It is quite true that [we live] by bread alone—when there is no bread. But what happens to [our] desires when there is plenty of bread and when [our bellies are] chronically filled?
~ Abraham Maslow
The Hierarchy of Needs
Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970) was an American psychologist best known for creating a theory of psychological health known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Textbooks usually portray Maslow’s hierarchy in the shape of a pyramid with our most basic needs at the bottom, and the need for self-actualization at the top.[1] Note how the iconic pyramid ignores self-transcendence:
The basic idea of the above image is that survival demands food, water, safety, shelter, etc. Then, to continue to develop, you need your psychological needs for belonging and love met by friends and family, as well as a sense of self-esteem that comes with some competence and success. If you have had these needs fulfilled, then you can explore the cognitive level of ideas, the aesthetic level of beauty and, as a result, you may experience the self-actualization that accompanies achieving your full potential.
Note that the higher needs don’t appear until lower needs are satisfied; so if you are hungry and cold, you can’t worry much about self-esteem, art, or mathematics. Notice also that the different levels correspond roughly to different stages of life. The needs of the bottom of the pyramid are predominant in infancy and early childhood; the needs for belonging and self-esteem predominate in later childhood and early adulthood; and the desire for self-actualization emerges with mature adulthood.
Self-Transcendence
What is less well-known is that Maslow amended his model near the end of his life, and so the conventional portrayal of his hierarchy is incomplete. In his later thinking, he argued that there is a higher level of development, what he called self-transcendence. We achieve this level by focusing on things beyond the self like altruism, spiritual awakening, liberation from egocentricity, and the unity of being. Here is how he put it:
Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos. (The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
Notice that placing self-transcendence above self-actualization results in a radically different model. While self-actualization refers to fulfilling your own potential, self-transcendence refers literally to transcending the self. And if successful, self-trancenders often have what Maslow called peak experiences, in which they transcend the individual ego. In such mystical, aesthetic, or emotional states one feels intense joy, peace, well-being, and an awareness of ultimate truth and the unity of all things.
Maslow also believed that such states aren’t always transitory—some people might be able to readily access them. This led him to define another term, “plateau experience.” These are more lasting, serene cognitive states, as opposed to peak experiences which tend to be mostly emotional and temporary. Moreover, in plateau experiences, one feels not only ecstasy but the sadness that comes with realizing that others don’t have such experiences. While Maslow believed that self-actualized, mature people are those most likely to have these self-transcendent experiences, he also felt that everyone was (potentially) capable of having them.
Given that Maslow’s humanistic psychology emphasized self-actualization and what is right with people, it isn’t surprising that his later transpersonal psychology explored extreme wellness or optimal well-being. This took the form of interest in persons who have expanded their normal sense of identity to experience the transpersonal or the underlying unity of all reality. (Thus the connection between transpersonal psychology, and the mystical and meditative traditions of many of the world’s religions.)
Let me conclude by looking at two succinct and eloquent statements contrasting self-actualization and self-transcendence. The first is from Mark Koltko-Rivera’s excellent summary of the Maslow’s later thought in: “Rediscovering the Later Version of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Self-Transcendence and Opportunities for Theory, Research, and Unification.” Koltko-Rivera says:
At the level of self-actualization, the individual works to actualize the individual’s own potential [whereas] at the level of transcendence, the individual’s own needs are put aside, to a great extent, in favor of service to others …
The second is from Viktor Frankl. (I written on Frankl previously in: “Summary of Mans’ Search For Meaning” and “Summary of Frankl on Tragic Optimism.”) In Man’s Search for Meaning, one of the most profound books I’ve ever read, Frankl writes:
… the real aim of human existence cannot be found in what is called self-actualization. Human existence is essentially self-transcendence rather than self-actualization. Self-actualization is not a possible aim at all; for the simple reason that the more a [person] would strive for it, the more [they] would miss it. For only to the extent to which [people] commit [themselves] to the fulfillment of [their] life’s meaning, to this extent [they] also actualize [themselves.] In other words, self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.
This lines up almost perfectly with what I think Maslow had in mind.
Reflections
I like the idea of going beyond self-actualization or fulfillment of personal potential to furthering causes beyond the self, or to experiencing communion with something beyond the self through peak and/or plateau experiences. I am receptive to these ideas as long as they derive from human or transhuman concerns without reference to a supernatural (and likely imaginary) realm. Still, no doubt many people will find a connection between Maslow’s ideas and their religious ones.
