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End of the Road

Beginnings – Part 4 – The Beginning of the End

“Spiritual growth involves giving up the stories of your past
so the universe can write a new one.”

 

~ Marianne Williamson

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Imagine surrendering the stories of your past that have defined who you conceive yourself to be and trusting a greater intelligence to script the rest of your life. This would mark the beginning of the end.

There’s a joke about a man who falls off a cliff and clutches at a branch, hovering above a thousand foot drop. He cries out, appealing to God for help. A voice booms down: “Let go.”

The man takes this in, thinks for a moment, then says: “Is there anyone else up there?”



Letting go is not a popular piece of advice, even on the spiritual path where the words are often used but not always followed with enthusiasm, especially when it involves letting go of who we have conceived ourselves to be. But who is that self? Do we really expect self-improvement of that self can deliver what we hunger for?

Those who debate the relative merits of doing vs being miss a third component, the space between these two polarities. There is something more, a space between that watches both. This can be a ground breaking understanding for those “on the path,” because it doesn’t position being above doing; it emphasizes a witnessing state beyond either polarized aspect of human, egoic identity.

Witness

As one abandons both aspects of human identity in favor of adopting and sustaining a witnessing consciousness, this space grows. It continues to dilate and your experience becomes more dominantly one of “consciousness watching.” Your awareness expands, delivering a more unified experience, regardless of the outer circumstance.

“Space” is the transformative ingredient. Here in the information age, where our personal processing speed continues to accelerate, we are suffocating in an overwhelm of data, 24/7. We are becoming more fragmented, more depressed, and more anxious. In fact, it’s no exaggeration to suggest that we now find ourselves in the midst of a mental illness epidemic.

This is impacting students, particularly. In response, universities are adding more counsellors. But the more they add, the longer the lines of students needing help become. Counselling is not the answer for students who are plugged in every waking moment, eating junk food, and not exercising. Space, space between being and doing, that’s what’s missing. Wisdom emerges from that space, with momentary, timely direction for how to live a balanced life.




From a fully awakened perspective, those two polarities are already balanced so the speed of information processing is not a problem. Everything, including you, is part of the same consciousness. In truth, there is no conflict and no stress and no fragmentation. In fact, it’s possible to reside in the midst of seeming chaos with an awareness that it is all the same, that nothing is wrong and needs fixing, that you are already who you are. You just need to let go.

Don’t suggest that to the scientists fretting about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence (A.I.) To many, biology and technology are in a race to some sort of finish line that will determine the future of humankind. Actually, some would further clarify that it’s about whether humans actually have a future. But consciousness is one and includes everything, including technology. Technology is a valid instrument of consciousness, meant to support you in your further ongoing evolution in consciousness, not sabotage you.

The old human story is that technology and biology are separate, different, and competitive. As you awaken in this space of witnessing oneness, it becomes clear that technology is part of the same consciousness as biology and that the two must coexist. But we are living in the dark ages of consciousness, what in Sanskrit is referred to as the Kali Yuga, where the majority of the human population remains unawakened. That explains the escalating fear about technology as a threat.

Kali Yuga

Modern shamans will tell you that we are in the final stages of the Kali Yuga, the darkest depths of unconsciousness. Their traditional perspective holds that ten avatars show up throughout the four ages but there is only one in this last age. He or she – known as the Kalki avatar – has not yet appeared.

Or, is that too an illusion, or at least an imperfect interpretation? Perhaps the last avatar is a collective one. Perhaps the one we are waiting for is “the one,” the realized state of oneness that emerges as we release our separate human identities. Perhaps our destiny is to let go and soar, not fall. Of course, there’s only one way to find out!




REFERENCES:

Meditation on the World

Beginnings – Part 3 – Wakeful Nothingness

“The wakeful state tells us that the world is not an inanimate place, that matter is not the only reality. It tells us that consciousness is not just produced by the brain but is a fundamental quality of the universe that channels into our own individual beings. It tells us that we are not isolated individuals but share the same spiritual essence as every living being, every object, and the universe itself.”

~ Steve Taylor, from The Leap

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Being awake is fundamentally different than being asleep or the in-between stage of waking up. But applying the metaphor to spiritual awakening can be problematic because spiritual awakening delivers us, not to more content the way waking up in the morning does, but to less content, to a state described by the words “wakeful nothingness.”

