Mind as Enemy during Spiritual Transformation?

In a class at Atlantic University, we were recently asked if the mind is the worst enemy of transformtion and spiritual awakening. I had never thought of the mind as the “worst enemy” of any thing.   Yoga and Buddhism will often refer to the “monkey mind” – that thing, forever jumping around, which for some, prohibits the focus, stillness, and awareness required for awakening.  But, another spiritual teaching is that our greatest strength can also be a weakness, and I believe the opposite is also true.  Our supposed worst enemy and weakness, the mind, is also our route to greater awareness.

           The key words in the issue are “transformative process.”  Transformation implies change, and the mind does not like change.  Not that the mind does not enjoy stimulation, but overall, the mind is designed to determine and “figure out” the process for success and survival.  Newness and change forces the mind to adapt and reconfigure a plan it had already determined for success.  

            Throw a spiritual emergency into the mix, and not only is the mind confronting change, the mind is also confronting a LOSS of ITS REALITY.  The one reality, the mind had fully participated in creating.  In creation of this reality, the mind maintains a position of power.  What if this reality is turned upside down?  What if sensory stimuli are no longer as they once appeared?  What if the person’s beliefs, spiritual and otherwise, are found to be distorted?  What if the mind is confronted with the fact that a reality exists outside of its creation?  For the mind, this is death and loss of power.

            In the loss of power, the mind revolts, and potentially becomes the worst enemy.  It skips around, it loses focus, it creates drama where none exist, and it perceives threats in nothingness.  Prepared for survival, itself included, the mind becomes a distraction.  However, we can not simply push aside this “worst enemy”, for in the mind is a key to our awareness of being.   Many traditions work on training this aspect of the mind, whether through yoga, meditation, chanting, or artistic creations.  Stilling the mind, so it may contribute to greater awareness, becomes our path to integration rather than separation.

            Of course, this is not easy.  The mind itself can become resistant to such awareness.  As in Transpersonal Knowing, Puhakka states, “Not surprisingly, thinking is deeply disdainful of the prospect of awareness operating free from its control.  For in such a prospect thinking contemplates it own demise” .  The mind, having determined the view of the world and an understanding of how the world operates, is hesitant to relinquish any control.  But, within this problem, the escape exists.  For if we come to realize that “We do not see things as they are, but also as we are” , we can change our view of ourselves and the world.  

Excellent book on Spritiual Transformation :  The Stormy Search for Self  by Grof and Grof

Website: http://www.holotropic.com/

http://realitysandwich.com/blog/stanislav_grof

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Tags: mind, Spiritual, transformation

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