FIVE POPULAR WAYS OF RESISTING TRANSFORMATION
“In Mohenjo Daro seeds have been found that are ten thousand years old. They are still alive, they can sprout. In a cave in China seeds have been found which are one million years old. They are still alive. Put them in the soil, water them, care – and they will sprout. One million years a seed has remained inside!
And you are the same seed. Wherever you are, in the cave of China or in the cave of New York, it makes no difference: you have been a seed for millions of lives. You have been afraid to take the jump and become a plant. It is a great jump. It is a risk. The shell is torn asunder, the protection lost; the security disappears.”
~ Osho
Sprouting is transformation and transformation is like death. Death of a state, a form and birth of another. Often the dying form feeding into the birthing of another. Just like the dry leaves that fall and work like manure for the plant to grow and flower.
While most of us cognitively know and understand that transformation is an inevitable phenomenon in Nature, as an enabler I have encountered, with concern, many who resist this phenomenal force with all there might and remain un-sprouted for years.
Fundamentally, in order to resist transformation people ensure they do not listen. True listening is transformational in itself. I have seen and experienced many, who in moments when they need to confront a transformational message or experience a moment of truth of sorts; they completely block it to save them of the pain of self-encounter, which precedes transformation.
What are some of the most popular ways of not listening to resist transformation?
- There are those who hear the message and are stupidly smart enough to intellectualize it and give it a convenient meaning. I remember once I had asked someone, just to invoke an inner inquiry, “Where are you coming from”? Pat came the answer, “From Bangalore”. On another occasion I had asked someone, “What is it that you are sitting on that is making so much of noise”? The person literally got up to inspect the place where he was sitting. Hilarious as it may seem, these are rather imperceptible mind games some of us have mastered to avoid getting the message and allow the seed to be ripped open.
- Self-distraction is another way of avoiding self-encounter and possible triggering of a transformational process. And there are more mediums of escape that are available to us today than it was ever, thanks to the digital revolution. The conventional ones like TV, pubs, bars and malls etc. still exist.
- Falling and staying asleep – sometimes literally, sometime figuratively is another defense mechanism I see many exhibiting. Go to any seminar or public session and you will see so many of them snoozing. Bored of the incessant chatter, the monotony of their own self talk (and that’s what they were listening to, even as the speaker kept speaking) they fall asleep. Then, there are others, who are lost in dreams, thinking of world in the ‘then and there’. They are not at all present. How do you expect them to listen to and receive messages that can transform them?
- Playing victim or may be sometime counter attacking as a persecutor is another way of avoiding a transformational experience. You will see such persons dramatically very adept in breaking down, seeking sympathy and villainizing the situation and / or others in it. Or blow their top off in a fit of rage scaring people around and diverting his own as well as others’ attention.
- The ‘doer-ship’ syndrome is a very popular self-satisfying way of avoiding listening and reflection and resisting transformation. Those who demonstrate this appear always ‘busy’. They want the world to know that they are extremely indispensable in whatever they are doing and keep themselves busy in self-serving activities, thus insulating themselves from any possibility of transformation.
This is a transformational message in itself. If it is speaking to you, if you are listening, I am sure, you have been able to detect one or more of the above ways being adopted by you to thwart Nature’s intent to take you through transformative growth. Also, you may have found and practiced other innovative ways of avoiding / resisting transformation. Please feel free to add these to the repertoire by writing in the comment box.
However, if you have been successful in deflecting this message too – God bless you.