 archetypes of broken and unbroken lines arranged into hexagrams (of six lines each). The unbroken lines represent the Yang or masculine energy, while the broken lines respresent the Yin or feminine energy.

Each combination of Yin and Yang energy is said to be like a different phase-shift potential of matter: Heaven, Earth, Fire, Water, Lake, Thunder, Wind, Mountain.

Look around you. The world seems pretty permanant.

That chair over there is pretty solid. So is that table.

But rewind a few thousand years and where was that chair? Where was that table?

Fast-forward into the future. Same thing. All the elements are constantly changing.

All the atoms in our bodies. All the molecules.

Everything is in a constant state of change. Eternal Flux.

Eternal Flow.

The Hexagram of the last four days (Dream Key #6) is the Hexagram of Discord. It’s also called the Hexagram of Conflict. Jose Arguelles calls it “People Apart”.

I’ve been contemplating these energies deeply. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Scene from “Dunkirk,” the new Christopher Nolan movie

It’s easy to foget how horrible war is.

We’ve managed for quite some time to inoculate ourselves from the nightmare of it all. We live in a bubble within a bubble within a bubble.

I recently watched the movie Dunkirk.

Holy sh*t… I’m think I’m still shell-shocked.

Torpedo strikes, airplaines crashing into the sea, bullets flying seemingly from every direction.

How dumb are we to kill each other like that and put ourselves through such misery?

I mean, really? How is the world so inherently filled with Conflict and Chaos?


There was a great Buddhist scholar of the 2nd century A.D. His name was Nagarjuna.

Nagarjuna basically said that the world of Nirvana (or Heaven) and the world of Samsara (or Hell) are NOT TWO. As in, Non-dual.

His basic point is that we already live in an enlightened state. We just fail to see things that way. The world of form is perfectly full of Sunyata (Emptiness) and all we have to do is walk the Middle path.

Which brings me to the idea of Attunement.

In truth: We are evolving beings that are slowly attuning ourselves to the frequency of Peace.

Peace is not an idea. It’s our future.

We are right now moving towards the most unbelievable Transition you could ever think was humanly possible.

We are moving from seeing the world through the eyes of Conflict to seeing the world through the eyes of Peace.


There’s a scene in Dunkirk where 10 or so men from the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) are stranded on the inside of a small fishing boat, a trawler of sorts. The boat is washed ashore due to the ebb and flow of the tides.

The men are hiding on the boat waiting for the tides to come in and hopefully make the boat sailable again.

In a Lord of the Flies kind of moment the soldiers begin to turn on each other. What if the boat is too heavy and can’t float properly? Perhaps it would work better if they threw one of the men out of the boat? Arguing ensues, and so do accusations of treachery and betrayal.

One of the soldiers turns out to be from the French Army. Maybe he is secretly aligned with the Germans? He doesn’t speak English very well.

The in-flighting is interrupted by a spray of bullets, presumably from Nazi soldiers on the shore using the boat as a form of target practice.

If there is Hell on earth, it looks something like this. Sergei Eisenstein, the famous film theorist, noted that all Art (and especially Film) is born of Conflict. I think this is what he had in mind. The perfect scene of filmic tension, born from the inherent conflicts among people stuck on a boat together that doesn’t float.


There’s a beautiful anecdote from the early pages of the book Calling in the One, by Katherine Woodward Thomas. She tells the story of a great feast that takes place in the lower realms of Hell.

Beautiful plates are set amongst a long dinner table. Elaborate presentations of fish and lobster, steak, poultry, vegetables galore, fruit, wine, delectable-looking sauces.

The participants are gathered around the table in anticipation of enjoying the great meal. The twist: they’re hands are tied to ten-foot long forks and knives, spoons and tableware.

Meaning, no one can get the food from the plates into their own mouths. The forks are too long.

This is the definiton of Hell.

Meanwhile, up in Heaven. A very similar layout. An unbeliable feast prepared for a beautiful group of people. All gatherered around to enjoy the wonderful bounty of food. The difference?

In Heaven, everyone is carefully feeding the person across from them.

The scene in Dunkirk where everyone is stuck on a boat has a similar ending. As the tides begin to rise the bullet holes fill with water and the only way for the soldiers to survive is to spread out and plug the holes with their fingers.

It’s a beautiful metaphor. We are all filling a PEACE of the truth.


There is a Secret City.

Not a hypothetical one like in the movies, or an anecdotal one like in our stories.

A City more real than you could ever possibly imagine.

A radiant city of Energetic Truth.

Christopher Nolan (the director of Dunkirk) made another amazing movie a few years back called Intersteller, in which he tries to depict on film the feeling of the 5th dimension.

His abiding metaphor: the Love a father shares for his daughter criss-crossing through time and space.

Think of someone you love in life. Maybe it’s your Mother. Or your Grandfather. Or your dog. Think of what you feel when you look into their eyes.

This is the feeling of Peace. An attunement so vast that it allows Light to flow through the rickety bridge of time and space.

In this space, we drop all of our Defenses. We open up to a place of perfect Vulnerability, Honesty and Intimacy.

There is nothing to hide because everything is out in the Open. There is no judgement, only Love.

See if you can walk through life with this kind of Peace.

See if you can enter and exit a room with this kind of Loving-Grace, like Akiva did.

Could this world of Samsara (suffering) be melted away by the Eyes of Transformation, the eyes of Nirvana, like the great sage Nagarjuna suggested?

You see, Peace is more than our common Future ahead of us… it’s The Way to the everpresent Now of Creation.


Nicholas Roerich was a Russian philosopher and mystic who travelled the world advocating for a world of Peace through Culture. He led controversial expeditions to Manchuria and Tibet and later was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

And We are Opening the Gates, from the “Sancta” Series by Nicholas Roerich

In April of 1935, the United States signed a Peace Pact called the Roerich Pact along with 20 other nations. The goal of the treaty was to protect cultural art and institutions through times of War and Destruction.

The same way the Red Cross has become a symbol of amnesty for medical needs, the Roerich banner has become a clarion call for Peace through Culture, and Culture through Peace.

It’s easy to become deluded and jaded to the possibility of peace. Let’s not let that happen. Let’s focus again and again on the frequency where all boats rise. The frequency of Peace.

We’re literally on a boat together, it’s called Spaceship Earth. And since Time and Space have already proven to be inextricably correlated (Thank you, Albert Einstein), you could also say that we are on “Timeship” Earth.

We are Interdimensional Beings traveling through time and space.

The Time is Now. The Way is Peace.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade