Vertical Change

What does real change look like in spiritual life?

Change in our lives can look and feel very dramatic. You might move houses and jobs, find a new lover, or remake your appearance. You might join a spiritual community, practice really hard, and even have some spiritual experiences.

But if you are still operating with your same old emotions and your same old story about yourself and the world, not much has changed.

The walled self

People build defensive walls out of various karmic patterns. We resist giving these up and will even trade our freedom for the familiarity of our narrower way of navigating the world.

What are we defending against? Feelings of insufficiency, fear of death, fear of loss.

A defensive wall can be built from narratives of superiority and from the narratives that support chronic anger, pleasure-seeking, competitiveness, holiness, and so forth. Behind the wall is insecurity, fear and ultimately loneliness.

Yes, if we try to fix loneliness by fixing a sense of self, the result is loneliness. Only the great, open, natural intimacy that has no fixed reference points can cure us of loneliness.

Horizontal life

We can be spiritual practitioners, but if we are afraid to step into the unknown, the chaotic, the uncertain, the unpredictable, or simply the more alive, then changes we experience will be largely “horizontal.”

“Horizontal change” is a term coined by the U.S. kundalini yoga teacher, Swami Rudrananda. He used it to point toward those times when we seem to be changing, but our same old emotional patterns and stories are coming right along with us.

I met a white european person who lived in an ashram in India. He had adopted orange robes even though he was not a sannyasin (a renunciate). He did a lot of karma yoga and was helpful to many people.

On the other hand, he constantly spouted nondual teachings. This was his main form of conversation.

He delivered these “teachings” in an admonishing or correcting tone. He had no actual realization of the teachings. They had become servants of his defensive need to position himself as spiritually above it all. He was really just trying to avoid pain and uncertainty.

He had moved countries and changed his appearance and his way of life, but he had not surrendered his defensive personality structure.

Poignantly, in his attempt to connect by assuming the role of the spiritual explainer, he actually pushed people away.

Every karmic tension is an attempt to resolve the pain of separation, at the same time that it ultimately keeps others at a distance. The recognition that you want actual connection is key to getting out of the prison of karmic fixation and experiencing real change.

Vertical change

The job of the teacher and student working together is to bring down the walls and create the possibility for what Swami Rudrananda, called “vertical change.”

Vertical change occurs spontaneously when we have direct contact with the wisdom that is the foundation of life.

When we practice and begin to experience living wisdom with our own senses, we simultaneously experience changes in understanding and perspective. This change is embodied. Your old story about yourself no longer feels appropriate or necessary. Long-standing tensions resolve. Most importantly, your conduct changes. You become more freely expressive and compassionate.

When you are no longer identifying so strongly with small I and its boundaries, you become less interested in self definitions and more interested in others.

Before we can experience vertical change, we must be willing to let go of some part of our story about ourselves so that fresh and new experiences of wisdom can touch us and remake us. This is the hardest part for most people. Why? Because we have to relax and let go before we can see the new situation.

The willingness to surf the scary moments when we are in between the old and the new is gold for practitioners.

You can’t take it with you

In direct realization traditions, the teacher challenges you in ways that, if you were to respond with courage and openness, would lead to vertical change. This always entails giving up some cherished idea about yourself: who and how you are, what you must have, want, or don’t want.

If we want more realization, we cannot take our attachments and tensions with us, try as we might.

But the good news is that the more we allow ourselves to be changed by wisdom, the more we gain confidence in the process. It becomes less scary over time. And while we still might resist the very freedom we seek, little by little that is welcomed with open arms.

with infinite love,
Shambhavi

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