A version of this essay first appeared in the May 23, 2021, Light Reading email. Light Reading is our regular Sunday email newsletter. If you would like to be on our Light Reading email list and recieve messages like this every Sunday, please send an email to info@christinst.org.
There's a story about a Buddhist monk who goes to a pizza place, and when the guy at the register asks what he wants, the monk says: "One with everything." The pie costs $12. The monk hands over a $20 bill, but the cashier just deposits the money without giving him any cash back. The monk asks for his change, and the cashier says: "Change must come from within."
Jokes aside, change is an important topic to consider in spirituality. Tales of transformation abound in folklore and mythology, which can provide a vital link to forgotten religious practices. In fact, some of the earliest images painted on cave walls depict transformations, human-animal hybrids, hinting at humanity's questioning, questing nature and desire to know what could be.
Transformation is the heightened understanding of simple change. One of the goals of spiritual practice is to realize that kind of change, a transformation of the simple, physical self into a metaphysical self, a heightened, complex and complete self. The process is most purely presented in the ancient practice of alchemy. If we only associate alchemy with greedy medieval mystics trying to get rich quick by turning lead into gold, we are selling it short.
Alchemy stretches back into antiquity. Its goal of turning base metal into gold was meant to reflect an occult and cosmic philosophy of comprehending, translating and perfecting human identity. Alchemy was not about material wealth. It was about overcoming material limitations and achieving spiritual perfection. Base metal represented the unenlightened self, and gold represented the ideal human self.
In our own spiritual practice, we call that enlightened and ideal human self Christ identity. That is the human identity available to us through the Godhead. Our complete identity as both created physical humans and perfect spiritual humans is found in Divinity, and we are corporeal reflections undergoing a process to achieve that true identity.
That the totality of our identity is reflected back at us from God is an indicator that, while we are like God, God is not like us. This is why the book of Genesis can state that humankind was created in God’s image, but the prophet Isaiah can observe that God's thoughts and ways are not humanity's thoughts and ways.
God is the cosmic mirror that reveals the entirety of creation, us included. We are one part of the greater complex of Divinity. This is vital to our spiritual practice and human existence, since it gives us both a means to comprehend God and a perfect image toward which we can strive. We recognize ourselves in that divine reflection as potential and perfection, the best image of our selves that we can pursue, the image that we are duty bound by spirit to pursue. The name of that pursuit is transformation, alchemy and change.
Change means "to become different," and that can give us pause. We might be afraid of change, or we might think that change is too much for us to handle. However, we might also be focusing on the wrong part of the concept. If we are too focused on "different," we can miss "to become." The change that results from spiritual practice is not something becoming different. Rather, it is something becoming.
What that changed identity becomes is not really different at all. Christ identity is no different from our own identity because it is the true and ideal identity that has been waiting for us. It is not new. It is simply something we are in the process of becoming.
All that we could be and should be is available for us to see in the Godhead and achieve in our lives. The positive aspects of Christ identity – awareness, compassion, satisfaction, peace – are already within. Realizing that identity only seems new to us because our vision is limited. From a cosmic perspective, our perfect identity has already been achieved precisely because it is waiting for us to achieve it. That's why the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes, from a heightened vantage point, was able to so neatly state that what is has been before, and what is will be again. We are a continuum, and realizing our ideal self is the true goal of our spiritual practice.
Let us pray:
God of alchemical fire,
May we seek the bright glow of your Divine flame.
God of transformative light,
May we become aware of our capacity for wisdom, strength and peace.
God of ultimate destiny,
May we realize our True selves.
Amen.