Stand on your head and you might notice something new.
I read somewhere that the Spiritual Laws of Alchemy originated from ancient Persia. I heard about them from one of my Teachers. It doesn’t matter. They are practical tools for becoming self-aware, and being self-aware is the ticket to knowing yourself, and knowing yourself is the ticket to freedom.
They aren’t dogma or anything to do with have to, must, should.
The term alchemy is about transformation. The term spiritual recognizes that everything is spiritual because we are spiritual beings, learning and growing through our humanness.
Fortunately, Consciousness has heightened since ancient times, so back then, the goal of alchemy was to transform base metals into gold. Now Alchemy is about transforming ourselves into an Awakened and Aware human being; Spiritual Alchemy. Great Gratitude for evolution!
We human beings have a natural impulse to strive for more: more money, more health, more recognition, more achievement, more happiness, and even more spirituality. And we can become quickly dissatisfied. Have you noticed that when we finally get something we want, a car, house, or a new computer, it isn’t long before we consider an upgrade? And once we have gained, achieved, or accomplished, there must be more.
The “more” of Spiritual Alchemy is the longing for something challenging to explain ~ elusive. Sometimes, we don’t know what that something is; we only know we want it, which could be what we think of as more peace and happiness.
More peace and happiness come with personal transformation, greater self-awareness, a more profound relationship with our Higher Self, and a feeling that all is well in my world, regardless of difficulty or challenges.
Alchemy is about transforming something for the better, including one’s self.
All this transformation takes work. We must be willing to consider that we may not know as much as we thought we knew ~ a Beginner’s Mind is required.
Consider what this # 1 Law of Spiritual Alchemy is saying and how to go about experiencing the truth of it. It takes practice (work).
When You Change The Way You Are Looking At Something, That Something You Are Looking At Changes.
Yes, I know, you’ve heard this before. “I’ve got it”, you say to yourself. That’s the problem with this great age we live in. It’s the information age, and we have Google. How far have you gone with this exceptional teaching, which is a tool? What have you been able to change for the better because of mastering it?
It’s important to know that Spiritual Alchemy is not positive thinking or affirmations, although those could come into play in our process of transforming. Ask if you are correct in how you are looking at something or someone. Then, ask what your life might look like if you changed how you look at things; how might you feel better with more peace? Now we’re getting somewhere.
Thinking a person or situation could change because you changed may be challenging. There’s a good chance nothing changed but your viewpoint. Perhaps the perspective you changed was a limited idea, an opinion about how something or someone “should” be, or maybe you were just unhappy.
When we look at a person, situation, place, or thing, we see it through our biases and belief systems. When our belief systems and biases shift into an expanded perspective, what we see changes. It’s like wearing tinted glasses; when we remove them, what we look at looks different.
Here’s a story that’s a great example (as told by Venerable Master Hsing Yun)
There was once an old lady who cried all the time. Her elder daughter was married to an umbrella merchant, while the younger daughter was the wife of a noodle vendor. On sunny days, she worried, “Oh no! The weather is so nice and sunny. No one is going to buy any umbrellas. What will happen if the shop has to be closed?” These worries made her sad. She just could not help but cry. When it rained, she would cry for the younger daughter. She thought, “Oh no! My younger daughter is married to a noodle vendor. You cannot dry noodles without the sun. Now there will be no noodles to sell. What should we do?” As a result, the old lady lived in sorrow everyday. Whether sunny or rainy, she grieved for one of her daughters. Her neighbors could not console her and jokingly called her “the crying lady.”
One day, she met a monk. He was very curious as to why she was always crying. She explained the problem to him. The monk smiled kindly and said, “Madam! You need not worry. I will show you a way to happiness, and you will need to grieve no more.”
The crying lady was very excited. She immediately asked the monk to show her what to do. The master replied, “It is very simple. You just need to change your perspective. On sunny days, do not think of your elder daughter not being able to sell umbrellas but the younger daughter being able to dry her noodles. With such good strong sunlight, she must be able to make plenty of noodles, and her business must be very good. When it rains, think about the umbrella store of the elder daughter. With the rain, everyone must be buying umbrellas. She will sell a lot of umbrellas, and her store will prosper.”
The old lady saw the light. She followed the monk’s instructions. After a while, she did not cry anymore; instead, she was smiling every day. From that day on she was known as “the smiling lady.”
We’re like the crying/smiling lady. The circumstances did not change, only how she looked at them. She didn’t think positive thoughts or affirm, nor did her daughters change; she simply looked at things differently.
Dissatisfaction and longing exist. At some level, different for each of us, we want to be clear about ourselves and our place in the Universe. We may not call it that. We call it peace and happiness or enlightenment. Either way, positive change is needed to have a new experience.
We become more aware when we contemplate this Law of Spiritual Alchemy to see what is revealed about us. In that newfound awareness, shifts begin to happen. So, we start to look at how we are showing up. How are we thinking and feeling in the process of experiencing our experiences? Because the experiences are going to be endless.
And once we accept that we can change our experience by changing how we look at something, we’re closer to freedom. It’s a play of Consciousness about becoming more conscious of who we are and how we show up.
The # 1 Law of Spiritual Alchemy reminds us to pay attention to how we see things and ask ourselves if we are looking at something accurately and what might change for the better if we change that. Our journey is a transformation game, and the game rules are in the Laws of Spiritual Alchemy.
May We All Walk in Beauty.
Ahalya Running Deer
If you loved the article check out the companion video on the Mystery School’s YouTube Channel
