One of the common denominators or common stories that we come across in ancient books is the stories that describe transformation.
Many of these ancient stories are actually designed to teach us about human psychology.
Stories that are about transformation are commonly represented by the symbols of death and rebirth.
As an adult,
It is very common that when you are learning something new,
You are learning this because some part of your life or something that you are doing is not working or no longer works.
Therefore,
In order to change yourself,
You need to let go of certain aspects of your life that you are doing in error.
Small errors require small change,
But big errors require massive change.
These changes can be extremely difficult and immensely challenging because you literally need to change the person you currently are.
You may need to change the way you think,
You may even need to change your personality,
And very commonly you even change your lifestyle,
What clothes you wear.
The list can go on and on.
In the end though,
When you do this,
You will re-emerge completely reconstructed.
So if you were to give one example of this,
One may be doing a traditional martial art that they started as a teenager or in their late teens or as a young adult.
This martial art taught them a certain style of philosophy,
A certain lifestyle,
A certain way of eating,
A certain way of sleeping,
Dressing,
The list really goes on.
And they also were taught that the master was kind of god-like in many ways.
As this person gets older,
They start to see flaws within this system.
They start to see that according to science,
The methods that they were taught to eat,
Or the methods which they were taught to do breathing for example,
Or the methods that they were taught to sleep with,
Were incorrect.
And they also start to see flaws in the personality of the master.
What this means is that the ideology is starting to collapse as many problems come forth.
Now this person can either stick with this incorrect,
Static ideology for their entire life,
Which will lead to various ailments and problems,
Or they can change.
The difficulty though is with changing,
They therefore are changing who they are.
Everybody knows that person as so and so,
Black belt teacher of so and so school.
Their friends are from that school.
The clothes they wear were based on that school.
The list continues and continues.
But in order to transform oneself,
And maybe take the good aspects of that,
Of what they learnt,
And throw away all the negatives,
They literally need to change the human being that they are.
They need to leave the school,
They need to learn different martial arts,
They need to change the way they eat,
Dress,
Sleep,
Every part of them.
This is something which is incredibly difficult for many people to do.
But of course,
If one is able to do that,
They re-emerge with so much more knowledge,
And so much more wisdom,
Because they've been willing to change the way they view the world,
To take on,
Let's say,
Different ideas,
More scientific ideas,
By which they only become a better person in many ways,
And a person that is far more wise.
What this teaches us,
On the flip side of the coin,
Is that it is incredibly difficult as you get older to change,
Because for that change to occur,
One must let go of their cherished ideas and beliefs before they can reconstruct themselves.
Many people therefore have an unwillingness to learn and face the facts that are not in concurrence with their world view.
As I had previously mentioned,
One of the problems with this is if you are unwilling to change and reinvent yourself,
You may get stuck in a wrong world view that can only cause a lot of suffering and pain.
We therefore need to view ourselves as something that can continually transform in response to challenges,
New knowledge,
New science,
And new views on the world.
We need to challenge our ideologies and our knowledge and our perceptions,
Because if you have a static ideology view of the world,
By which you encompass the whole world into that view,
You will undoubtedly become incredibly upset when that starts to crumble.
This is where we can look at ancient stories and observe some of them and see how they're trying to teach us that as a human,
You are far more powerful if you have the ability to continually transform yourself as challenges,
New information,
New knowledge,
And new science comes forth.
I hope this is somewhat useful to you and you may be able to apply it to your life.
