55 - Transformation; Mutation; Transmutation; Regeneration; Transfiguration; Resurrection

Achievement, however great does not seem to grant most people a complete sense of satisfaction. Perhaps the greatest human need is transformation. No doubt this is because unconsciously we are tugged forward by the inexorable forward march of the evolutionary process of which we are participants.

Since time immemorial the best brains of our species have vied to unearth means of promoting and accelerating the process of human transformation at both the physical and psychic level. Alchemists searched their deep unconscious for clues while believing that the coveted secret must be culled from a study of the processes that regulate the transmutation of materials. Metals, elixirs, chemicals, or crystals, were used. They posited that there must be a unified principle governing all transformation, whether at the level of the body or the psyche: "as above, so below." Their objective was "the spiritualization of the body and the materialization of the spirit."

They posited that if we could only wrest these principles, we could not only accelerate these processes of transformation in the laboratory, but similarly enhance the process of transformation in the psyche of humans. While working with the transmutation of metals, they were really discovering their own psyche and an infinite number of valuable clues. The simplest was 'solve et coagule': all transformation commences with a falling apart of the constituents, then a new structuring. As applied to the psyche, it is called the royal art: 'Ars Regia'.

Since the heyday of the alchemists, scientists, physicists, chemists, biologists, physiologists, psychologists and meditators have carried that early research a great deal further. Yet, the tenants of the mechanistic and positivistic theories neglected much of what the Alchemists were conveying, albeit cryptically. The mutual interface mind-body is now appearing increasingly on the scene. The holistic paradigm, and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and in general what one might define as a philosophy of science are emerging in our day. Dr. David Bohm intimated that "A change in our sense of meaning will affect the circuits of the brain." Such a far reaching declaration triggers off in us a renewed vision of prospects. They might be actuated in many procedures devised to improve ourselves and so fulfil our purpose in the universe.

Since the dawn of Indian thought, the Yogis have been working with mental and physical methods designed to promote the influence of the mind upon the body and the impact of the body upon the mind. In the view of Buddhists the body provides us with a most resourceful vehicle in which to foster illumination. This is so providing its potentialities are exploited and its fabric transmuted.

We would like to know more about how precisely this works. What we can do to promote this transformation? Could it be promoted by the influence of our thinking and emoting upon the endocrine glands, and therefore on the enzymes that supervise the replication of the DNA? What can we do by exploring the way that our joy or sadness affects the light that we emit as an aura, or our electro-magnetic field? The early Mazdeans, followed by the Sufis highlighted the role played by the subtle bodies in the transformation of the physical body.

Advances in science and technology have opened up new vistas as to how thoughts, images, emotions, affect the brain and particularly the endocrine functions. It may be said that the choreography of the molecules, atoms, even electrons and photons of our bodies ensure the miracle by which the splendor of cosmic software endeavors to emerge through structures and functions of the existential realm. What is meant by subtle bodies or acupuncture meridians, or the 'chi' force, still eludes the grasp of our middle-range thinking. We are only beginning to investigate how our resentment, guilt and violence, and our self-image affects the immune system. Instead of thinking in terms of the psycho-somatic, Dr. David Bohm considers the soma and the significance as the two constellated poles of a same reality that he calls the soma-significance. This way of looking at ourselves challenges us to explore new ways of fostering transformation.

Many techniques of meditation are devised to unmask the hoax of our commonplace thinking and emoting. Besides fostering transformation through insight - called awakening, we are working with life energy - called quickening.

Nature not only provides for the gestation of stars and atoms, but for an evolutionary drive in setting up more and more complex inorganic atomic structures. With the leap forward into the organic - the advent of the biological field, orderliness gets more and more intricate. Instead of structuring themselves in regular lattices, the molecules diversify to assume specific functions that are meaningfully coordinated. Thus there is increasing mental sophistication and inventiveness.

Doubtless at the human scale, we need to account for the way the care and perfecting of body functions affects the personality. Conversely we need to account for the impact of our grasp of significance upon this support system provided by nature as it evolves.

How this can be effected optimally is precisely the question before us. The cells of our bodies with all their idiosyncrasies and volitions and dedication to the service of our understanding need to be participants in the illumination of our minds. Our personalities need to live up to the challenge of our ultimate motivation.

Given that nature does provide for an evolutionary progression in its structuring of atoms, molecules, cells, organisms, etc., the early alchemists may be considered blacksmiths (the ancestors of the industrial revolution). They believed that metals were incubated in the womb of the earth. They posited that we humans could intervene in the operation of nature and accelerate the process in the 'athanor' (the oven) or the alembic (the distiller). The secret was providing heat - obviously energy.

