Mystical Transformation and Spiritual Creativity

In the last several posts, I discussed the development of our creative ability to intend from a heart-centered consciousness. I looked at the way that healing trauma and opening to the Divine light increases the strength of the action of intention. In this understanding, meditation is an awareness and experience of the infinite Divine presence that is beyond time and space.

The study and understanding of our human multidimensional consciousness in Divine unity is important, but these principles can only be truly understood through the experience of the practice of meditation. The regular practice of meditation elevates the vibration of the human heart, mind, and nervous system. In order for meditation to transform our consciousness, it must become a way of life.

Many spiritual, healing, creative, relational, and social practices assist our transformation. However, because our sensory system and rational mind operate on a narrow range of consciousness, only an attentive practice of meditation can provide a shift to our nonlocal and nondual consciousness. This is the heart-centered consciousness of the true self in Divine unity. We may at times open to a spontaneous experience of the infinite consciousness of the true self, but a transformative change to a higher vibration will only usually occur through a consistent meditation practice.

Many spiritual traditions have various meditation practices to open to the infinite and eternal light within the heart. Along my journey, I use heart-based meditation practices that include centering prayer which is based on the author of The Cloud of Unknowing and the writings of Thomas Keating. In this type of meditation, we open to the presence of God within by using our observing consciousness of the nonlocal and nondual heart.

I also practice the Prayer of the Heart which opens to the light of Christ within the heart.  In addition, I use a scientific approach to our heart dimension with the practices of HeartMath.  The practices focus the inner attention on the peace and joy of the heart which creates a vibrational resonance with the mind and body.

As the practice of meditation continually shifts our awareness to the heart center beyond time and space, we will be able to more effectively love, create, and intend. We will express the infinite love and creativity within the dualistic dimension of the physical.

In the last post, I discussed how our healing journey of trauma releases the Divine energy of intention. Now, I will describe the importance of the practice of turning our attention to the interior of our heart.

We look within to access the higher frequencies of the Divine light that is beyond thinking, words, images, and concepts. By consciously stilling the lower frequencies of the body and mind, we open to the heart consciousness of Divine light that is beyond time and space. This is the practice of meditative awareness.

In a new vision of mystical transformation and creative intention, we transform to the heart-based consciousness of the true self through the depth healing of trauma and the creative action of intention. This path incorporates simultaneous healing of trauma and the meditative practice of opening to the infinite light of consciousness.

This way integrates the mystical traditions and the more recent transformative traditions that place more attention on the intentional creativity of the true self. The way emanates from the core of intention while recognizing the need for the depth healing of the wounded consciousness and the practice of opening to the Divine energy of the transcendent heart consciousness. In order to truly intend from the heart, we are always reducing trauma within our multidimensional being and increasing the light of consciousness in Divine unity.

As we transform ever closer to the true self in Divine unity, we are able to use the mind from within the heart to intend from beyond time and space. When the mind operates from the heart consciousness, it can form thought beyond the duality of the thinking consciousness of the mind. Therefore, intention proceeds by the prototypes of thought forms only when within the observing consciousness of the heart.

Our heart dimension is a nonlocal and nondual unity conciousness of infinite being, communion, and creativity. Because we have been conditioned to operate from primarily the sensory and rational bands of consciousness, the consistent practice of meditative awareness is needed to shift our awareness to the heart in Divine unity.

Intention begins from the consciousness of the heart which is beyond words, thought, visualization, and imagination. From the infinite dimension of the heart, we use our mind’s thought and our body’s feeling to give direction to our intention. The infinite, together with the direction of our heart’s desire, enables the Spirit to translate non-physical energy into the vibrations of the physical dimension of manifestation.

Intention necessitates being beyond time, space, doubt, and fear. Thus, in this dimension we live from our intention that already is. Often we can experience our mind and feelings participation in this consciousness, but we have difficulty maintaining it, or locking it in. This resistance draws us back to the appearence of sense and reason. Therefore, we continue to doubt and fear.

