November 24, 2019
There are several stages in transformation, and a good model for thinking about this is the chakra system of ancient India. In this model, there are 7 levels of ourselves around which we can organize, 7 primary goals we can focus on.
The chakra system arose several thousand years ago, and with an apology to this rich and complex tradition, here is a greatly over-simplified version for thinking about the levels of ourselves. The 7 chakras:
1. Security
2. Pleasure, comfort, entertainment, happiness
3. Power, Fame, Wealth
4. Love, connection to others, meaningful relationships, service to others
5. Self-expression that can convey something beyond the purely personal perspective; creativity that includes an awareness of a picture larger than the small ego
6. Wisdom, insight, deep understanding, seeing the truth, knowing Reality, connection to something greater
7. Joy, bliss, enlightenment, salvation, union with something greater
Using this system, the first 3 levels don’t have much to do with transformation, but are about developing an ego, followed by the ego’s attempts to create a life and get what it wants or needs. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this; in fact, if we don’t deal with these issues, either by getting our needs and wants met or by truly letting them go, they will plague us throughout life. But true transformation only begins with the 4th level, the heart chakra, where we begin to expand beyond purely self-centered desires; where we begin to take in the reality of other people as “other” and truly care about their needs and concerns. Of course, much of the motivation at this level can still be about “me,” about doing for others so I can get what I want for myself from them. But an authentic expansion into the 4th level opens out into true care and concern for others, and this is the first step in getting outside the purely self-centered ego.
The 5th level brings an even greater awareness of the larger picture in which we exist, without completely leaving behind all connection to and concern for our ego selves. At this level, we are able to give clear expression to our thoughts and feelings (give voice to them—for this is the throat chakra). Also, if we are truly experiencing this level and not just posturing, from its greater awareness of the larger picture, powerful art can be created. At this level we have moved into a rich relationship with our own deep self, with others, and with the mystery. Thus, anyone speaking, writing, or creating from this level is able to express profound currents of thought and feeling that affect others, because what is being expressed is flowing from the wellspring of a shared dimension of beauty and truth.
Chakra 6 is the place we begin to see fully the deepest truths, to “know” beyond the intellectual mind, to “see” at a completely different level—to see with the “third eye.”
Level 7 is where several spiritual traditions say we find the ultimate goal of life. (But it is also the place where thoughts and words are so inadequate—but I will risk a few images at the end of this essay.)
The shift of identity
Using this system, one way to think about transformation is that it is the movement of raising one’s identity from one of the three self-centered levels to a higher one. True transformation, however, is not just a momentary experience of a higher level. Many of us have had such moments—walking in nature, in prayer or meditation, listening to music, during a crisis, while on retreat, traveling, doing extreme sports, participating in dangerous adventures, under the influence of drugs, during passion, in near-death experiences, and on and on. Such moments have happened spontaneously to many people.
But a momentary experience only changes your life if you begin to organize who you think you are at a higher level. Most always, this requires practice. In all the examples I have found, for an experience to have a lasting impact—for it to significantly affect the person’s life—that person must spend a good bit of time before the experience preparing for it, or afterward, integrating the broader perspective that has been glimpsed. The reason? Each of us has a lifetime’s worth of habits, fears, and patterns of reaction, of anxieties, ambitions, and expectations—many of them deeply buried or unconscious—that must be worked through and let go before we can organize our full self in a new way. (This is the reason so much self-help advice has limited impact—it doesn’t get to and change the unconscious level of our being.)
Healthy transformation, then, is about learning to shift where you are identified, about learning to live from a new center of gravity. Spontaneous experiences might open up this possibility, but practice is necessary to stabilize you at a higher level of being. As mentioned before, the steps are: 1) recognize that a larger identity is possible, 2) make a conscious choice to try to move toward that larger identity, 3) choose a method of moving toward it, and 4) do the work.
