The Context of Transformation

Timothy Hellner

The Shaman, mythologically, is torn into pieces by a higher power. This dismemberment is a process on the spiritual journey which leads eventually to transfiguration and wholeness.

This is reflected in many ancient spiritual traditions. For example, there is the Egyptian myth about Osiris, a symbol of death and resurrection. Osiris is killed by Set, his brother, and Set severs the body of his brother into 14 pieces which he then distributes throughout the world. Isis, the Divine Mother, and the wife of Osiris, journeys through the world to locate the pieces. She wraps them together in swaths of linen, and Osiris, through the process of resurrection is transformed into a new transfigured being.

What is this seemingly destructive process in which the the spiritual practitioner is torn apart? This image carries with it a tremendous sense of suffering. It gives the impression that the human being is a plaything of the gods. On a seemingly lesser level, in the experience of ordinary life, we are often tempted to ask, “Why, my God, must I suffer this?” The divine appears to me to be unloving in such a moment. Why must l be torn to pieces as part of the process of transformation?

   "The Wings Of Icarus Drop Away" 
     Painting in Oil.
     Timothy J. Hellner © 2012
     All Rights Reserved.

I suggest that identified, as we are, with our limited personalities, we are already fragmented. We are so divided in ourselves that we rarely experience union and wholeness except in those unique instances in which we truly give ourselves over in love—to another blessed human being, to the deep need of our neighbor, or to the Divine, itself.

When I truly come into the proximity of Higher Being, I see myself as I have been — fragmentary! I experience being torn apart, because I am already torn apart. The recognition of my identification with these partial and divided aspects of the self is excruciating — not because God demands more pain of me, but because holding these aspects apart in a state of disunion can only be done in an environment of fear, suffering, and limitation. When I truly see this fragmentation it hurts to the core because I have been living in, and holding myself in a state of painful separation from the recognition of my true nature and true Being.

When the recognition, truly “re-cognition”, occurs. One’s “Eye becomes Single.” One becomes transfigured, no longer fragmented, and no longer in a state of self-induced pain. The suffering that I have experienced in keeping my disparate parts compartmentalized is obliterated. I am not torn apart by the Divine. I am allowed to see, at last, that I had torn myself apart, and that all divisiveness is illusory. I find myself transformed in the recognition of Who I Am.

The Persona

Timothy Hellner



“Were human nature without any inherent goodness, the cardinal virtues, as perfections of natural inclinations, could not exist. If such were the case, no one without grace, and thus no one without faith, could act in any way virtuously.”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae


“Man is a machine.”

— P. D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Way

I have an on-going conversation with a very close friend about the inherent goodness of the individual human being. A very good man, in my estimation, he insists that human nature is fundamentally flawed. I, on the other hand, feel that human nature in its essence is fundamentally good.

I suspect that we will end our days without bringing this conversation to a satisfactory resolution. One day, he wrote:

“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.” —Alexander Hamilton

Thus my belief that we are not born inherently good, my friend….

My reply:

Here’s how I see it. The ego structure, which is a coping mechanism, can be conceptualized as a kind of “false” self. This “self” is the conventionally-arising social personality. 

This social personality is not whole, it is only part of the psyche, and its perception and interpretation of life is incomplete and limited. I find it educative to remember that the Greek word “persona”, literally, means “mask”. The “mask” is an interesting image in the collective psyche, at this time, particularly at what is clearly an extraordinary turning point, don’t you think?

It is my social personality which needs to be directed and controlled, first and foremost, by myself when I am in my right mind, and by the collective personality when I am not. Nevertheless, the emphasis has to be on self-direction, not that dictated by society, which can only be as wise and as virtuous as the sum total of the myriad “false” selves. However virtuous the collective rational mind is on the surface, if the heart is not sufficiently in attunement with the true nature of the human being, it’s natural goodness— its  deep conscience—efforts towards virtuous behavior will be spotty and incomplete. This is the dilemma.

The overlay of the social personality, the social mask, nevertheless, does not vanquish the inherent goodness of the soul. Regrettably, this remains for most people in the unconscious depths, and it is realized in the world only if an individual, not the persona, but a partially-awakened individual takes the deep plunge into realization. This does not happen without persistent self-effort. When we make the conscious effort, then grace is able to enter and assists the process.

Sedation

Timothy Hellner

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

― William Shakespeare 
The Tempest

Incessant mental activity is a form of sedation, and so is repetitive emotional projection—not merely addiction to pharmaceuticals or intoxicants, or to sexual obsession.  This includes, also, self-limiting, deeply-engrained habits of perception. Each of these is a form of sleep.

We sedate ourselves so as to not be present to the moment and to the causal tendencies that rule our mechanical lives.

