October 13, 2019
The great stories of transformation
All of the wisdom traditions of history began with the transformation of the founder, and the history of each tradition is filled with stories of those who went through a process of transformation on the path to fulfilment. Always this required a conscious decision—to make the effort to transform—and always it required commitment and effort. This is why Aldous Huxley says in his powerful book Perennial Philosophy that he will not spend time on what philosophers and scholars have to say about his topic, but he will instead focus on “those who chose to fulfill the conditions upon which … immediate knowledge can be had.” He goes on to say that, of those who did fulfill the necessary conditions, “a few have left accounts of the Reality they were thus enabled to apprehend.” Furthermore, it is to those who experienced the full fruits of this path for themselves that history has given the names “saint,” “prophet,” “sage,” or “enlightened one.”
Some of the most influential stories of transformation in human history are those of Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Socrates, Abraham, and Moses. In Christianity there are the stories of Paul, Peter, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, Hildegard of Bingen, Mother Theresa, and thousands more. In Buddhism some of the most dramatic transformations are the stories of Milarepa, Bodhidharma, Ashoka, Kisa Gotami, Aṅgulimālaso and so many others. Every wisdom tradition is filled with such stories; in fact, these stories are the main carriers of the traditions.
Some stories lean toward the realm of myth, others are more historical. Both are of great value. In our time, the stories of the lives of Gandhi, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama are valuable stories for many, as are Frodo and Samwise in the Lord of the Rings, Mary Poppins, Harry Potter, and Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. No one story is for everyone, but powerful stories will speak to you if you will but open you mind and heart to them.
To gain the greatest benefit from these stories of transformation, however, you must understand that they are speaking to you at a level far beyond the neatly factual. All stories are interpretations, with the facts put together to capture a deeper truth. Carl Jung taught that the great stories explain what the world is really like. Not the surface world of material objects, but the world beneath and behind the surface. The foundational stories of human history convey a system of beliefs about what is good and bad, right and wrong, just and unjust. They give guidance for how we can have a complete life and paint pictures about what is meaningful and what is not meaningful. They attempt to explain who we are in relation to the greater scheme of things. As Joseph Campbell put it more elegantly, it is through such stories “that the inexhaustible energies of the universe pour into the human drama.” In the great stories, there is usually a quest, a challenge, a journey. On such a quest, the hero or heroine enters a place of transformation, a place to learn the lessons they need if they are to come to a full understanding of who they are and what life is about.
Insofar as we identify with these stories, the trials and tribulations contained therein show us ways of dealing with similar situations when they arise in our lives. As the heroes and heroines live out their responses to the challenges, we see examples of how we ourselves might act. These stories give us images to which we can compare our lives and guidance for ways to traverse the inevitable pitfalls we will encounter.
Understanding the formative stories of human culture in this way does not, as some suppose, relieve us of the necessity for a strict standard of truth. On the contrary, it imposes a very exacting standard. How you understand the stories that shape and mold your life will have the ultimate consequence—determining the kind of life you will have and the degree of fulfillment you will achieve. Therefore, you cannot simply make up facts or stories to suit the wishes of your small ego. This will lead only to frustration and to the final failure the Greeks always prophesied as the reward for hubris. The only healthy path is to let the great stories carry you beyond your small self into a confrontation with and an enlargement by currents that you do not fully understand. At that point, you will have to surrender your small truths for larger and larger truths, until you arrive one day at your own experience of the Reality of which Aldous Huxley speaks.
Christianity and transformation
The stories in Christianity are all about transformation. Jesus seems to have done nothing of note in his life until he was 30. Then, for whatever set of reasons at that age, he chose to be baptized, went into the desert for 40 days, was tempted, overcame the temptations, and came back a transformed being. From that time—in a span of only three years—his transformed self changed the world.