The crucial thing to recognize is that you have the power to choose which identity you will be working to occupy, which aspect of yourself you will be making an effort to be centered around. Then, as physicist and spiritual writer Ravi Ravindra says, these lessons must be integrated by each individual through direct personal work, for “there is no meaning to spirituality except the transformation of the quality of the person.” He continues, saying that all traditions teach “that we do not live the way we should, or the way we could.” What they teach are “ways of living rightly—not in sin, but in Grace, not in dukkha, but in the felicity of Nirvana, not in illusion, but in Reality, not in bondage, but in Freedom.” These lessons must “be realized—made real—by an individual through direct personal perception. It is only the transformation of a person’s being that can lead to Freedom or Nirvana, Salvation or Grace.”
As Ravindra emphasizes, throughout human history the wisdom traditions have offered practices and methods for transformation. It seems to me that some are better than others and some might be better suited for one person than another. Some are probably unhealthy. People are different, and having different paths to the top of the mountain is valuable because there are many types of human beings.
The questions for you to ponder, then: If you want to participate in this journey of transformation, 1) toward what will you aim, 2) which practices will you adopt, and 3) how much of your time and energy will you spend on the effort? Many people through the ages have chosen to spend a great deal of their life energy trying to climb the mountain of salvation or realization. Many sannyasins in India, as well as Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Taoist renunciates through the ages have felt it crucial to focus all their time and energy on finding complete realization, awakening, or salvation. But only a small percentage through the ages have felt called to sacrifice everything, to give all their time and energy to this search.
If you feel this calling as an all-consuming one and sacrifice everything to pursue it, you will be in exceptional company. Most of us, however, do not feel the call so radically, or with St. Augustine we say, “Not yet, not yet” (don’t ask me to sacrifice everything quite yet). If you feel there is something important you have not yet found, but don’t feel called to spend all your time and energy on the search quite yet, then your challenge is to find the right balance between living your life in the world while continuing to seek a connection to “something more.” For most of us, finding the right balance in this is one of the most important, on-going life issues we ever face.
The ultimate possibilities of transformation
With this background, let’s jump to the ultimate possibilities—because it is important to know what we might be able to find if we follow the path of transformation. My own experience is that the highest level of transformation involves a radical shift in perspective: suddenly the radiance of the timeless dimension shines forth from everything—people, plants, the sky, the natural world—everything. There seems to be a shimmering light within or behind whatever I look toward. It is as if the Timeless is pouring itself into time, and the world is nothing other than the continuous manifestation of the Timeless. Then, there are not two things, the everyday world and the Timeless. Rather, they are one and the same; it is just that I usually am looking from within the perspective of my small ego self, but when I expand out for a moment I encounter the perspective that Ralph Waldo Emerson described in one of his magical moments:
“Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of Universal Being circulate through me.”
Psychologist Michael Gellert describes his experience of this when, after an excruciatingly difficult time in Calcutta, the situation finally shifts and “the physical world seemed to have an enhanced, vibrant quality.” He felt “everything was perfect in itself,” and he was “totally at one with everything and everybody.” He turned a street corner, and:
“The trees and greenery came into close view, and the musical chirping of birds pierced through the noise of the city. All of a sudden it seemed that a veil that had been covering the world had been lifted. The essential animatedness of the trees, greenery, and birds “leaped out,” and it became strikingly clear that this animatedness was Everything! I couldn’t tell where it was coming from: it was outside me, it was inside me, it was me. The world was bathed in it and was radiating IT.”
I have read hundreds of similar accounts. My sense is they happen at lesser levels of intensity all the time, and to many people. The problem is, most of us do not pay attention unless they knock us off our feet. Even then it is easy to forget or diminish their significance over time by saying they were “nothing but”—as we go back to our everyday lives. Yet from such experiences we can gain invaluable lessons—if we will but open to what they have to teach rather than pushing them into the background of our awareness.
These experiences, at the intersection of the Timeless with time, are moments of opportunity for each of us to get in touch with that which is truly important for our lives. These are the times when, in the words of the great mythologist Mircea Eliade, the “sacred dimension,” the dimension from which meaning always comes, enters and gives guidance to our lives in the everyday world. It is as if a window has been opened to another world, and we sense our highest possibilities; it is a time, as William James said, when “higher energies filter in.”
