Agreed, the ability to transcend has nothing whatsoever to do with ones beliefs in the waking state but on the mechanical abilities of the nervous-system. But if you are doing TM correctly it is doubtful one can remain an atheist forever. Organized religions don't "talk" much about transcending simply because they lack the methods to achieve it. "The Kingdom of God is within " must the most revolutionary concept in Christianity yet is rarely or even never discussed out of fear the Church would loose it's grip on the people.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote : Funny, I never really associated transcending with religious concepts or with God. I just transcended to a quieter area of my mind. My religious beliefs always remained separate. Sometimes, when meditating, I had what felt like restful alertness, which then translated into what I felt was a better degree of activity. In one instance I noticed a constant of silence when I shifted from sleeping to waking up. Nor am I aware of traditional religions talking much about transcending. But I like much of what else you say here. I mean a lot of it is the 'ol, "ultimately, there's nowhere to "go", sort of thing. But if you're not "there", you really can't relate to it. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <anartaxius@...> wrote : If everything is being, 'transcending' is then just a myth, a story. The question here is, under what circumstances is the concept of transcending useful? All of us who learned TM obviously must have encountered the term. All the word means is 'to go beyond the range or limits of', and if everything, every aspect of experience is really being, then it cannot apply. It is a term useful for the spiritually stunted because it implies there is something more that can be mined from their experience than they currently recognise. Basically the term defines what is not experienced as transcending, but that does not mean that is what is actually happening when a person meditates is he or she is transcending to being. The whole thing is there all the time, like the ocean around a fish, just unnoticed. Transcending is a magicians' trick, the mind takes the sense of it, unaware it is being misdirected, while what is actually happening is a process of garbage removal, deconditioning of the mind, which when complete enough reveals that there never was any transcending in the first place. There does not need to be a concept like god for this to happen. It is not even necessary to have the concept of transcending either, but sometimes it is useful as a tool, when people feel they are less than everything and separate from the world. The idea of transcending in spirituality is usually heavily tainted with traditional religious concepts, which tends to make practice 'to go beyond the range or limits of' current experience weighted down with a lot of additional conceptualisation and conditioning, in addition to the conceptualisation and conditioning of day to day living. That tends to double the mental load one has to discard to experience everything as being. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Curtis, If you say that you've transcended while meditating, then that means you've experienced Being. So if that is so, how can you say that there is no God, which is Being Itself? C: It is all in how you attach meaning to the experiences we have. I can do better than this. I experienced "God" plenty, and I still say that is not how I view these experiences now. Currently I think the state in TM is a silent aspect of our minds that has zero ontological meaning about how the universe works. It is just something our brains can do that we don't understand yet and are only confused by traditional assumptions. Different world view huh? ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <jr_esq@...> wrote : Why? Because they can't let go of the idea that God doesn't exist. What do you think? C: I "transcend" just fine in the Maharishi technique sense, no differently than when I was a believer. I don't even have to have any idea that god doesn't exist any more than that you have to hold a positive idea that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist. It is a non thought.