The key is learning to be able to access the divine love, joy, and peace within our heart purely from the interior. Love is beyond doubt and fear and is the being where we feel that our intention is already in existence. Why is it such a challenge to open to the infinite light within and remain in a consciousness of love and peace?

Any unhealed trauma and shock that is stored within our body and mind prevents our multidimensional being from resting in love, and therefore totally living from our intention. These traumas have conditioned the negative beliefs, repressed and dissociated emotions, and the activation of our fear-based survival circuitry in the brain and body. Fear and trauma conditioning runs the full spectrum from life threatening situations to any non-empathic human interaction. These wounds are most deeply embedded in prenatal and early childhood, but also can severely impact us when they occur in our later developing years and throughout adulthood.

Any practice of intention should occur simultaneously with the journey of healing and transformation to our true self in Divine unity. There are numerous healing practices that may help in our journey–i.e., energy medicine, the felt-sense, somatic practices, psychotherapy, regression to prenatal and early childhood awareness, self-observation through the consciousness of our true self, meditation, and the practices of the mystical traditions.

As we continue to heal trauma and shock from our mind and body, we are able to hold more light within the heart. This allows a more sustained awareness of our true self of love, joy, and peace. This awareness is the Divine energy that flows into feeling and activates our being to live from our intentions.

Our true self in Divine unity is a heart-based consciousness. This dimension of our being is nondual, nonlocal, and beyond time and space. Our true self of the heart is assisted by the mind to express our consciousness within the world. When unencumbered by the fear-based conditioning, this is the human level of being, that uses intention to create from the goodness, peace, and joy of the self in Divine unity.

In the physical world of time and space, we also live from a dimension of consciousness that experiences parts of reality through our sensory system and reason. While this level of awareness is intrinsic to our earthly journey, by itself it is a very narrow band of consciousness. The conditioning and programming of our fear-based consciousness and culture restricts our consciousness to an ego identity to sensory and rational mind levels of awareness.

As we heal and transform to the heart-based consciousness of the true self, the impediments restricting us to an identity with a narrow band of consciousness are released. However, transforming to a unitary consciousness does not necessarily shift the totality of consciousness outside the physical sensory and rational band.

In our multidimensional being, sensory and reasoning consciousness exists simultaneously with the infinite and eternal heart-based consciousness. The transcendent consciousness of the true self is beyond time and space, but it is also immanently present within time and space. Within this consciousness, sense and reason can be experienced, but they are no longer identified with the self. The consciousness of the true self is now understood to be infinite, peaceful, creative, joyful, and nondual. Now, the narrow band of sense and reason is not misidentified as the whole of conscious awareness.

Because of the experience of the multidimensional nature of our heart-based consciousness, we can have a clear awareness of current reality in sense and reason and not be indentified with it. This multidimensional nature of our consciousness is at the heart of our ability of creative intention. We can live from the pure consciousness of our intentions beyond time and space (in the now of already present) while we have a clear awareness of appearances without identifying with them.

In my work of developing a new vision of mystical transformation and spiritual creativity, I unite two significant worldviews or ways of transforming. The first is the depth understanding of the mystical traditions, the second is the metaphysics of the heart and mind’s creative intention.

In the depth of the mystical traditions, we transcend the ego consciousness toward the true self in Divine unity by healing our fear based conditioning, intergenerational transmissions, childhood wounds, and traumas. In order to heal and transform, we are primarily developing and practicing an observing or witnessing consciousness of the heart and mind. Through meditation, we open to the Divine presence, and the peace, energy, and goodness of the true self. This way of healing our unconscious conditioning through contemplative oriented practice enables a vertical growth to a higher consciousness. This is the mystic self of a unified nondual consciousness and being.

Along the mystical path of healing and transforming, the goal of the journey is enlightenment to our true self in Divine unity. This is our infinite and eternal being and consciousness in the physical dimension as well as the transcendent spiritual dimensions. This pathway of the mystical and esoteric tradition expresses the depths and heights of the work of transforming consciousness. Much of this work is the diligent focus on meditation, psychology, allowing the unconscious to become conscious, and detaching from negative thoughts, beliefs, and emotions.