What especially appeals to me is how Maslow’s later thinking about self-transcendence can be understood as prefiguring transhumanism. I doubt that Maslow consciously thought about it in this way, but his notion that there are few limits to human development foreshadows transhumanist thinking. As Maslow said: “Human history is a record of the ways in which human nature has been sold short. The highest possibilities of human nature have practically always been underrated.” Perhaps we need meditation, altruism, communion with nature, and technologically-aided human enhancement through technology to best transcend ourselves.
Finally, I believe that self-transcendence relates to age. In other words, it is something that can only be reached after you have lived sufficiently long. (I discuss the relationship between transcendence and age in my post on gerotranscendence.)
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Addendum: Excerpts from “Theory Z” (re-printed in Maslow’s : The Farther Reaches of Human Nature
1. For transcenders, peak experiences and plateau experiences become the most important things in their lives….
2. They speak more easily, normally, naturally, and unconsciously the language of Being (B-language), the language of poets, of mystics, of seers, of profoundly religious men…
3. They perceive unitively or sacrally (i.e., the sacred within the secular), or they see the sacredness in all things at the same time that they also see them at the practical, everyday D-level …
4. They are much more consciously and deliberately metamotivated. That is, the values of Being…, e.g., perfection, truth, beauty, goodness, unity, dichotomy-transcendence … are their main or most important motivations.
5. They seem somehow to recognize each other, and to come to almost instant intimacy and mutual understanding even upon first meeting…
6. They are more responsive to beauty. This may turn out to be rather a tendency to beautify all things… or to have aesthetic responses more easily than other people do…
7. They are more holistic about the world than are the “healthy” or practical self-actualizers… and such concepts as the “national interest” or “the religion of my fathers” or “different grades of people or of IQ” either cease to exist or are easily transcended…
8. [There is] a strengthening of the self-actualizer’s natural tendency to synergy—intrapsychic, interpersonal, intraculturally and internationally…. It is a transcendence of competitiveness, of zero-sum of win-lose gamesmanship.
9. Of course there is more and easier transcendence of the ego, the Self, the identity.
10. Not only are such people lovable as are all of the most self-actualizing people, but they are also more awe-inspiring, more “unearthly,” more godlike, more “saintly”…, more easily revered…
11. … The transcenders are far more apt to be innovators, discoverers of the new, than are the healthy self-actualizers… Transcendent experiences and illuminations bring clearer vision … of the ideal …of what ought to be, what actually could be, … and therefore of what might be brought to pass.
12. I have a vague impression that the transcenders are less “happy” than the healthy ones. They can be more ecstatic, more rapturous, and experience greater heights of “happiness” (a too weak word) than the happy and healthy ones. But I sometimes get the impression that they are as prone and maybe more prone to a kind of cosmic sadness … over the stupidity of people, their self-defeat, their blindness, their cruelty to each other, their shortsightedness… Perhaps this is a price these people have to pay for their direct seeing of the beauty of the world, of the saintly possibilities in human nature, of the non-necessity of so much of human evil, of the seemingly obvious necessities for a good world…
13. The deep conflicts over the “elitism” that is inherent in any doctrine of self-actualization—they are after all superior people whenever comparisons are made—is more easily solved—or at least managed—by the transcenders than by the merely healthy self-actualizers. This is made possible because they … can sacralize everybody so much more easily. This sacredness of every person and even of every living thing, even of nonliving things … is so easily and directly perceived in its reality by every transcender …
14. My strong impression is that transcenders show more strongly a positive correlation—rather than the more usual inverse one—between increasing knowledge and increasing mystery and awe… For peak-experiencers and transcenders in particular, as well as for self-actualizers in general, mystery is attractive and challenging rather than frightening … I affirm … that at the highest levels of development of humanness, knowledge is positively, rather than negatively, correlated with a sense of mystery, awe, humility, ultimate ignorance, reverence …
15. Transcenders, I think, should be less afraid of “nuts” and “kooks” than are other self-actualizers, and thus are more likely to be good selectors of creators … To value a William Blake type takes, in principle, a greater experience with transcendence and therefore a greater valuation of it…
16. …Transcenders should be more “reconciled with evil” in the sense of understanding its occasional inevitability and necessity in the larger holistic sense, i.e., “from above,” in a godlike or Olympian sense. Since this implies a better understanding of it, it should generate both a greater compassion with it and a less ambivalent and a more unyielding fight against it….
