The Twinkling of an Eye

The Twinkling of an Eye

Everyone suffers. With or without the system, whether one is in a school or not, suffering is part of existence for the four lower centers. The lower centers experience their own form of suffering. If I hit my thumb with a hammer, it’s going to hurt. But ‘it’ hurts, the instinctive center hurts. The instinctive center suffers. Do I suffer? A near and dear relative or friend dies. Do I suffer, or is the emotional center pained? In both cases there’s a choice between self-pity and self-remembering.

The moment you suffer, remember yourself. ~ Peter Ouspensky

This is not to say, that the injury ought to be disregarded, or that grief is not legitimate. The problem occurs when we say ‘I’ in relation to the instinctive or emotional discomfort. We abdicate our identity and identification and imagination enter. This is the recipe for a negative emotion which leads to unnecessary suffering.

There’s an anecdote about Epictetus, the Roman stoic. He was a slave and was tortured by his master who twisted his leg. Enduring the pain with composure, Epictetus warned his master that his leg would break if his master continued. According to legend, when his leg did break, apparently all that Epictetus said was, 'There, did I not tell you that it would break?”

The fact is the lower self suffers. The question is though, how we relate to it’s suffering. From the perspective of awakening, suffering is a tool to engage self-remembering. This is what is meant by transforming suffering; suffering is transformed into into self-remembering. By adopting this attitude, any discomfort the lower self experiences, from the smallest irritation to the most tragic circumstances becomes the means by which imagination is pierced and the third state engaged. And thank goodness that tragic circumstances are few and far between, and that small irritations provide us our ‘daily bread’.

Leonardo’s image of Saint John the Baptist pointing up with a knowing, almost beatific smile is a silent lesson pointing to a wordless state. The top of the crucifix he holds characterizes the nature of transformation of suffering. The short cross beam and long shaft, symbolizes the effort to introduce and prolong presence is not lateral; it is a vertical journey from the depths of the lower self to higher centers.

There is no suffering for the one who has completed the journey. ~ Buddha

Higher centers do not suffer. Presence is aware of itself. What happens to the lower self is immaterial. Just as the functions exist without consciousness, so consciousness exists without functions. Walt Whitman alluded to this in his Leaves of Grass. ‘A simple separate person….formed under laws divine.’

Beyond transforming suffering is the fusion or crystallization of Higher Centers, into a permanent conscious principle, John Keats’ ‘Awake for ever in a sweet unrest.’ At this stage of evolution, transformation is no longer required. Deathless and eternal higher centers need nothing further. The journey from transforming friction to a permanent state of awakened consciousness is an immediate and profound cosmic shift in scale.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. ~ New Testament

Post by Charles R

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Image: Saint John the Baptist, Leonardo Da Vinci, Louvre, France