From the beginnings of time, the original state of randomness of atoms in the universe called the primordial soup (the chaos) gets gradually ordered. It moves into clearly systematically programmed atomic structures, evidencing the impact of intelligence upon energy. The same applies to the way thoughts get structured by our sense of significance. According to the second law of thermodynamics, this costs energy. In the realm of the psyche it is our nostalgia and enthusiasm that represents energy.

This orderliness written into the programming of the universe falls apart if one does not inject energy into it, like a library in which the books are scattered randomly. It takes energy to put them back into their respective places. As in a computer, information is gained at the price of energy. This is called entropy.

Note that the same applies to the psyche (as C. G. Jung showed). Its orderliness out of the chaotic unconscious was gained during the evolutionary process leading to the human condition throughout aeons of time. It gets lost very easily unless one keeps putting ever renewed resolve into it. Besides, should we not also credit the influence of the sense of meaningfulness of which the atoms, molecules, cells and organs of our bodies are endowed?

Now supposing these beautifully structured molecules avail themselves of more energy. For example, one heats them gently, gradually the molecules begin to free themselves from the constraint of a rigidly structured program. As Dr. Prigogine says they self-organize themselves, exploring new combinations or ways of being. The cosmic programming itself has now unfolded into infinite ramifications, thus enriching itself considerably.

There is a little understood energy that is self-generated, illustrated at the physical level by chemical reactions that generate heat instead of absorbing heat. On the biological level it is illustrated by phosphorescence rather than fluorescence, for example in the firefly or deep sea fish. Regarding the psyche, one might say that enthusiasm is in some way related to the interfacing with the environment, whereas nostalgia is self- motivated. 

Basically, we are faced with two steps in evolution: first the impact of the orderliness of the whole upon the parts; secondly the incentive of the parts that act upon the overall programming. The first stage incites one not to come in the way of the operation of the universe upon ourselves as a fraction thereof - called the divine operation by the Sufis - by interposing one's will or vagabonding into one's personal random musings. Evidence of the importance of this attitude is to be found in passive volition in bio-feedback.

The will of the universe, called the Divine will in religious lore, seems to self-organize itself as it unfolds in one's psyche. Here long-range planning takes precedence over self-determination that is evidenced in our personal contribution to the programming of our being, and breaks through as creativity. At a threshold condition, that is difficult to determine, it is the personal will that shifts the system from equilibrium as Dr. Prigogine shows and opens the way for fluctuation, hence new programs, new ways of being.

As we observe them more deeply, the atoms, or cells, prove themselves to be not what we imagine matter to be. They display the mentation or consciousness or inventiveness that we have consistently denied them and attribute to ourselves. However it is the availability of energy that actuates this meaningfulness into physical functions. Useless to say that this is much more marked at the organic or biological level.

At the level of the psyche, the clues we can infer from this intrusion into physical nature, point to the role played by freedom from an imposed order in creativity; and therefore in the transformation of the personality. Conversely it demonstrates the role of incentive in freeing oneself from complacency in an imposed order.

Moreover, it is found that the impact of significance or purposefulness served by information economizes energy. This is called negentropy. The better organized one is, the more economically one runs one's business. Or in respect of one's personality, the clarity of one's understanding of the meaningfulness of one's life - called awakening - will spare much wasted opportunity. The secret resides in availing oneself of both the insight one gains in life and the psychic energy of the human evolutionary thrust. In fact, it may well be that in a highly meaningfully organized state, one is generate fresh energy internally (like a white hole) instead of absorbing it from outside. This is one of our objectives in meditation.

The Alchemists substitute the 'athanor' (the oven) and sometimes the alembic (the distiller) to the womb of the earth in the incubation of metals, or crystals, or elixirs. The mediator envisions our body, magnetic field, aura etc., aspects of our total being in its holistic model as constituting a temple - the psychic substitute for the athanor, and our subtle bodies form the altar of the temple.

The primary material the alchemists work with - called the materia prima - is our given nature before all the transformations it has undergone during existence. If indeed, if "as above, so below", then, just as in the blastema, the original cell in the embryo, all genes are present without yet a determination. Which genes will be turned on and which turned off to diversify the cells of the unfolding embryo is undecided. So only a few of the infinite possibilities invested in what the Sufis, quoting Christ, call our Divine inheritance are turned on in our personalities, most of them are recessive.

Just as the initial cell in the embryo is a hybrid in which the universe having converged in umpteen scores of beings, cross-pollinates with that of numberless other beings, so the substrate of our subtle bodies carry the many-splendored bounty of untold denizens of the heavenly spheres. Still this primeval material, of which we avail ourselves whether bodily or psychically, has both evolved and deteriorated during its involvement in the existential condition. Yet, just as the voice of Caruso is still buried in its pristine glory in the bad recording of the time, so is the celestial counterpart of our being unscathed even though defiled.
