Hi Folks:

Well, the topic for this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post is ‘transformation’.  Now ‘trans’ is a prefix that comes from the Latin for ‘over, across, through or between’, and ‘form’ comes from the Latin for shape, so roughly ‘trans’-lated to transform means to change one’s shape.  While this usually refers to a change in one’s physical shape or make-up, it’s also possible, perhaps inevitable to transform one’s thoughts, ideas, beliefs, suppositions and the like.

As it happens I’m working my way through the book ‘Living Deeply‘ at the moment, which has a subtitle of ‘The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life‘.  The book is the result of a decade-long research study undertaken by the Institute of Noetic Sciences in which they interviewed spiritual ‘masters’ from a number of different Ways of Being as well as compiling surveys and information from other participants.  In some ways the book parallels my own journey for the past 35+ years of looking at different religious and spiritual Ways, a journey you can read a little more about in ‘The God of Mike‘.  For where I’m at within myself right now I find the book perhaps a little too objective, as if it’s a book about transformation rather than a book of transformation.  Maybe that’s just the arm’s-length, scientific side of the book.  Still it’s a worth read.

Actually, in sitting down to describe my own journey of spiritual transformation I find largely that it can only be described in loosely scientific terms because to go beyond that requires the experience of it, and experience isn’t something that can be translated into words.  Thoughts can be articulated in that way but feelings can’t.  When we attempt to explain a feeling we’re left with only a description of it instead.

So… I recently had something come to me, expressed as a poem:

I have become
what I once most feared
and found beauty.

That probably requires some explanation.  Before I get to it, maybe I’ll add this as well:

What do you do
when you follow a path
no one else has trodden?

That contains a part of the answer.  It seems to me that transformation is a singularly individual path we each must walk, yet at the same time is something that we often undergo in groups.  One of the bases for organized religions and spiritual Ways of all sorts is that there are guideposts that keep you on the ‘correct’ path and teachers who can show you the Way.  It could be a priest or minister, a guru, a practitioner of some experience, even a collective group of students who are all undergoing the same processes.  Even books can take you a part of the way.  This applies as much to those who take classes or attend a spiritual retreat as much as it does to those who choose to live in cloister.  This, not that.  The choices are made simple, and one only needs follow them.  Never is it said that the process will be easy!

I started out that way.  I really did.  I was raised Catholic when I was younger, and when I broke away from that I found a new ‘religion’ called science.  Different rules, but the same overarching idea of ‘rules’ of what was and was not acceptable.  Neither of those paths fulfilled me so I tried a smattering of others, eventually pulling from each of them what made sense to me, yet always willing to abandon something when a new piece of information seemed more relevant.  In the strictest definition I became a heretic, yet I had to follow where I was leading myself.  Therein lay a part of the problem for me, however, because I got so good at isolating myself from every other Way of Being that I eventually realized that I had even separated myself from my Self.  There was a period in my life where I believed that my own inner being was working against what ‘I’ wanted to achieve, and it was this belief, in part, that sparked my journey to where I am today.  I figured if my own soul wasn’t going to help me out, then I’d damn well figure out how to do it myself.  And that’s what I set out to do.  A part of my folly was that in doing so I turned away from my own greater Being, and thus denied myself access to my own greater knowledge.

Seth said:

“Even when you lost sight – as you knew you would – of those deep [inner] connections, they would continue to operate until, in its own way, man’s consciousness could rediscover the knowledge and put it to use – deliberately and willfully, thereby bringing that consciousness to flower. In your terms this would represent a great leap, for the egotistically aware individual would fully comprehend unconscious knowledge and act on his own, out of choice. He would become a conscious co-creator. Obviously, this has not as yet occurred.” ~ The “Unknown” Reality, Vol. 1, session 688.

Not yet, perhaps, but that’s where I’m heading.  It took me several years to heal the rift I had created within my Self, and several more years to get beyond my own ideas of stricture and separation that I once believed existed.  Only once I had found my Self again and began to recognize who and what I truly Am – what we All are – was I able to open those doors again to listening to what ‘others’ had to say.  In my own writings in the past few months I’ve reestablished a connection with teachers I once knew some twenty years ago.  Fortunately they didn’t abandon me as I once thought to abandon them but simply waited patiently for my return to myself.  I’m glad of it.  More and more I find new insights and new pathways of understanding continuing to come to me, revealing more deeply the mystery of the nature of our existence.  I’m always amazed when these new ideas show up and yet often I’m reminded as well: “Is this not what you asked for?” Of course, it is.  I live in a magical world.  So do you.  Actually, that reminds me of a section in the consciouscreation.com writings (I often refer to them as the CC writings), so maybe I’ll end with those.  By the way, if you’re interested in reading a little more about my writings, check out the Mike’s Writings section of our posts.