In the depth aspect of the mystical tradition, our emphasis is on healing our negative conditioning that is expressed in thoughts, emotions, and actions. As we are opening to the heart-based consciousness of the true self, we are healing the impediments that prevent the awareness of freedom, peace, cooperation, love, and creativity.

However, to incorporate our creative intention, we must shift to a height orientation that places the emphasis on the goodness of results and not on the problem. Here, we have the modern tradition of the New Thought movement and a science of consciousness and subtle energies. The emphasis is on the infinite creativity of our true self in Divine unity. The intention of human creativity lives from the consciousness of the new and allows action to bring the good desire into physical reality. Along the path of creative intention, our goal is to be creators through the Divine action of health, happiness, prosperity, and abundance.

At first, these two major traditions may appear paradoxical. The mystical tradition often focuses on healing the negative conditioning as we transform to a higher mystical consciousness, while the creative tradition deemphasizes the problem and focuses on the goodness of our desire, true self, and creativity. The paradox arises because we understand that we must focus on healing our fear-based ego impediments in order to creatively intend, but we cannot creatively intend if we are fixated on the negativity of our problems.

In the new vision of mystical transformation and spiritual creativity, we are synthesizing both traditions into a new unified way. In this vision of transforming and creating, we focus on the solution in a way that we are aware of the negative problems of deeply unconscious fear conditioning without focusing on the problem.

Jesus focuses on healing and transformation with an understanding that our ordinary consciousness is not free–i.e., “You must be born from above” and “you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” (John 3:7, 8:32). He describes certain aspects of the discipline in healing the wounded self by a persistent effort to deny the ego’s misguided ways to fill a false sense of lack,i.e., “let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).

Within the current reality of the negative fear conditioning, Jesus emphasizes the shift in consciousness to the creative light. He says, “whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24).

He teaches that a transforming life in creative intention will express the goodness of the true self in Divine unity–i.e., “will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these” (John 14:12).

A unified life of mystical transformation and creative intention is the way of healing and expressing our true self of love and creativity. Jesus sums up this message in saying, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Our fear-based conditioning develops our ego consciousness. This is our identification with our relative mind’s memories, defenses, negative thoughts and feelings. It operates like a computer software program always scanning present situations for past results or projecting fears into the future. This level of our mind and body consciousness proceeds from a sense of lack and separation from wholeness. As long as we maintain any level of the fear consciousness, we inhibit our full capacity to intend, love, and create. The ego conditioning always carries a degree of the darkness.

Our true self is our heart-based consciousness of good desire, love, light, joy, and peace. Being in the heart is living in the now. When we are within the heart, the fear-based mind programs of past situations or the constant evaluation of fears projected forward cease their activity. The heart is the center of intention where we create from good thought and feeling of what just “is.”

As we pursue the journey of transformation, we gain increasing moments where we enter the heart and the ordinary mind does not interfere. However, it is still a battle of shifting strengths between the intensity of light that we can hold in our hearts and the powerful fears that have been conditioned within the mind. Can these fear-based mind programs be entirely uninstalled like software? And if “yes,” what is the process of change and transformation that accomplishes this whole new consciousness and way of being?

In the prologue of the Gospel of John, he says that “the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). This is our new being in Christ where our consciousness is always in the light of the Divine energy within the heart. This infinite nondual energy is then expressed throughout all our dimensions of heart, mind, and body. In this consciousness, the darkness is no more-”he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

For us in our present journey, the dispelling of the darkness is a process, not an instantaneous shift. As our intentional consciousness becomes the norm, we will not have the long persistent effort of transformation. But at present, transformation usually takes place over time through a continual strengthening of the capacity to be in the present moment of Divine light regardless of the current sensory obstacles and past experience.

It can be viewed as the paradoxical dilemma of what comes first, the chicken or the egg. We need to open to a greater intensity of Divine light and energy in order to overcome the darkness, but our ego mind programs act as a drag to letting the light in. Thus, the journey is like a continual process of lessening the darkness and increasing the light. Here, we practice prayer, meditation, self-observation, and making conscious the unconscious fear conditioning.

