Transcending transcendence
Making music with the angels
Everything in life at some point must be transcended - even transcendence itself. Think about something you’ve learnt or are currently learning. There’s some technique, some practice, a ‘way of doing’ that takes you from here to there. The practice creates a structure or scaffolding to hold the learning, the many transitions, nurturing what is emerging and allowing what needs to fall away to happen without complete collapse.
For example, you have to learn the chords on a piano before you can play a song by ear you’ve just heard. Or you need to learn the everyday interaction words in Hindi before you can chime in on a lecture about the meaning of dharma. The knowledge, practice or technique is there to guide you, but it’s ultimate purpose is to bring you into a state of naturalness, of embodiment, so you become the creator, the musician, the channel.
If you hold on to what was, if you live your life in technique rather than spontaneous expression, you end up resisting the natural process of evolution, and you feel it. You become stuck, frustrated, and don’t feel like it’s truly connecting. It’s in the letting go that something becomes real. That the study of sound and phonetics becomes a song that reaches into the hearts of humanity and gives them a taste of what love is. No technique can do that. Practice guides you, it creates a steadiness and repetition to make what’s needed known. But at some point, that which gave you so much, has to be transcended. Even transcendence itself.
The misconceptions of transcendence.
I’ve seen many misconceptions of transcendence that cause people to avoid the one thing that will make everything in their life more real. Things like, “we’re not here to transcend our human experience”, “transcendence is avoiding reality”, or “transcendence is masculine and I’m here to embrace the feminine”. Now, all these statements are true on some level - we are here to live a full life. Spiritual practice is not about avoiding reality. Life is about the integration of opposites and your practice will evolve as you do. The mistake is thinking transcending is the problem, when in fact it’s ignorance that’s causing the friction.
Transcendence is pure Being, pure consciousness, the intelligent field of life that is the source of all things. It sits there, in a way, between the high and the low, the left and the right, the inward and the outward breath, and yet is beyond everything relative. It’s the invisible force that unites all things, that allows for diversity, that never changes and yet supports all change.
In our practice of Vedic meditation, we naturally and spontaneously come to this state of Being through our effortless technique. We don’t necessarily know what’s happening in any given meditation, but when we make our way back into daily life, something is different. A new reality of living is quietly emerging from letting go of what we know, from transcending. Transcending isn’t about avoiding the human experience, but realising what you are beyond the current boundaries that are making you feel stuck, confused, manipulating others, hating yourself, or thinking ‘what’s the point?’ We can’t always work it out with our minds. The real change comes from transcending, letting go, going beyond.
Each day we practice we become more aware, more open, more sensitive, more flexible in mind and body. Daily transcending stabilises us in a non-changing reality so we have the freedom to be all of who we are as humans. Going beyond the boundaries is what makes life as a human more intelligent, more loving, more unbounded and free. But it doesn’t stop there.
Evolving your practice.
Transcendence never ceases to be. You don’t stop transcending at some point in your spiritual practice - although it may feel that way. Something has changed. But what is it? Transcendence has simply stopped being exclusive. You’re in the phase of discovering you don’t have to go beyond to find it anymore. It’s right here, you’re standing in it, in the cosmic waters of Being, and it’s coexisting with making breakfast, playing with the kids, and having that challenging conversation with your partner. There’s a steadiness inside like tree roots that allow the branches to move freely in the storm. You are both here and there, a body with emotions that want to be felt and validated, and an awareness that knows everything is already OK. It’s spacious, if you can allow yourself to lean back into your unboundedness. Life looks different here, not perfect, but possible.
In this state you start to find another level of freedom. It’s like you learnt the chords on a piano, but now you’re starting to hear music and can play along. Your inner practice of meditation has created the foundations to play more creatively with the ebb and flow of life. And the more you play, the more your inner reality is realised, and the more it’s realised, the more freedom you have to make music with the rhythm of life.
It’s here that you can start to feel like you don’t want to read any more books. Knowledge from ‘out there’ can actually become a hinderance in this phase (which you’ll encounter many times) because it’s another scaffolding. What you really need is to let go and see what’s been built. What do you really know? Who are you? Why are you here? It’s a time for making everything in your life more real.
Making music with the angels.
If you find yourself here, don’t think anything is going wrong. You’re in a phase of integration that requires a surrendering of what was. But it’s not a surrender where you throw everything away and start again. It’s a transcending that brings greater wholeness, greater unified intelligence, and greater love into your life.
Every great musician, if asked, will still be able to play simple chord progressions. But their real skill? Making music with the angels, the devas, that brings something beyond into a manifest form. We feel it deeply. And in listening, we get to come a little bit closer to that state in our own selves.
Love Laura x
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Hi Laura,
This came at such a good time for me to read. I am in that stuck place--still meditating twice a day and rounding a few times a week. But my career is idling, I'm turning 60 in December. It all feels a bit overwhelming and dull. When I read your post something resonated with me deeply about that awareness that knows everything is already ok. I usually can easily sense this but with fear afoot, it's not as clear. But your words helped to remind me of that Being that is here and there and always. Thank you.
Laura, I too, really appreciate this clarity of evolving within this practice of transcending. Thank you for bringing this forward. Jai Guru Deva!