“One of the most dramatic examples of transformation in the world of biology is something called metamorphosis. Meta means beyond and morphosis is, of course, to give rise to form. Metamorphosis is when there is a dramatic transition of a species from one pattern of behaviour and morphology to a completely new pattern of behaviour and morphology. Morphology means form so it’s not just a change in behaviour, it’s a complete change in the structure and form of the species.  

 

“When humans evolved from primates, that was a quantum leap in evolution. So here we have primates and then we have humans, complete difference. Even though 99% of the DNA in the chimpanzee is the same as that of a human  being.  You’re very different from a chimpanzee. Chimpanzees don’t wonder about the existence of God or worry about their soul or think about the afterlife. They can’t come up with architecture and science and music and poetry.  That was a quantum leap in evolution, a literal metamorphosis. When amphibians became birds, that was a quantum leap. A change from here to here with no transition in between.

 

“Of course, in the insect world, the most dramatic example of metamorphosis is when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.  Very interesting phenomenon. At a certain stage of it’s development, a caterpillar becomes extremely voracious. It starts to consume much more than it needs to. And as a result, it’s body becomes distorted and disfigured and grotesque and the cells begin to die. They liquefy, they begin to die.  But within the body of the caterpillar, here and there, scattered here and there, there are a few cells called the imaginal cells. And these imaginal cells start to cluster in little groups and not only that, they start to connect with each other. This connectivity is connectivity of vibration. They begin to vibrate at the same frequency.  

 

“And when the caterpillar’s immune cells look at these cells, they don’t recognize them. They think these are fallen cells so they start to attack these imaginal cells but as I mentioned before, the imaginal cells are vibrating at a completely different frequency so they are immune to the onslaught of the immune cells.  And after a while the immune cells literally give up. And the imaginal cells begin to not only continue to cluster together but they begin to connect with other clusters of imaginal cells. And when this connectivity, which is not even a connectivity in terms of local connections, it’s a connectivity in terms of vibrating together to the same frequency. When this connectivity reaches a critical threshold, a dormant gene that has been asleep in the imaginal cells starts to wake up. And this gene has within it the genetic code that will one day power the wings for the new creature that has to emerge—the butterfly.  Finally, there is the flight to freedom.

 

“Now, there’s something very interesting about this whole phenomenon because the genes that code for the wings of the butterfly, they code for two contracted proteins that will power the wings of the butterfly. These same genes code for the proteins that are responsible for the beating of the human heart. Your heart. It seems like nature waited for hundreds of millions of years.  She said, “Today I have discovered how I’m going to power the wings of the butterfly but a few million years from now I will use the same secret to power, literally, the  flight to freedom of the human heart.  The human heart that yearns to be more than human.  We are the only species that yearns to be more than who we are. There’s a great Sufi poem by Rumi where he says, ‘When I die I will soar with angels. And when I die to the angels what I will become you cannot imagine.’

 

 

You will be able to pass through to another area.  You’ll pass a lady sitting to the left.

 

“How do you think something so small as one person has so much strength to help all others?  You know, you are not alone.”