Choose or Be Chosen

Mar 22

What I have noticed and experienced about transformation is that it works in two different ways.

The first way is that transformation chooses you and when that happens, there’s nothing you can do about it.

In 1987, I was on a faculty retreat and I took some to be by myself by a small lake near the hotel. It went something like this: “God, you know I’m doing really great and I’m really happy but if there’s something else I’m supposed to be doing, something greater than what I’m doing, I just want you to know that I’m open to that.”

Boy, would I regret that. One year later, my entire life would be unraveling. I ended up losing everything without a nickel to my name, deeply in debt and wondering if I was going to be able to survive what had happened to me. At the time, I experienced the entire process as a process of death, an extended act of injustice that would never end only to realize years later that I was being born but that the old had to be stripped away.

I could not have paid a consulting firm enough money to orchestrate what happened…swift, total and life-ending. But neither would I ever have chosen to leave the life I was living…particularly my life with my children.

So, as I would learn, if you’re not going to handle it, then sometimes the universe will.

But underneath the unbearable, underneath your lungs collapsing from the weight and the tears, the divine waits for its appointed time. Now, as weird as it may seem, I say to those men and women to whom Life has selected: you are blessed. For you have no choice but one: To rise. To ascend. To move towards God, the Divine for nothing is left but that.

Now, who is going to get up in the morning and say, “You know, today’s a good day to die, to start a new life, to be reborn.” No one.

Universe 5.jpeg — If you’re not going to handle it, sometimes the universe will.

Now, the second way transformation occurs is through personal choice and the problem with personal choice is that you have time and you can choose when to start and stop.

And while you may be very motivated, I promise you that when you come face-to-face with the darkness, your cowardice will rise up and you will hide…by going back to your everyday life, your everyday marriage, your everyday job…you know the ones: the elements of your life in which without even knowing it you have managed become numb to your dreams and your deepest longings and have substituted a placid, superficial rationale as to why your life is the way it is, feeding on your material desires while your spiritual voice starves. But it can work, depending on the level of thirst and commitment the individual has.

The ascent to the divine is what your life is all about and no other human being on the planet has designed the same path to getting there.

The rhythms and patterns of your life, the destiny of each step written in the stars, remains silent and hidden to you. You only see and hear what your senses are telling you. Your journey is the ascent to that which is above the mind, beyond the mind, and although it does not depend on its existence by manifesting in physical form, it seeks to manifest in physical form. If this is your goal, your ascent to the Divine, what makes you think it doesn’t have its own goals?

Let’s say…just pretend…play with this…that your life is about your ascent to the Divine. And what if its life is about descending into physical matter? Its life is about descending where the two meet in open arms like lost brothers only to realize they were both seeking the same thing. The unknown becomes known, it becomes realized. This unknown, this omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent power is an indispensable tool for moving forward. And just as it is responsible for the creation of all life, for the many, there are just as many ways to reach the Divine as there are people in whom the Divine lives.

Suffering is a mechanism which many people choose to reach God. Pain and separation are tools that many people choose to reach the Divine but it’s not truth. But suffering works. It just takes a long time and it hurts. Just be conscious about it…know which path you are on. But let’s try to solve one of the riddle of life through an understanding of consciousness.

Why can’t you find consciousness? Why can’t you find what you’re looking for? Why? It’s because you are it.

The thing you seek is the thing you are and the life you live, as Sri Aurobindo states, “The life you live conceals the Light you are.”

You don’t possess consciousness. You are consciousness. The process of evolution is the process of you becoming what you already are. The play of evolution is the truth that you really are moving the way through the lie of who you pretend to be. This goal, this end, is its sole purpose, its sole reason for existing, for manifesting in physical form. And isn’t it true that some mistakes are just too much fun to make only once?

So, it takes time. Your stupidity and blindness can be quiet an enjoyable experience…for a short period of time. And then the pain and suffering sets in. And this where transformation comes in…either though choice or by being chosen. The only way that transformation is going to be acquired, experienced is by the realization of a greater Truth of who you are and what you’re doing here. I think change is great but I think transformation is better.

You see, both can’t be true…that is the two of you and you know who I’m talking about…the real you and the screwed-up you. Now if what I’m saying is true, as is attested to in “A Course in Miracles,” that “Nothing real can be threatened,” then run your version of who you think you are through that formula to see if it’s real or unreal. For example, you think you are less than in some way. When you experience that version of yourself, do you not feel threat, attack? Of course. But run it through the formula. And you see it’s not real. “Nothing unreal exists.” So, I guess it turns out that I am right about who you are.

And now, you have a bigger problem than the ones you thought you had.

The one that is unreal is the one you have to let go of…and that can be done by choosing or by being chosen. But remember, this is about ascent and descent. It’s not about leaving your mind and body and heading off into heave, or nirvana or Mars. It’s about being here where the eternal dwells in a human body.

Consciousness is the bridge between the unreal you and the real you. Consciousness is the bridge between the horizontal and the vertical. If you believe that the only way to reach God is to leave here and be there, then what is the point of being here? Now, before you say anything, consider this:

So, how did you do? Does your idea about to reach God pass the litmus test? In those dark days, there were moments that all I wanted to do was die. So, I did. I just didn’t do it physically. And I realized one of the greatest secrets of my life: the way to life was through death. But not the death I had been taught but rather transformation which was going to require nothing less of me than to die. There was simply nothing left to hang onto. I did it not because I was brave but because that was all that was left. And I found life.

In those days, I was with my best friend and we ran into a mutual friend. I remember standing there and I couldn’t even speak. There was nothing left to say. The friend said, “Haydn, I heard what happened. I’m so sorry.” He then turned to my best friend and said, “Haydn is one of the bravest people I know.” My friend looked at him and said, “Haydn’s not brave. He just wakes up every day and finds out he’s not dead.” He was right.

So, when it comes to transformation, I say, make sure they kill all of you off so there’s nothing left to work on later. Make sure you are thoroughly annihilated. And as your parents taught you: if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

And what do you see in the world today? There’s a lot of destruction going on…traditional systems collapsing all around the world, climate change, children being put in cages, the poor getting poorer, unaffordable healthcare, justice being controlled by the unjust, and power being consumed by the powerless. What do you see? It is the birth of a new world, a descent of Truth as we feebly and hesitatingly ascend to meet it.

It is the invisible act of transformation, of consciousness, going about the necessary steps of reaching its goal of joy that in so many cases…and I am a living example of it…must get rid of a few things to achieve that.