The process of transformation is experienced as a resolving polarity. We must gain greater awareness of our fears, thoughts, emotions, and actions that emanate from the ego consciousness. As the unconscious fears, negative beliefs, and negative emotions are brought into awareness, we must also hold our developing heart-based consciousness. We are strenghthening the heart consciousness to open to greater intensities of light and love. When in the heart, “perfect love casts out fear” (cf. 1 John 4:1).

As we are learning to live in the heart, we begin to alternate, or oscillate between the heart consciousness of love and the ego consciousness of fear until the increasing light dissolves the polarity. In his work of Somatic Experiencing, Peter Levine describes alternating between a trauma vortex and a healing vortex. This is another way of communicating the light and darkness polarity. The journey requires persistent practice because the fear-based consciousness restricts our openess to generate enough light to completely cease the operation of the ego consciousness. As we become more aware, we oscillate between the ego conditioning and the heart consciousness at faster and faster speeds until we simultaneously hold the core of fear in the fullness of Divine light.

For thousands of years of history and what we understand of our prehistory, humans have had a consciousness of fear along with the creativity of love. This has been our experience in this dimension of the physical universe under the duality of the knowledge of good and evil. David Sereda in his book Singularity talks about overcoming the inertia that exists within consciousness, our bodies, and physical matter. In the light of Divine love, there is no resistance of time and space. Therefore, there is no fear, conflict, or separation within the unity of the heart.

When our undefended fears are brought to full awareness with the full consciousness of the strength of the Divine light in our heart, the darkness disappears. Step by step the many aspects of the fear-based ego consciousness are brought to awareness in our increasing light of the heart. The intention of our transformation is to realize the complete cessation of the fear consciousness to become the true self in Divine unity that is infinte love and creativity. Jesus says, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” (John 3:3).

The conditioning of the fear-based consciousness and culture results in an ego consciousness of conflict and separation. This ego consciousness is encoded in the earliest years of life in the physical body through the energy and information of prior generations, the consciousness of the family system, and the overall culture.

Because of the nature of our early awareness of the world and our true being of relationship and connection, the mind cannot prevent the identification with sensory, emotional, and intellectual attachments that form the restricting ego consciousness of separation. As a result we forget our heart-based consciousness that is our true self of multidimensional unity. Because we are no longer aware of our unity consciousness, we develop a feeling of lack which the ego consciousness is a defensive adaptation.

The ego attempts to fill this feeling of something missing from the outside-in. Unfortunately, by its very nature the ego is doomed to continue to receive separation and disunity. To the awareness of the fear-based ego, it is caught in a paradox in which it cannot see.

When the ego tries to fill the negative feeling by seeking to cause relationships and material possessions to feel unity, it is actually reinforcing its feeling of separation. Its very efforts to try to control the outside world in order to feel connected is an expression of its fear and conflict. In order to awaken to our true unity, we need to enter the heart within. Our heart-based consciousness in Divine unity is our wholeness. From this awareness, we can intend, create, and allow relationships from a world in which we are already connected.

The blindness of the ego consciousness perceives the seeking of unity within as an isolation or alienation from the connection and unity we desire. In truth, when we seek unity from without, we experience separation from others, and when we open to our unity within, we experience unity with others. The difference is that the ego consciousness feels fearful, negative, and empty, whereas the true self heart-based consciousness feels peace, joy, and love.

We must experience our unity consciousness in order to be effective creators of our destiny in the world. If we continue to live from the ego consciousness that feels lack, then that is what we will see reflected in our world and reinforced in our awareness and feeling.

The transformative journey of transcending the ego consciousness to realize the heart-based consciousness and being is a process of awakening to our true self in Divine unity. Our true self works from wholeness and love to create abundance, further healing, and mutually self-giving relationships. The path of transforming is growing awareness through becoming aware of the thoughts, emotions, and actions of the ego. This awareness is cultivated through meditation, self-observation, and practice in the activities and relationships of daily life. As we awaken, remember, and shift to our unitary consciousness of the heart, we understand and experience that our desire and longing for real unity only arises from our awareness and feeling from within our consciousness and being.