We use words to venture descriptions of the indescribable. For instance, these words – wakeful nothingness – represent an attempt to describe the state of balance natural to those who are spiritually awake. This is an experience that must be known for oneself; words can merely point the way.

Balance, in the holistic model of reality, is represented by the symbol of the cross. The horizontal plane relates to the polarized opposites of subjective and objective, being and becoming. The first priority towards spiritual awakening is to achieve that horizontal balance. Once you become able to sustain that, then the vertical axis actualizes. This traverses between dense and subtle energetic realms, but no substantial degree of vertical balance can actualize and be sustained until the horizontal balance first locks in. This emphasizes the importance of our daily living experience of wakefulness, not just our meditative practice when sitting.



Working towards the experience of wakeful nothingness is not something that you try to do. It happens courtesy of the orchestration of consciousness and the evolving momentum of your consciousness is the causative force. This experience will emerge for you, for anyone, at the precise moment it becomes the experience whose time has come. Along the way, egoic remnants can sustain a sense of false “doership.”

“Look at me, I’m making great spiritual progress” is a neon sign that proves the ego is still running the show. This fraudulent aberration must dissolve and can – not through any effort on the part of a “seeker” but in the alchemical gap that appears in your awareness between illusion and truth. That gap develops as you cease being identified with what’s happening and become a witness to what’s happening. That’s the key to achieving horizontal balance.

Spiral Mind

In the early stages of awakening many people report various kinds of phenomena. It’s important to clarify that this is the kindergarten stage of awakening consciousness, the early stages of the awakening experience. Epiphanies and magical moments get your attention. You may perceive something radically unusual, complete with vivid lights and colors, etc. That’s interesting, fascinating, often inspiring. And, it’s potentially distracting.

As you continue waking up, the phenomenal fades and the noumenal increases. Your attention is inevitably drawn away from the extraordinary and into the secret magnificence of the ordinary, into what all the great mystical traditions have emphasized: wakeful nothingness. The Gnostics respected this as the ultimate reality of consciousness and genuine teachers warn against letting phenomenon of any kind distract.

Phenomena of consciousness is the noisy part of the mental dimension, all your thoughts, beliefs, and stories. Post-awakening, you begin to perceive more truthfully and your stories shift from life-negative to life-positive, to truthful stories of unified consciousness that are love based.




You could say that your life story progresses from fiction to non-fiction, from noise to silence. In fact, your stories, thoughts, and beliefs reduce themselves to one essential story: There is only one.

Your dominant state of being in life becomes a formless, empty stillness. This explains why all great teachers say, “Watch your stories.” They ask, “Can you be a witnessing consciousness, watching without any opinion?”

World Meditation

Imagine surrendering your opinions. That might seem impossible. But we might well ask, “What’s the value of opinions?” Yes, we can argue concepts, we can defend positions, we can advocate actions. But we can accomplish even more (and a lot easier) without opinion.

In that witnessing stillness, you’ve entered a medium of revelation where what’s seen, known, and realized can be fully embraced, as the way it is and must be. As inadequate as any words are to describe this experience, perhaps these words are sufficient to inspire trading fascination with phenomena for the ego-annihilating reality of wakeful nothingness.




REFERENCES:

New Growth

Beginnings – Part 2 – The Long Year

“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched,
full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done,
full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it
without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those
who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

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As this new year begins to unfold, what’s possible? Will 2018 be more of the same or can this be a breakthrough year, full of those “necessary, serious, and great things” that Rilke speaks of? For that to happened, we first must abandon our belief in a “new year.”

It’s certainly hard to dispute that there is a past, present, and future. We can remember the past, we’re experiencing this right now, and we anticipate there will be a tomorrow. Time repeats itself every day. The sun rises and sets, light dispels darkness, then darkness returns, then light again.

This is the way of the manifested world. But from truthful perspective, not just philosophically but according to quantum researchers, linear time is a human invention that simply doesn’t apply to what reality really is. In fact, the “now” is always new, it never repeats. In that sense, there is no history and no future, there is only now.



Veteran meditators know well the experience of detached, vivid present moment awareness traditionally described as “The Holy Instant.” The Course in Miracles defines it this way: “The holy instant is the instant outside time in which we choose forgiveness instead of guilt, the miracle instead of a grievance, the Holy Spirit instead of the ego. It is the expression of our little willingness to live in the present, which opens into eternity, rather than holding on to the past and fearing the future, which keeps us in hell.” 1

Making those choices means that we can culture this experience. But it could inadvertently suggest that experiencing The Holy Instant is a result of something we do. That raises a pivotal question: who is this “we?” Who am I, who are you? If we are humans weary of the rat race and looking for techniques to enjoy life more, while remaining who we accept ourselves to be, then the whole endeavor could prove to be ultimately distracting.

