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Sandy Chase

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How do you find your transcendence?

I am working on a film about how we all let go of our small selves and "become the Universe" (as Hakuin said) for a moment or an hour. A shower? Seated mediation? Running? Everyone seems to have a different way. What's yours? Also, what or whom would you be interested in watching or hearing about in a film like this? Thanks everyone!

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Topics: meditation transcendence
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  • Charles Curt

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    Mar 6 2013: yes they wonder but it's the same as watching tv except you create your own stimuli it is a form of psychosis and is just as mind numbing as tv you take in no new information and create your own which also detaches you from reality which in time can make you trust in your own self and listen to your own self just look what the monks in china did they have whole religions surrounding this
    Oh also if ya didn't know if you are meditating correctly as the monks do your brain is releasing DMT (a Very strong hallucinogen) so there is a reason you feel good while doing it also DMT is the stuff released in your brain as you are dying so you know it's good stuff ;)

  • Charles Curt

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    Mar 5 2013: Ok there's is no possible way for your consciousness to EVER leave your body so thats all kinda BS the only way we will ever achieve these ideas is when we connect every human being's brain together and we become gods
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      Sandy Chase 10+

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      Mar 5 2013: But even so, there are times when our minds wander (metaphorically speaking) and we lose track of time. Driving on a long, monotonous road or doing something simple and repetitive. I'm interested in those moments. Some people find it quite therapeutic to lose themselves for a time, whatever your belief about consciousness.

  • edulover learner 10+

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    Mar 5 2013: I do meditation to reflect myself pure and clear everyday.I feel comfortable doing it.I don't know that moment can so called:transcendence?
    I work hard to earn my living everyday.But I do enjoy every day in my life:I like my job,I try to take care of my family memebers.I keep gratitude in my heart to every one who help me growing up everyday,I also keep gratitude to every river,every tree,every grass...because they accompany me everyday there.I enjoy being so.and I enjoy studying hard to being so.

  • Ed Schulte 50+

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    Mar 4 2013: Tolle
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      Arkady Grudzinsky 50+

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      Mar 5 2013: Eckhart Tolle said: "Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life..."

      Trying to define ourselves is limiting. In a weird way, "giving up to define myself" also means "finding myself" - realizing that this elusive "self" is nothing in particular, but a reflection of everything.

      It is my impression that if I replace the word "myself" in these teachings with the word "God", the meaning will remain the same. This is how "You shall have no other gods before me" and "You shall not make for yourself an idol" together with the name of God, "I am", suddenly start making sense (to me, at least). It simply means, "do not define 'I am' (self) as anything specific" - same as Tolle says.

      "Love your neighbor as yourself" naturally follows from this principle, because "loving my neighbor" is the same as loving "I am" (God or "self").

      I know, some people will like it, some will say, this is nonsense. It's just my way of rationalizing the irrational. It seems that I'm not alone in these views:

      - "You don't look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you."
      - "But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is."
      - "So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself." -- Alan Watts

      • Ed Schulte 50+

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        Mar 6 2013: Well One of the (Transcended Individuals) who would certainly agree with

        also said this ..

        "The Lord Jesus Christ is the only God...and so am I .........and so are You.

        William Blake

  • PJ Hardin

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    Mar 4 2013: a spiritual teacher once said 'watch butter melt in a pan...a good mentor.'

  • Patricia Alfonso

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    Mar 4 2013: I've been able to feel this way when doing resonance repatterning. Other than that, I do have a hard time trying to "become the Universe", but I firmly believe we all can if we believe that the only thing in life is not just about ourselves. Must confess that after watching some movies I have been able to reconnect to that feeling and it has been amazing but it does take work control over our own minds and thoughts (which I struggle with). One of these movies has been Cloud Atlas, which I highly recommend.

  • Robert Galway 20+

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    Mar 4 2013: There are places of tranquility in my life such as sitting on the beach when the only sound you can here is the waves crashing, being on a deserted golf course, fishing in a remote area, or just hiking outdoors. In each those experiences, I am relaxed and can allow myself to enter the playground of deep relaxed thought. Something about a natural environment enriches the experience. I am free of immediate responsibilities and concerns.

