Measures & Metrics of Transformation

In this episode, Dr. Sally and Dr. Jen curate some ways to measure transformation: personal, social, ecological,  cosmological and ethical. 

Transcript

1:21  Jen asks : How do we measure our own transformation. As trans-disciplinarians the podcast uses several lenses - personal, ethical, spiritual, social, ecological, and cosmological, to create a robust view. They ask ‘what does it feel like, and look like, to transform. There's no one size fits all measurement for spiritual maturity. Our truest measurement for transformation has to arise from within. Only we know what we've been through - with unique variables, contours, and context. It's too subjective for a universal standard. So they will share an assortment of ways to quantify one’s own transformation. We can't stop transformation. There seems to be a flow of development that is pulling us forward, and it's transforming us layer by layer. And the question is “are we moving with or against transformation”? They are not here to sell anything, they're just opening the conversation about transformation in as many directions as possible. There are clear indicators that can help assess our transformative journey. We can ask: are we moving into a healthy relationship with our ego? Are we moving towards growth, and expanded awareness? Are we willing to be honest with ourselves, and leave behind old ways of thinking, believing and being? Are we rigid and disassociated, or more lighthearted and playful? Do we intentionally surround ourselves with a healing community, with people who model the kind of life we want. Are we actively engaged in self awareness and reflection? Where do we need to put our attention? We were learning from each other all the time, because we're socially constructed beings. How are our relationships? Are we healing, setting appropriate boundaries? Or are we repeating harmful patterns, making trauma bonds? Are our conversations miscommunicating? Do we have a variety of connections, with acquaintances, as well as intimate connections with Beloved's? One way to measure our personal growth is when our sense of meaning starts to expand. We gain a sense of purpose, which is essential to living a long and happy life.

13:33  Sally agrees that change is universal, and ubiquitous. She reminds listeners of how in the past 100 years transformation in the West is considered ‘psychological’ change, through therapy. In the East, for about 3000 years, its been considered a spiritual process. So there are different ways to measure how we transform. In the West, we've got maps, such as spiral dynamics, that outlines changes in our values. Developmentalists such as Suzanne Cook Greuter who looks at how our ego matures, moving away from narcissism, and embracing more and more, expanding our care with a healthy ego. It's about developing the ‘emerging self’. In the east, it's about ‘merging the self’, dissolving the ego. These are very different directions. But we need both. Therapy traditionally focused on pathology, moving us from dysfunction, to being able to live a functional life. Then they began to focus on well-being and positive psychology. This too is essential. But this is not the focus of enlightenment teachings, which move you from being a normal functional being, to an ecstatic being. And what that requires is mastering the mind, quite different from therapy. And as we've discussed, you can have fully enlightened beings on the planet, who are full of pathologies and shadow - ecstatic but abusive. So these are two different pathways, both of which are essential. So when we come to metrics, we have different lenses. So the one is, how functional are we in society, our relationships, how emotionally and socially intelligent are we? And enlightenment teachings are more about how are we moving into ecstatic states? And the reason we do that, is because we begin to change dramatically. These two paths take us to ‘grow up’ and ‘wake up’. And have different measurements, but we need both. Sally cites Georg Feuerstein’s ‘the yoga tradition’, who describes 15 further ecstatic stages beyond normal waking state. The ego dissolves, and you start to really embrace the whole cosmos as part of you. Therapy doesn't take you there. Therapy takes you to embracing your family, your neighborhood, and your loved ones. 

20:00 Jen says we need balance in our life - with fingers and toes in the mystical, magical, spiritual and cosmic, while also being grounded in our communities, and with our people. So Radical Emergence Podcast celebrates ‘Functional Oneness’ which is both aspects of transformation. Our world is transforming fast due to the radical development of technology, big pharma, and big food. All of these can be used for good or bad. Jen describes how we measure the wellness of our society – through social justice, and equality, through the lifting of the matrix of oppression - racism and white privilege, white supremacy, white nationalism, the theft and displacement of indigenous and black traditions, their lands and food, LBGTQIA2S rights. She is trauma informed, and so is concerned about the prison and animal industrial complex, unchecked capitalism, mass consumerism, fast food, fast fashion, gender inequality, patriarchy and intergenerational trauma. These are all injustices that we have to look at, when measuring the wellness of our society. The narrative about American exceptionalism does, and does not, hold water when we actually examine the wellness of our nation. She cites Hubert Humphrey: ‘The ultimate moral test of any government is the way it treats three groups of its citizens. First, those in the dawn of life who are children. Second, those in the shadows of life who are needy, sick and handicapped. And third, those in the twilight of life, who are our elders’. The treatment of the most vulnerable members of our society is a reflection of our government. When we heal ourselves, we also heal our communities and our world. To do this we need to be trauma informed , embrace nuance, complexity and forgiveness with a certain humility – all excellent measures of personal and social growth.

