Transformation

  

Transformation is the ability to change from a negative state into a positive more advanced one.   The process of transformation is sustained by first understanding the dynamic that exists in each one of us between our true self, also known as the higher self or spiritual self, and our ego or our lower nature, also known by the animal or physical self. The true self is non-material and makes up all of our enduring qualities such as courage, patience, peacefulness, joy, determination, love of beauty, humility, and honesty. It also manifests itself in abilities that are a combination of qualities and processes along with understanding that allow us to be truly competent spiritual beings. These include such things as ability to encourage others, the capacity to participate in a group process, and the ability to make a plan and carry it through to its conclusion.  The ego is your material or physical reality and its primary focus is survival.  If the ego is under the control of the true self, then your life becomes productive and beneficial to humankind, but should the opposite be true, your life is ruled by material concerns. 

The ego makes its needs known through negative fear-related emotions and manifests itself in negative patterns. If you are selfish, it means that you are having difficulty sharing things with generosity or it may mean that you have difficulties thinking about the needs of others.  Underneath the selfishness is some kind of fear such as the fear of starving or being left with nothing.   It may cause you to be guarded, to be wary of others and to be antisocial and exclusive.   

Transformation means being able to take a condition of the ego and changing it into a new quality or capacity that is beneficial to others.   It always starts by addressing a condition of the ego and always ends with more capacity.   For instance, selfishness transformed becomes generosity, reaching out to others, and inclusion.   

There are two forms of transformation. One is transformation as a healing process and the other is transformation in order to reach very challenging goals.   In the healing phase, the ego has so taken over control of your life that you can not establish any type of challenging goal other than the healing itself.  We normally associate it with substance abuse or being victimized by abuse or a physical weakness caused by non-material processes. Wherever a person has been under constant stress for an extended period without a good support system is where healing is the paradigm of transformation.  Transformation in order to reach a challenging goal usually begins to happen after the healing processes have occurred or where people have grown up in very supportive and nurturing environments. Oftentimes what people think as a challenge such as developing a new business may be a way to hide from the area in one’s life where true healing needs to happen. Usually a false challenge is characterized by dominating others, and the area that requires healing is relational because there is almost always something incredibly faulty about the closest relationships as in the family.  

When you heal, you start with the negative energy by first understanding as much as you can about its structure and its origin.   Once the understanding is complete, then you need to have understanding of what is going to replace it in a positive sense. The positive energy is understood as the spiritual opposite as in the case of selfishness giving way to generosity. When you transform by setting a challenging goal, the movement itself toward the goal causes you to have to develop new capacities in which you will have to face negative realities.  Both processes of changing are exactly alike in that it is about facing negatives and changing them to positives.  The goal-setting group usually is somewhat easier to work with in that they already have the positive energy to move forward in their lives. With healing, the process requires more skill because the emotions are so strong and fixed. The way you know that you can move from healing to challenging is by the feeling of confidence and encouragement you feel internally.  

The most important quality to have in the transformation process is humility, which is the capacity to realize that in comparison to the divine perfection you are nothing.   Being this way allows you to readily admit to your weaknesses and then take steps to be guided toward your own growth process.  The greatest tendency in human beings is to try to get others to change so that their life can be better.  This tendency is by far the most damaging of all human characteristics because it takes us completely out of the process. It usually shows up wherever there is a culture of gossip and backbiting. The other difficulty in getting to humility is the tendency of dominating, aggressive people to believe that they are better than others.  This allows them to treat others badly and to exist with huge injustices such as in the distribution of wealth. Their growth process is usually very delayed because they can sustain an ego-based life for a long time with material comforts. The first tendency of trying to get others to change through blaming and other forms stems from having grown up in a culture of criticism rather than encouragement because criticism leaves one feeling disempowered. The dominating types always have issues related to intimacy and do everything in their material powers to avoid it.  

Transformation is best done on a daily basis because it is a never-ending process in that potential is unlimited. You will never have a day in which your ego is not pushing you with a negative emotion so that your true self can grow. With humility you can treat the ego as a friend rather than an enemy because it shows you where the weakness is so that you can change. You can’t get rid of the ego so it is no use trying to treat it like an enemy. Doing so is trying to be superior to it and that is playing God, which is a very damaging process.  God doesn’t like competition.  When you can actually love the issues that you have to face, it means that you are in a good relationship with your true self and ego.