From a Caterpillar’s Point of View

The imagery of the metamorphic process of the caterpillar to the butterfly has often been used as an analogy for the transformational process that occurs in enlightenment and, in fact, it is an excellent metaphor that encapsulates the process of transcendence.

Possibly the most important message that this image offers is lost in the precognition of the caterpillar’s transformation into the butterfly. To fully understand the message from the human perspective, we must look at this metamorphosis from the caterpillar’s point of view.

Let us start by first stating that the caterpillar has no comprehension of the butterfly, just as Jesus had no comprehension of the resurrection. That fact makes the cocoon or the cross look quite differently. The caterpillar is content in its life and its many feet are firmly implanted on the ground. It eats the lush greenery from the treetops and its only thoughts of flying are its fear of falling.

All it knows is what it is, yet it is destined to become more than it can comprehend—and so it is with humanity.

The caterpillar goes about its life, its routine, its predictable behaviors with no comprehension of the destiny that lies ahead. Yet deep from within its own being there is an innate call to separate itself from what it knows and loves, and encase itself in its own creation of solitude and separation. Drawn by an inner force, it is called to create a cocoon of separation—perhaps from its own point of view, it may seem like it is building its own tomb.

Drawn to release what is known and step into the unseen, it is driven by an irresistible force as it closes itself in. The lush greenery that it devoured disappears from its view and the blue sky fades as the last strands of its encasement are complete. Perhaps its only thought at that time is death rather than transformation.

Every great leap in consciousness is made into the unknown because every great leap in consciousness cannot be comprehended until it is experienced.

Humanity has been asked in this metamorphic process to be as courageous as the caterpillar. Just as the caterpillar was coaxed to become uninvested in what it knew, you are being guided, you are being called to divest yourself.

We are sure that for both the caterpillar and humanity, it can feel more like a prison than a portal into another reality. Yes, the lowly caterpillar, guided by that inner voice of awareness becomes receptive and open to the metamorphic process of transcendence. In the silence, in the separation of its self-created cocoon, another consciousness emerges, and with new consciousness new reality exists—and as it breaks forth from the cocoon that can no longer contain it—the next time it sees the blue of the sky will be upon the wings of its transformation.