THE TOOLS OF TRANSFORMATION illustrate the lush matrix of the Lace of Life. They weave multiple layers over and within themselves, becoming thick, intricate, and too complicated for the human mind to completely comprehend, for
EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
- NOTHING IS SEPARATE
- EVERY STRAND IS ATTACHED TO ALL STRANDS
- ALL MATTER AND ENERGY EVOLVE AS ONE THING
READ IT AGAIN
LET IT SINK IN
With conscious, volitional work, the transformation of a personality occurs as all physical and mental elements simultaneously redefine their content and redesign their relationship. The whole of the practitioner undergoes a natural metamorphosis and manifests in the world as a different person. You will change. Your perspective on the world will change. Your friends, relationships, and family will change with you, or disappear, so great is your work. After all, we’re talking Transformation. That’s what you want. Expect no less.
Spiritual evolution is accelerated by conscious personality transformation. As all technological fields have their special implements, so Transformation has highly individualized tools. That’s why KNOW THYSELF has been taught for millennia. It’s the key to the tool box. Look in the mirror and see the main tool: your physical body. Think about your reflection, and you’ve used the other tool: your consciousness. The Mystery of Ageless Wisdom is hidden in full sight.
THE TOOL BOX
I. BODY-- Humans have 5 bodies.- A. Dense Physical Body -- viewed in the mirror
B. Etheric Physical body -- seen as an aura
C. Emotional/astral Physical Body -- felt as joy/sorrow
D. Mental Body -- experienced as thoughts and images
E. Spiritual body -- witnessed by the electrically beating heart
- A. Unconscious -- animal instinct
B. Self-Conscious -- awareness of being separate from others
C. Sub-Conscious -- local and universal memory
D. Super-Conscious -- Higher Self guiding consciousness and body
E. Supra-Conscious -- that which is ALL and becoming more
Without a dense physical body there would be no human personality with cultural, emotional and biological uniqueness that expands universal consciousness when the Life Force withdraws from the physical vehicle. The body is the unique container constructed by the Monad, the Higher Mental Body, and Spiritual Body to receive a specific Soul -- which begins an incarnate life cycle.
From the Spirit’s careful preparation grows:
- 1) A unique set of personal Sub-Conscious memories (life experiences), designed to accomplish specific purposes in soul growth -- which combine with and contribute to the already in-place-at-birth universal Sub-Conscious memories.
2) A unique Self-Consciousness of individual traits and characteristics intentionally shaped by heredity, environment, culture, nationality, race, parentage and siblings in order to accomplish Spirit’s specific purposes in soul growth.
3) A unique Unconscious -- an automatic and chemically driven mechanism for managing the physical body, its health and dis-ease balance and its vitality, including its drives for survival and procreation, in order to accomplish Spirit’s specific purposes in soul growth.
One bald-faced Truth is that every flesh body is a chemical factory. The chemicals are produced by emotional states of being from the Emotional Body. Emotional states of being are produced by mental interpretations from the Mental Body -- which are based on immature reasoning and pleasure/pain evaluations of external circumstances.
The Great Work is to train the Mental Body to balance the Emotional Body so that no unnecessary chemical toxins are released into the cellular tissue. By aligning interpretations with factual reality, thus minimizing emotional chemical discharges, we keep the physical body "clear" for the finer spiritual essences (Fire Within) to shine out and exert ever greater mastery over the physical chemical factory.
Thus, we become vehicles bringing more Light into the world, literally2. As long as our cells are chemically clogged with the emotional residue of anger, fear, guilt, greed, material attachment, gluttony, physical and psychic trauma, etc., we remain dense, dark, and controlled by our animal nature unconscious. The Great Work begins with the purely volitional MENTAL activity which clears the cells and restores chemical balance to the flesh body. In other words: MAN, KNOW THYSELF3.
