Transmigration with text

Transformations

 Transformations inform our daily life but sometimes we overlook the obvious. What do the changes mean?

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Take a moment to reflect on time. Time and space form the very fabric of the universe. Sunrise and sunset. The rise and fall of the moon, the seasons, mark the changes brought by time. The stars move through the firmament.

Into the world of child is born: he makes his entrance on the stage. Joyful in his nurse's arms, charming his mother with rosy cheeked smiles.

He crawls and learns to walk, frolicking in his happy home, then place the school boy, off to his lessons, studying first his letters, then stories, then books and algebra.

The boy becomes a man. He falls in love. His sentimental education complete he's off to war. He becomes a hero and sails the world in search of fame and fortune.

The hero returns armed with stories of adventure and lessons learned. He hangs up his sword and learns business.

The man becomes a father. He raises a family. Builds his home and castle. And so he plays his part.

Now past his prime, he shifts into the lean and slippered life.

He retires and plays golf, wears spectacles, and checks his cholesterol. He watches his diet. His shrunken shanks and liver spotted cheeks belie his age. His golden baritone withers into a childish treble as he pipes and whistles words to broken teeth. His strange eventful history meets the final scene in second childishness, as he sinks into forgetfulness and sheer oblivion and passes from this world into the next.

The moon shifts again, the stars turn in the firmament.

But where do we go from here? Is there nothing left but ashes? Or beyond the fabric of space and time is there some element that transcends time-- that withstands the changing bodies? A living element. What is this living element or transcendent force? When does it first habit the human experience? Does it begin with the division of cells or with the first heartbeat? What is this powerful force within us that gives us life energy?

The body is constantly changing. transforming, mutating.

If we take a photograph of the changes that we undergo from the miracle of birth to infancy, from early childhood to adolescence and adulthood, we will be shocked by the violence of their changes.

But beyond the violent changes that hold us in their spell from boyhood to use to old age, there is a constant sense of self: an understanding of who we are that withstands change.

Could this constant self withstand the final change?

What if the soul were eternal and lives on to suffer even further transformation even after this body has shuffled off?

The ancient wisdom tradition of India seen in Bhagavad-gita informs us that, "just as the embodied soul passes in this body from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self realized soul is not bewildered by such a change."

Infancy and childhood are bewildering times. We discover our world and its sights and sounds. We learn to speak, to interpret signals and symbols. We learn to count and then to read and play games with our friends. And just as we adjust to childhood, just as we become expert in games and making friends, just as we finally solve the riddles of Alice in Wonderland, we fall through another rabbit hole and confront the shocking changes of adolescence.

These changes affect not only our physical body, we are absorbed in and obsessed with mental and emotional changes as well. The rapid physical changes of puberty arrest our ability to assess who we are as we plunge headlong into the discovery of sexuality provoked by hormonal developments.

And so, obsessed with the fascinating changes of our physical bodies, we forget who we are and we become absorbed in false ego: we become restless, moody, unable to dive deep into the reality of self awareness.

In short, the changes take place so rapidly that we lose our sense of self.

Consider the humble caterpillar: with no skeleton this wormlike creature uses fierce teeth to chew through sturdy fibrous plants. But when his time comes he weaves a cocoon, a chrysalis, and covers himself.

As time passes she is transformed. She leaves her wormlike body behind and is converted into a brilliant butterfly. The disgusting green worm has transformed into a golden wonder: a butterfly has no teeth but lives by sipping nectar. Instead of crawling and chewing leaves she flies and drinks nectar. This is a complete metamorphosis or biological transformation. Is it possible that we too undergo a metamorphosis at the time of death.

According to the ancient wisdom traditions of India and the yoga school of thought which traces to the Bhagavad-Gita this is not only a possibility but a practical reality. Metamorphosis is true not only for the butterfly but also for every living soul. But what is the soul? Who are we? Who am I? What is the nature of the constant and eternal soul or the true self?