The Challenge of Change.

One of the tenants of the wisdom tradition affirms that change is necessary if we are to evolve. HP Blavatsky, the founder of the Theosophical Society says: The main cause of pain lies in our perpetually seeking the permanent in the impermanent, and not only seeking, but acting as if we had already found the unchangeable in a world of which the one certain quality we can predicate is constant change; and always, just as we fancy we have taken a firm hold upon the permanent, it changes within our very grasp, and pain results.i Is it that pain comes from change or our resistant to change? Have you ever noticed that when you get comfortable in life, something happens to turn your life upside down, creating a challenge which stretches you to learn a new lesson. We might resist it, ignore it or even run away from it but it will always catch up with us and eventually we will have to work through the pain. Is there really pain at all? Have you ever tried to let the pain go, stop resisting and notice how it disappears? Just like in yoga, when you move into a difficult asana causing your muscles to stretch, you begin to feel pain as you go beyond your usual range of movement. Now if you relax and do not fight the pain it slowly disappears, you find you can stretch even further. Pain is often a warning to us that we have reached a limit, that we need to take a break, relax, and reflect before we go on. If we have a fear or phobia, the process is similar. If we open our awareness to what is happening in our bodies when the fear or phobia manifests, we will feel it somewhere in our muscles. If we breathe into it, relax and allow ourselves to release the muscle tension then the fear or phobia will often disappear. So perhaps pain is simply a resistance to change, to holding on to emotions, phobias or mental patterns which need to be challenged. The universe seems to present the challenge right at the time when it is most effective. Again, the idea of growth involves also the idea of disruption: the inner being must continually burst through its confining shell or encasement, and such a disruption must also be accompanied by pain, not physical but mental and intellectual.ii If we are to accept this, then pain would be welcomed with open arms, and perhaps for the enlightened it brings. One day we will all be at that level, when we can accept mental and intellectual pain as normal, simply as an indication that we are going through another day of our evolutionary school of learning. We need to learn the art of not resisting the pain but letting go of what causes it: our belief patterns, dogmatic viewpoints, cultural or social conditioning, which all limit our growth. Part of life's journey is to bring our life into line with our higher nature, the monad, to be one with this aspect of our spiritual essence. Until then pain in our lives helps us to correct ourselves, to slowly move back into the universal balance. An analogy to describe this might be as follows: Each of our lives is like a golden thread winding down from the eternal, through each 'realm of being' or 'plan of nature'. However as we have experienced many incarnations this golden thread has become frayed and damaged so much that we can no longer communicate clearly through this thread with our monad or spiritual essence. The pain we experience in life is that universal force which is trying to repair the frayed edges of our golden treads and eventually make it whole again. Ultimately we cannot stop this process of repair as it is the nature of our universe to constantly attempt to bring things back into balance. Challenges happen on all levels. Those who put their feet and intent squarely on the spiritual path, to hasten their evolution. The pain of course is more intense at first, until we have purified our golden thread. However, what happens when we join a group, or an organisation with likeminded people who have the same aspirations? This presents itself with great opportunities as we are able to share our experiences and through joint effort and companionship the pain is often emeliorated. Spending time with likeminded people is a great aid on our journey. We are lucky today that we have organisation like the Theosophical Society and the many other similar organisation that have come into being over the last 100 years. These can be a light on our paths but they also bring their own challenges with them. For example the Theosophical Society has at is first objects one of the highest ideals on the spiritual journey, “to form a nucleus of universal brotherhood” which is a reflection of the inner brotherhood we all aspire to become conscious of on our journey. Many of us might expect this is what we will find when we join the Theosophical Society and it is sometimes a surprise when we see otherwise. When we see members passionatly arguing different points of view regarding what is true or not we might question the organisation. The first object is not yet a reality within the organisation, rather it is an idea we all aspire to create, and like our own spiritual journey, when we join the Society and begin to work within it, then we will find ourselves challenged by the very ideals of 'spiritual brotherhood' that we aspire toward. We will be tested again and again until we are able to live this one ideal. This testing is very often through the process of pain. The wisdom tradition has some very clear tenets, but at the foundation of all of these is respect for all life (ahimsa). This is a quality the encompasses respect, honesty, right living, right thinking, non stealing (physically and mentally), non-violence in thought, words and actions and much more. The challenge is to live these in our own lives but also in the dealings we have with each other, through our Society, and especially so with respect of how we work together on committees and within other groups in our Society. It is when we begin to work together that we are often challenged the most as we stand up for what we think are the correct ideas, truths or impressions of what we do. Then we find someone else does not agree our point of view. We find their ideas, their truths and impressions of what id needed are not the same as ours. This creates a challenge and sometimes we have disagreements which begin to cause our group and ourselves pain. At times we find that groups form into factions and then challenge each other resulting in greater pain. What is really happening here is that we are holding onto the ideal we have created for ourselves. The concepts and doctrines which have become strong in our minds, so the universe send us someone with different views to challenge us. We might resist but the challenges will keep coming until we ;get it'. These situations are the real challenges on our spiritual journey. If, when we see the pain coming and recognise its association with some mental patterns we are holding, we let go, we are able to move through the pain to a new level of perception. It is not an easy process for we also have to develop discernment along the way. We have to learn when we are holding onto a fixed ideal which is not real or when we are holding onto a spiritual tenant which it is important to stand up for. All this might look disharmonious to an observer but in really it is part of the process encompassing personal development and eventually, brotherhood. A most important point is never to lose respect for one another and to be honest and above all to speak to each other with love and compassion in our hearts, in a kind and respectful manner. If we do otherwise the essential spiritual nature that has been created between each other is easily destroyed and the link of brotherhood is no more. So on the one hand, our own lives constantly present us with our personal challenges and on the other, our work through service or as members of an organisation such as our Society can present even greater challenges as we are given the opportunity to put into practice what we have learned. Through understanding the tenets of the wisdom tradition, such as respect for life, truthfulness, speaking kindly and honestly, living the right type of life, refraining from saying unkind words we will not cause any more frays to form along our golden thread and will eventually move through the pain barrier to reach a stage where nothing can any longer touch us or cause pain. This is when we know that our golden thread is once again beginning to come back together. In our own Society today we often run things according to a constitutions and rules which are legally required to be able to form and function as an organisation. However, from a theosophical perspective we must apply this constitution and rules through the filters of the tenants of the Wisdom Tradition if we are really going to put our principles to the test. This is a challenge for us in today's world as more and more the focus and expectation are placed on those we put in positions of authority. We see it in the world around us, as in the recent example where the most “popular” prime minister off all time in Australia was replaced just before the end of his first term of office, one of the reason's being the concern that the party might lose the forthcoming election. Here the focus is on personal survival. In our Society the focus, rneeds to be on furthering of our object of brotherhood rather than on our own personal ideologies. In the past this has been forgotten as we can see through the history of our organisation with times of a great deal of pain for the Society and individuals within it. Once again the same principles apply and every now and then we need strong reminders of this through the challenges that will come our way. So the challenge here is to have awareness around what is happening and be willing to look at our own part in the play with an open mind and pure heart. By John Vorstermans