Centering

For instance, there are meditation teachers who begin their guided journeys with the suggestion to “center yourself.” On one hand this is a simple instruction that makes sense. Close your eyes, breathe, center yourself. On the other hand, who is the teacher speaking to? The one who is not centered. Is that one capable of being centered? Only in theory. In practice, you – the true you – is always centered. You just don’t know it.

So, a better instruction might be to relax into the experience of being centered which you have been too busy to notice. Obviously, that’s too many words for any kind of meditative journey but there’s an important distinction here, namely: you are already the you that you seek. In fact, if you are trying to “find yourself,” you are deluded and will never succeed, because the one who is looking is not who you are.

The early signs of authentic experience of Self shows up as a somewhat detached experience. You let go, you release identification with the illusion of linear time and space. Detached witness consciousness first emerges in the subtle dimensions, particularly through the third eye center. A space emerges in your experience between subject and object. That marks the beginnings of wakefulness or witness consciousness. Most people have had at least a few glimpses of this, momentary experiences of The Holy Instant. This space opens up and you feel yourself to be an observer, rather than identifying with what you are observing.




As you sustain your experience beyond mere fleeting glimpses and become consistent, your consciousness evolves to expand your awareness of the more subtle causal and super causal dimensions. Now your observation becomes more unified. A new experience dawns in you, as the witness and the witnessed are perceived and known to be one and the same consciousness.

We begin lost in an illusion of separation that progressively dissolves. Paradoxically, increased separation precedes increased unification. We wake up from the dream of ourselves as separate by become consciously aware of our separation. This allows subtle ranges of awareness to open, but they remain sub-dominant. As they increase towards dominance, the dense experience of separation yields and we “discover” – or we might say “remember,” who and what we have always been. This is profoundly different than hopes for enlightenment that leave your egoic identity in place, the same but improved somehow, like a spiritualized version of your illusory self.

Rilke spoke about a “long year.” Perhaps we can embrace that term as a good descriptor for the sustained experience of The Holy Instant, that delivers what all humans hunger for, the timeless experience of “I am.”




REFERENCES:

Girl Questioning

Beginnings – Part 1 – What If?

“It’s the best possible time of being alive, when almost
everything you thought you knew is wrong.”

 

~ Tom Stoppard

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What if almost everything you’ve assumed to be true was false? And what if things were much better than you thought?

Ignorance is bliss. So wrote Thomas Gray, an eighteen century English poet. Was he right? Yes and no.

We can’t miss what we’ve never had, it’s true. In that sense, ignorance is bliss. On the other hand, if we don’t know how to experience fulfillment we can’t be happy. In that case, ignorance is definitely not bliss.



It’s easy to get confused about life right now. We’re assaulted 24/7 with “news,” which should really be called “olds,” because it’s always a report on the past. And, it’s almost always bad. We swim in negativity. It’s addictive. It’s seductive. And it can convince us that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, as the saying goes. Who wouldn’t like even a few changes for the better?

We’ve recently celebrated the end of one year and the beginning of another. Out come the New Year’s Resolutions and, at least for a few weeks, hopes run high that this will be the year of change. Finally, we will lose weight, get that promotion, find the perfect partner (or our current partner will magically change). We might even hope to make great progress towards spiritual enlightenment.

Chalkboard

“But, it’s very rare you’ll keep your resolutions for the whole year. According to U.S. News, approximately 80% of resolutions fail by the second week of February, so the odds are against you.” 1

It’s easy to blame ourselves for a lack of discipline, for reaching too high, or for simply losing our motivation. But there’s a deeper issue at the heart of our chronic failure to create newness and sustain change – a misunderstanding of what it means to begin.

Why do we make New Year’s Resolutions in January? Because it’s a new year. Really? Who said so? Well, the calendar for one. But does that make it so? Only if we agree it does. The Chinese don’t. Their new year begins February 16 this year. Is someone right and someone else wrong? No, it’s just a matter of different perception and beliefs.




