Open-Secrets

Tag: transformation

  • Personal Transformation

    The Point of Life is Transformation

    change transformationPain & Suffering – the ego likes to avoid as much of this as it can, unless, of course, our identity is one who suffers. Every time I encounter a person asking for spare change, I wonder how much change they really want in their life. How much “change” do any of us really want? How much change can God spare, probably a lot. How much can we endure, probably a lot less than opportunity offers.

    I read A Million Miles in a Thousand Days by Donald Miller yesterday on a flight home from San Francisco.

    We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren’t capable of remembering how we got here. When you are born, you wake up slowly to everything… God is slowly turning the lights on… The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe life isn’t that big of a deal, that life isn’t staggering… We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given – it’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm, just another child born, just another funeral.

    This is a wonderful book for all kinds of reasons. I think it is one of the best self-help books ever written because it isn’t so much giving you advice on how to change as it is a revelation on how change is possible – and how it is possible to reawaken to the glory of life and get out of a life that is dull, boring, normal and familiar to the point of being inert.

    In a way, it reminded me of Michael Crichton’s book Travels.Crichton, too, talked about how pain, difficulty, struggle, suffering and confronting the known limits of ourselves is the crucible for transformation.

    As Donald Miller says:

    If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation.

    A Million Miles in a Thousand Days – take the journey.

  • The Gap is the Key to Learning

    no mind disjunctureChange & Transformation Happen in the Gap

    One session of a 10-day training I once attended was focused on the “gap.” The teacher of this session, Alia, informed us that all change and transformation occur in the gap and not as a result of reading, studying, meditating, chanting or anything else.

    The gap is an elusive rascal. When you search for it directly it is difficult to find. The gap is not so much a space between not-knowing and knowing as it is a “not-space.” This not-space is a particular openness in the mind and soul that allows us to be directly informed by consciousness – the medium of knowing underlying all manifestation.

    Alia worked with us in subtle ways to help us nurture a sense of the gap, so we might observe our relationship with it. Today, you can find the gap being referred to as disjuncture.

    The optimal zone in which adults learn is referred to as disjuncture – when time seems to stop… when our biographical repertoire is no longer sufficient to cope automatically with our situation… where we have a tension with our environment (Adult Learning in the Social Context – Peter Jarvis) Without entering this zone, we are simply stacking up our experience on top of things to which we can relate. This action often leads to an unnecessary compromise, where we settle for what is readily available to us, rather than what is actually the best fit. With disjuncture, we are forced to build a completely new structure of learning. While in the disjuncture zone, though we usually will experience discomfort, we are ultimately able to establish a strong foundation for real learning.

    In the gap, or the disjuncture zone, time stops because we are free from the linear mind and residing more in our nature that underlies the normal mind. In this “space,” our association with the past changes radically – our identity is freed from history – our knowing is not by association but through direct perception.

    Exploring the gap can be challenging as it requires us to be very comfortable with the unknown, not knowing and a willingness and capacity to let go of who and what we know ourselves to be.

    The question here is ultimately – Who or what knows?

    Items of Interest

    Links of Interest

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  • Ego Self

    Ego-selfWhat is the Ego Self?

    Is the ego self something we need to reject?

    The ego self is what most refer to when they say – me, I, me self, you, her, him, and etc. The ego self is the sense of self that most people have any awareness of.

    That awareness is usually very vague. Very few take the time or expend the energy to investigate what the ego self is. Exploring the ego self can be very challenging and painful – something not very appealing to people in general because it does not usually appeal to the ego self.

    Many people talk about or refer to – their true self. Most talk about a true self is really about a renovation of the ego self. Listening to talk about the true self generally consists of listening to the ego self babble on about an extreme makevoer.

    It’s easy to spot this. The give-away is that the self talking expects to still be around to enjoy the fruits of its rebirth. In fact, what really happens in transformation of the ego self is the self ceases to exist as we have historically known it. There is no self there to pat itself on the back and say – job well done, now let’s go and save mankind.

    Taking the position or viewpoint of getting rid of the ego self only results in more internal conflict and more resistance from the self. Do you really know of anyone who jumps for joy when you offer to annihilate them?

    The most productive and meaningful way to move toward what is real is with openness. Open-ended curiosity about the self, the ego self, who we take ourselves to be – is the way to align ourselves with the optimizing force of reality.

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  • Transformation of Consciousness

    dubois almaas transformation consciousness essential presence

    Yesterday A.H. Almaas mentioned that essential presence is what transforms the consciousness.

    One’s practice becomes how to stay in touch with essential presence and not about achieving any particular state of consciousnes.

    Almaas said that there are very few people who can actually live from, move from, and act in essential presence though many think they do. It is more difficult than we imagine.

    After one is able to maintain contact with essential presence, expressing it becomes the practice. The practice eventually leads to: essential presence is what acts, it’s what does, it is what is.

    A result of this is that one’s life becomes a life of service – lived not from the perspective of the ego – getting what I want, enjoying what I want, but serving that deeper nature.

    Image by Laura DuBois

  • Transformation

    Transformation almaas

    True understanding has to do with transformation. If there is no transformation at the moment of understanding, then there is no real understanding . – A.H. Almaas

    Last night, I heard A.H. Almaas give a talk on transformation. He began the talk by saying he had been wondering what was the most transformative experience in his life. His conclusion was – none – experiences do not transform the soul.

    What transforms the soul is staying in touch with what underlies all experience – True Nature. Almaas pointed out that it is easy to get lost in the content of our lives – our experiences. Being in touch with one’s essence needs to be the first priority, the first love.

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