What do we mean when we think of personal transformation? We generally believe that if we change some aspect of our self, we can transform who we were to something better or greater. Actually, there are two kinds of transformation: personal and transpersonal.
Personal transformation is associated with cultural success. If a person has a mediocre job and then discovers their best talent and then actualized this in their career, we say that this person has transformed themselves. They have changed, or transformed, their relationship to the cultural area of Career. However, what is spiritual or transpersonal transformation?
When we think of spiritual transformation, we either think it has to do with some kind of “state” that emerges when one lets go of the ego, or othewise, using some kind of technique that catapults them into some kind of higher understanding.
There are problems with both (letting go of the ego, and using techinques) . The ego is very complex and subtle and difficult to just transcend, even though the expression has enterred the popular culture in a superficial manner. Secondly, one has to know what to do when the ego, with all its complexity, emerges in one’s daily life.
Furthermore, when a person attempt to do certain types of spiritual techniques, especially if they emerge from ancient cultures, such as India and China, they often provide a temporary transformation, but are otherwise, difficult to “transfer” into daily situations, at least with some degree of efficiency.
In other words, a person does a breathing exercise, meditation or yoga posture in a seculed environment, such as their room or group setting. For a while, they feel great, whole and complete. But after a time, the old personality returns and the condition does not transfer in their daily life. And this person does not know what to do to get back to their original condition (especially if they do not have access to their seculed environment).
This condition also occurs after getting initially excited about the newest book or teacher who emerges on the scene with a new theory or understanding of the human condition. After awhile, after the excitement wears down, they are still stuck in their own problems and dilemmas. And then they go to another book or teacher to get excited. I have seen this a thousand times.
What is the solution to this dilemma? There are no simple solutions to the lifelong process of Awakening and spiritual transformation. It cannot be solved with one meeting with a wise person, or an isolated technique or getting excited about a new book that has come out. This is all superficial and does not really last long.
The solution is to engage a life-long program that attempts to transform all of the major Structures of living and apply them in daily life and not just in isolation. It is not just about reading books and attempting esoteric exercises in isolation. One has to know what to do in daily living over the course of time.
To do this, requires learning many processes that cover the major structures of living, centers or “faculties” that we utilize in our daily lives. There are many of these: instinct, volition, thought, feeling, attention and identity to name a few. When we learn ways to transform them - since we use these in our daily lives - we can slowly begin to transform our selves. Not only for a weekend or for a few hours.
Normally, our basic living structures are pulled around, or “conditioned”, in an up and down, or too much or too little fashion that leaves us bereft of a deeper connection to our self. For example, attention is an important structure. We are either externally pulled into various social processes (looking at things that remind us of sex, money, ego, etc) or we are internally preocupied with personal issues, thus hijacking our attention. Regulated or transformed attention is being in the moment, which is a training that invovles key sensory processes.
Similarly, our other five structures are also de-regulated from the emotional ego, which reacts to living processes, instead of applying deeper Qualities to living situations. This is remedied by the right training and the transformation of all six of our major structures of living.
It is not just finding one particular exercise and hoping that it transfers into daily living. It often does not, and if it does, only erratically. Doing yoga and chanting is great, but one needs to find other forms of training to apply to living in the world without depending upon an exercise that usually only attempts to transform one or two structures, centers or faculties. Chanting transforms feelings, but does not transform attention, volition, instinct and so on.
I have read stories in magazines where religious people who regularly worship, have different forms of addiction. Again, the reason for this is not that worship is unpractical, it just has to be included in work on all the major structures. This is why many of the ancient paths (Taoist, Buddhist, Yoga, Sufi) were a “complete” path. They gave instructions on all the many structures with trainings on the instincts (diet, exercise), contemplation, study service and so on. All the facets of the complete lifestyle - according to that specific path - transforms all the necessary structures and centers of experience, and not just one (consciousness, emotions, the body).
Of course, the problem with these ancient paths is that they were discovered in a past time, very different from our modern world. We need modern explorers to find modern explanations for self-discovery, utilizing some of the ancient understanding, but integrating them in a new format.
William Edwards
Author, Trainer
The Skill of Wisdom
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 8:53 am and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.