“Knowing who you are at your deepest core means tapping into an infinite reservoir of power and courage, wisdom and love. With this endless resources, you have everything you need to live fearlessly and powerfully in this world”
Spiritual activity and development need to be divided into two major categories: the first is what can be called “self-improvement processes” and the second is “transformative spirituality.”
- Self-improvement processes are the most common ones. Self-improvement is meant to correct and improve the human pattern. It helps alleviate suffering, improve levels of functioning and behavior, provide practitioners with a sense of meaning and a deeper connection to life and sometimes also to a “higher force”, and increase harmony and peace within people’s minds and hearts. It can also be called “consoling spirituality,” as it relieves existential tensions and equips people with empowering forms of thought and feeling with which they can better cope with life’s challenges and difficulties.
- Transformative spirituality is far less common. It deals with self-transcendence and the merging of the individual “I” into life as undivided unity. As such, it is not meant to console and support our existing self, but rather to replace it with the cosmic being and consciousness which lies dormant in the root of the human mind. This is the breakthrough discovery of the true nature of human consciousness.
Transformative spirituality consists of giant leaps that one takes within one’s own consciousness. It is jumping, again and again, beyond our known self-identity to a form of self-identity which makes our previous level of functioning and existence redundant. The more we establish ourselves in this higher level of self-identity, the more we become acquainted with a completely new world of human experience, values and mental and emotional activity.
The highest functioning of your mind
Transformative spirituality hands us this precious secret of human consciousness – the highest and most refined functioning of our mind. Generally speaking, the human mind can operate on three levels of functioning:
- The first level of the mind is the one we are all very familiar with: it is the personal mental and emotional activity which is driven by the hopeful search for personal happiness, satisfaction and desire. This type of activity causes a complete identification of the mind with the body and psyche and their relations with the world around them. Out of this identity there branches a ramified emotional and mental system. Desire and pain are its central measurement of happiness or sorrow.
- The second level of functioning is a far more impersonal activity. Those who activate this level the most are philosophers and scientists who are driven by the wish to solve the great questions of life and the cosmos. On this level, we use the mind to grasp and comprehend the secrets of existence, and so, naturally, the mind needs to significantly move away from its automatic and narrow personal activity. Of course, on this level, a clear division between subject and object is retained; a separation between the questioning mind and the object of observation. After all, it is the nature of science to look from the outside as objectively as possible in order to understand a phenomenon.
- The third level is the enlightened consciousness, in which the mind needs to be emptied from the first, personal focus, to explore its own nature and identity. Who or what is the observer and questioner? What is the true nature of the human mind? On this level, one shifts from thinking to meditation – to a contemplation which is a direct self-reflection. The more this type of inquiry of the mind deepens, the more it discovers the existence of a part in the mind which can stand in complete independence from the personal identity and function. Its nature is purely impersonal. It exists distinctly and separately, experiencing levels of freedom and limitlessness which are out of the ordinary self-identity’s reach. Qualities of immortality and eternity begin to bloom in it as the mind, at its core, is revealed as a part of a far greater consciousness.
As the third level continues to unfold, the human mind comes to realize that there is no real distinction between it and everything else. Thus it discovers its broadest nature, as the all-embracing consciousness of the universe itself.
Spiritual transformation is an earth-shattering revelation in the life of an individual. It is a shift from the ego-centered world, which tells the story of one transient unit of consciousness and its struggle to attain fulfillment in its interaction with some objective world – to a cosmos-centered world; a world which tells the story of an infinite consciousness and its unfolding as a finite universe.
Consciousness is the greatest empowerment of human life
“Spiritual transformation is not the opposite of human life. When understood as the solid foundation of human life, it becomes the secret power that makes you capable of handling all hardships and challenges without the need to withdraw”
The path to this element in the mind is remarkably short and, in fact, not a matter of distance at all – since it already inherently exists in the mind itself. In this context, one could say that there are two parts of the human mind: one in which a continuum of time stretches, gradually forming our becoming personal entity, with all its memories and wishes, and another which forever remains untouched by this time continuum, and so is totally free.
With the emergence of this identity, many psychic elements fall away of their own accord for the very simple reason that they have become irrelevant. Different functions of the personality – healthy instincts, functional thinking, cultural gestures, skills and abilities – remain intact, but they become the mere servants of a new master: the master of consciousness.
This ultimate discovery brings forth a simultaneous existence as a personal and separate entity living its mortal appearance on planet earth, and at the same time, as an impersonal being which includes within it the whole of existence.
Obviously, such a being finds within it a radically different set of values: it naturally and effortlessly experiences universal awareness and universal love and is driven by an impulse of universal passion and creativity.
Since transformative spirituality enables us to directly and uninhibitedly get in touch with the fundamental freedom of our infinite consciousness, it shows us that we are not merely earthly beings. Out of this total freedom, we can genuinely afford to fully enter the human experience and to say “Yes” to life.
