If you are reading this blog chances are that you were lucky enough to be born privileged. This means you have advantages and opportunities that a lot of other people don't have. It is very likely that you have access to enough food and water, adequate housing, and clothing. You probably have health insurance, access to education and the freedom to pursue a job you are interested in. You have time for friends, hobbies, and social media. Some people might recognize your strengths and you might have a certain status within your community and beyond, hence you enjoy some kind of esteem. This means that overall a lot of your needs are met.
Some of you are familiar with Abraham Maslow's pyramid of needs, a theory of what motivates people to do what they do. If not, you definitely saw a version of the pyramid which had 'WIFI' added at the bottom, or 'toilet paper' in the more recent light of corona. The basic human needs according to Maslow are physiological and safety needs, love and belonging, and esteem needs. These needs are ordered hierarchical meaning that the needs at the foot of the pyramid are to be met before moving on to the next level. Physiological and safety needs are considered deficiency needs. People who are stuck in these levels are less lucky and struggle to find food, clean water, shelter, and safety on a daily basis. If these basic needs are not met it's hard to move on to the higher levels in the pyramid. Makes sense right?
At the top of the pyramid you find self-actualization described as the need to reach one's fullest potential and later Maslow added transcendence as our highest goal. Maslow is among the most cited and influential psychologists of modern times and he is onto something. Simply put (self)transcendence means understanding that you are part of a bigger whole and acting like it. According to Maslow:
“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” (Maslow, 1971, p. 269).
Looking again at the pyramid it's easy to see that mainly privileged people, people who have enough money to secure their basic needs, are able to climb all the way to the top. Maslow's top of the pyramid means something entirely different than what 'being at the top' usually means. If you reach Maslow's top you let go of most of your ego and have discovered the joys, Maslow calls them peak-experiences, of setting your own personal concerns and other occupations aside and see from a broader or higher perspective.
According to Maslow, these are some of the transcendent behaviors: moving beyond fear, dependency, weaknesses; living your own life regardless of expectations or opinions of others; focus on others to the exclusion of self; and achieving a sense of unity with yourself, nature, and others (especially the next generation), and a higher power or dimension greater than the self.
What are the characteristics of transcendence? I already mentioned a shift from our selves to others. A lot of times there is also a shift in values. People who practice transcendence are driven by intrinsic motivation. The reward is no longer the outcome of activity, but the activity itself is the reward. Moral concern also grows with transcendence with more focus on doing the right thing. The transcender also often experiences higher-order emotions such as amazement, awe, fulfillment, ecstasy, amazement, and feeling uplifted. Transcendence is not easy. From a young age you were socialized to focus on yourself and walk the hedonic treadmill. It's ingrained in your cells to love yourself first. So how can you even start to work on moving up the pyramid? One practice that can help you is loving-kindness meditation or in pali metta meditation, derived from Buddhism. In psychology research, loving-kindness meditation is found to have various outcomes such as increased social connection, increased positive emotions, decreased physical pain, and improved general well-being. I learned Metta meditation from my mentor as a practice that has two key components: compassion (karuna) and empathic joy (mudita). During the meditation you cultivate compassion and joy in 5 stages starting with yourself and expending to the level of all sentient beings. How can you practice? You can start by sitting down in a quiet space in a comfortable position on the floor or a chair. Make sure to sit up straight so that you don't fall asleep and pick a position that you can stay in for at least 15 minutes. Don't fidget (you can't find balance with a wobbling mind or body).
First stage: toward oneself
The first person up for some metta is you. Look for something that caused you pain or distress. Try to evoke a feeling of compassion for what happened. Stay with the feeling for a while and then let it go. The following step is remembering something nice that happened to you and relive that feeling of joy. Really go into it. Allow yourself to feel it.
Second stage: toward a loved one Do the same for someone you love or someone who is dear to you. This can be a friend, a member of your family, a teacher, a neighbor, etc.
Third stage: toward a neutral person Picture a person for whom you have neutral feelings. Someone you know but you normally wouldn't spend time thinking about. Try to evoke the same feeling of compassion and joy over something that happened in their life.
Fourth stage: toward someone you are in conflict with or dislike Do the same with a person who you feel has been annoying you. Make sure that the feelings you evoke are genuine. This is not easy, you will see. It's not enough to just think you feel joy and not truly feel it. It takes effort and time. And that's okay. Just practice.
Fifth stage: all sentient beings This is about human beings whom you have not met and live in the rest of the world. This stage even includes non-human beings living on this earth. This expansion of awareness to beings you don't know and seemingly have no connection to is crucial for transcendence. It cultivates an awareness of unity. It makes you understand that actions, even the smallest, have consequences beyond your own little world.
You can set a timer and practice any amount of time you like. On average 15 minutes is sufficient to go through the stages. You can stay in a stage longer if you want to and if you went through all the stages before the timer goes off, you can start again with stage 1. If you experience difficulties in a particular stage, that's okay, just go back to the previous stage and start there again. Just make sure that what you feel is real.