I. THE CHARACTERISTICS AND FUNCTIONS OF THE BODIES
A. DENSE PHYSICAL BODY
The Dense Physical Body of flesh is the animal body through which the lower nature un-conscious reacts to 5 sense stimuli with chemical discharges. This sensual body is the source of our animal desires and serves to perpetuate the species. We are all aware of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures, and how we can’t seem to get enough of certain sensations. Un-mastered, the dense-physical-body-unconscious dictates our thoughts, words, and actions, thereby dominating our lives to acquire more sensation. Deceived by our lust for sensation, we think WE make the decision to have another chocolate candy -- the great deceiver indeed. We are the enemy. But all is far from lost. This physical body is the Sacred Temple in and through which the Holy Spirit works, being the residence and vehicle for emotions, thoughts, opinions, reasoning, compassion, imagination, and all levels of Mind.TRANSFORMATION FUNCTION: The dense physical body is the vehicle through which Soul enters into self-awareness by appearing to be separate. It is the vehicle through which all psychic and spiritual phenomena are perceived, contemplated, and integrated for spiritual growth. Performing physical acts of devotion, study, meditation, interior ritual, mantra, ceremonial ritual, yoga postures, or any other physical practices presented by a transformation system, is the beginning of mastering the physical body. As the physical is mastered, the personality transforms. As the personality transforms, the spirit transcends. The beginning of all transformation starts with the body -- whether forcing it to rise daily at 3 a.m. to meditate; or making it attend Mass seven times a week; or insisting it chant permutations of the Tetragrammaton for 24 hours; or daily prostrating oneself before the altar -- physical training is a necessary process of all transformation systems.
B. ETHERIC PHYSICAL BODY
The Etheric Physical Body is: 1) an electromagnetic web of energetic forces encapsulating the flesh body. It is the energetic skeleton, or pattern, through and around which energy congeals and finally precipitates our flesh into the dense form we see in the mirror and think we are. It penetrates and permeates the flesh, extending 3 to 4 inches beyond the body. 2) composed of multiple-layered etheric energies that cross and crisscross, swirling into vortices called chakras, or wheels of energy. These vortices draw energies from the air and the plasma-light of the sun, stepping them down and directing them into nerve plexus centers, lymph and endocrine glands. The energized nerves and glands then dump charged chemicals into the bloodstream and nervous system for distribution. The halo painted above the head of saints and angels represents the fully opened crown chakra. It is the most visible point of the electromagnetic aura, or Etheric Body, and can be photographed. Our nervous, endocrine, and circulatory systems are dense replicas of the etheric chakra system in the Etheric Body -- sometimes called the Etheric Double. We live and breathe and have our being as, basically, subtle electromagnetic entities.TRANSFORMATIONAL FUNCTION: The Etheric Physical Body is the vehicle through which we can direct energy to our endocrine and lymph glands in order to stimulate hormone production that triggers consciousness expansion. The Etheric Body is also the bridge over which we can direct subtle energy into the physical body to create chemicals that enable us to think, speak, act and heal. This body is composed of the matter that forms the Biblical "silver cord" connecting the human to the eternal Life Force. It is the "Golden Bowl" of Ecclesiastses.
C. EMOTIONAL / ASTRAL BODY
The Emotional/Astral Body is invisible to the eye but perceived by the Etheric Body and the Dense Physical Body as "feelings." We all have emotions, getting angry or happy or sad. That’s the Emotional Body reflecting energetic charges into the physical body. It creates chemical and hormonal surges which make the physical body respond to external perceptions4. We call the event an "emotional" reaction.When we walk into a room we "know" if there is highly charged emotion because our physical bodies react. Emotional intensity is carried through the air and is a higher vibrational electromagnetic force that science has yet to catalogue. However, the human skin, permeated by the Etheric Body and the Emotional Body, can detect the finer emotional-electrical transmissions.
The Emotional/Astral Body contains karmic residue from past and present life experiences. This is where our "ghosts" reside in the form of unexplained fears, angers, prejudices, passions, loves, and phobias. It is also called the Astral Body because it is invisible, as if it came from the stars, and it is etheric enough to be a bridge between our dense selves and the universe. Human emotions are capable of an energetic strength that will create astral forms, whether the individual is striving to create or not. These forms then go out into the universe. The great challenge of spiritual evolution is for humanity to gain mastery over the emotional/astral body.
TRANSFORMATIONAL FUNCTION: The Emotional/Astral Body is the vehicle we consciously manipulate to: 1) generate chemical/cellular desire for spiritual growth; 2) inject energy into Will and Volition for the purpose of discharging negative accumulations from the cells; 3) equilibrate the perception of external circumstances into detached observation; 4) monitor our progress toward detached objectivity and verify that spiritual growth is continuing -- which reinforces our will to continue on the path5.
D. MENTAL BODY
The Mental Body consists of ideas, thoughts, information, imagination, language, reasoning, judgments, evaluations, opinions, the self-conscious mind, and all pre-verbal thinking. The higher aspect contains Human Will. The lower aspect is the storehouse of education, personal will, volition, and decision making. Energetic in nature, the Mental Body penetrates and permeates the Emotional and the Physical bodies, acting as a mediator.The Higher Mental Body contains the higher abstract concepts of Truth and Justice, Wisdom and Understanding, and overlaps the Spiritual Body to become the conduit for higher guidance, sometimes called conscience -- not to be mistaken for the lower brain-mind that tends to inflict shame, guilt, and self-flagellation.