Along the journey of healing and transformation, we reach a point where we become aware that our ego personality has been, and continues to be, an ever-present lens of our experience in the world. While we may have intellectually understood the fear-based ego or felt its restriction for some time, we now see through and feel the totality of its illusion.

Because we have identified with the false illusion of lack, the ego consciousness becomes a reality of experience in the physical dimension. Even though we came into this world open to our true being of the consciousness of the heart, we became conditioned by the current fear-based consciousness and culture. All of the fear, control, conflict, and separation that is experienced from the family and our cultural environment is downloaded into our consciousness.

Because our early childhood consciousness cannot disindentify with the outside conditioning, we forget who we are–a multidimensional being of wholeness. Within our true self of the heart-based consciousness there is no lack. Our experience is love, intention, and creativity. We live from the abundance of the inside in unity, peace, partnership, participation, and cooperation. We are fully connected to everything because there is nothing missing that must be filled up by controlling the outside world.

When we are ready to see the totality of the false consciousness of the ego, we have reached a point where we accept that the ego consciousness does not work in our life. This is a stage where our consciousness begins to come home to the heart. The true self in unity with Divine energy is embraced within the heart through the Spirit. The ego’s attachment to control by seeking approval, acceptance, and validation from others no longer satisfies.

During our life in the ego consciousness, many of the strategies of the ego have remained unconscious. Part of the false fear-based consciousness conditions us to be unaware of the ego’s misguided attempts to fill a perceived lack. At the core of the fear-based consciousness is a darkness of separation and isolation. It is the absence of unity, love, and creativity. The ego forms its most intense strategies to avoid the experience of this dark emptiness. Here, we find our greatest fears and addictive behaviors. If these defenses become fully uncontrolled, the experience of life can be debilitating. Therefore, another part of the ego is a defensive adaptation to the core fear-based wound. Here, the ego takes the underlying true desires of the heart and filters them through its need to fill its identity from the outside acceptance of others. Because we feel that we are expressing the true intentions of our heart, the ego’s ways of subtle attachment to approval are some of our deepest blindspots. The ego controls from all directions–on one side it controls through self-centered narcissism in pursuing one’s objectives, or on the other side it can control by being compliant to the ego needs of others.

When we can see that our ego consciousness is always in operation, even when it recedes to the background during moments of authentic love, we are ready to begin relinquishing its need. We now strongly desire to live from the heart-based consciousness all the time, not from just sporadic moments when our heart opens. The ego’s defenses no longer work for us. We understand them for what they are–a misguided attempt for love and acceptance. We recognize that the ways of the ego consciousness will not bring what we are looking for. Our true being of love, acceptance, and support has always been within our heart in unity with the Divine. From this awareness our heart is expressed through our mind and body, and through our intention and creativity into our experience of the world.

Once we understand the ego’s all encompassing ways of being in the world, we can let it go with compassion and love. If we are still fighting it and judging it for its negativity, we are still using it. When we see through the fullness of the fear and false self of the ego, our heart-based consciousness can now view its misguided attempts with compassion. As our conciousness transforms to love the whole self, the role of the ego will fade. The ego’s fear-based conflict of control and judgment is no longer necessary. It ways of struggling for love, acceptance, approval, and achievement are not needed–and most of all our use of the ego to struggle against itself dissolves. It is healed by the awakening of the heart-based consciousness of love, intention, and creativity. From the unity of the heart-based consciousness, we are free to intend and create in the love of our true being of infinite potential and connection.

The heart-based consciousness is nondual and nonlocal. This infinite and eternal consciousness is the perfect unity of being–no conflict or separation. The unity consciousness of the heart is our true self in Divine unity. In this awareness, we live our transcendent consciousness from the heart through the dimensions of mind, feeling, emotion, and physical body. Thus, we are an infinite unity expressing throughout a multiplicity of vibrations whithin the physical dimension and higher energy spiritual dimensions.

As we transform to our true mystical consciousness, we go beyond the fear-based consciousness of the ego personality which has been conditioned in lack, control, conflict, and separation. We open to an awareness where we are one with other human persons, all creation in the cosmos, and the uncreated Divine energy.

