Small Talk - Issue #18 (November 2007) by Jacquelyn Small

TRANSCENDENCE

I’ve never met anyone yet who would not wish to have such a life, filled with unusual, adventurous, or thrilling “other worldly” prospects. And even better: a life that feels sacred and purposeful, where we are all connected consciously with the whole. So when we speak of transcendence, is this what we mean? Let me get a little more specific here and see if we can’t comprehend this concept better.

Living a transcendent life is the highest and most inclusive, holistic level of human consciousness. It is living under the aspect of eternity, behaving and relating to oneself, to significant others, to humanity in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos as ends rather than as means. It is holism in the highest sense of hierarchical integration – truly, where everything is seen as being intricately connected to the One, or the All. Through transcendent eyes, you are seen as living “your bigger story.” Transcendent moments bring about this type of higher knowing, because everytime we have one of these amazing numinous experiences, we feel we’ve been given an archetypal message, visited by the angels, or actually seen the face of God. It changes us forever.

Abraham Maslow gives an example of such a moment when he was graduating from college. There in line in his cap and gown, he saw himself standing in a timeless progression of all the pioneers of human psychology who had come before him, all those who had created that area of human education and achievement for the world. And he felt himself to be the latest graduate of this progression. For that moment he had transcended time, feeling himself connected to beings who had already died, in touch with his sacred purpose in life.

We all have moments of seeing some aspect of our lives in its highest archetypical significance. These are ‘peak experiences’ that lift us into a sense of living in eternity, rather than as mere human personalities. We know for that little while that we belong to humanity as one whole, and that we are “bigger than we look like.” Numinous inner experiences take us beyond ego into realms considered mystical or religious. What triggers these spontaneous numinous events tends to be moments of real excellence, real perfection, perfect justice, or pure art or beauty. You suddenly see something in all its splendor, its reason for being and what it offers us in the way of eternity. These are ecstatic moments where you wind up feeling different about yourself or about the world. Childbirth, extreme crises, or near-death experiences can bring them on. In our work, we call this “seeing the bigger picture,” and know that rising to this level of awareness often eases the pain or suffering in some individual life circumstance.

I recall an experience like this once while undergoing an Integrative Breathwork session, which is a method that can produce spontaneous transcendent experiences. As the music played and my deep breathing increased, I began accessing intense feelings of grief about my oldest son who is a life-long diabetic of the worst kind, and was experiencing kidney failure at the time. I was wailing in a state of “poor him, poor me,” clutching my stomach, and crying out for help – when suddenly my consciousness stilled, and I rose out of my body and began soaring over planet Earth seeing all the mothers in the world with sick children, all at once. For that timeless moment, I was transfixed. I felt a strong sense of “this, too, is just another human experience.” And I knew the comfort of belonging with all these other women in the world. When I came back into my body, I felt healed. I had transcended the fear of death, pain and sickness, and was reconciled to the necessity of death and pain in this human life. Though I still had sorrow and compassion for us and for all who go through such experiences, something in me was forever changed.

So what we can know about the transcendent attitude or a transcendent moment is that these are healers par excellance! It appears that once we can rise to the highest, most comprehensive point of understanding some aspect of our pain or circumstances, we can know it for what it truly is, and can see its purpose or its sacred intent. Then, there is an acceptance that comes with such knowing. Once recognized on this level, we tend to relax into it, knowing we are not alone, and can learn to accept and transform this into its highest spiritual intent. With a transcendent perspective, much of our little ego insults and sorrows in life become eased, and sometimes our most egoistic plights seem even laughable. We’re able to accept life as it is and ourselves as just where we are on our journey.

I don’t know about you, but for me, this is peace. It brings me a way of living in the present moment without all the baggage that loads us down with guilt, shame, or unrealistic expectations or misunderstandings about life here on earth. We see that we are fully human, while simultaneously we know we are spiritual beings with a much bigger story than our simple one-family biography deludes us into believing we are. We start to fully realize that, yes, we are spiritual beings learning to be human; we are not human beings trying to become spiritual. Once this fact settles into our brains as our true identity, we step out of our little story and live a transcendent life, no matter what’s going on, ever. We see that spirituality is our true nature and that our purpose here is to spiritualize the human kingdom by bringing love, wisdom, and a sense of sacred purpose to all our human experiences. And we do this by our willingness to enter fully in here and be the human we know we want to be.