Love,
Mike.

Here’s the section from the CC writings:

Impulses and Doubting the Self

The instant you step out of yourself you disconnect from your impulses. Impulses that will lead you to exactly what you want. It seems fantastic. It seems irrational. And it is. Absolute freedom has no rational basis. If you believe that you have to do something, then you may have to do something. But if you ask yourself (on a deeper level) for the impulse, then you will see that you don’t have to do anything. What frightens you is the idea that somehow you will not make the right choice or you will go on believing that you have to do something, even when you don’t want to. We say if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. So don’t. Allow what you want to be. Who’s approval do you need to have what you want? Who outside of you can give you what you want? Their approval will not do what you want. Besides which it won’t last. And you can’t count on it. So all in all it’s a rather pointless direction to go in, but you have been trained well – a whole lifetime of seeking someone else’s approval.

And what happens when you simply stop seeking it, when you decide it no longer matters? Freedom happens. So ask yourself if you’re willing to do whatever it takes: what are you willing to let go of, who’s approval can you dispense with?

No Shortcuts to Absolute Freedom

How would you like to proceed? You should gather by now that there are no shortcuts because shortcuts would not be beneficial in the long run. Absolute freedom means ABSOLUTE freedom. Shortcuts imply incompletion in areas not yet free. Absolute freedom means you will pick and choose based on impulses rather than outer perspective, rather than responsibility, who you will give what and why. It also means that the reason for doing so begins and ends with your choice. You choose it therefore you do it. You do not choose it therefore you do NOT do it. And perfection is absolute and attained perfectly in this manner. This is why discernment is necessary – because you will not be doing things out of a sense of guilt. You will not be doing things out of a sense, out of the old use of the idea of responsibility. You will be doing things purely and spontaneously from your point of choice. And you will be asking yourself, in each moment: what do I choose? How does that feel? What do I want? Sometimes the answer will surprise you. Remember to play along with the idea that you can have what you want. A compromise is not the answer. Is it any wonder all your family rules and childhood strictures come up now? How could you be so irresponsible? How could you be so irrational? You are living in a fantasy. Don’t tell them, but so are they. It is just a matter of which fantasy, which fantasy do you choose?

A Pattern of Self-Worth

This is not a case of starting over; it is removing the final pieces of ideas inside you that stand in between you and what you want. Because like it or not, the fact is, you are enough, and you know it. The fact is, your way does work. You are real. You do create. And everything is fine. What a burden.

So the choice is yours. If the choice was to stay unconscious, there would be no need to look at this last little pattern of yours. But the choice is to be conscious, and to be conscious, you get to be okay. You do not have to explain yourself or be understood. Do you see? When you try to explain or be understood, it is because you are seeking approval and unfortunately, your idea of approval is the other person must come around to your way of thinking. Instead, simply communicate what is and leave it at that.

This simplification here is a big part of the larger lesson. The idea that human nature requires complexity is false. Complexity is, often enough, simply more camouflage, more ways of not seeing what you don’t want to see. Oh, it’s all so complicated, you say, how will I ever understand it? But it’s not complicated. You give your power away when you ask others to tell you that you are okay. For those of you who didn’t get that, it’s called seeking approval. Not only is approval outside of the self, pointless, but it distracts you from your real purpose, which is self-acceptance.

No Conditions

We’d like to point out a small item – are you ready? We have no conditions. So, it stands to reason, that if we have no conditions, the conditions must be yours! Imagine that. So, what conditions would you like us to put on this? None, you say? Hmmm, are you sure? Shouldn’t there be just a few? (chuckling) We suggest to you at this time that you release ALL conditions, ALL rules, everything you know. And be totally in the moment. And from that place, move through the rest of your day. One more thing. Look at the places where you accept the magic matter of factly and ask yourself, “What is the difference between those places and the places where it seems ‘hard’”? If you can answer that question, then you are done. We’ll give you a hint. It has nothing to do with the outer perspective; it has everything to do with you. And your power. Now, before we give it all away, we wish you a fond good day.

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Follow this link to read Marcia’s View.