What is the goal of Transformation?

The reason I pose this question is that I don't think anyone can transform him/her self.  I see now that the transformation takes place … AFTER we have a non-dual experience.

If… we are using tools, reading, studying, following teachers, etc… and we don't have a non-dual expereience… it is just the ego collecting more stuff… (Spiritual Materialism)

But the paradox is that we are drawn to it all… (using tools.. etc.) but it seems that the ego (I call it the chief of staff) .. hijacks the plan and ammases these qualites and attributs to itself and things it's “enlightened” and others are “not”.

So the deal is … how to get the non-dual experience… and if the tools, etc. are not sending you into that experience then what are they doing?

… well, I've used tons of tools, read tons of books, etc…and untill I did the 10 day Vipassana (Goenka) I did not make real progress… once I got onto the 10 deal… and had three of them behind me… the non-dual came up and smacked me in my face… big time… I merged, or disolved, and saw pure energy and now I have that deep realization that we are all one…
… and so the discussion of tools is good … and I wonder if anyone has direct experience of any tools leading to a non-dual experience (other than substances… peyote, etc… )

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

Hey Donald, your question brings context to the discussion, and think I would define the question as what do we mean by transformation? I'm not going to claim any experiential authority to respond to your question, but I'll go ahead and give me egoic two cents;)

First, in my study and practice of non-dual, nothing transforms and there is no one to transform. Second, the only thing that could transform is the ego, the relative stream of aggregates called “I”, the “individual”. What I agree on, is that spiritual realization can give us an important capitla P Perspective on all this transformation that is occurring in time. Rather, it gives us potential via a deeper understanding, but not direct transformation of anything other than spiritual “development” itself. But, I do think transformation happens all the same regardless of whether one has a non-dual experience or not, which I think is pretty easy to see in looking at ourselves and others around us. There's all different ways we transform - emotionally, physically, intellectually, etc. Sure, it still belongs to the ego, and it's nature is of the ego, regardless of non-dual, but the ego can expand it's relative perspective, which is also easy to see in developmental psychology. BUT, I agree that the deepest and most authentic transformation would be fostered within the non-dual realization.

…but what does this egoic stream know?;) 

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

I agree Rolke, after I posted that, I realized about transformation tools that … well what you said is exactly right… like moving up the spiral or using Hawkins calibrated levels… Wilbers states and stages…

But if one is going to really work on it, I think one has to go for the whole tomale… and the reason I'm saying this is that I've had some non-dual experiences … the latest, last October, is in “aha moments” or something, but since then… I had to go back to the books and re-read a lot of stuff to see what the heck happened and see if I could find similar stuff happening to other people and now what I'm reading makes more sense … and reviewing things happening earlier now have a context to put it in and that makes more sense also…

… so it is easy now…

like GangaJi says… just be… etc…

yeah right… easy for her to say… well, now I know what she means totally but could not know it till I really had that experience 

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

further reflection:

Before a non dual experience: one is transforming into a better Human Animal or getting the halter onto to the ox (referring to the Zen pictures of the man and his ox)

After a non dual experience: one is released from identification with the speck or part having seen or experienced being the whole (that does not express it, but I can't come up with a better sentence).

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

But if one is going to really work on it, I think one has to go for the whole tomale

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

I see it a bit differently. My old teacher's teacher, Franklin Merrell-Wolff, wrote about there being three different modes of consciousness: perception and cognition, which are both space-time based, and introception, which is his word for unitive consciousness. His writing, and my limited experience, is that unitive consciousness does not manifest in space-time categories. But unitive realization leaves traces behind that I apprehend through cognition or perception, and that I hold as an experience. These experiences can be powerful and cause profound changes in the structures of cognition and perception, but unitive consciousness is not that space-time experience.

Where I certainly am is that sparks of unitive consciousness percolate through my normal waking awareness - if I'm lucky. My understanding of Buddha consciousness from the Tibetan Buddhist Middle Way schools is that fully realized Buddha consciousness continuously realizes both conventional space-time categories and unitive consciousness. For me, at least, that's the goal: walking simultaneously and continuously in two worlds. 

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

http://www.newdimensions.org/listen-now/programofweek.html

Listening to a good (free) audio on reason and consciousness and beliefs … sort of hits at this topic.

Getting beyond beliefs… and how thinking is removed from reality.

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

I would disagree that a person can not transform themselves, transformation from one stage to another happens naturally and over time if the subject of the transformation is healthy, it is simply slow. Plunging into a non-dual state would not foster transformation in the whole organism anymore then any other state of consciousness can primarily because we will immediately, once out of the state articulate the experience in value statements that is in sympathy with our own stage. (Since we referred to Ken Wilber and to Spiral Dynamics before I will stick to that terminology.)

So for example a Kabbalahlist and a Dzogchen Buddhist can both have a nondual state experience however, each will use the rhetoric of their own tradition to describe it. Further, having such an experience alone does not necessarily foster stage growth as you can still be a Green meme individual having nondual experiences. A recent article in What is Enlightenment? states that when Ken Wilber asked Genpo Roshi to judge for himself the level of stage growth most of his Japanese teachers where at, Genpo responded by saying “blue, all of them where blue.” Real stage growth has to be far more then the insights gleaned while in a nondual state, but also the acquisition of the values of higher memes. Thus for our Green meme Kabbalahist and Buddhist they must be endeavoring to embrace Yellow memes (or higher memes) while also engaging in there pursuits of altered states.