In transcendent living, we can also get beyond our particular culture or race and feel ourselves to be rooted in the human species instead. We transcend our own credo, or myopic system of beliefs, integrating them into a larger, more inclusive structure, which changes them, corrects them, and will always point to certain limitations or errors in thinking. You can take an integrative rather than a dichotomous attitude toward any school of thought. And this gives us way of accepting all other cultures’ differences. And doesn’t this differ enormously from going about with an unconscious identification with one’s attitudes and behaviors acted out through a nondiscriminating set of unexamined opinions and beliefs.

We can also transcend our past. Two attitudes toward one’s past are possible: You can feel a victim of it, where you were helpless and trapped by outside determinants. Then, you’ll take a passive approach in victim consciousness concerning your past. Or, instead, your past can be embraced and accepted into your present-day self. It means forgiving self and others because you understand why things happened the way they did and can see the value in it all. This transcends remorse, regret, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and blaming others. It all just vanishes. And instead, you now celebrate the fact that you’ve been such a courageous traveler through this journey called Life. In transcendent living, we get beyond the “we-they” polarity and, even when we see someone making a huge mistake, instead of judging them, we can humbly say, “There but by the grace of God goes me.”

Now, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could always see our lives through this sacred, holistic lens? It would bring meaning and purpose to all our human experiences. It would relieve suffering, bring about much forgiveness, and give us each a strong sense of knowing there is a greater “something” going on here than our little egos so often insist on getting so lost in. One of my mentors, Stanislav Grof, calls this “hamburger stand, rush-hour traffic mentality.” When we can live in the simultaneous reality of knowing we are both the observer and the one being observed, we’re in am expanded non-ordinary state of consciousness as both a spiritual soul and an earthly persona. This way of harmonious living with both the heavenly and earthly aspects of our nature at once transcends selfish, ego-centered ways. And we never even need to talk about all this. Frankly, we don’t even notice; we just live it, because we are it.

The Law of Transcendence, then, enables us to rise to this level of “just being” and live there upon a whole new plane of reality -- -- to talk from there, to think and feel from there, to be it. After this all-encompassing conversion, you can simply calm down as the novelty disappears, and live casually on easy terms with the eternal and the infinite. You can relax into loving serenely among the Platonic essences, or archetypal processes, being whole right here amidst all our brother and sister souls. This is what Abraham Maslow called “plateau cognition.” Peak experiences are by nature transient: you go “high,” then often, you fall. When we plateu on a higher level of consciousness, we’ve moved to a higher floor in our mansion, and all illuminations or insights remain after the high is gone. One cannot be naïve or innocent ever again in the same way. We can never “un-see.”

The goal of a Psychology of Transcendence, then, would ultimately be the complete ‘self-actualization’ of a person, guiding people to a realization of the true Self who is both human and divine. And this psychology would offer experiential methods and sacred settings that induce these transcendent experiences. A Psychology of Transcendence would not focus obsessively on our past or on our neuroses and mistakes. It would guide us to be the best we are able to be by seeing us in our wholeness, drawing forth our gifts and talents. This evolutionary psychology would help us develop to the fullest height what our human species can stand up to. Rather than focusing on acquiring skills in the external world, this Self-empowering psychology would focus on the acquisition of associations, skills, and capacities that are intrinsic to each individual’s true nature. It would bring forth the unique genius in every individual soul here on earth. And, quite naturally, this would end all competition, jealousy, covetousness, greed, and war. It would enable each of us to honor one another for exactly who and what we are – unique beings with something of value to offer the world. And we would all love helping each other rise in stature to our fullest potential.

As movement therapist, Garbriele Roth says, “If you don’t do your dance, it doesn’t get done.” The attainment of our full humanness is the ultimate transcendence – because when we become completely human, we will be that unique expression of the spiritual Self we each came here to be.

(We will be conducting our Spring 2008 6-Day Retreat on this very subject. The workshop "Living the Transcendent Life. Experience The Eupsychia Process, a successful therapy for Releasing the Past's Hold and Reaching Spiritual Clarity." Workshop Dates: Mar 7-13, 2008, Dahlonega, GA (a lovely mountain retreat). More information will be posted soon (11/24/2007).