New Self

Sunday I talked about releasing the Past so it doesn't hold you back.  This sounds like a wonderful experience, but it is also somewhat frightening, one that we resist in subtle ways.  Transformation of Self (who we experience ourselves to be) is a major part of spiritual awakening.  However, no matter how limiting it is the old self is comforting and gives us the illusion of security.  We let go (forgive) so that we can be free to have new good come into our lives.  Releasing in order to get new toys or opportunities is exciting & fun.  However, real release means that we must become a new person.  Prayer isn't just about getting new things.  It is about Being a New Person so we can naturally draw a new state of life around us.  Jesus covered this in the "don't put a new patch on an old garment" analogy.

Self transformation can come dramatically or subtly.  Each path has its own challenges.  I remember one of the most dramatic & traumatic transformations I went through.  A little over 30 years ago, I returned to Florida from a devastating 8 months in Colorado that had changed me so dramatically that I mourned the death of who I was before and was still trying to adjust to who I was then.  I marveled that others around me looked at me as if I were that same person I had been before.  To me the change was so severe and dramatic that I could not understand how everyone around me still thought me much the same person.  This of course led to dramatic changes is my outer life over the next couple years and a whole new life evolved.  In this transformation many years ago, the challenge was fielding the trauma of the change in self concept.

More recently I am struck by the challenge of praying for change, but having it come so subtly that we miss it.  If you remain unaware, the past will often supply memory of who you were, and even drown out the current transformation.  If we keep running on cruise control, we can fail to claim the gift of self-transformation.

I have a rather long affirmation that I've used for more than three years now.  It includes many areas of my life that I would like to see evolve.  But I have noticed that I have become so accustomed to praying for something down the road, that I sometimes don't notice that I have changed and I should start conducting my life to access this change.  In one area in particular in the last couple days I have realized that I am so used to this being a goal that I have failed to notice that it really has become a quality of my present experience.  I am still making my decisions on the past memories of my experience and not on what that experience has transformed to become.  It's time to let go of the past and embrace the change - a change that has evolved so naturally and subtly that I have observed, but not really noticed it.

My reactions to things have altered, so subtly that I have failed to pay much attention in a number of areas.  In some areas when I asked myself what I feel about this area, I get a blank.  So the natural tendency is to slip in the memory pattern that fits the situation, rather than explore the blank and see what is evolving.  The Past is only good for reference.  If you let it into the present you will stagnate and stagnation is destructive to life.

So my advice is this.  If you are on the spiritual path at all, you are changing - you are in a constant state of transformation (not just in world around you or what your life looks like, but transformation in "who you are").  Past experience is truly useful to draw upon while facing your present.  But if it becomes too powerful in your life it initiates a downward spiral.  It's of note: you can't maintain the status quo.  You are either embracing who you are becoming or you are slipping into pain and disappointment as you try to maintain what has been and cannot remain the same.  It's all in motion.  It's an illusion to believe otherwise.  Keep vigilant as to who you are now.  Do not accept that you are who you were yesterday.  If you pay attention you may discover that what you have been praying for has already begun to change who you are.  Go with it!  The old self is constantly falling away and the New (higher) Self is constantly rising to take its place.  Never condemn yourself to being who you have been.