Spiritual Transformation

In my heart of hearts, I would like just one simple old-fashioned miracle – just one.  And what would that miracle be, you might ask?  Well, it would be the same miracle that you want too.  We all would like the Divine to touch us and to completely transform us.  We want to be made whole.  We want that deep peace that flows so freely from God.  And this wanting defines our problem. If we look closely enough, it even shows us the way forward.  The way to that spiritual transformation for which we all long.

Put bluntly, I want God to transform me.  Here again, we see plainly the actions of our selfish ego.  “I want this special spiritual goodie for myself.”  I want–I want–I want!  ME-ME-ME.  The more we put our energy into our selfish wanting, the more we distance ourselves from our goal.  To put it as clearly as possible, it is like we make a goal for ourselves and then turn our backs and run as far away from that goal as we possibly can.

Yes, we want to be holy.  We want to be more open so that we can hear clearly what God is trying to teach us.  But unless we conform our actions to our goal, we will never attain it.  We have to do something different if we want to BE different.

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Let me give you an example.  This morning, as I was reading the news, I came across the story of a mailman who found a $10 bill lying in a driveway on his route.  Rather than pocketing the money, he went to the home, rang the doorbell, but no one was home.  He then wrote a note describing what happened, attached it to the $10 bill, and put it in his customer's mailbox.

This is a very ordinary story about a very extraordinary event.  The postman in this story is clearly a man of extraordinary integrity.  He is absolutely committed to honesty and right living.  I suspect he no longer has to think about doing the right thing; he has transformed his being in such a way that he does the right thing automatically.  He has become the INTEGRITY he has practiced.  While outwardly he may look like an ordinary human being, on the inside, he is a spiritual giant.

This is the transformation that the great spiritual teachers have all pointed to.  They tell us, in a myriad of ways appropriate to their time and culture, to BE the change we are seeking.  If you look closely, you’ll discover a startling and fundamental difference between their understanding of reality and our conventional understanding.  This difference is what keeps us from realizing our fundamental nature as children of the Divine.

You and I want God to magically transform us.  The great spiritual teachers, on the other hand, invite us to transform ourselves.  We resist hearing this, of course!  But when you get right down to it, who are you going to trust?  Are you going to continue to trust God’s power to do magic (which apparently hasn’t worked very well for you), or are you going to get off your butt and do the hard work of changing yourself?

As I write these words, I find myself giggling.  I’m giggling at my own stubbornness and stupidity.  I’m giggling at my stompy feet and my anger at God for not doing MY will.  As if I were the king of kings, whose every wish must be fulfilled.  What nonsense!  And yet it’s the truth, isn’t it?  We try to push off the hard work onto someone else – someone who doesn’t have the responsibility for doing the work.  As a result, we push off our own transformation, and then we blame God for the lack of results.

In my talk last week, I spoke about adopting a Rule of Life.  This involves adopting a clear precept and then conforming your life to that precept.  I gave us an example, one of the four basic behaviors that are necessary for spiritual growth: don’t lie.  A simple enough thing to talk about, but extremely difficult to put into practice.  

The spiritual transformation we are seeking is a complete transformation.  It’s not simply an outward transformation.  It’s not like changing a suit of clothes so that you look different.  Rather, it is a fundamental change in our being.  It is the change from our self-centeredness to being other-centered.  It is the change that happens when we truly love our neighbors as ourselves.  It is the change that happens when we love God with all of our heart, with all of our soul, and with all of our mind.

As we draw nearer to God, we will find ourselves happier and more at peace.  When we find ourselves in conflict, we will be able to look at others with much more understanding.  This understanding is a result of compassion because we realize that others very rarely do the wrong thing on purpose.  Rather, they are driven by past patterns, by injuries perhaps long forgotten, but injuries which still drive angry and hurt reactions.  And why would this expanded understanding make us happy?

The answer is actually quite simple, but you might have to stretch your mind a little to understand it.  Once again, let’s look at what the great spiritual teachers have to say about this.  For example, one of the Muslim names for God is the Real.  Many of the great saints talk about the Divine as the Truth.  Jesus, for example, says that he is the Truth.  Of note, he goes on to say he is also the Way and the Life.  While this is often interpreted as Jesus saying he is the only way, I think it is far more likely that he is saying that this way of the Truth is also the path to total transformation and eternal life.

In other words, when our Me-Me-Me turns into Thee, then we will realize in our own flesh that wonderful spiritual transformation for which we all seek.

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Let’s circle back to where we began today.  We began by describing our selfish desire for God to magically transform us.  As we explored the differences between our selfish desires and God’s plan for us, we made clear that our efforts to push our own responsibilities off onto God simply will not and cannot work.  As you work to integrate these ideas into your own life, you will find that developing a purity of intention is critical to your success.

It’s hard to talk about this purity because there is so little support for this understanding in our culture today.  Everything is organized around the gratification of our selfish desires, and very few talk about anything deeper.  As I search my own experience, one of the few places that focused on purity and taking responsibility for oneself was the Boy Scouts.  All Scouts had to memorize the Scout Oath, which is:

“On my honor, I will do my best:

To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”

Notice that there is nothing wishy-washy about this formulation.  There is a straightforward commitment to do one’s best at all times.  To do one’s best, one must first BE one’s best.  This is the kind of commitment that is required to walk the spiritual Way.  This is what is required of each one of us.  It makes no difference at all that we fail from time to time.  Of course, we fail!  Clearly, we are in the process of transformation.  Just as clearly, we have not arrived at the completion of that transformation.  We are still a work in progress, and we are all in need of all the help we can get.  So let us pray for one another – for those within our Invisible community, and for all of those around us who are searching desperately for the Truth.

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That’s all for this week.  Next week, we will start exploring the stages of spiritual growth as described by the mystics of the six major world religions.  I am also working on a new focus for meditation that is extraordinarily powerful.  So stay tuned in the coming weeks.  We have some great stuff in the works…

With love,

P.S.  Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class.  If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web.  If you have an interest, please write me at [email protected]. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible:  The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇

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