“The only constant is change”. -Heraclitus 

I remember listening to a lecture by one of my old teachers (someone I watched on YouTube for a while anyway) in which he said that there would come a point when all the information we had ingested would really take root, and that it would change us. He said that when we began to change, we would know it. At that time I wondered things like how we would know exactly, and if I had reached that point yet. Knowing me I probably assumed that I had. When I finally did though, his words, so simple yet profound in hindsight, made all the sense in the world. I knew I was changing the day I literally mouthed the words to myself, “I’m changing”, in a moment of clarity and realization.

Transformation is a word I come across all the time when I’m reading anything spiritual, from astrological assessments, ancient texts, to social media postings. The importance of it is very much evident. Through our spiritual work we may find ourselves healthier, in better shape, even more successful, but the type of change and transformation I’m referring to is deeper–perhaps at the genetic level. It’s a change that you can’t help but notice because you’re just so…different. I think differently. I behave differently. I feel differently. I perceive situations, the world and myself differently. It goes beyond even those things though. Honestly these words don’t do justice to what I’m attempting to convey, but if you’ve experienced it–you get it.

This type of transformation is ongoing. I’ve had several of these moments where I gaze off into nothing, scrunch up my face almost in suspicion, and in a moment mixed with both amazement, and eeriness, say to myself, “I’m changing”. There’s nothing else you can do when you realize you’ve made it to the other side of a new lesson, upgrade, crossroads, etc. And in those quiet moments of being present you can feel that the very essence peering out into the world from behind your eyes just isn’t the same one from before. It’s so apparent that you can’t help but acknowledge it. It feels good. It feels really good–especially when you once felt almost as if you were held hostage within your own vessel, with the restraints of human conditions, traumas, and programming binding your true self. I am unchained.

I’ve heard people brag about being the same person they were 10-15 years ago, as if that’s an accomplishment. To be blunt and brief, that is an absolute failure. That’s a sign of perhaps not being connected to your own divinity. It’s that divine spark, buried deep within the darkness that is humanity, that catches our attention, and we then follow it to find more light. Without it, we’d be completely lost in this darkness. The universe is within us, and if it is constantly changing, (as within so without), then we must as well–if we are truly reflections and expressions of it. If one is stagnant, and making no changes within…what might that be a reflection of?

The beauty in understanding that you’re essentially nothing, and everything, is the realization that it means you can be anything.  So, there are very few remnants of the person I used to be. Those that remain are either attributes of my true self that I naturally embodied, ones that I’m working on but haven’t let go of yet, or ones that I choose to hang on to as part of my human ego/personality. I now know who and what I am…and that changes everything.