At this depth and height of nondual awareness, do we maintain a unique experience and expression of being? Some say that the awareness of self drops away entirely in the nondual consciousness of pure being. I believe that the ego and any human conception of self is transcended. In the Christian mystical tradition, these stages of consciousness begin to be expressed in Teresa of Avila’s seventh interior castle of spiritual marriage, John of the Cross’ highest stages of mystical unity, and Meister Eckhart’s breakthrough to the Godhead. The mystic way of being of Eckhart, John Tauler, and John Ruysbroek relate to the understanding and experience of nonduality in the Hindu and Buddhist mystic way.

In order to restore and transform to our true being of infinite unity, we need to live in the nondual and nonlocal consciousness of the heart. However, the ultimate reality of the true self in Divine unity is not an experience of no-self–it is a radical change of condition of self. Swami Abhishiktananda, in his book Saccidananda: A Christian Approach to Advaitic Experience, points toward this complete change of condition of the self. When one truly lets go and opens to the nondual experience, we are on the path to entering the true relational community of being.

Within nondual unity, there is no separation with Divine Being, and the being of others. However, in pure nonseparation, being and consciousness is revealed as participation and community in being. When all human known concepts of ego and self are relinquished, the pure mutually self-giving “I” is a “We.” But in this “we,” which is nondual unity, a new experience of unique self (”I”) is revealed. In the advaita Vedanta of the Hindu tradition, this “I” is experienced as being, consciousness, and bliss. Christ reveals the Divine Being as Father, Son, and Spirit. This awareness is that the oneness of being is relational–infinite unity is the coessence of unique gift. This is the unitary consciousness of the heart that is love and creativity. The true self is a unity, identity, and communion in Divine Being. Consciousness and being is a unique relation in identity.

The higher stages of mystical consciousness can be understood as 1. spiritual marriage of union, 2. nonduality in identity, and 3. community in Being. This last stage of identity in participatory community is a dynamic restful action beyond time and space of the mutual self-giving of love and creativity–it is a nonlocal infinite and eternal participatory exchange of the dynamic energy and light of the never ending Being of love.

In our ordinary fear-based consciousness, there is a persistent conflict, control, and separation in human relationships. Even when we cooperate in personal, business, and social relationships, there is always some level of self-centered interest as long as we remain in this dualistic consciousness.

The fear-based dualism becomes our ego personality that is drawn into and participates in a perpetual conflict to satisfy needs from a perception of lack. The reality of this consciousness is anxiety, fear, worry, inefficiency, inequality, and alienation. At present, human culture conditions a certain level of cooperation that agrees to maintain the fear-based ego consciousness of self, culture, and society.

Therefore, our relationships, participation, and cooperation are never fully supportive because of the self-centered interest of the ego personality. By transforming to a heart-based consciousness of unity, we open to a true participatory, cooperative, and partnership relationship. Within this consciousness, relationships are no longer under conflict, control, and separation. They experience peace, love, and creativity.

The unitary consciousness of the heart supports the other in a way that the others interest, goals, and desires are not separate from one’s own awareness. The self-giving affirming support of the other is the same as one’s personal self-interest. Here, the self does not take pride or attach to the gifts or accomplishments of the other, but rests in the joy of our inseparable connection with each other.

The mutual self-giving of the unitary consciousness of the heart is love. If we were to shift from a conciousness of conflict to the freedom of love, we could create infinite abundance for each other. Jesus says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Our own self-interest is served by being one with the self-interest of others. We all form a single nondual unity as a multiplicity of unique persons. When the Dalai Lama was asked what persons had inspired him, he responded by saying he is inspired by every human person he meets.

It is time that we learn from and support the gifts of all persons that we have the opportunity to connect with in our daily lives. As our consciousness is transformed, we must no longer allow the conditioning of fame, wealth, attention, and status to impede our openness to support and learn from the gifts of all our relationships. We communicate as a community of being with others through the senses, emotions, feeling, intellect, and nonlocality of the heart. Thus, we will realize our inseparable unity, participation, and communion with all human beings.