The Lower Mental Body contains the Self-Conscious aspect of being human and is the repository of language, logic, local memory, and self-consciousness. This is the seat of the "I" that we think we are -- because we don’t perceive our being as extending beyond the veil of the five senses.
TRANSFORMATIONAL FUNCTION: The Mental Body is the vehicle we use to expand consciousness by studying, learning, contemplating circumstances, reasoning to make choices, and taking organized volitional actions. It can filter out emotional bias and construct detached reasoning. It is the tool we use to make our other bodies cooperate in carrying out the personal will. It is the workhorse of transformation. Spiritual Desire comes into our consciousness through the Higher Mental Body, experienced as a longing for something more than the material world provides, often manifesting as dissatisfaction with life circumstances. That dissatisfaction serves as a brick wall to teach us and guide us.
EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
- NOTHING IS SEPARATE
- EVERY STRAND IS ATTACHED TO ALL STRANDS
- ALL MATTER AND ENERGY EVOLVES AS ONE THING
LET IT SINK IN
E. SPIRITUAL BODY
Before incarnating, the Spiritual Body: 1) designs the pattern which the next life will follow; 2) decides what more the soul needs to learn in order to grow; and 3) lines up experiences, from family-of-origin to death, to accomplish specific goals. No accidents6.The Spiritual Body contains abstractions of ethics, morality, ideals, archetypes, wisdom, understanding, Spiritual Will, and has a Higher and a Lower aspect. The Higher Spiritual aspect contains universal ethics by which all humans may live in peace. It touches the Spiritual Will which has its roots in the Supra-Conscious Mind. It is the body through which God Consciousness can be realized. The Lower Spiritual aspect overlaps with the Higher Mental Body and contains ideological archetypes that precipitate into personality, forming ideas and shaping opinions that manifest specific behaviors.
TRANSFORMATION FUNCTION: The Lower Spiritual Body responds to sincere human longing and prayer, ritual invocation, or deep meditation. It sends a degree of Spiritual Will into the lower bodies to assist in accomplishing physical/spiritual work. When a human’s conscious spiritual work has prepared the several bodies and consciousnesses, the Higher Spiritual Body is able to descend "into" and "drive" the physical vehicle. Conscious communication with the Higher Spiritual Body is an early object of transformation. Surrendering and "getting out of the way" allows the descent of the Higher Spiritual Body into the physical form, but no amount of mental "surrender" is sufficient without "purifying" and preparing the Etheric and flesh bodies.
II. THE CHARACTERISTICS AND FUNCTIONS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Consciousness is in all things. Given that The One is Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient, the universe can not be otherwise than conscious. As we can understand it, "consciousness" exists on a sliding scale from the indescribably small conscious spark of the electron, to the indescribably large conscious light-matrix of the cosmos. Each form of consciousness is also a form of intelligence, though not the same as we think of intelligence. Human beings possess a Self-Consciousness, which often makes us think our intelligence is the only kind in the universe. The object of The Great Work is to expand and modify our self-consciousness to include and understand the entire cosmic range of consciousness and intellgence -- sometimes called MIND.
To know ourselves, we must delve into those hidden areas of our psyches -- which are in touch with the greater consciousness available -- and learn how to use the power concealed therein.
A. THE UN-CONSCIOUS MIND
The Un-Conscious Mind is parallel to the Autonomic Nervous System and controls body functions such as heartbeat, breathing, swallowing, childbirth, perspiring, hair growth, and hormone production. It is in charge of instinctual survival of the species and acts on the physical animal body. It monitors the well-being of our Physical Body and uses the Emotional Body to signal danger, fear, joy, anger, rejection, frustration, love, hate, etc, to the Self-Conscious. Once the un-conscious triggers the emotion, the self-conscious registers and REFLEXIVELY acts to protect the organism. The automatic, unreasoning panic of the unconscious mind releases adrenaline and chemicals of fear, anger, love, danger, tenderness into the blood, then into the cells, where they stay as cellular memory. So, below the level of awareness, the human being lives with low-level fear -- as well as the fear from past lives -- if the cellular chemicals are more negative than positive.Immature reflex actions imprinted during childhood, no longer appropriate to the adult, need to be transmuted into mature reasoned RESPONSE. Instinctual drives of the Life force are often spent on self-gratification rather than spiritual growth, hence the necessity of recognition and rational mastery over the sensual desire nature -- a major step in accomplishing Union with the One.
