Transcendence

Where do you go to transcend? By definition it is to go beyond which is ordinary so this is a very relative question but it is something we have inside all of us as many thinkers have said in the past. More importantly perhaps is not where but how do you transcend? What does transcendence mean for you?

Transcendence, euphoria, or trance states, have been a part of what makes us human since we started burying our dead From ancient shamans to yogis, from meditation to love making, we have marveled at this enigmatic state of being that seemingly reaches into Plato’s realm of ideals. Many of us have made leaps and bounds to attain it via passing around a pipe full of god knows what around a dimly lit to vows of silence and sweat lodges in lonely deserts. And perhaps even more have lifted themselves up past the ranks of the hierarchy of thought without knowing, killing their egos swiftly and without remorse, time and time again, yet don’t consider themselves philosophers or even spiritual in any sense.

It can be so easy to attain because it is indefinable. How does one remember how they felt after they forgot their own body? How can one possibly relate the sublime in mere words? When the borders slip away; the idea of the other fades, and death itself seems quotidian; do you really think you’ll remember to jot down a few notes about the experience? We can’t pinpoint our place in space time without a self just as we can’t pinpoint the speed of place of the very particles that make up reality. For this we can only create loose abstractions or a human probability cloud perhaps.

Find your transcendence, escape your notions of control, success is an illusion.

"And there’ve been the moments, more of them lately too—times when

face-to-face there has been no way to tell which of them is which. Both at the

same time feeling the same eerie confusion . . . something like looking in a

mirror by surprise but. . . more than that, the feeling of actually being

joined . . . when after—who knows? two minutes, a week? they realize, separate

again, what’s been going on, that Roger and Jessica were merged into a joint

creature unaware of itself. . . .here is the first, the

very first real magic: data he can’t argue away."

-Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow