Everyday Transcendence

Wonderful paralympic team 2016

If I asked you if you had had a transcendent experience, you might doubt it, you might search for some out of body experience, some deep and profound shift from one consciousness to a state of sublime bliss and not find it there!
The subject of transcendence fascinates me because it seems such a far off and unlikely event in the ordinary way of things.  However, if you look at it in a different way (and especially look at it after the end of those wonderful Paralympic Games) you might get a hint of the possibility of everyday transcendence.  Because if transcendence means to transcend one state of being for another, then surely a person who might think they were disabled but who decides to transcend the condition by taking part in an exacting sport is someone who has transcended the state of disability and risen to the state of athlete.

lovely glass of wine!

In the same way, a person with a headache who goes to work has transcended the state of headache, not accepted the headache as a reason not to go in.  They have transcended state one for state two.  My own state of transcendence is to complete half an hour of meditation and transcend the ideas which beg for attention some of which are completely brilliant and would let me rebuild the house and probably remodel the universe!!! Some of them are the opposite, those ideas tell me what rubbish I am, what a failure and why would anyone like me!  Transcending the second lot is clearly desirable, transcending the great and glorious ones takes a bit more effort.
You have to make sure that the lovely supper or the glass of wine aren't going to win the day because     somewhere deep in your consciousness, you know that they are a passing thing and you are trying to build up a capital of remembering the transcendent reality of your own soul. You have to have the discipline of an athlete, an everyday build up of strength to be able to transcend the idea that you are just a body with a small mind inside it bound to your name and your nationality, your status and your age.  It has to be worth it doesn't it. Plus you can have the glass of wine when you have finished especially if you haven't let it cross your mind during your meditation!