TRANSFORMATION FUNCTION: The Un-conscious mind is necessary for survival of the physical organism and maintenance of the Temple. It also serves as a hurdle to train the Self-Conscious in the art of mastery over the interior fearful child, over 5 sense addiction, and over excessive emotions. Increasing mastery is measured as the human gains poise in the face of danger, maintains reason when all about are scatter-brained, and makes wise decisions during times of intense stress or desire.
B. THE SELF-CONSCIOUS MIND
The Self-Conscious Mind is parallel to the Peripheral Nervous System, which moves muscles and bones when we make any voluntary body movement. The Self-Conscious is that part of our mind where we think, reason, interpret experiences, and make right/wrong/good/bad evaluations. It is the vessel that receives intuition from super-conscious via the sub-conscious. Here we focus, learn, concentrate, have local memory, and make decisions based on cultural ethics and past experience.Self-Consciousness is aware of the environment and objects separate from the body. It is that which enables us to say: MY hair, MY eyes, MY hands. It is the awareness of a self residing within and possessing a body. This self uses volition to move the body through space. It is also called the lower self, the ego7, and the personality.
Self-Conscious overlaps both the Emotional and Mental Bodies and receives the emotions surging through the body, as well as receiving thoughts generated by the Mental Body. The Self-Conscious has a lower aspect which can twist fact into fiction, form unfounded opinions, and jump to irrational conclusions. It strives to gratify the 5 senses by acquiring material goods. Driven by the Unconscious, it is competitive, striving to be triumph over other human beings.
The Self-Conscious’ Higher Aspect, called Intuition or True Conscience, knows how to think, speak, and act in order to attain spiritual growth. It is "heard" as a gentle reminder, not a harsh condemnation. Our Self-Conscious is the location of Human Will (different from spiritual will) which manifests as voluntary action. It is capable of extended attention, intense focus, objective discrimination, and making emotionally detached decisions.
TRANSFORMATIONAL FUNCTION: The Self-Conscious is trained in focus and concentration and then used to generate thought-forms and visualizations, which are viable energetic creations with density and porosity and dimension. Its Human Will aspect is used to take action toward spiritual growth by responding to the Reason aspect which discriminates between fact and fiction: an effort toward becoming an objective, detached observer. It is used to send suggestions, plant seed ideas, and make requests to the Sub-Conscious. Accurately phrasing questions, precisely composing requests, and monitoring the automatic mantras (positive and negative) we chant about ourselves is crucial to transforming personality. The Self-Conscious can be trained to submit to Logic and Reason all incoming events and respond in a calm, rational manner. It can be used to lift and transmute the lower nature desire into higher desire for spiritual growth. The Great Work begins in the Self-Conscious Mind with recognizing the need, invoking the volition, and taking the actions.
C. SUB-CONSCIOUS MIND
The Sub-Conscious Mind has two aspects: a personal and a collective. The personal sub-conscious houses all the memory of the individual’s personal history of this lifetime. The collective sub-conscious houses Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious, which is a consciousness containing the memory of everything since the Beginning, including all past lives of the individual soul and all other souls.The Sub-Conscious is an objective, detached, receptive container for everything that has ever been, for all of time. The Sub-Conscious receives imagined symbols, created images, and suggestions from Self-Consciousness below, and passes them on to Super-Consciousness above - and Vice Versa.
The Sub-Conscious is a deductive reasoning machine without discrimination. It draws conclusions in a classic syllogistic manner, and acts upon the conclusion -- but it has no ability to judge the accuracy of the original premise in the syllogism. Our childhood experiences can thus run our adult lives.
Sub-Conscious stores the Mental Body’s interpretations (accurate or inaccurate) of our emotions and reactions to external events, as well as our actions and decisions. It stores affirmations, denials, negative attitudes, opinions, experiences and guilt -- all of which may be skewed by pain or emotion, filtered through emotionally interpreted events, and influenced by immature or ignorant choices. The Sub-Conscious acts on all it holds without making any judgment or evaluation, as if every thought, action, and feeling were 100% accurate and aligned with manifested reality.
TRANSFORMATIONAL FUNCTION: The Sub-Conscious can be used to convey messages back and forth between the Self-Conscious and the Super-Conscious, which energetically allows the organism to consciously think, say, and do the "Will of God." The Sub- Conscious can be instructed to listen only to the Higher Self, and take no actions on thoughts from the Self-Conscious or Ego. The Sub-Conscious must be cleared, balanced, and aligned with reality as the first step in personality transformation. Otherwise, the "Will of God" received through the Sub-Conscious will be emotional, faulty, misleading, and contaminated with lower nature personalty desires. Coupled with an untrained Self-Conscious, a contaminated Sub-Conscious can lead to mass destruction in the name of God.