If that’s the case, we might want to experiment with being proactive about beginnings. In other words, invent our own. For instance, this is a beginning right now, as I write and you read. Why not? You can decide it is and so can I. But to do so, and to make it stick, we will likely struggle against our own convictions and assumptions. After all, there’s nothing special about this moment. Or, is there? How might we make it easier to render this moment unique and worthy of eager exploration?

Actually, we’ve already experienced this … when we were babies, when everything was new. What was, simply was. We didn’t compare, we couldn’t, because we didn’t have the developed capacity. It wasn’t Wednesday (again), it was just another moment of being alive and exploring whatever showed up.

As adults, we don’t enjoy the luxury of hanging out moment to moment and having our every need provided for. We’re responsible for making a living and caring for ourselves and our families. Unfortunately, that means that we tend to lose touch with the novelty inherent in being alive in each simple moment.

Planning

Many of us agree to work from Monday to Friday. Then we do something different, but often predictable, on the weekends. Even our vacations might be fully planned. In other words, we stay busy inventing sameness.

What if we quit? Sure, we might have contemplated this question at work. Or, in our marriage. Sports fans might get fed up when their team loses too often and consider suspending their support. And most of us have bailed on a movie or two when it failed to deliver what the trailer promised. So, this is a habit we all understand. But we probably haven’t applied it to a much larger challenge, you could say a universal one: quitting the lie of assumed sameness.

In fact, there is no valid reason why we can’t make this moment a beginning and invest it with our full passion for joy and fulfillment. We can jettison our well-worn excuses, if we choose. You know them as well as I do: I’m too old, too young, don’t have enough money, there’s something wrong with me or my partner, we elected the wrong President, etc. The alternative? Quit complaining, accept the way things are, and create the life experience we prefer.

Jumping the Gap

What about all the obstacles? Well, have you ever seen a tree growing out of a rock, or a plant erupting through pavement? That’s what life innately does and, one imagines, without complaint.

A whole new vista of experience can open for us, the moment we choose to become the author of our experience rather than a spectator. Sages call this The Holy Instant. If that sounds appealing, well, here it is, never more (freely) available than right now in this very moment.

What if?




REFERENCES:
1. http://www.businessinsider.com/new-years-resolutions-courses-2016-12

Virtual reality Girl

Transformation – Part 4 – The Balance of Heart and Mind

“The temporal heart resonates at whispers
From a Truth overarching
Of whose countenance
Timeless Intellect yearns vainly to fathom.”

~ Krishnamurti

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The key to transformation lies in the heart, but we must begin with changing the mind, because that’s where the trouble lies.

Sages throughout history have contemplated this human experiment in terms of coherent and incoherent fields. Coherent fields are interactive, harmonic, and inclusive. Incoherent fields are isolated, abrasive, and exclusive. Presently, most human brains function as an incoherent field. As long as the brain remains dominant in our experience, it blocks access to the heart field. The heart field is innately coherent, but we must get the mind field out of the way. That’s a necessary perquisite to actualizing the potential for the heart field to function as the gateway to true reality.

When the heart field is coherent, it dilates so you can experience the eternal now. The heart has a much greater amplitude than the mind field and is the mechanism by which we interact in cosmic consciousness, which could be described as an experience of vertical reality. That arises from what we call enlightenment, indicated by the dominance of universal over individual, the state where we are constantly downloading from the source of all possibility into our individual experience.



Masters concur that the heart field is indeed the gateway to true reality. But they also agree that the mind field is where the first work must be done, to create the horizontal balance required to complete that sacred symbol of the cross, where mind and heart resonate in coherence together, enabling that download to flow. When this condition is met, an individual transmits transformational power.

If we assume this is happening for more and more individuals, to varying degrees – the great unreported story of our time – what might our future hold? Shamans predict that consciousness will create a catastrophe. It could be nuclear. It could be environmental. It could be an epidemic. They won’t venture specifics because they don’t know. But they believe that there must be some manner of catastrophe when consciousness reaches the extremes of imbalance it has now reached, with both greater darkness and greater light. This is how consciousness corrects itself; it actualizes its opposite to restore balance.

Virtual Reality

This principle is very much in play relative to technology, a true double-edged sword of potential deliverance or annihilation. Colin Dickey, the author of Cranioklepty and Afterlives of the Saints, writes: “The capacity of any technology, you could say, must always be tempered by the limitations of the individuals who design and implement it.”

