‘Every fairy tale is based upon the transformation of suffering.’ – Robert Burton

For the child within, nature can be a wonderful teacher. The striations and fissures that lend beauty to rocks also speak of the strong forces that have shaped them. Plants and trees are living tales of blossoming against numerous odds. In a moment of deep grief, my eyes caught sight of an old tree as we were driving by. It was a momentary impression that had a transformative effect. Its trunk was so gnarled and twisted, but the happy green leaves spoke of how it continued to affirm life. The sorrow lifted, and and there was a keen desire to tune into the sunshine that was all around me. 

‘The hidden meaning of having a body is to transform suffering and produce an astral body.’ – Robert Burton

When shocks and suffering come, it is usually one’s essence and the emotional centre that experience the pain. The physical body finds events difficult and destabilising, has to deal with fear, the trauma of loss, and the many forms of friction. The greater the suffering, the deeper the silence, the fortitude and tenderness that essence draws upon to lift itself once again. It becomes a very humble effort to transform the situation. All too often we must renew and reaffirm our efforts, over and over. Transformation is also a creative process, affirming self-remembering over self-pity. Everything can start to whisper ‘Be’ and one learns to make the payment to return to the divine present. 

‘The One Itself is perfect because it seeks nothing, has nothing and needs nothing.’ – Plotinus

Schools teach us that higher centres are complete and perfect as they are. They do not need to seek presence or transform something that is coarse into something finer. Occasionally, we might catch the truth of this during very brief flashes. In a moment of shock, we might perceive two vastly different worlds existing inside us simultaneously. The higher worlds can be completely calm, unaffected, stable, witnessing the moment just as it is with ‘neither preference nor denial.’ On the other hand, the lower centres may feel the brutality of the shock that jolts or paralyzes them.  For higher centres, nothing needs to be changed. Each moment merely offers the opportunity to know themselves as they are. With school work, one learns to have the right relation to suffering, and become more sensitive to the presence of the higher worlds that are one’s true identity. 

Image: Arthur Rackham (Wikimedia Commons)

Radhika Shah is a writer in India, and a student of the Fourth Way for several decades. See her earlier articles for FourthWayToday.org at https://fourthwaytoday.org/author/radhika-shah/, including  https://fourthwaytoday.org/who-am-i/.

See a related longer article here: https://bepresentfirst.com/higher-mind-knowledge-and-being/.