What happened to set off this chain of events? What did he come to understand in the desert? We do not know for sure, but what he taught when he came back was:
1. A radical emphasis on love and forgiveness
2. A great concern for the poor, the sick, the outcast, and those in pain
3. That everyone needs “to be healed, made sound, made whole” (this is what the word salvation means in the Greek of the early New Testament)
4. To do this, you must change your consciousness; think differently; step into a different (and larger) frame of mind. (This is what the word “repent” means in the Greek of the time)
Jesus speaks often of the importance of taking on a new identity, “As you, Father, are in me, and I in you, they may also be one in us: I in them, and you in me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” Here, Jesus has merged his identity into the Father, and he is saying we can do this also. We are instructed to step out of our small, individual identity and be transformed into a much larger identity, an identity that is at one with Jesus and with the Father. Further, we have the capacity to do this because, as Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you” (although you might not have recognized it yet).
The second most famous story of transformation in Christianity is that of Paul on the road to Damascus. In a single event in a few minutes of time, Paul was transformed from a persecutor of Christians to Christianity’s most important proponent. As he took on the role of sharing the “good news,” his message was the necessity of stepping into a larger identity: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” To do this, you have to “set your heart and mind on the things above,” and “let the mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” Over and over Paul points to the necessity for those who follow the way of Jesus to attempt to expand into the state of consciousness that Jesus occupied and exemplified, to live so that “not I, but Christ liveth in me.” This, for Paul, is what it means to be transformed. The message is plain: Shift your identity to something larger than your ego self.
This is, of course, what countless Christian mystics have reported as their direct experience:
Saint Catherine of Genoa, “My being is God, not by simple participation, but by a true transformation of my Being. My me is God.”
Julian of Norwich, “See! I am God; See! I am in all things; See! I do all things.”
Meister Eckhart, “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
Jacob Boehme, “The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.”
Of course, we are warned over and over not to assume we occupy this place until it has fully happened within us. This is where the ego comes back into the story. When a person has had a powerful experience of connecting to something larger than themselves, it is not long before the ego starts to take possession and claims a new status for itself. (Look at me, I am now transformed, enlightened, saved. Hey, everybody—look at me, listen to me, follow me. I am special. I am The One.) History is strewn with the damage caused by those who claimed special status before they had completely sacrificed their egos.
The highest possibilities of transformation
This trail of wreckage is clear evidence that few people in history have completely left the ego behind. Perhaps very few ever will. But this does not matter. All that matters on the path of transformation is to: 1) start moving in the direction of harmony with something greater than the ego self, 2) maintain humility as you go along, and 3) keep doing the work. The motivation to keep going comes from the vision the saints and sages, prophets and enlightened ones have left us. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that the results they suggest will simply make you “10% happier” in your everyday life. The rewards they offer are much, much greater than that.
For instance, during the last months of Catherine of Genoa’s life, she was in great physical agony, yet continually manifested a spirit that was inspiring to those around her. Although occupying a physical body, she wasn’t centered there, but at a different level of her being, and the people around her experienced a beautiful energy radiating from her. How did she manage to be in this place? Catherine’s answer: “So clearly do I perceive thy goodness that I do not seem to walk by faith, but by a true and heartfelt experience.”
In the last few years of her life, Teresa of Avila experienced frequent raptures and joy in the face of great trials. Although in much physical pain, confined to her monastery by the Inquisition, being investigated for heresy, and with many of her closest followers undergoing even worse fates, Teresa gave off a palpable joy to those around her, and during this time wrote one of the greatest works of mystical literature ever produced, Interior Castle. Speaking about the burdens various people were inflicting on her, Teresa wrote:
Not only did this not distress me, but it made me so unexpectedly happy that I could not control myself. … I had no desire that they should do anything else than what they were doing, and my joy was so great that I did not know how to conceal it.
These are the fruits of great transformation. The Medieval mystic Meister Eckhart goes even further, saying that the final result is “so great a joy and so great an unmeasurable light” that even to experience this state for a moment turns all of one’s life, even all the struggles we have experienced, into a “joy and a pleasure.”
I say it again: if there were a single human whose intelligence, were it only for an instant, could see according to the truth the delight and the joy which reign therein, all he may have suffered … would be a trifle, indeed a nothing; even more, it would be for him entirely a joy and a pleasure.
Reflection: What are the healing and guiding stories that can serve you at this moment in your life? Some set of stories is affecting you now, whether you are conscious of them or not, so try to make a conscious decision. Select carefully, your life depends upon it.
Have a good week,
David