28:01  Sally agrees that the expansion of care is a genuine metrix of transformation, moving beyond the narcissistic care of just the self, or the immediate family, to care of the community, and all the vulnerable, actually moving into service, as a way to alleviate suffering. Many of the great masters have mentioned this - it's not only about the books we have read, or what concepts we understand, or how many maps we can talk about, but what are we actually doing? Is ‘understanding’ translating into ‘action’ - for the alleviation of suffering? She cites Houston Smith. If emotional and social intelligence are not evident, we have some distance to go as mature adults. Dual citizenship is an important factor in meta-modern en-lightenment. Sally cites the Buddhist, Christian, Hindu and Indigenous teachings on this. We live fully in duality, and we also access the ecstatic tastes of non-duality. We live in two realities, and the more we taste the Oneness, the more our identity changes. The more we actually allow flow through us, into the world, as our service. We become construct aware, and start working with our minds. We become ‘aware of awareness’. And that's what starts driving our behavior, and we start to co-create with evolution. That's a very different place from being a narcissistic, go getter, who's only self involved, and wants to accumulate resources. We experience ego dissolution, as we embrace the whole universe. This is a shift in identity. We're able to integrate paradoxes, especially this ‘dual’ identity. Can we function really well in the world, and can we really access non-dual states, which start to feed each other.

Eventually, this pair moves from the binary of duality, to paradox, to unity – what we call Integral Taoism. We are fully available to both the ‘Oneness’ and the ‘Two-ness’ - at the same time. Life starts to simplify, with an ability to savor her beauty, and sensual gifts. The richness gives us more meaning. We can experience more and more pleasure, from less and less.  We also start to really open up our chakras, and develop our voice, we start to take a stand on things. The psychological shift becomes a behavioral shift.

 35:44  Jen says simplicity and slowing down are a great metric of growth and healing. The more full we are on the inside, the less we need things, people, or status. This can change our relationship with nature too. We are disassociated from nature due to an isolated identity. We have to re-imagine, re-integrate and re-orient our entire sense of self, to be deeply interconnected. She cites Peter White, who explores the heightened state of ecological consciousness as: a sense of reverence, humility, relationship, a sense of place, ecological sense of self, restorative or therapeutic feelings, spiritual meaning, a sense of vulnerability, a sense of wildness, appreciation of non human otherness, oneness and communion, perceptual acuity, solitude, mindfulness, and finally openness, through immersive experiences with natural landscape. Sanity, stability and sustainability starts from within. (see:

https://researchdirect.westernsydney.edu.au/islandora/object/uws:7075/datastream/PDF/download/citation.pdf )

48:57  Sally says two of the most critical features of mature adult development, are ethics and morality, which extend to our full environment. The Western value is that we develop our mind - which can separate us from nature. The Eastern value is mindfulness, which is a little different. It means that our mind becomes One with the things we focus on. What we connect to, is part of our mindfulness practice. The Eastern tradition suggests that we drop out of our minds completely, every now and again. So the relationship we have with our mind is critical. So we use it actively, AND we drop out of the mind, to find a background state, of ecstatic Oneness. Another paradox. This is the great skill at the center of the awareness of awareness - where we're using and placing our mind, and its attention. Because our attention is what everybody is trying to grab, mastering our attention is everything. Sally cites two Yogic passages - the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita about training the mind. Eventually, self mastery has nothing to do with our circumstances. But the paradox is, we have to also care about our circumstances. These passages give the metrix of en-lightenment from a Hindu point of view, including “When a person responds to the joys and sorrows of others, as if they were his own. He has attained the highest state of spiritual union.” Much like the Christian “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.”