Transformation is a word that is over-used these days, often applying to any kind of change. Following some contemporary thinkers in transpersonal psychology, I make a distinction between translation and transformation.
Translation has to do with moving horizontally on the same game board, so to speak: the self is given a new way to think or feel about reality, and learns to play the game of life more effectively. The self learns to translate its world and its way of being in terms of this new belief or practice, and experiences more happiness or fulfillment. This is very helpful, and is often just the thing that is needed.
Transformation, on the other hand, challenges and undermines the process of translation itself. The self itself is investigated and dismantled, and the whole game board is thrown over. This takes place naturally during the process of human development. As children, we leave behind earlier structures of meaning-making and self-definitions repeatedly, and move into more mature levels which both transcend and include those that preceded them. A twelve year old has already experienced several such shifts. This kind of transformation can, but does not always, continue through adulthood, with movement into more expanded perspectives and identities, even into those realms we describe as trans-personal, beyond the individual ego.
Transformative approaches to counseling and teaching are concerned with facilitating this kind of transformation of consciousness (described by such psychologists as Robert Kegan, by philosopher Ken Wilber, and in other frameworks such as Spiral Dynamics). But there is an even more radical transformation which is of ultimate interest to me: this is the undoing of the whole knot of trying to move anywhere, an undoing in which the “self,” in Wilber’s words, becomes toast.
Awakening to the truth of one's being
While this is the focus of most mystical and nondual spiritual traditions, it is actually much simpler than it sounds, so simple that we usually overlook it: there is nothing to do or seek, because the truth of one’s being is revealed to be always already here. Right here, right now. The self doesn’t “become” toast or anything else, but is discovered to be nonexistent: as expressed by Gangaji, a contemporary teacher, you are not who you think you are, but who you think you are is never separate from who you really are.
This discovery may come in an instant, or there may be a series of openings over time. How this realization comes is never within our control, and it is never what we think or imagine it will be. The invitation is then to live the rest of a lifetime being true to this, to open continually to the "more" that reveals itself, and to experience the dance of human embodiment in the Vast Stillness.
Is this transformation? In the sense that there is an uncovering of what is already beyond (“trans”) form, but always includes form. There is a letting go of one’s taken-for-granted conditioned identity, and a willingness to live in the question “Who am I, really?” without reaching for a new identity - a willingness to be naked and not know.
At the same time it is possible to know, without knowing how you know, that who you are IS the Home you are longing for, the Mystery of Being. Your true nature has never been lost, is the presence in which all life has its source. This direct realization of inherent Awareness, Truth, Love, and Beauty as the Self – words are totally inadequate here – is available to each one of us.
Awakening from the dream of what we have been taught is “reality” was once quite rare, but there seems to be a quickening in our time; there are many realized teachers, and many awake people walking around. This is possible for you. Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now has been a bestseller, and the Sufi poet Rumi has become very popular; Other teachers may be less widely known, but are not hard to find.
My own teachers have been primarily Gangaji and Adyashanti, both American-born; they point with compassion, clarity, and ruthlessness to what IS. My profound gratitude leads me to delight in serving, with whatever capacity is present, as a kind of bridge from here to Here, from the experience of being lost in the dream to the realization of what can never be lost. It is the Mystery itself that unfolds the way.
"Nondual therapy"
The emerging field of nondual therapy now has two books devoted to it, written by some of its pioneers, as well as an annual conference. My work in this context grows out of my own experience as well as what I have learned from watching and listening to others. While the term itself makes no sense from one perspective, since no "therapy" is needed to open the door to awakening or nondual realization, the kinds of experiential modalities I use - Brainspotting, EMDR, working with parts of the self and Enneagram fixations, inquiry processes - have tremendous value in loosening the hold of deep patterns of reactivity that keep us from realizing the truth of our being. It is possible to get to the root of long-standing, emotionally "loaded" reactions that seem to keep us "stuck" (like velcro!) circling around the same old identification with a separate and suffering self - and in the process of meeting these patterns, to "see through," dissolve or shift them so that one's relationship to them is fundamentally altered.
It is my privilege and joy to work with individuals and small groups in exploring this profound territory.
This is an image of Mt. Rainier, known to the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest as Tahoma. The image was originally used as the logo for Tahoma School of Transformative Studies, designed to be a new graduate school in Seattle. While the School as initially conceived several years ago does not now exist, the dream still lives in this less formal expression as part of my ongoing commitment and work.
When this lenticular (shaped like a lens) cloud appears over the great mountain, it signals a transformation in the weather. . .
