On Transcending

I learnt to meditate because I was searching for something beyond the mundane, beyond the everyday.  The word ’transcendental’ in Transcendental Meditation intrigued me because ‘transcend’ means ‘to go beyond.’  I wanted to see if it was possible for the mind to go beyond its everyday chatter.  I’d read about the inner self and intuitively thought that it was possible to have transcendental experiences but I imagined that they would take many years of practice.

One of the most surprising things I learned first about TM was that transcending is easy.  This is because it’s natural, like falling asleep.  In the same way that sleep is a natural state of consciousness different to the waking state, transcendence is also a natural state of consciousness.  Humans have always had the ability to experience silent awareness, all that’s needed is the correct technique. When we learn TM, we simply learn to point the awareness in the right direction and let go, Nature does the rest.

So what is beyond the everyday chattering mind?  What do we experience when we transcend? There are many names for the transcendent experience.  I like ‘Being’ or ‘Inner Being.’  The concept of just sitting with the eyes closed ‘being’ as opposed to ’doing’ works for me.  Pure Consciousness is another good way to describe it.  A transcendental experience doesn’t have a focal point such as a thought or awareness of the body, it’s just consciousness aware of itself, an “I Am” experience.  It’s important to know that this is just the experience of our Self, our inner Self.  It’s not an altered state of consciousness, it’s a natural state of balance, of stillness, of coherence and contentment.  It’s the experience of contentment, which draws the attention naturally inwards.

The inner experience of contentment together with knowing that it’s possible to have this experience in an easy, natural way is what keeps me practising TM.  As well as being simple and natural technique, TM is also calming, gentle and nourishing.

by Mike Sampey.

I teach TM online monthly and in Brighton & Hove three times a year.