Becoming (Skt. भव, Bhava) is the process of change and transformation from one state to another. On the path of knowledge, becoming is understood as belonging to the domain of illusion it is the nature of experience, not of the experiencer.

Becoming and the illusion of change

All experience is continuously changing some experiences change very fast, some very slowly. Since they are changing, according to the criteria for truth on the path of knowledge, they are all false. This ceaseless flux of transformation is what we call becoming.

The existence itself does not become anything. It simply is. It does not undergo any process, because all processes are within it. The existence is not directed towards anything, because all purposes are within it. It has no beginning and no end it is timeless.

The trap of becoming

The ordinary mind is trapped in becoming. It constantly seeks to become something to become better, to become enlightened, to become happy, to become free. But on the path of knowledge, none of this is the goal.

The path of knowledge is not going to make you great or powerful; it is going to make you humble, small, free, and blissful. Those who are trying to improve themselves, trying to become smarter, better in something, more successful in their worldly lives, will be disappointed. The path does not add it removes. It is a subtractive path.

If you think I can go on this path for a few days and become something, you will be disappointed. This path will turn you into a nobody and very paradoxically, it will turn you into the whole of the existence.

Being vs Becoming

Being is the opposite of becoming. Being is the recognition of what already is changeless, timeless, ever-present. Becoming is the movement in time, the constant pursuit of the next state. The entire journey on the path of knowledge is from becoming to being from the restless pursuit of change to the simple recognition of the ever-present truth.

Self realisation is not an achievement or a transformation of the person it is the recognition of the ever-present truth. Nothing new is created; the ignorance is simply removed, and what was always there shines forth.

The cycle of becoming

The cycle of becoming birth, death, rebirth applies only to name and form, not to the experiencer. Just as in a dream, characters appear to be born and die, in the waking state, bodies appear and disappear. The Experiencer does not take birth and does not die. It is unborn and deathless.

See also: being, change, illusion, self realisation, subtractive path, experiencer, time.