“We can disintegrate our defects and dissolve the psychological “I” only by means of this science of transmutations. We can modify our errors, transmute the vile metals into pure gold and command only by means of the science of transmutations.”

– Samael Aun Weor

This word transmutation gets utilised a lot in esoteric traditions, but it appears as if it utilised without much knowledge of what the word really means. So it is important that we analyse this word and understand what it means, where it comes from, and what it implies.

The word transmutation came into use because of the tradition of Alchemy, and is derived from Latin roots. The implications of the word transmutation are far beyond what most esoteric traditions attribute to it. Trans means “thoroughly,” and mature means “change.” To transmute means to completely change something. In the modern Gnostic movement, for example, most students use this word transmutation exclusively in relation to sexual energy, which is a valid use of the word, but it is not its full meaning and not its original use.

The word transmutation originally applied to our entire being, to everything about us. Really, to transmute comes from that famous phrase from alchemy, “to transmute lead into gold.” It means to purge the lead, which is a dense, heavy, and impure metal, and reduce it into its quintessence—in other words, to reduce it to the most basic components that originally made it, and from that, to perfect it.

For us to become something new, we need to unzip the sequence that makes who we are, and reconnect it in a superior way. But how are you going to disarrange everything about yourself, and rearrange it? Especially when you are the one trying to do it. Not easy! But this is what to “transmute” really means. It means “to thoroughly change.” Gnosis is a science of transmutation. Yes, it begins with sexual energy, that is the root energy that makes the full and complete transmutation possible, but we do not seek to only transmute sexual energy. We want to transmute all of our matter, all of our consciousness, our psyche, our soul: everything. We want to thoroughly change: to transmute.

Interestingly, the result of that transmutation is a mutant. A mutant is someone who is different, who is changed. This word, “mutant,” has a negative connotation nowadays, but in reality, every existing creature is a mutation, a mutant. What we want is a conscious mutation, a change for the better. We want a change towards something beneficial and positive, something useful, something that will bring harmony and peace, not discord and violence. We want a change that will bring about goodness, equality, harmony, love.

For that type of change, we need to thoroughly change the causes of discord, the causes of suffering, and those causes are within us, in our matter, our energy, and our consciousness.

A genuine transmutation requires that the causes or the origins of problems and pain, suffering, are changed thoroughly, so that new effects can emerge. That change is not easy. If you consider how anything in nature changes, fundamentally changes, it’s a process of birth, growth, decline, death, rebirth, growth, decline, and death. This is how evolution advances, through small mutations over time.

If you have ever studied biology or evolution, you can see that this is how species grow. They grow because of the pressures put on them by their environment. They change, and adapt, and hopefully improve. We need the same thing. Unfortunately, we are not responding properly to the pressures that are upon us. In response to the psychological, material, social, and physical pressures that are on us now, we are not mutating ourselves properly. If we were, we would be transcending the problems. We would be adapting and overcoming them so that they would not be problems anymore. Instead, we see that the problems are deepening, that we are not changing fast enough, and in the right way. We need to know how to do it, how to transmute.

In order to transmute yourself, you need to know what you are working with, you need to see yourself, you need to see how your mind and heart functions, how all of the sensations you experience flow. You need to see what parts of your psyche are expansive, what is the relative mobility of your thinking and feeling, what about its temperature? Its fluidity and solidity? In this way, you can analyse the elements that are involved. You can understand how to manage the elements in your experiences, psychologically.

–data cited from www.gnosticteachings.org (25 June, 2012)- #image is Gratitude For The Earth And Sky by Cameron Grey

TRANSFORM LIFE’S HARDSHIPS INTO BLESSINGS

• Meditation: Here I accomplish nothing less than the complete transformation of negative situations into positive opportunities and blessings. Manna rains down upon me. Life begins to taste like anything my soul desires or imagines. I have the power to transform all of my hardships into beauty and strength. I get into a positive head space, knowing that from there – anything is possible. The challenges that lie before me are here for a reason. The Light encourages and allows me to learn from them and grow.