Parinama 21

Welcome to the new you, which is exactly the same you!

So we’re all interested in transformation. The fact that you have signed up for a workshop about transformation is proof enough of that. Before we even begin to discuss the practices that we’ll be exploring over the next few weeks, let’s get something straight.

You are already everything you will ever be.

Before you ask for your money back or hit “unsubscribe.” Allow me to explain a bit about our approach to this work. 

Look at the images above. They’re all visual examples of transformation. Cinderella had a fairy godmother who transformed her miserable existence into a pretty fabulous night on the town. She dances with a handsome prince, loses a shoe, then she’s back to square one. The superficial transformation wears off at midnight and in the morning, you’ve still got to clean the floors and deal with your wicked stepsisters (read: stress).

In the physical transformation of Abraham Lincoln we see the effects of stress on the body and its systems. You thought wicked stepsisters were stressful, try being President during the American Civil War. He didn’t sleep so well and was plagued with melancholy to boot. However, the union was preserved, slavery declared illegal and just when things were looking up . . . a gunshot wound to the head transformed Honest Abe still further.  

That leads us to the larger image below, which illustrates beautifully the continuity of consciousness. This particular image is depicting the transmigration of the soul. We see an infant lying in a field on a lovely patch of flowers (where are his parents?), the journey through adolescence to full maturity (what a stud!) and through the natural process of aging and dying, he becomes a skull and a ribcage…but something keeps going. 

Reincarnation is a concept that you may or may not subscribe to and there is no reason you should feel obligated to buy into reincarnation or any other theory about what may occur when brain stem activity appears to cease in the body.

Law of Karma?

Brain Stem Activity?

However, if you do have some inkling that maybe there is some aspect of consciousness, which continues once we kick the bucket, then it is only logical for you to concern yourself with what’s next.

Perhaps refer to Dalai Lama’s essay in TBD on continuity of consciousness and flesh this out?

Do you like nick at nite? I do! Re-runs are great!! According to eastern thought, if you want to do this whole life-as-a-human-thing again, then you need only live a virtuous life.  However, if you have higher spiritual aspirations, then you have some work to do.  

Another common notion is that when we die, we go to
heaven, hell or purgatory.  This is a model for the continuity of consciousness that is well known in the western world and has shaped so many of our assumptions about how to live and die. For Christians, Heaven is available through the transformative sacrifice of Christ.  By accepting this salvation, the consciousness, at the moment of death, does not pass go, does not collect $200 but goes directly to paradise.  Re-incarnation as described above is not a part of the Christian model and therefore, you don’t get as many “tries” as you need to attain the glory of Heaven.  It follows that we need some serious cosmic event, i.e. God assuming a human form and dying in a brutal way, to realize the eternal nature of the soul and transcend suffering.

I’m not going to delve too much more deeply into religion.  That’s way too slippery a slope and far beyond the scope of this workshop.  Eternal salvation and enlightenment are certainly relevant but the focus here is on transformation.  

The point I’m trying to illustrate is:

True transformation occurs on every level of your being, from your waistline to your existential position in the universe.

This is the work we’ll be doing in this workshop.  We’ll do some yoga poses. We’ll meditate a bit. We’ll open channels of awareness. You may lose a little weight. You may feel a bit more relaxed. You may see the world in a new way. Any or all of this may happen during or as a result of our work over the next few weeks but . . . the fundamental understanding that we must absolutely accept (if only until Jan. 25th) is that YOU (insert your name here) are not the thing that is changing!!! 

That is the central idea in Parinama.  Basically, everything has a cause.  There was a cause for me to send this email.  There was a cause for you to sign up for this workshop.  There was a cause for the first yoga pose.  There was a cause for humans to appear on earth.  There was a cause for earth to appear.  There was a cause for what we call the Universe and THAT CAUSE IS ITS OWN CAUSE. 

Thou art that.  In a nutshell, this is the principle of parinama: all the transformations are actually slight or drastic changes in the appearance of that which is its own cause.

Now, this may seem esoteric but you will see its relevance as we move forward with these practices.  

Esoteric– Discuss what that really means.  Initiation.

Each day, you will receive one of these emails.  At the end of each email, I will give you an assignment for the day.  These assignments are due upon receipt.  In order to fulfill the requirements of this workshop you MUST do each and every assignment to the best of your ability.

Today’s assignment: Have a nice day

Love,

Billy