What is Transcendence
What is transcendence?
Words, that are the trending favourites of the spiritual chowder, can easily and often become saturated with associative meaning. Either enticing or triggering, and quite often not actually being understood at all. An almost violent sense of repulse can sometimes arise and deprive people of tasting the true meaning of what is being spoken. It seems the more a word grows in popularity the more it loses its unique flavour, taking on the aroma and smack of the stuff around it. Since having kids that now ask questions about words as they pop up in books, I have realised how much of a victim I am to this loss of deep understanding of language, in exchange for a broad and often very loose context. So it’s important to get back to the truth even within the specific context of meditation when we talk about ‘transcendence’.
Transcending is not limited to the practice of eyes closed meditation. Going from eyes open experience of life into a meditative state is definitely an act of transcending, however, it does not mean that transcendental experience is limited to the eyes closed state. It is not a word that is owned by a technique or experienced exclusively by a particular group of people. It’s a word that describes the action of ‘going beyond’ a particular experience.
People that don’t have an eyes closed practice still experience transcending however meditating gives us the opportunity to gain mastery over the action and then the capability to use it in a highly effective and efficient way to improve our lives.
There are many things that can be tools of transcendence. Prior to meditation, surfing was it for me. It was the thing that would shift any pattern of thought allowing me to experience a change of mind. Grumpy and dark one minute, happy and clear the next. This is transcending. Retiring from one layer of thought into another and experiencing a complete shift. Problems are limited to the layer of thinking that created them. “what was I worried about?”.. no longer relevant.
When we start our training of transcending thoughts through meditation, it begins with the dive inwards. Waking state, 5 sensory experience which is the state of consciousness we experience when we are not in deep sleep or dreaming, is transcended, we go beyond that experience of reality and enter a different state. We retire into a state known as Turiya (deep meditation). What this does is expose a reality of existence that is beyond the reach of the senses. This is a completely bazaar experience when it first occurs and is hard to ever forget. WTF was that!
It’s this first fully fledged experience of going beyond all thought, all mind, and yet still ‘experiencing’ that we could call the ‘Big Transcendence’. From that point on through consistent practice we begin to lose an extremely limited perspective of reality, one that is at the mercy of the thoughts that rattle through our minds. “I am my thoughts” makes way for “I am the Knower” the witness of my thoughts.
The authoritarian mind is relieved from its tiresome duties of flying the plane solo and begins to settle into its preferred position as co-pilot. The ‘trusty companion’ that in the company of the true captain can be free to think whatever it wants without putting the whole plane at risk. This is the difference between reactive behaviour of the lower mind and its conditioning and the action born of a deeper knowing (wisdom).
With the knowledge of our true nature born out of the experience of going beyond thoughts we loosen the grip of the mind and find it easy to transcend at any time, not merely in meditation but also in every day life. Moving beyond one level of thinking and the accompanying reality. Instead of being powerless, dominated by our thoughts and emotions, We become empowered with the skill of change.