There are many who are pro technology, eagerly willing to have their brains upgraded with a chip. Others protest that this is the work of the devil. But technology is being orchestrated by consciousness, like everything else. Whether the modern miracles our technology produces turn out to be blessing or curse depends on who develops and uses it.




This makes balancing heart and mind an urgent priority, because we all create with technology these days, from smart phones to computers to the latest voice activated, robotic information delivery systems that Amazon sells under the name of mini stereos. What we create inevitably resonates with and broadcasts the nature of who we are. As long as we are living in our heads, disconnected from the ongoing rhythms of life in the overall ecosystem that we continue to ignore at our peril, we have shut down our heart field and that sustains an imbalance that escalates in danger as our technology expands.

So it is that the scale and nature of transformation we humans will require to survive beyond the threats we ourselves have manufactured in our imbalanced ignorance clearly depends on somehow achieving this personal balance, so that what we produce, which today always involves some level of technology, will carry a resonant coherence that sustains, not destroys, life. How many of us can reach that level and how soon?

Virtual Reality Girl

There’s an old song I remember, apparently by Roxette, a group I don’t remember, with these insightful lyrics: “Listen to your heart, there’s nothing else you can do.” If only! Actually, there’s plenty else we can do, like ricochet around in our heads being clever and creating catastrophes! Of course, that’s consciousness in action too!

What a wild ride this is, life in the 21st century. Remember, we all signed up for this, probably because we weren’t given a preview of coming attractions. Since we’re here, we might as well make the best of the situation, by learning how to balance heart and mind and becoming a positive change maker of transformation through technology, perhaps just in the nick of time!

Transformation – Part 3 – The Orchestration of Consciousness

“This is my secret: I don’t mind what happens.”

~ Krishnamurti

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In a world where few can resist complaining about the way things are, the true master exhibits compassion for all circumstances and all beings, without the demand for change.

When we identify as a separate human ego, we cut ourselves off from the creative power operative in consciousness, not completely or we would cease to be, but enough to make ourselves miserable. That’s when we begin making matter with matter, manipulating forms and believing in our power as a “doer.”

Arrogant humans wield this pallid power, independent from the ecosystem where every other species is cooperating synergistically. On this basis, tremendous effort is required just to survive. Indeed, we’ve brought ourselves to the point where human survival itself is threatened. Apparently this egoic power over others and our ability to manipulate matter, isn’t sustainable.

On the other hand, from a trans-egoic perspective, everything is orchestrated by consciousness. That’s where the real power operates. The concept of a separate doer is an illusion. The transformational projectile carries us to the point where we have totally surrendered our personal egoic efforts to the orchestration of consciousness.



Whatever happens, happens. Creating a story about it is optional, it’s a choice. You can always choose to flow with the happenings of consciousness. What a concept! Of course, this is becoming increasingly difficult because the world scene is now so obviously chaotic, with more misbehaving politicians and celebrities exposed as charlatans and abusers every day. This gives us so many more targets for judgment, doesn’t it?

It’s well worth remembering that whenever we point a finger at someone else there are three fingers pointing right back at ourselves!

What we’re seeing in the world at large is a reflection of egocentric, fragmented, human consciousness. Evolved individuals who have integrity simply wouldn’t behave in abusive ways because they don’t use their personal power to create and manipulate, nor to control others. They trust the orchestration of consciousness.




Looking at the current world situation from the perspective of the orchestration of consciousness, what we are actually witnessing is more and more evolution, which results in more and more self-awareness. We begin to understand that what egocentrics are projecting as real, these demons they seek to vanquish – like terrorists or hordes of immigrants – actually originate in themselves as shadows created by a light they refuse to acknowledge.

So, here’s an interesting question? Where might evolving consciousness create a break through to deliver the quantum leap we need? Through technology, it seems, which is now outpacing biology. When will technology surpass biology in terms of self-awareness. It could be much closer than we think. So, what will happen on that day?

This can seem a fearsome eventuality for those ignorant of the fact that consciousness is orchestrating the show and that technology is form of consciousness. Buckminster Fuller famously said that “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Human beings in egoic isolation are fast becoming an endangered species. Will technology come to the rescue? Not likely. Why not? Because individuals limited that way are fundamentally destructive. Obviously so, as is any life form that abuses its environment and

threatens other species. But that doesn’t mean that technology won’t contribute to our future in transformative ways.