A Man And His Cat

Timothy Hellner

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.“

—Rumi

One of my dearest friends and I were heading to the Art Institute of Chicago, when we came upon a homeless man who was camped out on the sidewalk up against a corner building on busy Adams St. I had noticed his belongings the day before: a thin, narrow mattress, with a sheet and blanket tucked in, and kitty toys strewn all over it. There was a litter box next to it, a food bowl and a water bowl, and some other personal items. The man was petting a tiny, somewhat emaciated, grey and white kitten who was flattened out in the sun on the sidewalk, and wearing a tiny halter on a leash. She was clearly luxuriating under the gentle attentions of her human. The man was not particularly disheveled, although he’d clearly been living in the open for a time. His clothing appeared to be clean, and he was ponytailed and lightly-bearded, perhaps in his early 40’s. He was completely devoted to his little cat.

I asked him about this interesting arrangement, and he told me that he tidied up every morning at 5:30, and that people were accepting of his being there. He explained that he lived and slept on that corner. He continued to softly stroke his kitten, love palpably radiating off of each of them, and he assured me, “She’s the best thing!”

This served as a teaching for me. I recognized, as I have many times before, that, wherever love arises, a portal to the Divine is opened. It is a common mantra in neuroscience, today, that “Where the attention goes, the energy flows!” The spiritually inclined, seek incessantly for a way to the Ineffable. Yet, any given thing in one’s experience is capable of taking on the sacred bhava, or aspect, of a sacramental which leads one there.

The Survival of the Self

Timothy Hellner

Fire does not burn it, water does not make it wet, and the wind does not make it dry. The Spirit cannot be cut, burned, wet, or dried. It is eternal, all-pervading, changeless, immovable, and primeval. Atman is beyond space and time.

–Bhagavad-Gita

A deeply thoughtful, inquisitive friend sent me this excerpt from Einstein’s “What I Believe”:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.

“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own – a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.”

Einstein says this very beautifully, with exceptional candor, and I have no difficulty in feeling sympathy for the first paragraph and, also, for his assessment of a “judgmental god” in the second. As for the second part of the second paragraph, in which he refers to the soul’s annihilation, he assumes the ego, a social convention, to be the self. Here, I feel, he succumbs to a conventual bias.

As the Yogic and the Sankhya1 traditions affirm we do have an individuality, developed over time, perhaps developed over vast cycles of time, which survives the inevitable exhaustion of the ego, but which still exists non-materially and is our access to the deepest reality of the Self which is the “Pure Awareness” that Rupert speaks of and which mesmerizes each of us. This individuality may be characterised as a small “s” self, but “self” it is, and it connects to and is enlivened by the Spirit (Purusha), which is that Pure Awareness.

This is why Rupert Spira is vindicated in making the following, and similar, statements:

“It is our Self, luminous, open, empty Awareness, which gives experience its unmistakable reality. What we truly know and love in all experience is the reality of Awareness. It is that alone for which the apparently separate self longs.”

So, our individual experience does share in reality. Experience is not an illusion—our egoic interpretation is. The interpretation and the perception which is based on this is Maya. We are real, but it is important to know that the ego, simply a means for interacting with a so-called “separate” world, is not. Subsequently, we are capable of interacting in the real world, out of our individuality, the deeper self, with love, generosity and compassion. This does have meaningful consequences, drawing the world and our individual (not separate, but indistinguishably united) selves, ever-closer to the deepest Self, the creative awareness that—investing its very being—encompasses, truly embodies, and enlivens all things

The Three Natures

Timothy Hellner

How can the world function on a collective level when humans act only out a part of themselves?

“The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living” –Socrates

   "The Three Natures" 
     Ink and wash drawing.
     Karen G. James © 2012
     All Rights Reserved.

The Dangers of Partial Awareness and How to Move Toward Wholeness

The recognition of three human natures can be traced back 2500 years to Socrates who said that we have three fundamental faculties: intellectual, emotional and instinctual.  Rarely do these interact in a balanced way in the present moment. In fact, it is usual that one of these dominates over the other two. Subsequently, out of habit, we tend to view our life experience through this single filter.

It is necessary to harmonize the intellectual, the emotional, and the sensory faculties in order to emerge from sleep and in order to have even a moment of true consciousness. There is a presence, a larger presence, that permeates every moment.  It takes dedicated practice to establish such an awareness.  

When we act out of only one human faculty we are not in balance, and we are only partially aware.

Insights and points for reflection:

Are you intellectually centered?
Are you emotionally centered?
Are you physically, or instinctively, centered?
What are your strengths?
What are your limitations?

Life is Like a Jazz Piece

Timothy Hellner

Have you ever had a true meeting, perhaps with a mysterious stranger who left you with a spiritual message that has stayed with you throughout your life.

“Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”  – Miles Davis

​Jazz is all about improvisation. Nevertheless, a jazz musician always returns to what is called the base line. You can improvise all around the base line, but you must always return to it.

Is this not what the spiritual path is about?

One’s Sādhanā, or spiritual journey, is concerned with the return to the One, the Ground of Being. This reflection provides us with a profound sense of what free will is. We have the freedom to go off in any direction, and we can riff all we may wish. Nevertheless, in order to be an accomplished musician in life, we must continue to return to the base line. Otherwise,we will find ourselves to be without direction.