    Deep relaxed thoughts allow me to ponder life's questions with more objectivity than in daily life and wrestle with logic, values, ethics and relationships in a way that often leads to perspectives and insights that seem to be closed off by normal emotions and pressures. You can lower your defenses and think objectively about facts, circumstances, events, and issues without the fear of being held accountable for your thoughts. This freedom of thought is often liberating and quite frequently allows me to change an opinion, belief, or paradigm without feeling pressured to do so by an external influence.

    Is this finding transcendence? Perhaps. I am not sure that meditation has to be part of the experience. In some of these deeply religious or deeply philosophical cultures there is a belief that through some prolonged deep inward journey there is enlightenment or increased knowledge of self. I do not buy it. I think sensory input is good and necessary for spiritual enlightenment. However, there needs to be personal reflection time when you can can attach what you have sensed, and what you have experienced, with the rest of you knowledge. It is also important to organize your thoughts and be open to frequent re-organization of thoughts as new information becomes available or takes on increased significance. I believe that to be the path to inner peace. Others can suggest things to do, which may or may not work for different people, but the reality is that each person needs to go on their own inner journeys and answer life's questions.
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    Sandy Chase 10+

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    Mar 4 2013: Hmm. It's interesting. I get such a different response when I ask this question in person. I find that most people I talk to have little moments each day, or perhaps a few times per week where they daydream or meditate or lose themselves pleasantly for a time, and that it's helpful to reset their busy mind. For some people it's washing dishes, others it's working on a potter's wheel. It's usually something simple and repetitive like knitting or chanting, when the conscious mind is distracted enough to stop the inner dialogue for a bit. Twenty minutes goes by and you don't even notice the time passing. For that time, you "forget yourself." So, I'm looking to hear about how people find that state and what it's like for them. Thanks again.
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    Fritzie Reisner 100+

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    Mar 4 2013: I had the same first reaction Dorian had when he wrote "transcendence is a feeling, a perception of the brain." Research suggests that self-transcendence is a personality trait with which some people are born without having to work on it and others may work at it.

    As you write, people have various ways of giving themselves what some people call "white space," with meditation, movement, prayer, and immersion in the outdoors being common.

    Others, though, I think have this as a background characteristic they do not need to shut anything else off to perceive. It's kind of like feeling you are part of your family without having to clear your head of all other thoughts.

    I know "transcend" is used different ways by different people and has been throughout history. I interpreted you to mean a sense of connectedness rather than self-containment.
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    Dorian Knus

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    Mar 4 2013: Transcendence, a shower and running.
    I really don't get it.
    Running and shower, ok

    Transcendence is a feeling, a perception of your brain.

    In the end entropy is all, unless you feel (believe) you can transcend it...
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    Gail . 50+

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    Mar 4 2013: I would like to suggest that those who do not believe that it is possible to "become the universe", will not be able to. This said, it has been my experience that those who have awakened have each taken their own journey, so there is no one-size-fits-all application. We each come from very different places. If I were to give you coordinates for a destination (a street address), every person on earth would have to follow a different route to that place. I don't know that it's any different for discovery of self.

    My journey followed a long series of questions I asked myself (not rhetorical questions where answers were not really wanted). In fact, the discovery that I was usually asking rhetorical questions led to one of my biggest, life-altering "Ah-Ha!" moments.

    For ME, my journey began when my worldview CRASHED!!!!!!! It is impossible to make a confident decision without a worldview, so I had a choice: end my life or devise a new worldview that is based in evidence and fact, so that it could never fail me again.

    Not knowing what I didn't know, I didn't know how to do that, but life intervened when a friend appeared at my door, handed me a book ( during her lunch hour) and said I really had to read it. It was a science book that showed me how much of what I had believed true was not true.

    I wondered about the nature of my thoughts & emotions, and used an egg timer to learn about what part they played in my daily life. I wondered about the purpose of emotions, and explored them - discovering how I was being owned by them and a false sense of imperfection that I had been carrying around with me.

    I learned about the power of questions, the power or words, and the POWER of beliefs (thought constructs that are the fabric of our perceived realities).

    I educated myself with a broad-based education.

    soon, little boxes of data were fused into a cohesive picture from which I could only conclude that I am (one-with) all that exists. Then it was easy.
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