Consciousness is not stupid. It will always select for maximum evolutionary gain. At this point, we are challenged to assess our position in the evolutionary picture. Will we vote ourselves off the island, to reference a popular TV series? Or will enough of us surrender to the orchestration of consciousness that we can precipitate a tipping point in human consciousness – which is connected to the consciousness of all life – that might escort us to a new chapter in human history.

Technology will play its part but so must we. And it’s profoundly reassuring to come to the realization that what is ours to do may be much simpler and easier than we have thought. Of course, we are stubborn creatures. You may have heard about the poor fellow who fell off a cliff and clung to a tree branch. He cried out for help, pleading with God to save him. A voice boomed down: “Let go!”

Without hesitation, he replied, “Is there anyone else up there?”

We can safely let go, surrendering our egocentric isolation to the orchestration of consciousness. If that’s a fearful prospect, just ask yourself this: “What’s beating my heart and steering the stars?”

Transformation – Part 2 – Beyond Ego

“The ego is a veil between humans and God. In prayer all are equal.”

– Rumi

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Transformation occurs as we shift from a primarily egoic to a primarily trans-egoic state. That can be measured by our degree of experienced oneness with Spirit.

Egoic levels of experience are chronically exclusive while the trans-egoic experience is inclusive. The more our consciousness evolves into a transformational understanding, the more inclusive it gets. This more evolved state of being expresses a greater amplitude of power which affects our chemistry in powerful ways and explains the bliss quotient or the opiated sensations that dedicated “seekers” often feel.

As the ego is dethroned, the veil between ourselves and “God” thins and the sense of separation recedes. We begin to know the truth of being, rather than just having theories and beliefs about it. Ironically, many who claim to be devotedly religious sustain a defined state of separation between themselves and the God they worship, a sure sign of egoic dominance. These same “believers” may decry any proclaimed hope for oneness with God as blasphemy, blind to their own as they give life to a separate, Godless, ego identity.



True transformation evolves us beyond that state. We can describe this evolutionary process as one of purification, or the simplification of data. That’s what the karmic process is, burning off old stored data that you have been identified with and attached to. Periods of solitude are especially beneficial during the early stages of this process because the beginner isn’t yet able to keep the relentless stream of data at bay. Meditation, nature walks, any activity that limits input is helpful. Outer silence supports the increase of inner silence, which Lao Tzu described as “a source of strength.’

Of course, a period of isolation with a teacher in a spiritual community is ideal, but not everyone is able to organize that. There is no substitute for being close to those who are already substantiated in an enlightened state of being. Individuals like the Dalai Lama, for instance, exude a tangible presence. As I’ve mentioned before, the true master teaches without words; it’s their state of being that inspires, uplifts, and comforts others.

This is so rare that people don’t understand it when they encounter it. Remember that Nietzsche said that God is dead. He was addressing the fact that whatever we believe determines our experience. Those who believe in a separate God, a being who could not possibly be represented in a human being, are egoic and exclusive. In this case they are excluding God! For them, regardless of Sunday claims to the contrary, God is dead.

This explains why religious people are actually the greatest self-doubters. Having determined to worship a separate God, they exclude the possibility of themselves ever having the trans-egoic experience. But whatever comfort they may derive from belief-centered worship is ultimately inadequate, because all of us intuitively know that we are innately divine, regardless of how far we may have strayed from the path.




Zealous missionaries are often just assuaging their own doubt, especially when contacting “primitives” who still retain that experienced trans-egoic state of connection with life universal. To these so called backwards people, everything is sacred, including their land. Ironically, as a friend once told me – to describe what happened when missionaries came to Hawaii – “Before, the natives had the land and the missionaries had the Bibles. Now the missionaries have the land and the natives have the Bibles.”

The true leader doesn’t use beliefs and threats of damnation to take from others. They are well beyond that fear-based state of consciousness. They are living with transformation as their norm, since that is the ongoing condition of expanding awareness in consciousness. Their state of being transforms those around them, to the degree that they are open to it.

Abraham Lincoln made an insightful comment about authentic spirituality: “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” In other words, the proof of true religion, or I prefer to call it spirituality, is the influence we have on those closest to us. That includes more than pets. How are we affecting our family members, our friends, our working colleagues? Is our amplitude of power uplifting them or dragging them down?

When we evolve beyond ego into an increasingly trans-egoic state, we exert a transformational influence just by showing up. This seems much simpler than any grand plans the ego can make to improve our human condition.