Free will allows us to move away from the trajectory of our soul, but we must eventually return to the base line.

What is this base line? I feel that this is the movement of the soul along its divine trajectory. Do you feel you’ve lost a sense of your life’s trajectory?

“Life is Like a Jazz Piece”

POINTS FOR REFLECTION

1) Are you entirely certain that we exercise free will? 

2) Do you believe that the totality of past events inevitably causes what occurs in the present moment?

​3) Is there such a thing as inevitability? Given that most behavior is not mindful, can we reasonably speak of freedom?

4) On the other hand, can you imagine the sheer freedom of experiencing the soul’s movement along its divine trajectory?

The Infinitude of Being

Timothy Hellner

“All those moments will be lost, like tears in rain….”
        from “Blade Runner”        

​“The moment is not properly an atom of time but an atom of eternity.”
         Søren Kierkegaard

The present moment is both discrete and fleeting–timeless and transitory.
How are we to make sense of this dichotomy?

Points for reflection:
​
Where is permanence to be found
when time slips through our fingers?

What in our experience is lasting?

​Is it possible to find stability in instability–
certainty in uncertainty? 

Spiritual Light

Timothy Hellner
“Spiritual Light”

Here is a discussion of the Spiritual Light that is ever-present and can be perceived, palpably. I mention some ways in which  this light can be sensed and how unmindfulness may block this light.  

Visible light is a symbol of the spiritual light that is an intrinsic aspect of our awareness. This is my inner experience and I feel passionate about it, for living in this light transforms the negative into the positive.

​I hope that you will find this brief talk to be edifying.

The True Meaning of Māyā

Timothy Hellner

“Grace Now Falls Unknown Upon Us,  
G Major, Maestoso e Grandioso”
Copyright © 2020 George Mohr

Mā , the Sanskrit root of the term, “Māyā “, means, first and foremost, “to measure”, and it has secondary meanings of “to make, produce, create.” The secondary meanings have been something of a bafflement to Sanskrit scholars because it has not always been clear, apparently, that measurement should give rise to manifestation.

I am reminded of Joseph Campbell’s reference to the etymology of Māyā  in The Mythic Image in which he states that “mā-“ means “to measure or to compare”. Since that reading, more than forty years ago, it has increasingly become clear to me that the arising of māyāic realms is due to the simple comparison of one thing to another. Out of this, the dualistic perception of an external universe, which is made up of discrete individual entities, becomes manifest. One thing which is not always grasped is that this applies not only to this familiar physical realm, but also, to the higher, subtle realms. In this, Creation in all of its variation emerges out of the unified field of undifferentiated pure Being.

To “take measure” of something gives it the status, and the perceived reality, of objective separated being.

Possible topic for discussion:
In the Christian tradition, this is the sin of Adam and Eve, expelled from the unified state (Eden) into one of discursiveness (the World), when they partook of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A Holographic Wholeness

Timothy Hellner

Here is a brief musing on the undifferentiated field of awareness.

What occurs when the Zen practitioner has a satori, or the yogin enters into the profound absorption of samadhi? Throughout the ages, great mystics have told us that in such instances the conditioned worldly state is overcome and that the illusion of Maya is dispelled.  Does the world then disappear?  Or does one enter into an apprehension of Reality that includes all that we experience?

The Freedom Of Having No Choice

Timothy Hellner
“Sufi Master Abdul Aziz”

A Sufi teaching tale expresses many levels of meaning, simultaneously.  Such a tale penetrates one’s mechanical nature, overwhelms one’s presumptions, and infiltrates one’s state of conventional sleep. 

​I find that, with exquisite precision, it is tailored exactly to my own state of being, and it shows me what I  need to work on, as well as, my further possibilities.

It is ruthless, in the way that truth is ruthless.  It does not equivocate, and lays open the present experience, as it is, without an overlay of interpretation and doubt.

A young man learns of a Sufi Master, a hermit who by reputation is a very wise person. He lives halfway up a mountain, and so the young man—who considers himself to be a very ardent seeker—takes the entire morning to climb up the mountain. He finds the Master sitting before the opening of his cave. The hermit is very cordial, and he and invites him into his home.

The young man has many questions, and the teacher answers each one with grace and simplicity. Finally, the young man is about to take his leave—it is a long way back down the mountain!—and he says to the Master, “I really do not know if I can choose you as my teacher, or not.”

The Master regards the younger person before him, rather wistfully, and replies, “Ah…if you only knew the freedom of having no choice!”

 

POINTS FOR REFLECTION

1) Is there a paradox here?  Is it possible that the ego, with its limited view, finds the soul’s choices paradoxical?

2) What does this imply for my ordinary view of the world?

​3) Am I able to accept that whatever is happening in the present moment is precisely what is required for the growth of the soul?  

4) Am I able to imagine the sheer freedom of experiencing the soul’s movement along its divine trajectory?