Transcendence

[Pathless]

This is going to grow out of the Selfishness and Society thread over in the politics section. I thought about replying there, but decided I'd rather start a new thread to explore the idea of transcending the lived and felt organic experience of the human body within nature. My thoughts and questions here originate in part of a post by wil:

Originally Posted by wil

I've contemplated the aspect of living a more focused non material life, and intend to do so on some scale. But the current results of my meditations on the subject indicate that I am put in 3D to experience 3D and all it encompasses. I am feeling all is in divine order and I am making proper preparations for the next plane of existence.

This bolded idea of the "next plane of existence" is central to many religions: certainly the Christian and Muslim traditions hold that eternal life in heaven is more important than this Earthly life, even going as far as to encourage believers not to be "of this world." Similarly in the Eastern traditions: Buddhism, for all of its mindfulness, bodhisattvas, and dwelling peacefully and contentedly within Samsara, still has a major focus on transcendence--that recurring idea that somehow, ultimately, life is illusory and a product of ego and attachment. Hinduism in its various forms preaches a similar aesthetic transcendence: all is one in Brahma, and the human being's primary goal in life, at least after a certain point, should be to merge himself with that Ultimate Reality.

Leaving the realm of religion for the non-spirituality of the modern day scientific atheist, some people seek after a scientific or science-fictional vision of transcending the limits of nature: colonizing space, nanotechnology restructuring the very molecular foundations of life, genetically engineering ourselves to perfection, or even downloading human consciousness into clean and pristine robot bodies (which somehow translates to immortality).

Back to wil's statement: "I am feeling all is in divine order and I am making proper preparations for the next plane of existence." Implicit in this is an assumption that G!d (or whatever divine label you like) has plans for us to transcend the body or our consciousness as we have known/experienced it. Perhaps we will become pure spirit, perhaps a machine-mind hybrid, or perhaps we will keep our bodies but receive a surge of higher consciousness that allows us to transcend that much-dreaded duality.

"Making proper preparations for the next plane of existence" also has a technological, scientific progress sound to it, to my ears. "Ladies and gentlemen, please bring your tray tables and seat backs into the upright and locked position, we will soon be exiting this third dimension and entering the transcendent dimension of hyper-reality." Western civilization has been after this transcendence for some time, at the very least since the industrial revolution. We have so much invested in this notion of transcendence, of reaching that point where we have bested nature and its limits through the application of our creativity, technology, and intellect, that the paradigm is rarely questioned and never seriously challenged.

Where do we think we are headed? After transcendence, what is life like? What's our goal here? And what evidence have we been given that our goal is real and reachable?

It seems to me that we have been pursuing this dream of transcendence, of super-achievement if you will, for so long that it has become foundational in the way we are. It's as if it is part of our programming, our reason for being. Yet if we stop to ask questions about it, to doubt: "So, what is this transcendent end-state we are working towards? Is it worth it? Is it feasible, workable, realistic?" what kind of answers do we come up with?

It seems to me that this whole progressive trajectory of civilization, rooted as it is in this faith of transcending limits, is absurd and unrealistic. It's stupid, especially now. It's mesmerizing, yes; more that that, it is foundational to our society, and so questioning it does not come easy. But let me go back to "it's stupid, especially now."

Technology, as practiced as a progressive, ever-improving, ever-more energetic tool by what is now global civilization, has gotten to the point where it drives us. What was intended to be a tool and to make our lives easier, fuller, freer, and filled with leisure, has effectively enslaved us. Our economics are completely profit-based; this is so implicit now that it seems absurd to suggest that economics could be anything else but profit-based. But while economics is now defined as "a social science that is concerned chiefly with description and analysis of the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services" in my Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of economy has its roots in household management, from the Greek oikos (house) and nemein (to manage): "archaic: the management of household or private affairs and esp. expenses."

As our economics have become more and more profit-based and more and more oriented towards production and consumption, we have begun to act with the assumption that economics is all about finances and wealth, when it in fact should be tied definitively to ecology, and should root us to our home, the Earth.

The problem I have with the transcendent belief system is that it compels us to neglect our home. It recurrently and insistently promises us that something better is coming, is coming, just around the corner, it's coming. It's a carrot dangled, it's a promise of a treat, of eternal life or a dramatic shift in perspective and experience--beyond human, beyond the animal, beyond the Earth, beyond life as we know it. We get so hung up on this pay-off of the beyond that we fail to appreciate the beyond we are already in, the miracle of our existence, and the sheer divinity and magnificence manifest in the world.

I find it horrible and extremely sad that we continue to mortgage our beautiful birthright of experience and connection and deep interdependence with our home, the Earth, because of a fantastic speculation about some other future or some other place that we have no evidence for. And as far as technology goes, not only has it not provided evidence that it is or ever will live up to its promise of bringing perfection or even a better life for all (or even most, or even a non-majority many); it has actually degraded the environment, our senses, our traditions, our wisdom, and our opportunities to experience the natural world.

