For most people, the transition from three-dimensional to four-dimensional consciousness is exceedingly painful. Medieval Christianity called it the dark night of the soul; Dante called it the journey through hell and purgatory; it was forty days and forty nights in the desert for Jesus; it was a journey in the belly of a fish for many a hero.
For a modern man it is a midlife crisis or worse, a nervous breakdown; or still worse, physical suicide. The process can be summed up in one sentence; it is the relocating of the center of the personality from the ego to a center greater than one's self. This superpersonal center has been variously called the Self, the Christ nature, the Buddha nature, superconsciousness, cosmic consciousness, satori, and samadhi. This relocation appears to be death when viewed from the perspective of the ego. Zen masters observe that satori (their term for a nonpersonal center of consciousness) can be viewed by the ego as nothing but total disaster. And death it is! The ego loses it supremacy and goes through a short time of violent suffering.
When someone threatens suicide at this time, I caution him that he must be very careful to do it without harming his body. The relocation of the center of the personality is a form of suicide, and it's best done voluntarily by the ego. Mezumi Roshi, a Zen master in Los Angeles, once said, "Why don't you die now and enjoy the rest of your life?" (83-84)~Transformation Robert A. Johnson
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