The Necessity of Individual Transformation
I try very hard not to speak out of opinion and I don’t discuss current events as wretched as they are.
I don’t discuss personalities and the only person I wish to address is you, the individual.
Only a change in consciousness is going to save us from ourselves and we take the position that that will happen through the individual. So, again, my remarks and efforts are primarily focused on the transformation of the individual.
So, we’re going to start with the concept of the innate image that lies inside you. The human being attains its fulfillment when it adheres to that inner innate image and produces in its outer world forms and activities that represent that living image. It is an experience that once experienced cannot be taken away from you. Now, each individual is an image of the Divine and each individual has a fate and destiny that has been embedded in their evolutionary path.
Significance of our Existence
Sri Aurobindo said,
“The significance of our existence here determines our destiny: that destiny is something that already exists in us as a necessity and a potentiality, the necessity of our being's secret and emergent reality, a truth of its potentialities that is being worked out; both, though not yet realized, is even now implied in what has been already manifested. If there is a Being that is becoming, a Reality of existence that is unrolling itself in Time, what that being, that reality secretly is is what we have to become, and so to become is our life's significance.”
One of the characteristics we can apply to all individuals is that ‘Knowledge is a function of being.’ We have to face the fact that there are people who are more evolved than other people.
Look at it again. Knowledge is a function of being. Not doing. So, how do I be more? How do I acquire the skills and wisdom needed to live a rich and fulfilling life?
So, again, for the 3rd time, knowledge is a function of being. So, when there is a change in the being of the knower, there is a corresponding change in the nature and amount of knowing.’
In other words, when there is a change in the inner, there is a change in the outer. In the inverse, the outer ain’t going to change until the inner changes.
Until that happens, we remain imprisoned within the vibration of that inner condition, good or bad. It’s all about energy! Not action. How do I consciously evolve? Think of it this way…when something goes wrong, you send out a particular type of vibration that automatically attracts and contacts all of the vibrations of the same type in other people, in the world itself, throughout your whole being.
People with guns attract people with guns. Greedy people attract other greedy people. Depressed people hang around depressed people.
People who smoke pot every weekend hang other people who smoke pot every weekend. Stupid people hang around other stupid people. And throughout history the great ones have been known to isolate and live in isolation. It’s a natural process and it’s not right or wrong but there are consequences.
So, let’s summarize this so we can use it, so we can apply it in our lives at every instant. Only like can enter like. Only love can enter people who are loving. Only rage can enter people who are rageful. Only confusion can enter confused people.
But this also evolves in the positive. You can even imagine that the oppositional dualities that are destroying the US, as it has done before, when interpreted not as it is today by the unevolved mind but by a liberated change in consciousness, a new future will be born and I want to suggest that this consciousness is growing.
We call this the yoga of your life.
It is point of your development where you move from the endless circles of an unconscious evolution to a conscious evolution that is organized, directed and undertaken. In fact, it’s the only game in town!
And so, we then have to consider the practices and processes we can undertake to become that destiny that has already been established…and this begins with the individual…don’t worry about the world…the world is an effect. Focus on cause…and that lies inside of you. People who have developed these kind of skills know and have experienced that the inner resides in a state of calm, in a state of quiet and yet from this quiet arises all the dynamics and energies that run the universe.
In that peace, in that calm, the vibrations of worry, fear, greed, lust, depression, anxiety, self-doubt, or any other negative state are diminished and in time, cancelled out. And all the while, the limited Mind is unable to conceive of a vast, eternal consciousness. The calm to which all great masters refer doesn’t oppose the world, it supports it but it supports it with equal impartiality. That’s your choice as how long you choose to remain unconscious.
People are misled by words, religions, self-professed prophets, opinionated pundits, and media sources that the limited mind sees Truth. But it’s not. Self-deceived, self-imprisoned, self-deluded, your process of evolution keeps stumbling along unconsciously. And the whole time, the vast, the all that is, God, the unfolding, remains impartial. Now, there are the partial and impartial sides of God, of the Divine, but there is the impartial, too.
When you begin to perceive these possibilities, and how your life is truly unfolding and that Truth-Consciousness is running the show, you begin to see how meaningless your words are, how stupid your thinking is, and how destructive your actions are. The possibility of an inner world that’s not doing anything but simultaneously directing the circumstances of your individual becoming and unfolding is hardly conceivable in the world of materialism.
And, if you can just wrap your head around this for a second, you see how childish your efforts are to escape the difficulties and troubles of your life, you might break through even just a little bit.
Let me explain…most of your being is defined from the outer circumstances of your life, particularly through the material world. Most of what you know about your existence is not about your existence at all but about your experience.
Now, what would happen if all of that was emptied out of your mind? What would you find?
The emptiness is the void / the void is the meaninglessness / the meaninglessness is at the root of your unconsciousness. Because Truth-Consciousness was replaced through the centuries with deformed doctrine, dogmatic religions, and spiritual leaders who insisted that they were somehow more spiritual than others, the truth was lost.
It was replaced with the void, with meaninglessness, and the sacredness of the journey was buried under the unconsciousness of the limited mind. And people will do anything to avoid the void. But, as anyone who has experienced that peace, that calm, that quiet, will tell you…it is power…it is will…it is unthreatenable and eternal…here the individual remains in the body but transcends the limited mind…here, the individual realizes that the internal psychological turmoil is not being reconciled…it is being cancelled out.
The transformation of the individual is underway. So, don’t be afraid of being still, of being quiet and calm. If you encounter the void, the darkness, have no concern for the great Calm, the great Peace that passeth all understanding is just around the bend. But remember…only like can enter like. If it’s not happening in your outer world, it’s because it’s not happening in your inner world.
If the world is a dream or illusion or mistake, it is a mistake or an illusion originated and willed by the individual as a tool in the evolutionary process and not only created by the individual but supported by Truth-Consciousness. Now, I’m not saying that that’s any fun…being unconscious and thinking that the world is a mistake…but I’m being consistent when I say that everything from birth is something you made up, even if you’re an individual who believes that the world is a cosmic joke…which I did when I was 20 years old. How is it possible that we are here to suffer? What sense does that make?
You might think of your life as a dream existing in Reality, in Truth-Consciousness, but the stuff of which the dream is made is Reality. I know that sounds a little weird. They’re just different states of reality.
The highest experience of being a human being on this planet, in this reality shows it to be not just a conscious existence but a wisdom, a joy and a will, of creating heaven on earth.
And that means that you are not in a helpless, catatonic state but are powerful, free, with no limited personality regardless of your past, regardless of your mistakes.
The deepest intuition, the greatest instinct in you knows this, seeks this experience, this great adventure of the soul realizing itself in physical form. You know that there is truth to learn and work to do. You know you are more than what you have become. Remember that knowledge is a function of being and when that knowledge shifts, so will the individual and so will the world in which the individual lives.
The transformation of the individual is the pivotal key on which the fate of humanity rests. It is the primary necessity of your life to wake up and learn the truth and the essence of who you are and what you’re doing here.
The transformation of the individual is going to take place right in the middle of daily life. You’ll still have to take out the trash and change the diapers and pay your bills but you’re going to do it with a different attitude, a different vision, and a different purpose.
Many spiritual leaders would have you believe the purpose of your life is to transcend this world. It is not. The purpose of your life is to be a vessel of the divine, embodying the divine in human form. And as a result, heaven will be here…right in the middle of the mess. Because it is the purpose of the Divine to experience itself in form, in physical matter itself, in the human body, that is who you are, that is what you’re up to. You can choose which class you want to take but you don’t get to choose the curriculum.
The transformation of the individual is what it is all about.
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