17. … Transcenders … are more apt to regard themselves as carriers of talent, instruments of the transpersonal, temporary custodians so to speak of a greater intelligence or skill or leadership or efficiency. This means a certain peculiar kind of objectivity or detachment toward themselves that to nontranscenders might sound like arrogance, grandiosity or even paranoia…. Transcendence brings with it the “transpersonal” loss of ego.
18. Transcenders are in principle (I have no data) more apt to be profoundly “religious” or “spiritual” in either the theistic or nontheistic sense. Peak experiences and other transcendent experiences are in effect also to be seen as “religious or spiritual” experiences….
19. … Transcenders, I suspect, find it easier to transcend the ego, the self, the identity, to go beyond self-actualization. … Perhaps we could say that the description of the healthy ones is more exhausted by describing them primarily as strong identities, people who know who they are, where they are going, what they want, what they are good for, in a word, as strong Selves… And this of course does not sufficiently describe the transcenders. They are certainly this; but they are also more than this.
20. I would suppose… that transcenders, because of their easier perception of the B-realm, would have more end experiences (of suchness) than their more practical brothers do, more of the fascinations that we see in children who get hypnotized by the colors in a puddle, or by the raindrops dripping down a windowpane, or by the smoothness of skin, or the movements of a caterpillar.
21. In theory, transcenders should be somewhat more Taoistic, and the merely healthy somewhat more pragmatic.
22. …Total wholehearted and unconflicted love, acceptance … rather than the more usual mixture of love and hate that passes for “love” or friendship or sexuality or authority or power, etc.
23. [Transcenders are interested in a “cause beyond their own skin,” and are better able to “fuse work and play,” “they love their work,” and are more interested in “kinds of pay other than money pay”; “higher forms of pay and metapay steadily increase in importance.”] Mystics and transcenders have throughout history seemed spontaneously to prefer simplicity and to avoid luxury, privilege, honors, and possessions. …
24. I cannot resist expressing what is only a vague hunch; namely, the possibility that my transcenders seem to me somewhat more apt to be Sheldonian ectomorphs [lean, nerve-tissue dominated body-types] while my less-often-transcending self-actualizers seem more often to be mesomorphic [muscular body-types] (… it is in principle easily testable).
I don’t know anything about philosophy, nor had I ever read Maslow, but several things about this post rang a bell for me. When I was still in high school, I decided that my purpose in life was to make the world a better place. In order to accomplish this, I knew that I had to take proper care of my body, providing it with resources adequate to insure that it would not be a distraction. Later I realized that I had to do the same with my mind; it has its needs, too. Once I saw my body and mind as instruments for bettering the world, life became much clearer. This seems somewhat akin to Maslow’s “self transcendence”.
In my early years, all my energies had to be devoted to honing the tool: educating myself, building a happy relationship with my wife, earning a living, buying washing machines, etc. But with each passing year, I was able to devote more energy to the true purpose. I started off teaching. But then I shifted to designing computer games, and I had a clear purpose here: to develop games into an educational and artistic medium. Every one of my designs had an educational purpose, and I did not follow the path of other designers and keep grinding out sequels to make more money; I kept pushing the designs further. I pushed a little too far, and in my later career my stuff didn’t sell well, but I didn’t much care; those designs would inspire other designers, I hoped.
Nowadays I devote almost all my energies to helping make the world a better place, but another process has developed as well. Living in the forest, I am close to nature, and my scientific orientation has permitted me to see reality as a tightly intertwined system. When I look at a tree, I do not see leaves, branches, trunk, bark, etc. I see minerals underground dissolving into water, then the water is absorbed by root hairs, carried up the cambium to the leaves, where it combines with sunlight and carbon dioxide to generate adenosine triphosphate, which drives much of the internal chemistry of the leaf cells. It also makes sugars that are passed to other cells to fuel the growth of the tree. It all works together. I no longer see the universe as a collection of things; to me, it’s a system of processes.
I suppose that this is the nerd’s version of the Buddhist monk spreading his arms and praying “Make me one with everything!”