Following Integral and Spiral Dynamics it is also important to consider that healthy Ego transcendence or identity is needed for evolution. The term Ego death stems from conventional and preconventional societies while Integral development requires the healthy identification with material. The Ego is an important aspect of healthy stage growth. Many very advanced mystics can cause serious Shadow issues by rejecting the ego as we can see by looking at the life of Chogyam Trungpa, and is attested to by Jack Kornfield in his own Vipassana experience which he related in After the Ecstasy the Laundry.

None of this hits on the goal of transformation, which I fear is somewhat dependant upon your specific metaphysics and the area of transformation in question. Personal transformations are very individualistic to the tradition and the seeker a Kabbalahlist and a Buddhist have similar yet different metaphysics that fosters their desire for transformation, where as a social activist that seeking transformation in society is doing so based on the ethical implications of their own metaphysical paradigm. Personally I feel these are all human inventions to describe Eros as the mechanism that is built into God or created by God so as to allow It to better understand its' self.

Namaste

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

hay drake,

couple of things

you said that you disagree

who disagrees?

there is NO YOU … that's a fact … only an ego

and… spiral and kw … and roshe… etc… you were quoting a lot of egos or no-persons … you comes from the mouth or brain that that wrote those things?

if transformation is the movement from the dualistic understanding to non dual the ego has to “give up” … well what I like to quote is something said: “enlightenment is an accident and meditation makes us accident prone” which points to the paradox that we are talking about….

doesn't mean “give up” … but just put it in perspective

like the Tao /Dao says… what can be talked about is not it…

The intellect / logic / mind is king and will not release itself to the unknown… when we have the Wilbers (who I love) and all the Philosophers who have used their intellects to try to break through the barrier… the barrier of thinking that we separate individuals…

I'm not writing this … it is writing itself…

my mind can't grab ahold of that at all… 

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

The interpretation that no you or me or us exists because of the transitory identity of the ego is an extreme point of view not supported by most schools of nondualism, because of its inherent reductionism, this point of view is not nondualism as it was conceived, it is a misinterpretation of the concept of nondualism. In nondualism there exists no distinction between the ego and anything, just as there are no distinctions between is and is not, they are a singularity, like a mobius strip which is believed to be two sided but in fact is not. So according to nondualism there is a me there is just no distinction between what is not me or parts of me, as I am unified, indivisible as opposed to none existent, or no solution. Nondualism is not defined by absence, it is indefinable.

Namaste

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

it's ok … I'm not a theory person… pushing or supporting one theory or another… I'm sure one can find someone to quote to support almost any view or theory.  All that is mind stuff and if it get's you there … good … if it does not … only you know it, not anyone else.  And if you have achieved some amount of liberation, due to some work or grace or reading theories, then only you know it … it does not show too much except in the things you do… and how you react to external events, etc… so I'm not going to be a Wilber-ite and start quoting this theory or that theory… if you are a separate person, that's fine… you are a separate person.  If you see yourself as part of one hand clapping, then that's how you see yourself…

But the goal of Transformation:  What exactly is it?  Is it to get everyone to agree with one theory… let's say… the Integral Theory? or is it to live together in peace where there is joy and love and peace? … or to get one person (the I) to live in joya and love and peace?

Is it to get more people to buy transformational books and attend workshops and agree with theories?

If the goal is to see the non dual or have a non dual experience where the person actually becomes a totally different person… maybe jump a level or a tier … permanently… then reading theories can only get you so far… and no further… it seems to me…

I don't know for sure… but one book I started reading and bingo… I was sent into non dual with full force with amazing clarity and I don't know how or what happened or why… weeks later I went back and read more and of course it did not happen again… but I don't know how the transformation took place, but now I SEE … so, so, so much more, in everything… in day to day experiences, I have to say I'm not the same person because of that one non dual explosion in my being…

… but the truth is… I'm clueless how it happened … (or I would bottle it and make a milion - or at least a few thousand… well, maybe a hundred.,…)

peace and joy

brother

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

The goal I think is very hard to cognize. I can't help but feel much as you expressed that the words all sort fall short of the description. But I believe it is extremely important that when the individual has the nondual experience that there is a philosophical model for the waking mind to begin and articulate its experience as you did. Every time I have had a nondual experience, I can recall feeling as if there where no longer any unknown or unanswered questions, that unfortunately is lost after some time out of that state and all we are left with is the dim memory that we once felt in a way that we will describe based on our paradigms. The state in of its self with no paradigm to rationalize it often leaves people with unsorted memories that prevent transformation.

The goal I believe will always allude us when we are out of the nondual state in much the same way that thinking about what happens after light speed often leaves us with more speculation then answers, because all that we experience is contained with the speed of light. The same with transformation it is a process of means to an ends that is in and of its self some what unperceivable. On a personal level I resonate with the idea that God is just getting to know itself and this entire process is the singularity of that ends.

Namaste

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

I agree with you Drake (and Wilber) that a spiritual experience (and a non-dual) can give us glimpses, but then we go back to the level of ego. A lot of people have experienced incredible spiritual experiences, and then it has faded out! And some become even dangerous, by the way, 'cause they believe they've attained something!

But as Earthenergy is saying, what to do with these experiences? To have a model, a vision, in order to integrate them when we're back from the experience to our old self seems important.

It reminds me of Ramakrishna. He had a lot of crazy spiritual experiences and he often wondered if he was crazy or not. He benefited from people around him who could tell him that the experience he lived were recorded in some book.

Salutations and lots of non-dual experience to you all,

- except for our egos who don't like that so much -

Patrick

Re: What is the goal of Transformation?

I agree with you all too about the fading of the experience, etc… don't know but maybe it just knocks us or our waking egos somehow that we now do behave a bit differently… have to be humbling… no longer can one be so arrogant when in a whiff all control or everything we knew is … different, eh?