When do we realize that we have been deluded, whether by our own efforts or by those of a machine-society? Do we dare? It's painful to give up the promise of transcendence, because when we do, we must recognize that here and now is what we have--which is wonderful, actually; although at the same time we cannot help but notice how much we've neglected and trashed the here and now.

Thoughts? Reactions? Responses?

[wil]

Namaste Pathless,

two things,

first, I'm going to contemplate before I respond to what you've written

second, see, SEE, there can come something from selfishness!

(or at least the selfishness thread)

[Eclectic Mystic]

The path of transcendence can only be worthwhile if there is an absolute justification.

[seattlegal]

"Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

[Ciel]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

"Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

Aha.........

And transcendence..........

The water carries it's self.............

The wood chops it's self ......

Effortless effort.......

- c -

[Pathless]

Lots of sound bytes and slogans so far, not enough thinking--except for wil.

[Ciel]

Originally Posted by Pathless

Lots of sound bytes and slogans so far, not enough thinking--except for wil.

Pathless Hi,

You know what i'm going to say........

Don't you just know what i'm going to say.......

IT'S NOT ABOUT THINKING.......

IT JUST IS.

It's a point of arrival where all is in focus.

Body mind spiritual balance.

The point of wonder smooth.


- c -

[cyberpi]

What does a person do with their heart without using the brain? I tend to see the golden rule: Think before doing as you would that others think before doing.

Pathless: I reserve the right to be unprofitable by another's standards.

Life is like a VCR tape: 1. Use it and you will lose it for awhile. 2. Don't use it and it will become obsolete forever. 3. The 'awhile' is the value of transcendence.

Life is like a cake: 1. You can not have your cake and eat it too. 2. If you don't eat the cake it will become moldy, hatch bugs, and vaporize. 3. You can eat the cake and have much more later if you know the recipe... again, the value of transcendence.

So I don't see 'transcendence' as an excuse to not DO while here... I see it as a darn good reason. Do the do. The doing is more valuable than what is done. The do-er is more valuable than the deed.

[Pathless]

tran·scend·ence noun the quality or state of being transcendent.

tran·scen·dent adj.

1. Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme.
2. Lying beyond the ordinary range of perception.
3. Philosophy
   1. Transcending the Aristotelian categories.
   2. In Kant's theory of knowledge, being beyond the limits of experience and hence unknowable.
4. Being above and independent of the material universe. Used of the Deity.

transcendence - Definitions from Dictionary.com


While transcendence does have spiritual implications, it is not limited to the spiritual. In the OP, I made an attempt to fuse the spiritual implications of transcendence--that the Earth is not our home, that we are somehow of a different, higher, spiritual substance and we are only temporarily stuck or sojourning in this material reality--with the problems of progressive, linear-time-based civilization which seeks to transcend the limits of the Earth through industry. It seems apparent to me that industrial civilization, in its zeal to reach the end-point of transcending the physical limits of the Earth, has been tearing heedlessly down a highway of environmental disregard and destruction. The question then arises: when do we slow down? When do we pause to reconsider our actions and our mode of operation? It seems like it would be prudent to do so; however, implicit in the transcendent model of linear/progressive time is the idea that somewhere up ahead, often just around the corner, we are going to hit upon the magic source of technological transcendence which will surpass the limits of nature.

Put another way, the object of industrialized society (which is supported by spiritualites of transcendence) seems to have become a transcendent one--not in a spiritual sense, but in the sense of surpassing predefined physical limits. In the early stages of industry, we simply did not recognize the limits of the Earth. As we progressed, however, we happened upon ecological knowledge that very clearly indicates that the Earth has finite resources and is a web of interdependent life that is affected negatively by waste, pollution, maximum production, and excessive specialization. So far we have tried to mitigate our damage through new technological measures: massive recycling programs, green industries; we've even toyed with scaling down, but that never happened (Small is Beautiful, anyone?). What we haven't seriously considered is that the finite limits of the Earth might not be ours to transcend; that is, our mechanical and computerized technology may not be the cornucopian escape hatch we've been hoping it would be.

I think we need to seriously consider that humans are part of the Earth and as such need a healthy, diverse, functioning Earth in order to survive. When we approach our problems from this angle, we must begin to recognize that the supposed panaceas of technology are actually excesses. The uber-technologized paradigm/approach is the problem, and we will not be able to sufficiently address that problem by continuing the problem itself--what that means is: we cannot use more and more advanced technologies to fix the problems inherent in industrial-scale technology. We've been trying that and trying that, and in doing so the problems are not going away; rather, I'd say that they are getting worse. Indeed, arguments could be made that this continual fixation with ultra-technology is insane: repeating what is essentially the same behavior and expecting a different result.

[Pathless]

cyberpi, very briefly: I think we are getting lost in translations again. I have no idea what you are addressing or talking about with your responses here.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Pathless: I reserve the right to be unprofitable by another's standards.

Okay.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Life is like a VCR tape: 1. Use it and you will lose it for awhile. 2. Don't use it and it will become obsolete forever. 3. The 'awhile' is the value of transcendence.