I have never experienced these “peak experiences” or “plateau experiences” of which Maslow writes. Instead, I feel only a broad calmness, a confident serenity. Throughout the week-long ordeal with no power, no heat, no water, no communications, snowed in at my house earlier this month, I never felt sad or threatened or even put out — it was just the universe playing out its processes, and I was going along for the ride, guiding my unsinkable kayak through the raging waters with absolute certainty that I would be fine.
This essay has given me much to think about. Thank you for it.
Thanks for the wonderful comments. A couple of things. One Maslow talked about the encounter with nature as one of the main ways we experience transcendance. An two, your penultimate sentence sounds like it came off the pen of Alan Watts! Thanks again.
Excellent essay, thank you. The connection to Victor Frankl was especially appropriate. I think we all hope to go beyond self-actualization, which seems to me to be an inwardly focused view of the world, toward transcendence, which seems outwardly focused. In fact, I would have preferred that Maslow had dropped the “self” from the term “self-transcendence” to emphasize that one is going beyond thinking of oneself toward thinking about the larger world that exists outside oneself.
Great comment and great point. I’ll have to look again. This was the first time I encountered this material, but I think he did use the transcendence without the self. Or you can look at one of the links and let me know.
John, I think your observation is correct. In my original comment, I had simply taken for granted that Maslow himself had called his thoughts on transcendence by the label “self-transcendence”. It never occurred to me that the label “self-transcendence” might have been coined by others trying to link Maslow’s later thoughts to his earlier pinnacle of “self-actualization”. When scanning through the references that your essay linked to, I got the impression that Maslow himself did not use the label “self-transcendence”. But only an exhaustive reading of his original texts could substantiate that.
So how much does a label matter? Am I just nitpicking? Somehow I think that inclusion of the word “self” subtly changes the meaning that I think Maslow was trying to convey. Or maybe not. I’m no philosopher … or English major, for that matter!
I think you are right that the label matters. Calling is self-transcendence still seems to emphasize a self that’s trying to transcend. In that case it sounds like the self might somehow remain after the transcending. Of course just saying transcendence doesn’t say what it is that’s being transcended.This raises deep metaphysical issues about ego transcendence. In general in Adviata Vedanta and similar thought there is only unity, ie. no distinction between self and the one reality. In western mysticism the self subtly remains union with the divine. Not knowing Maslow’s thought well, I can’t say what he meant.
Huh, I automatically interpreted “self-transcendence” as the self being transcended (by the transcender, or perhaps one could say by human nature, the cosmos, or maybe even agentlessly, by nothing at all), rather than the self doing the transcending.
Like Chris, I felt my mind resonating when I read this essay, especially the excerpts from “Theory Z”, which reminded me (in much more polished form) of the sort of metaphysical musings I’ve had ever since I was a teenager. In fact, when I was 17, I followed my own religion called “Transcendence”, which in its nuts and bolts had a similar trajectory to Maslow’s ideas. Before reading this, I hadn’t know that Maslow came up with a “self-transcendence” above “self-actualization”; this makes me like the pyramid a lot more! I clearly need to read ‘The Farther Reaches of Human Nature’.
For the record, I seem to be a good ways off from self-transcendence myself. But there’s always still time!
Thanks Peter. Really appreciate your comments and the time you took to write them. JGM
thanks for the thoughtful comment
Hello, may I ask about this “Reflections” I really need your answers cuz it’s my report in our class … Can you explain to me what is it the main idea of this …
or just give examples
I just reject any religious connotations regarding ST. And I think ST will ultimately be brought about by technology.
It sounds like you have achieved inner peace Angelica. That is worth more than gold. Thanks for the comment. JGM
Hi mess1955, Sorry, (I don’t know your name.)
Thank you for describing the difference between self-actualisation (SA) and self-transcendence ST).
I agree: Surely, ST is radically different from SA . It is like a quantum leap in maturation.
I used to be an atheist for 30 years. But after 30 years of Yoga and experiencing transcendental, divine love in interpersonal love, I returned to worshipping Christ, in particular his two brilliant commandments:
Love God with all your being and your neighbour as yourself.
I strongly disagree with your rejection of religion in regards to SA.
I would even go as far as to claim with a kind of ‘arrogant humility’ that without religion, that is transcendental faith in a personal but cosmic transcendental lover (God), one cannot experience the highest form of self-transcendence in becoming the humblest servant or instrument of God.
Humillimus Servus, Soli Deo Gloria (Your humblest servant, God’s alone is the glory.
