SUSTAINABILITY OF A TRANSFORMATION PROCESS
A real change begins when we strip away the illusion that we have already changed before having verified that is the case in real life.
It’s 6pm and I’m writing about a very interesting topic on the illusion of change. A phenomenon that is activated in many people who drink Ayahuasca or have peak experiences that is based on the belief that their transformation has occurred when it is still just a project or an idea that lacks action.
I have received many testimonials from people who say, “My life has changed” and they make that statement minutes or hours after having had the experience, which confirms my theory that they have created another illusion. If it were affirmed after a time in which it could be seen that the change is real, the affirmation would be much more credible.
When an individual realizes that they must make a change then they believe to have already done it. In a sense it’s true that they have done it because they have at least seen the need of a change and it is probable that they has even decided to change. But they done it in the energetic, spiritual, mental or psychological level, not at an action level. To turn it into practice is a different thing.
Whether a person’s life is transforming can be confirmed once they have gone through certain real situations in their own life, in their daily life. A life is not changed only by the fact that the perception of reality has changed, but also by the fact that the knowledge that has been understood has been integrated in everyday life.
Before delving into this topic, I stop for a minute and check my email. I have a couple dozen of unanswered emails, and I choose a message from a guy who wants to join the School that I founded, and he says:
“Alberto, good afternoon. I am writing to you in order to attend the European School of Ayahuasca in Barcelona next March 3rd.
After all this time thinking that I had it all worked out, I have realized that I don’t. Something has been triggered in me to make a change, (and that causes a pressure in my chest that I can not understand) I do not know where to go, or what to do to make sense of all… I just want to heal and shine to trust myself again .… I have already done three retreats with Ayahuasca and your team, and they have been the most beautiful holidays for my head and heart …. Only there I felt what I had not felt for a long time, but with each retreat I attended the less I cared about everything in my life, until one day I realised that I did not even care about myself. Each day I know myself a little less …
Thank you very much for your time and for the great work you do so that people like me may have an internal GPS to guide us to free ourselves…
Greetings and thank you very much.
This testimonial is very significant because it confirms with sincerity that the despite having done 3 retreats with ayahuasca, even if they were very powerful experiences, does not guarantee that the change is reflected in real life. But it is in process. It is true that the most important thing for the change to occur in his life has already happened. I mean he has got into the depth of his existential problem, he has touched the deepest part and has allowed things he can not control to happen. He has detected with clarity that he is at a turning point from which he will surely make the leap. When things get complicated or turn upside down it’s because the person is allowing them-self to reconsider everything. But change will not be evident until they no longer recognise them-self as they were before in their relationships, at work, eating and sleeping, in their way of treating others, in their way of thinking and in the permission they give them-self to feel everything that happens without repression.
I could make a long list of practical examples that can be seen in the a person’s life when they are in a process of transformation. But it would only serve to offer references or indications of what a change is. That is something that we all know, but we tend to deceive ourselves believing that we have transformed our lives when we have not yet even stopped judging the people we live with.
When Jesus said, “By the fruits you shall know them” he was suggesting that we not deceive ourselves.That we look at actions and not words to determine authenticity. He was referring to the results obtained due to a process of inner evolution. But results can not be forced; if the tree follows its natural process it will bear tasty and nutritious fruit.
But if the tree is sick, it does not grow. If it does not enjoy the sun or the morning dew, then it can not bear good fruit. It needs a transformation. This is how the human being is; cancelled, wounded, weakened, dry, disconnected, abandoned or with deep damage, with no motivation to grow or flourish, having completely forgotten the potential the seed had when it was sown. Having forgotten that at birth its soul knew it was eternal and that in life it would express the essence of what it is.
Therefore a transformation process begins with the recovery of memory, in the magical remembrance of the expansive essence it has.
Humans suffer from ONTOLOGICAL AMNESIA, as stated by the psychologist Sergio Sanz, because we have forgotten who we are and what we can become.
When a person regains their memory and realizes that they are a seed with all the potential to grow and to become a big tree that bears many flowers and fruits, is when the possibility of a transformation is born in their own consciousness. Actually nothing is transformed, but it is regained the memory that life is a transformation process in and of itself in which a person comes naturally to the fulfilment of essence, ascending to the heights of potential.
RECOVERING ONE’S MEMORY, CHANGING PERCEPTION AND REALIZING THAT WE CAN, DOES NOT MEAN A TRANSFORMATION, BUT ONLY THE BEGINNING OF A PROCESS OF CHANGES. THEN WE HAVE TO PUT IT INTO PRACTICE.
What’s the point of thinking you have changed if you continue with the same old behaviour? What is the point of saying that life has changed if the way of breathing has not even changed? What do we want to show by saying “my life has changed” if we are still possessed and dominated by fear, anger, or guilt?
How healthy it would be for a person who is doing something to change their life, to recognize the attitudes and behaviours they wants to change. Not to become obsessed with the change, but to have a conscious reference of the signs that will announce that something has changed in the depths of them-self.
Anyone who is in a process of change should meditate and consider the sustainability of each of the changes as they occur, because it is another fairly widespread trend, that the real change in life happens for no longer than a few days and then everything remains the same. The loops of a pseudo change: I think about or have an experience, I decide to change, I make a small change but I do not maintain it, and then everything goes on pretty much as before. So it happens again and again, even throughout the whole of life.
Let’s be very careful about making changes so that everything remains the same. Because they only serve as temporary relief. It is very satisfying to believe that we have changed, but it is very frustrating to verify that nothing had really changed. Let us be attentive, let us not draw partial conclusions, let us be cautious, patient and consistent. In this way the spiritual GPS will be activated to guide and indicate which way to go at every moment. Because basically the final destiny is freedom, the place from where we come.
No matter how long you take or the sequence of changes that you experience. Rather that you gradually feel more freedom behind each of them, because that is the best parameter to know if our life is changing.
Now we are ready to start a series of articles about CHANGE AND TRANSFORMATION. This has been the introduction.
I’ve been writing these articles since 1989, when I realized that my life had begun to change.
Today, after nearly 30 years I can assure that the path of transformation is exciting, enriching, wonderful and very hard at the same time, but only at times. Along our way there are moments of great decisions, of confusion, of tremendous confrontations, but all that is part of the game of waking up.
Alberto José Varela