Change & Transformation

Jyoti Mantra

Asato ma sat gamaya

Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya

Mrityor ma amritam gamaya

Lead me from the unreal to the real;

Lead me from darkness into light;

From death to immortality

This is a wish that many of us have in our lives.

When we are living in a false identity, not living our truths or living in the darkness, we feel stuck, unsupported and ready to give up. What we don’t realise is that these moments are the ultimate platform for realisation and the perfect opportunity for growth. Growth cannot happen without darkness.  It is integral in order to elevate ourselves spiritually.

Let’s take a pro tennis player for example .  He is of the top 100 in the world but his dream is to become one of the top 10.  His coaches tell him that if he wants to reach his dream, he has to change his serve. In order to do this he will need to go out of his comfort zone and break years of habit of serving in the same way. We can just imagine how this player would feel – It would be an incredibly uncomfortable, scary and daunting experience for him.

This is the path of growth. You have to dive into the uncomfortable in order to better yourself. This is the same in life. Challenges come knocking on our door and they are an invitation for growth and development.  The thing that we might think is the worst situation that has ever happened to us is holding within it the possibility for great change. The possibility for us to step from darkness into light.

As humans, our first instinct is to run away from that moment – it is very scary and unpleasant. These moments bring with them so much cloudiness and doubt. The spiritual teacher encourages us to face these moments head on and have faith in ourselves that we will learn from these moments and grow.  Our fate is not in something external, but the guru within. The spiritual teacher is inside of us. So as the mantra; an inner prayer to shift from the lowest place to the highest place.

We know there is an epidemic of mental health issues. Depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, the list goes on. These diseases are wake up calls. They are telling us that the way we have been handling ourselves up until this moment is no longer serving us. We need these periods of darkness in order to see the light within and realise that now is the time for change.

Whether this is true or not, from a higher source or not, metaphysically right or wrong – it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we can treat anything that happens in our life as a lesson. This is the teaching of the Kabbalah.

In the kabala tradition, they share their understanding that darkness comes from light and that any challenge we might be faced with comes from a higher source. It’s coming because we are ready for it. We are finally at the stage in our lives where we are able to elevate ourselves spiritually.

So if you are facing any difficulty in this moment, see if you can learn from it. If you can elevate yourself from it. What can you do in order to filter the positive from the negative? What can you do to realise the unreal from the real? How can you be led from darkness into light? If you feel stuck in your life, maybe it’s a good idea to evoke this difficulty, take yourself outside your comfort zone, stretch your boundaries and create great change and transformation in your life.

Our teachers once said: ” life is not about being good. Life is about being better”.