I agree with Andris Heks that we must not rush to the conclusion that ST and Religion are not related. In fact i would put it this way… despite all the ills, religions do survive till today because at their very core is the idea of ST. I guess when you take out this baby and throw off the bath water, we would get harmony across all religions
This was a really awesome read! Thanks, mess1955! I have wondered whether the hierarchy might not mean, or could be reinterpreted to mean, that all of these levels make up a fully human life, but that, for survival, the bottom levels are more vital than the top levels of the hierarchy. Usually I see explanations that say each level has to be reached before the next level can be achieved. I don’t know that this is true. Vygotsky lived in a university basement. Gramsci was in jail. People who lack the basic physiological requirements can still have a sense that they are loved and belong (even if they will soon die). Could someone who lives in a context that is unsafe still have a sense of self-esteem? I think this does happen.
I agree with you that ST has nothing to do with religion.
thanks for the insights and comments. JGM
How much of the following is inaccurate?
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Hierarchy of Needs
I have always been fascinated by “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”; the theory proposed in 1943 by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow. His first version of the theory was a five tier matrix of the factors that motivate people to satisfy different basic needs: physiological (food, water, warmth, rest), safety (security), love (family and friends), the need for esteem (prestige and a feeling of accomplishment) and the need for self-actualization (to achieve one’s full potential, including creative needs).
Maslow’s idea at the time was that self-actualization was the most important need, number five at the top of the pyramid. Over time, however, this top level was judged by Maslow and others to be too self-serving and narrow. So in the early 1950s Maslow explored a further dimension of “self transcendence” in which an individual transcends his own needs and starts to think and act in ways that benefit everyone in the community. Unfortunately, this laudable sentiment was expressed at the time when virulent anti-Communism flourished at many levels of American politics. When Maslow expressed the idea that human beings should make the needs of everyone a higher priority than any one individual, and when he opposed a landmark anti-immigrant law that passed in 1952, he drew the attention of the FBI who suspected him of being a modern “utopian” who agreed with the communist ideas of Karl Marx. This pressure caused Maslow to conceal his true feelings about how to “create a good community”, fearing that the public might confuse the word “community” with “communism”. These thoughts did not become public until later. I theorize it is entirely possible that if these ideas had not been subject to anti-Communist calumnies, the world today might be a more community oriented and happier place”.
I don’t know about this history but it sounds plausible. JGM
My philosophical and spiritual background come through the 12-Steps of AA. I can say without any hesitation, that the 12-Steps are a simple, but incredibly difficult formula to attain self-transcendence. It’s summed up in the 11th and 12th Steps:
11: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with god, as we understood god, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry it out.
12: Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to other alcoholics, and practice these principles in all our affairs.
AA has a “Responsibility Pledge” that hangs on nearly every meeting room I’ve been to:
“I am Responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: I am responsible”
A guaranteed formula for attaining Self-Transcendence is available in nearly every town in America at an AA meeting—sadly, it is so difficult to follow that only the truly desperate can trod that path. But, it is there and waiting.
great work by the authors. I enjoyed the reading and can use the material for my research.
thanks. JGM
Hello Dr. Messerly. You mentioned in an earlier comment on Aug 19, 2017 that “…I think ST will ultimately be brought about by technology.” Do you think this is because we are living in civilizations that are vastly different from the ancestral environments we evolved most of our traits for?
I ask this because, if we evolved the ability to self-transcend as a survival trait in the first place (I can’t think of any other reason why we would have acquired this trait), it might be assumed (maybe incorrectly…what do you think) that it would have been commonplace, and possibly necessary for daily survival, to self-transcend in the ancestral environment. But since we are living in highly fabricated environments built primarily via the technologies that we have discovered over time, maybe we can only consistently self-transcend in these fabricated environments with these same technologies that helped create these environments. Might that be what you are implying by this comment?
I was simply referring to the basic tenets of transhumanism. That we should overcome all human limitations with technologies like AI, robotics, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, mind uploading,etc.
Thanks for getting back to me. Ok, I see now where you mentioned transhumanism and see how you connected that to the use of technology as an aid in self-transcendence. I’m excited about the possibilities of using technology to enhance our existences!
If you have time, did you have any thoughts as to the following questions? Why is it so difficult to self-transcend? Was it likely always this difficult, or is it a symptom of the civilizations that we’ve created? Might self-transcendence have been more commonplace in the ancestral environment (probably the hunter-gatherer mode of life)? Is there an evolutionary advantage to self-transcendence?