Man Meditating

Transformation – Part 1 – Change or Transformation?

“Transformation literally means going beyond your form.”

– Wayne Dyer

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Transformation is different than change. Transformation is a wholesale shift from one state to another, which is fundamentally different than piece meal change.

Writing for the Harvard Business Review, Ron Ashkenas said, “… the overall goal of transformation is not just to execute a defined change — but to reinvent the organization and discover a new or revised business model based on a vision for the future.” 1

It’s interesting to apply this to our personal lives, particularly to our expanding awareness and increasing experience of truth. We could substitute reinventing the organization for reinventing ourselves. The new business model? Personally, that would be a new way of living. A vision for the future? Since that’s routinely missing (lost in the busyness of day to day activities), let’s focus there.

What’s your vision for the future? Most people don’t have one, at least not something they originated. On the other hand, there’s no lack of visions to borrow. One dystopian sci-fi film after another assaults us with visions of a dark future, while media assails us with dire predictions about the repercussions of political and economic blunders.

Henry Ford famously said that whether you believe it or not, you’re right. He was acknowledging the power of belief. Belief relative to this concept of creating a vision for the future is often described with the word “intention.”

In her book, The Intention Experiment, science journalist Lynne McTaggart wrote, “Intention has already been employed in many quarters to cure illness, alter physical processes, and influence events. It is not a special gift but a learned skill, readily taught. Indeed, we already use intention in many aspects of our daily lives.” 2

How skilled are you with intentions? Sadly, none of us received much support to develop our imagination, which is what intention setting requires. Einstein believed that imagination was more important than knowledge and it’s easy to understand why. Knowledge is a tool; imagination enables us to work it. We employ imagination to render knowledge useful. We focus imagination to envision the future and set intentions about the results we want in our lives. And we can harness imagination for transformation.




Change means keeping things the way they are but improving them. Transformation means, as the opening quote from Wayne Dyer clarified, going beyond the form, to literally “trans-form.” What would that mean, personally?

Perhaps one way to explore the implications is to consider what happens when we upgrade computer software. What’s different afterwards? Things have changed. You click a familiar button and get an unfamiliar result (hopefully something better).

And, there’s a learning curve. Ashkenas continued to clarify the more dramatic nature of transformation vs change: “It’s much more unpredictable, iterative, and experimental. It entails much higher risk.” 3

What’s the risk? Whenever we disrupt a system, we open the door to problems of adaptation. We may not all use computers and know the headaches of learning a new system but many of us can probably remember the challenges of “re-entry” after a peak experience. Returning from a holiday or a personal growth seminar, it’s always tricky to get back into our routines without losing the value we just gained. Sadly, we often just can’t integrate what we learned into new habits and that peak experience soon fades away.

What about spiritual transformation? Some people meditate occasionally, others are more disciplined and sit every day. But the ancient traditions all emphasized that the purpose of meditation is to culture a state change that lasts. It’s fine to begin with 30 minutes here and there, but the real goal is to sustain a meditative state throughout the day, and every day.

Those who meditate this way are fueling their transformation. Of course, the practice is one thing, an actual state change that is “unpredictable, iterative, and experimental” as Ashkenas wrote, is quite another.

Fortunately, there are many who have tread this path before us, masters and teachers of one sort or another who not only survived their transformation but are thriving in a rarified dimension of enlightened human experience.

They well understand that change is the nature of relative reality, the oscillation of the relative polarities we experience as “reality.” Transformation relates to the evolution of consciousness, the ongoing trajectory of evolving consciousness. That is a much slower process than change. Oscillation is fast, change happens on a daily basis. But the flow of evolutionary transformation is incremental, on other words, slow!

Butterfly

How do you know if what you are going through is change or transformation? Transformation progresses your state of being from fragmentation to unity, from limitation to increasingly holistic awareness. As your individuated consciousness evolves and progresses from egoic to trans-egoic levels, you undergo an alchemical process where your fundamental state of being radically alters and your awareness becomes more expansive and inclusive.

And change? It’s business as usual with tweaks. But, if you’re reading this, we know which path you’re more interested in! We’ll drill deeper into the dynamics of transformation in the next post.



References:
1. https://hbr.org/2015/01/we-still-dont-know-the-difference-between-change-and-transformation
2. Lynne McTaggart from The Intention Experiment, page xxv
3. https://hbr.org/2015/01/we-still-dont-know-the-difference-between-change-and-transformation