I don't understand. I've read this over four or five times now and I still don't get it: let's see:

1. Use life and you lose life. I suppose this makes sense in some way, but I don't see how it relates to the OP or anything that has been posted by others, for that matter.
2. Don't use life and it becomes obsolete. Are you saying that if someone doens't act, they waste their life? Okay. Again, though, I don't understand what you are addressing with this statement.
3. This statement baffles me. I really cannot understand what you might mean. Could you try to state your opinion in more concrete, less metaphorical terms?

Originally Posted by cyberpi

Life is like a cake: 1. You can not have your cake and eat it too. 2. If you don't eat the cake it will become moldy, hatch bugs, and vaporize. 3. You can eat the cake and have much more later if you know the recipe... again, the value of transcendence.

See 1-3 above.

Originally Posted by cyberpi

So I don't see 'transcendence' as an excuse to not DO while here... I see it as a darn good reason. Do the do. The doing is more valuable than what is done. The do-er is more valuable than the deed.

Okay. I also don't see transcendence as an excuse to not do while here. I also don't see transcendence as an excuse to do excessively while here, and damage the Earth in the process of that excessive doing.

[Iacchus]

Originally Posted by seattlegal

"Before Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After Enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."

Yea.

[wil]

Originally Posted by Pathless

The problem I have with the transcendent belief system is that it compels us to neglect our home. It recurrently and insistently promises us that something better is coming, is coming, just around the corner, it's coming.

Ok I was going to try to see if I can seperate my response from what I've become comfortable with. To see if in time I have another or new answer, but it appears I don't. I've got no clue what the next plane of existence is, or even if there is one, but I feel there is, and it doesn't matter if there isn't.

The simplified version is that I see us as children we've been given a few things to play with, and we don't get any more toys or a new room or get to move on until we learn to play with and care for the toys we've been given. The toys are, a big blue ball we call earth, a body in which to navigate it, and playmates that we get to share it with. What's not to like. So until I learn to care for my big blue ball, my body and my playmates, I'll keep revisiting this from differing perspectives.

The longer version encompasses who I am traveling with on this learning experience, what skills and accomplishments I've completed and do I utilize them in this plane, and which skills I still need to prepare me for the next journey. All of these require that I learn to take care of this planet, learn to respect and honor others, and learn to handle personal excess.

So while I look at the foibles and follies of this incarnation, I don't give up, just thinking, well I get another shot on the merry go round I'll grab the brass ring next time, I still work at improving my skills.

I am the carrot.

[Pathless]

Originally Posted by wil

The simplified version is that I see us as children we've been given a few things to play with, and we don't get any more toys or a new room or get to move on until we learn to play with and care for the toys we've been given. The toys are, a big blue ball we call earth, a body in which to navigate it, and playmates that we get to share it with. What's not to like. So until I learn to care for my big blue ball, my body and my playmates, I'll keep revisiting this from differing perspectives.

Well, if we see ourselves as children playing with toys, playing a game to get to the next level, and the game keeps repeating indefinitely until we learn how to play and care correctly, according to some unknown and transcendent higher standard (that we are not responsible for), that's a convenient way to absolve ourselves from acting responsibly.

Just stirring that pot a bit.

I'm a bit tired and not sure if posting that paragraph is helpful or sensible, but I did it anyway.

[wil]

Originally Posted by Pathless

Well, if we see ourselves as children playing with toys, playing a game to get to the next level, and the game keeps repeating indefinitely until we learn how to play and care correctly, according to some unknown and transcendent higher standard (that we are not responsible for), that's a convenient way to absolve ourselves from acting responsibly.

Just stirring that pot a bit.

I'm a bit tired and not sure if posting that paragraph is helpful or sensible, but I did it anyway.

I guess I have a warped sense of reality. I see it as reason to act responsibly. I'm the one coming back to worse conditions if I leave it that way, I'm the one that won't transcend until I do it correctly.

Of all the things I had to give up to become a unitic I miss blame the most.

[Pathless]

Nah, it's not warped, wil. I do understand where you are coming from and how such an attitude/perspective can lead to a certain kind of responsibility. I do see it as a problematic kind of responsibility, tied at root to that egoistic "I" that you would transcend--like how you said, "I am the carrot." That leads to some kind of ego-loop, it seems to me.

One way of looking at transcendence is that it is possible within the world. I don't have the kind of issues with that kind of transcendence that I do with the otherworldly transcendence, which seeks to escape this reality, or to move beyond it.

The way of transcendence within the world has to do with expanding consciousness, too. It may be related to wil's concept of playing with toys responsibly and cleaning up the mess. It's a holistic approach to being in the world: understanding that we are a vital part of a larger organism (Gaia, Earth, ecosystems, what-have-you). If we approach our role responsibly and correctly, we do our part to keep the whole organism healthy. If on the other hand, we are overly concerned with things not-of-this-word, whether they be spiritualites or fantasies of industrial limitlessness, we become preoccupied, distracted, and we neglect our role in keeping the whole organism healthy.

A sort of transcendent immanence then: transcending the limits of self-centered and ultimately self-defeating ego desires by understanding our place within the natural systems we inhabit, and acting accordingly: stewardship of the Earth, in Christian terms.