I've always thought suffering was the key to gaining transcendence. Through extreme mental or physical pain, we are forced to endure, forced to grow, forced to change, forced to become something else, something stronger. A different version of ourselves, a more primitive version not partaking in the mundane of our daily existence. We break the bounds and become vulnerable, malleable, and shapable.
Martyrs are exceptional people. They survive pain, they survive total deprivation. They bear all the sins of the earth. They give themselves up. They transcend themselves... they are transfigured.~ Martyrs
Lately I've been observing there is several ways to transcend past myself and this happens when I put someone else's needs first. If I focus all of my energy on serving someone else I believe I can transcend past my desires, wants, and fears. It's hard to reach and I've been struggling with it. I like to lie to myself and pretend it's life or death to try to get the endless babbling of my self-doubt to stop. To try to get my survival instincts to kick in, to lose myself in serving another. But I think my brain knows the difference and still craves the adrenaline and high of losing control and giving freely willingly or unwillingly.
Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.
Viktor E. Frankl
Another way I've been experiencing what I believe transcendence and to me it is my favorite method other than pain, or serving others is in nature. Watching a thunderstorm, or watching the trees blow in the wind, or the way the sunlight dances through the leaves. I realize I'm more than a human but a part of something so much greater and bigger. A little piece of the universe experiencing itself. It's quite a magical feeling to let go of all the daily fears, anxieties, and troubles that typically burden my mind. I feel like a creature, an animal observing, living completely free from the endless mind chatter. If only for a few minutes.
Each new day beckons you to walk on the road of self-transcendence. We transcend ourselves, we do not compete with others. We compete only with our previous achievements, and we get joy. Life is nothing but a perpetual possibility.
Sri Chinmoy
I'd like to keep searching for different ways to transcend beyond the ordinary. I want to be so emersed in my experience, maybe even a little insane from an outsider's perspective. I'd like to push the boundaries of my mind to their breaking point and keep going. I'd like to have more of an understanding of the world around me. I want to be completely transfigured into something greater than myself.
But all the story of the night told over,
And all their minds transfigured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy’s images
And grows to something of great constancy,
But, howsoever, strange and admirable. ~ Midnight Summer's Dream