Why is it so difficult to self-transcend? Genes and environment.
Was it likely always this difficult, or is it a symptom of the civilizations that we’ve created? Both nature and nurture.
Might self-transcendence have been more commonplace in the ancestral environment (probably the hunter-gatherer mode of life)? Not sure
Is there an evolutionary advantage to self-transcendence? Not sure.
Thank you…life is clearly a journey during which we collect experience and upon reflection ultimately ask…”toward what end?” Transhumanism and ST answer the question. They posit that there is more than “self”, that life is indeed but a journey without end. This is comforting – even a source of rapture, when shared. Technology aiding by capitalism is contributing to “personalization” and the beginning of the end of the knowkedge economy as AI knows so much better/ more than can people ir their organizations. And if Maslow is correct, technology again aided by capitalism will continue to help society evolve through his hierarchy and to ST. But then what? Serenity? Note. I site capitalism because it aides evolution and is not limited by any utopian ideology or political leaning. But I acknowledge that my faith may be misplaced.
Thanks for writing about Abraham Maslow’s thoughts about self-transcendence. I really wish that he’d had more of an opportunity to develop his ideas in his later years as he was going in a really interesting direction.
For anyone who’s interested, I’d like to recommend the book, Transcendence by Scott Barry Kaufman. I haven’t finished it yet, but it takes Maslow’s ideas and updates them with research and thoughts from a range of other fields. It’s also worth mentioning that some of the book comments at the start of the book are from some of the biggest names in psychotherapy like Beck (CBT), Hayes (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), and Schneider (Existential-Integrative Therapy). So, Maslow’s thinking continues to be an influence on researchers and clinicians to this day.
Ed – thanks, I’ll check out the Kaufmann book.
Accomplished self-actualizers are icons of capitalism, which might be defined as the unapologetic exploitation of natural resources, the natural environment and labor. I’m not aware that capitalist ideology requires any remarkable moral integrity or recognition of the value of the commons. In fact, overwhelming evidence appears to confirm it does not. That’s why some of us have governments that are at least theoretically designed to protect the commons as well as the inherent individual & collective rights of the least privileged majority.
Elon Musk is probably our most accomplished living self-actualizer. Maybe autistics have a leg up in this endeavor, which requires a very high level of intelligence, focus, persistence & competitive drive. If anything’s possible, maybe one day Elon’s ego will vaporize or sublimate, he’ll quit Tweeting altogether, and actually achieve plateau transcendence. He’s probably experienced LSD & MDMA and if so, that evidently hasn’t enabled him to reach ego escape velocity yet. Maybe when he travels to Mars he’ll experience an epiphany, haha.
It’s common knowledge that over eons many indigenous societies have traditionally employed natural psycho-active plants, including mescaline cactus, psilocybin mushrooms, etc. to promote individual and collective mental healing and social cohesion. But this is clearly not the capitalist WASP way.
You do a good job of pointing out the negative side of self-actualization and of the potential benefits of mind altering experiences. Thanks for the comments.
Thank you for your article. Several things resonated with me re ego, experiences, and intuitively recognizing others. Nature is where my God lives and the relationship is best enjoyed alone. Again thx! Your article (and linked articles) confirms many of my thoughts re my wild and wonderful life
thanks for the comments.
One of my freind (Physcian) wondering how to experience “Bliss”. Is this need to achieve “Transcendence” ? Many people go down in the pyramid of needs and “I want that bliss”. Any mind that “wants ” “that Bliss” can it transcedend ? Is awarenes of the desire and let go the desire to experience opens the path to Transcdence ? Is Minds ability to see the truth about one self and the universe, which one is the insignificant part and not with any contamination with clouds of memory built by living ? is it a Pathway for transdence for any body to lead? Does mind need a teacher or one need to make ones own pathway to Transcedence?
Hello John Messerly
Thanks for great explanation on SA and ST.
My question is “do you truly believe in God and son Jesus Christ?
What I know is “there is nothing in technologies that can help to achieve transcendence. Robotics can’t do it.
SA is one which opens us to seek ST.
If I have come to realize I’m a child of God, created for a purpose to embrace his love, then God becomes the centre for ST.
We get power from the one who initiated all the things.
God transcendes and he is the one who motivates and help men to transcend.