Articles

Three Tyrannies and Metamorphosis

There are three types of tyrannies that exercise a constraint on our life: the tyranny of knowledge, the tyranny of experience (and memory), and the tyranny of form.  These have their roots in inertia, repetition and habit respectively.  Though they have arisen out of creative movement, being now based in the past, they leech the energy of creativity through using the mind which is only too keen to exercise some kind of supreme right that it bestows upon itself to annex or appropriate that very energy that gave rise to the knowledge, the experience and the form.  When creativity expresses itself, there seems to be a need for some kind of absent-mindedness running parallel to the action that will see form, experience and knowledge com into being.  Once the mind has appropriated the energies, tyranny sets in.

“I have had the experience”, someone will say.  This means that there is no need now to be alert or attentive and investigate the new convergences of forces that are present or to be attentive to the forces that want to manifest spontaneously.  One will tend then to repeat the same action.  This repetition of patterns is a lead to stupidity.  Someone else will say: “I know!”  Inertia will set in, which will prevent exploration or investigation into the new.  Forms seem to exercise some kind of hypnotic pull which will be habit-forming.  This is clearly seen in the form of a disease being kept going only through the stupid willingness of the consciousness of the cells to go on recreating the same patterns without questioning the usefulness or value of these very patterns.  When there is questioning, we see more and more sophisticated instruments being created, be it at the social or technical levels.  It seems that one needs to wait for constraint to be applied in order for new forms to be created.  Is that necessary?

There are three states of being that one can consider in order to understand the tyranny which experience, knowledge and form exercise.  They are the state of grace, the state of bliss and the state of knowing.  These come about when one moves spontaneously into another dimension than the one in which one is accustomed to live one’s life, i.e. out of time, space and matter.  It is impossible to be aware of these states as they manifest, for the mind and the consciousness at an ordinary level do not seem to operate.  It is only when one comes out of these states that one realises that one has lived them.  Time is suspended, space acquires a different dimension and matter seems to vibrate at a different rate.  It is impossible to repeat the experience at will, for the energy invested in the attempt to do so is the very energy that could produce the state, if one were to let it be.  And so one will content oneself to settle for second best and go on repeating patterns, being inert and letting oneself be the prey of habits.

There are three movements that we have to consider, the movements of Life, of Transformation and of Change.  The movement of Life will manifest at the movement of Transformation, which we will then feel or wit ness as the movement of change.  In this last one, on needs insight, discernment and discrimination in order not to be caught too deeply into the play of polarity and dualism which ultimately result in habit forming, repetition and inertia.  If discrimination and discernment are squarely based in the perception of what one feels is right for one beyond the dicta of the mind, then the movement of transformation can arise without being impeded, the energies not being diverted by the mind to remain in control.  Discernment and discriminations are, of course, movements of the mind and are therefore operating in the domain of time, space and matter.  At a basic level, it has a blind application when the flight or fight situation is at play and these qualities are also connected with the flight or fight situation.  The elementary consciousness operating in time, space and matter has devised this ploy whereby the matter that it inhabits must go on surviving at all costs and this instinct was very important at the beginning of the Universe.  However, we can question its value, as the proliferation of matter, occurring because the Universe is expanding has created the situation whereby the dance of Life and Death has speeded up to such an extent that everything is about to blown apart.  It is the very instinct of survival which ultimately ensures that there is disease, ageing and death for the energy used in keeping going is the very energy that could bring about Metamorphosis or transformation, not in accordance to a specific plan but in a transcendental development which the action of Life seems to favour.  What is then Metamorphosis, Transformation?

Metamorphosis – a change of form.  We are not concerned here with the actual manifestation of the form, but with the energy allowing for that form to come into being.  The form of a caterpillar will change as a caterpillar.  The form of a butterfly will change as a butterfly.  But in between the two something has been triggered.  It is the energy of the caterpillar that acquires the new form of a butterfly and in between the two forms, there was something that was triggered.  The energy of a human being is the energy of the sperm and the ovum which transformed these two forms into the unique form of a zygote which went on to divide and to differentiate and to create that human being.  The energy of the sperm and the ovum comes from mother and father whose energies came from the cells of their parents, and so ad infinitum.  So we are here in the domain of unity in terms of energy.  There is only the dance of the forms that occurs.  And that dance has a beginning and an end.  But the energy underlying that dance is without past or future.  It is.  It is the same energy that was present at conception.  What is then conception, if not the outcome or the result of reaction?  Conception is the meeting point of what is in time, space and matter, one’s own gestation, birth and life up till now together with what is out of time, space and matter, i.e. all the subtle forms and influences.  Conception is not only the meeting point of what is in and out of time, space and matter, but also there is a third element that comes and animates the first cell, for example, that is formed following the union of mother and father.  That third element is beyond time, space and matter and is nothing else but Life and Intelligence whose action is Creation.  This means that conception is taking place, now, being the meeting point of what is in, out and beyond matter, time and space.  If conception is taking place now, then why should the old patterns persist?  The weight of habit, inertia and repetition is at work, compounded by gravity and entropy.

How to cope with the despotism of the mind?  How to restrain the mind to its rightful function which is to plan the day, think, i.e. string thoughts along through association and prevent it from exercising and annexing all the power that it can?  It is possible to accept the mind for what it is, a useful little tool, to acknowledge its presence and agree to let it be.  Then through detachment, the mind can see that its aspiration to glory is without foundation.  The energy then, not diverted, can be used for communication at other levels, and so Metamorphosis or Transformation ensures as the yearning of Life and Intelligence to express themselves in Love and Beauty.

Gaston Saint-Pierre, Metamorphosis Magazine, Summer 1989