When such moments happen, the work is to honor what we have glimpsed as best we can and then try to integrate what we have seen into our daily lives. Perhaps this is the reason many traditions consider a human life to be sacred, for it is only within a human life that this work can be done. And if we are ready, we will be so open to these “higher energies” that they will shine through us in ways that others will experience them also. This is, of course, what the saints and sages have been able to do; by becoming transparent to the transcendent, the light shines through them onto everyone they encounter. As Emerson said, if we can reach this place, “From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things.”
Isn’t this your highest possibility, to recognize who you truly are; to manifest in the human dimension what you have glimpsed in out-of-time moments; to claim your true identity so that you wake up with the Buddha, or with St. Paul recognize that “not I, but Christ Liveth in me.” Or with the Hindu sages, you recognize that your Atman is one with Brahman.
Another journeyer who spent much time opening into this space and then teaching others how to reach it was Karlfried Graf Durckheim. Durkheim spent many years integrating his Christian thought with the psychology of Carl Jung, while making use of an intense Zen Buddhist practice. After many years, in trying to capture what living from a transformed awareness is like, he said:
“When the inner eye has been opened, a person continues to live normally in the here and now, but transcendence enters the here-and-now. Having awakened to Being, that person lives from true nature, as a self poised between past and future. Space and time are transformed. A person in this state suffers like anyone else, but somewhere inside they suffer as if they did not suffer.”
I have thought many times about this line, “somewhere inside they suffer as if they did not suffer,” and I have tried to find a way to realize this fully in my own life.
Durkheim continues:
“Stillness in the very heart of tumult. Every moment as fresh as dew, and as deep as a well reflecting the stars and all eternity with them. Sharing all the world’s sufferings, and never questioning the role we have to play in it. Merciless to ourselves and unsparing of others as the love that bears witness to a higher law commands us.
“And always the strong serenity that a kind of dying has taught us, the clarity and cheerfulness that come of sensing a meaning that embraces unmeaning, and the happiness that comes from feeling safe, whatever the world may inflict on us.”
There are several lines here that have been frequent companions for me, especially the last, “the happiness that comes from feeling safe, whatever the world may inflict on us.” How can I open to each moment so that I feel safe, no matter what is going on around me, no matter how difficult it is? Not an easy undertaking, but this is the possibility that resting in the highest level of experience offers.
For me, the only times I can get to this place are when I truly let go of all identification with my ego’s needs and desires, all identification with “petty fears and petty pleasures.” If I can lift my gaze beyond my personal fears and longings, then, as Zen Master Wumen Huikai says;
“Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.”
Something else Wumen said helps me understand the experience.
“One instant is eternity;
eternity is the now.
When you see through this one instant,
you see through the one who sees.”
The great Christian mystic Meister Eckhart said almost the same thing: “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.”
The possibility these wise ones suggest is that, if we can shift who we think we are from our small self to a larger identity, we will share in these experiences with them. And the potential rewards are great. Meister Eckhart said that to open into this dimension brings “so great a joy and so great an unmeasurable light, that no one can fully tell nor reveal it.” He goes on:
“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.”
Is he really saying that if we can experience what he experienced, all the sufferings of our lives will seem not only unimportant, but will actually become a part of the overall positive experience of the whole of our lives? In studying his other writings, this seems to be exactly what he is saying.
He is not alone. Rumi, the great 13th-century Sufi teacher, mystic, and poet (and the best-selling poet in the U. S. in the 21st century), said this:
“In that moment you are drunk on yourself,
You lock yourself away in cloud after cloud of grief,
And in that moment you leap free of yourself,
The moon catches you and hugs you in its arms.
That moment you are drunk on yourself,
You are withered, withered like autumn leaves.
That moment you leap free of yourself,
Winter to you appears in the dazzling robes of spring.
All disquiet springs from the search for quiet.
Look for disquiet, and you will come suddenly on a field of quiet.
All illnesses spring from the scavenging for delicacies.
Renounce delicacies, and poison itself will seem delicious to you.
All disappointments spring from your hunting for satisfactions.
If only you could stop—all imaginable joys
Would be rolled like pearls to your feet.”
Reflection: When you have a few moments to be quiet, let yourself drift into a place that is as close as possible to what the folks above are describing. Let any moments in your past that remind you of their experiences drift into your awareness. Don’t so much try to get into this place as give yourself permission to remember and open into the spaces they are describing.
David