Notes from the Intensive, May 2018 in Wakefield
What is stamina? Stamina is endurance.
While the practice makes you sensible, sensitive and perceptive, the persona will throw stuff at you stuff: doubts, interventions, transformational things, fear, conversations of the mind. The endurance of the heart is to not react, not to depart, not to shrink, not to go elsewhere. This undesired movement happens mainly because you are attached.
If you are detached, it means the personality and the ego are not getting involved with a sense of duality. Instead, you see the challenge or the sensation as an opportunity, as something that is teaching you your next step. The mind has to be absolutely clear on this, and it needs the feedback from the teacher because it’s way too complex.
You saw this yesterday, where you had an event and your mind wanted to organize it. You want to survive through the mind but it has nothing to do with the mind. It was a much deeper request. And all of you should have all the same request: drop your persona or at least see the totality of the persona nakedly, to see fully what is crushing you.
When the heart has endurance, when the seeker is mature enough, the heart doesn’t shrink and go into the background. Oh no! I should avoid this, I should adapt… Stamina is to keep the heart in position so the mind doesn’t crush it. That’s the second aspect is when you are understanding, “Ah! This challenge is an opportunity and to distinguish it to take it to the final, ultimate opportunity which is to drop your persona.” Don’t say: “No, this is an opportunity for me to be smarter, to speak up, to feel better.” No. Those are psychological things. I don’t want you to do any more of that. That’s done. You’ll be working in your persona skills, which is fine.
As we know, each opportunity is multi-faceted and will bring a challenge: “Okay, I need to speak up. Okay, I need to be better at organizing my accounting. Okay, I need to be more outward.” The subconscious will give you some opportunity to mature your skills. That’s fine, but the seeker must see this inconvenience as a place where this subconscious stimulation is requesting me to drop my persona.
Are we clear on this? This will be a safe crossing. The unsafe crossing is when you get engaged with the psychological aspect which you already know very well. We have visited it many times. You don’t want to work on that anymore. I am insisting on transfiguring the base of ego, personality and to enter in the alchemy of relating, of the heart relating to love. But you need to have stamina here: “Okay, I can hold this while the flow of love, of the subconscious, hits the heart…”
Student: What stood out for me in the experience I was describing earlier was the alchemy, the outcome of the exchange that I had with that person was done out of love. Of course, her reaction was not of love because I have no control over her reaction, but she came back to me afterward and thanked me for my poise, my calmness and my presence. It made her reflect and come back with her own presence, heart and love. It was very interesting.
Berdhanya: And still in this experience, that’s a psychological exchange. The result is positive. You managed it, but you do this all the time. There’s nothing new there for you to manifest that in your life. Through your agreeable, pleasant personality, you are able to produce a certain alchemy which looks like love, which seems like it worked out like things are solved, but this is not the love that I’m talking about.
Student: But there was no intention…
Berdhanya: I’m not saying there was an intention. I want you to perceive intention at a new level. Where you are seeing it right now is from the love of the unconscious, from the pleasant personality that for you it works. When you put the presence, the charm, the neutrality in motion, it works and it seems solved, but that’s not the aim. What I want you to contemplate is: what does this opportunity show me that I need to drop? It’s precisely the pleasant personality, the one that receives an outcome that’s pleasant. It doesn’t mean that it must be unpleasant, but it’s the pleasant and the unpleasant.
Student: But both were there in the exchange…
Berdhanya: You transmute and that’s fine, but I want you to transfigure, where that love is not used again to produce any wellness. In a way, I am asking you to drop your equanimity, the type of presence that you have now, the type of “dealing with” that you have now.
This is a very subtle distinction from the transmutation which you do very well, but I want to push you a bit farther because that’s your attachment. Attachment to a pleasant alchemy that’s able to produce harmony. For some, it’s pain; for you, it’s pleasure. You say: “Oh, this is love. I was present. I am at peace.” And I say no, that’s not love.
Student: I can connect with what you’re describing, but this experience was not from that place….
Berdhanya: The “but” shows me a sense of defence.
Student: I’m trying to describe the experience and it’s difficult.
Berdhanya: If you’re trying to explain, it’s a justification. You’re trying to redeem something. That’s the subconscious. In that “but”, you’re trying to bring back something to me. You don’t need to. It’s not possible that I understand your experience. It’s still an experience, still a “but”, still a justification, still a defence, just by you wanting me to understand. It’s subtle and you do it all the time!
The question is: right now, what are the experiences that my life is bringing me that I’m not going to transmute? It’s out of the question here. We’re long, far from that. In transformation, yes, I take responsibility, I have a presence, I create my reality, fine. I’m saying drop transformation and drop transmutation as well.
As you move to transfiguration, your experiences don’t have anymore the pleasantness of managing and solving the problem. And if someone puts you in front of transfiguration like I do, you say, “No but, but, but….” Defending. The but is based on the desire to be understood, the desire to communicate your experience to others, but I don’t need to. It’s not possible to describe my experience of God to anybody. You can explain an experience to me, but you cannot explain actual realization, so get used to it. This is part of transfiguration, it’s the safe crossing. Are you following this example? Otherwise, we are just lingering in the psychological aspect of transfiguration which I don’t want you to do anymore.
Student: So as soon as you evaluate or analyze your experience, it’s transmutation, not transfiguration.
Berdhanya: Correct. It’s the soul bodies, the witness. All that evaluation, justification, accommodation, interpretation is the bible of the soul bodies.
Student: And you want us to jump in the middle! (Laughter)
Berdhanya: Yes. Less mind! Less mind in congruence with the stamina of holding your heart so your heart can get more energy. You need that stamina so you can hold on while the real love of the Spirit hits you, hits the heart. Then, a completely different language starts to be understood.
How I interpret my reality and my experiences right now will be obsolete. So, if I’m not meant to evaluate who will I be? What will my heart be? That question is the one that you need to hold. That question is the one in the heart. You don’t know what you’ll become, and at the same time, you’ve known all along who you are.
Be okay with not knowing who you are and knowing who you are. You don’t know and you know. In transmutation, you still don’t think of the spirit in a paradoxical way. In transmutation, you’re still not in the love of the Spirit.
The example we explored the love of the soul bodies is helpful as a comparison. In the soul bodies, you have compassion for other beings, you are agreeable, you are sympathetic, you have equanimity, you are responsible for your creation, you don’t blame anybody, you have harmony, you’re detached. It’s okay, but it’s transmutation. It may feel like, “Aaaah!”, but it’s the aah! of transformation. I want a bigger AAAH! Because you don’t need to. Nothing.
Christine: How can we speak if we don’t want to stay in witnessing? In the way we speak, we are witnessing all the time.
Berdhanya: I am not asking you to change, I’m asking to operate from a different place. I’m not asking you to stop speaking or solving the problems when you need to. I’m asking to operate from a different place. You may see and say exactly the same thing. There’s no change in your personality; it’s where you’re coming from that changes.
If we try to change your personality, it’s a psychological process. Oh, I need to be different or Oh, I don’t need to say this. No! I’m not challenging the purity of your behaviour, I’m challenging where you come from. The behaviour worked! It created love, harmony, peace. But that’s not where it comes from, that’s why it’s subtle. This must be absolutely clear. You’re not meant to change. The change means you’re interfering.
This doesn’t mean: “Oh, I’ll keep my old ways!” No. It’s that I understand that the one who operating is my persona needs to be dropped. The behaviour is okay. Is this helpful?
