Peeling Onions

Once when I was peeling onion for my stew the question was posed. What would I miss if my life was completely transformed that very instant?  I had no immediate answer. For the life of me, it seems with all the inner work I had been doing over the years, I had released attachment to everything that I could think of.  Yet the question would not come, if there was complete clarity.  If  there were no areas of attachment, no clinging to that which is already known, there would not be the need to examine the question. 

I have been thinking about the question on and off ever since. You see, it occurred to me that I wanted a revolutionary spiritual experience. I wanted my life to be completely consumed by spirit in the same manner I understood spiritual experiences to occur.  And yet in one part of my mind it is known that every individual experience of spirit is unique.  Then there is the matter of validation.  From The Teachings I have learned that validity comes from within. There is no being outside of the Holy Self within me with the power to make me, or any experience I may have, valid.  I once read these words; "You stand in the miracle of yourself and still ask for a sign."  I think that is my challenge somehow.

I give a lot of lip service to the fact that every experience is valid. How every experience leads me invariably into the arms of Love and home to the Creator God.  But there are some of my own experiences that I think are retarding in their least benign, and outright alienating at their worst. In my intellect, I know that is not the truth. That knowing has not yet dropped to become heart knowledge.  Although I do not beat up on myself as much as I used to, and I am very good at allowing myself the mistakes I make, I still deem some experience to be less than Holy steps taking me home. 

The question remains, what would I miss should the Holy Transformation that I seek overtake me this instant?  Would I run to the world and proclaim myself transformed?  Would I call up a few of my meditating friends and have a meditation, and if so to what end?  Is the transformation I am seeking something to flaunt, or do I think that it would empower me to save the world?  What about the messiah complex, are vestiges of it still within me?  The question is more one of what do I wish to take with me into this transformation, and is any of it worth the kingdom I am seeking?
 

I was waiting for the question to settle in my mind before writing about it, but it appears that writing about it is the very method necessary to settle it in my mind. Funny how that works!  As I began to write about it, it became clear to me that I had not given it much thought, although I have been thinking about. Or more than likely, I was avoiding the keen look needed to allow all my hidden agendas to surface.  

I often kid myself. If I am to grow into full wakefulness, I must see these hidden agendas. They are there, believe me! They must be taken into the light of my own soul to be redeemed. I am in earnest concerning the Transformation.  But there are areas I masked from the light. I am privileged to reveal them and allow them to be purified. The trick is to seek them.  

Years later, and much tears, I am seeing how some of those hidden agendas have surfaced and been transformed.  A few remain. The Great Transformation has not yet overtaken me.  

I am transformed from the being who heard the initial question and am grateful!