Seeking the Beyond

Seeking The Beyond

A Yearning for More

A yearning for that which cannot be seen comes from experience and how we choose to position ourselves towards that experience.  The all too mundane and typical seen in the right light can easily lead to a yearning for more.  More often than not, however, it is those experiences which we would describe as “sublime” and “deep” that touch the soul in a way which awakens a hunger, a yearning, for something greater.  You may find yourself saying that you’ve never had such an experience, but I guarantee the experience was there, you were just approaching it in a way not conducive to the spiritual.  It may take some conscious probing for many of us to excavate from everyday experiences the unseen mystical qualities that lie therein.  We have to develop an eye for that which is unique, creative, and full with life.  Once we have trained ourselves to see these qualities, we can let our experiences touch the very core of our being. 
         How do we cultivate this sense of greatness in everything we experience?  For some it may be the result of a sudden awakening within, triggered by a single event.  For others, it may be the fruit of a long and testing spiritual practice.  The point, though, is that we all have the ability to nurture and grow this quality within us.  The unfortunate truth is that it lies dormant within most of us for the vast majority of our lives.  Thus, we find ourselves dead to the world, in a certain sense of the phrase.  We find ourselves unable to appreciate those things most worthy of appreciation.  We become mechanical; functioning without truly realizing what it is we are doing.  Not only this, but we also, in acting without true awareness, become self-serving beings.  This modus operandi is largely a function of the society and culture we live in.  It is as if the values of the anonymous “they” are instilled in us by virtue of our own ignorance.  Thus, without even knowing it, we live our lives as though we are at the center of the universe and the only thing that truly matters. 
         Once we are aware of these facts, we gain the power to break the chains of our routine, unconscious, and mechanical functioning.  We awaken, in a way, to the world as it truly is.  It as if we had awakened from a dream where we had no control over our actions and thoughts.  This awakening to reality is simultaneously an awakening to a yearning within us.  This is so since, once truly aware of our actions and thoughts, we find ourselves in the novel position of questioning those actions and thoughts.  We ask ourselves, “Why should I do this?” or “Why do I believe that?” and the yearning we feel now is one for answers to these questions.  The questions demand an answer.  Where are we to find these answers, though?  Do we simply arbitrarily choose the answers to life’s pressing questions, creating our own value system as we go along?  Or are there answers in our experiences which can lead us in the right direction?

Living With Purpose: The Art of Transcendence

We are the ones who choose the answers to life’s most profound questions.  We create our own value systems and change them as we see fit.  No one is going to take us by the hand and tell us what to believe.  The questions remain though: how ought one to live?  What is right?  What is good?  Answering these questions and living the answers is a lifelong practice. 
         What, then, sets one value system or set of beliefs apart from another?  The answer is the extent to which that belief system accounts for all aspects of our experience.  That is to say, the extent to which my beliefs allow me to transcend the particular and move toward the universal.  The particular in this case, in the case of all of my experiences, is me.  Therefore, I seek to live in a way which transcends my own being.  This means moving towards a system of belief that is “other-centered.”  It is when I give myself completely over to the other that my existence begins to overflow with life and profundity.  We find that the yearning which we have become acquainted can only be truly satisfied through the other.  It is when I completely let go of myself for another's sake that I truly grasp the meaning of my life.  All acts of sacrifice, gratitude, charity, and compassion are full of life.  Transcending the self and moving towards the other is an act beyond any one human spirit which culminates in the union of several distinct human spirits.  Thus, it is only through living together and with full awareness of this “togetherness” that we can live our lives with grace.