D. SUPER-CONSCIOUS MIND
The Super-Conscious Mind is the consciousness of the Monad individuated from The Limitless Light, as a drop of rain individuates from a cloud. Sometimes called Soul, sometimes called ego, it is part of the Higher spiritual body and transmutes the abstract Supra-Conscious vibrations into more distinct Divine Will, Life Force, and Truth of Unity so that the Sub-Conscious, when ASKED by the Self-Conscious, can convey the information via symbols and images. It is the channel of Life Force from above, the seat of Abstract Creative Imagination on the way to manifestation, the foundation of Intuition, and the projector of Vision and Prophecy.The Super-Conscious is the seat of Inspiration, Revelation, and the "voice" of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is the psychological realm sometimes called Self-Realization. It directs our actions and the circumstances in our lives to further our spiritual evolution, carrying out the Primal Will to Good, whether we like it or not, whether we recognize it or not.
TRANSFORMATIONAL FUNCTION: We do not use the Super-Conscious. It uses us. Contact with it, then merging with it is the goal of personality transformation. When our other bodies and consciousness levels are clear enough, when our intentions and motivations are pure enough, the Super-Conscious is able to come through into brain-awareness and continue our personal transformation on a self-conscious level, as well as more effectively further the spiritual evolution of all humanity, since we are all One Thing. We are vessels being used by The One, but we suffer painful times in surrendering our sense of separate self and finally accepting that we are only individual expressions of The One. Ageless Wisdom calls our suffering "The Mystery of the Crucifixion" because each individual must sacrifice all conviction that they do anything of themselves, acknowledging that The One is the only actor on the stage, is the stage, and is the audience.
E. SUPRA-CONSCIOUS MIND
The Supra-Conscious mind is the human being’s True Self and the realm of Spirit, Bliss, Nirvana, Samahdi, God-realization, Unity, and At-one-ment. It is the Mind of God that holds the machinery of the universe in manifestation. It is The Limitless Light, The One Thing, the Ain Soph Aur behind all manifestation. It is All-That-Is, often called Spirit and named Supramental Consciousness by Sri Aurobindo. From it flows the incomprehensible abstractions that become indescribable archetypes that eventually issue into form and become everything that is. It is the Throne of Revelation and Inspiration and Divine Will, which issue forth at the level of Super-Conscious, are stepped down into Sub-Conscious and materialize in Self-Conscious as the Desire-to-Create. Its power and energy is, literally and figuratively, Everything.TRANSFORMATIONAL FUNCTION: SUPRA-CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE ORIGINATION OF OUR DESIRE FOR TRANSFORMATION. Supra-Consciousness is THAT which we wish to Know. It is the Unspeakable. The Unknowable. The Ineffable. It is the "face of God" we cannot look upon and remain in a flesh body. Supra-Consciousness is using us to gain sensory experience by creating us with an incessant desire to create. Thus the Hermetic Axiom "As it is above, so it is below; as it is Below so it is Above." The human being (Microcosm) by the very nature and working of Mind, is constantly creating -- as is Cosmos (Macrocosm) constantly creating by its very nature. Human "Thoughts" are creations that manifest as chocolate cakes or babies or computers or bombs or skyscrapers. Humans can’t stop thinking, no matter what. Try to stop thinking and watch yourself think, judge, and determine that you’ve stopped thinking. By "our" creations the Supra-Conscious "grows" itself and continues to expand the Cosmos. And Supra-Consciousness is All That Is. Ponder the riddle.
EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
- NOTHING IS SEPARATE
- EVERY STRAND IS ATTACHED TO ALL STRANDS
- ALL MATTER AND ENERGY EVOLVES AS ONE THING
LET IT SINK IN
The levels of human consciousness are intimately interconnected and completely interpenetrate the heavier electromagnetic bodies, finally condensing to form flesh, blood, bone, and other densities within the spectrum of our five senses. The connections exist in multiple dimensions, or planes, or altered states of consciousness which interact simultaneously with alternate dimensions of body, then overlap several degrees with different states of consciousness. Visualize the image of 32 points on a 5 dimensional hypercube interlocking with multiple twin hypercubes.
- Not possible? Well.
How about using a popular mystery to illustrate:
THE THREE ARE ONE THING EMBODIED IN THE SON
BOTTOM LINE: As the Son, we embody the Mother and the Father and use the innate Fire Within to realize transformation. The hidden secret, the mystery in plain sight, is that we already contain Divinity. We simply need to become mechanics and use the tools to give ourselves an attitude adjustment.