Transcendence

Essay originally published for Strike Magazine Miami's print Issue 08.

When transcendental meditation was first suggested to me, it was adorned with words like bliss and pure consciousness–a promise that with each practice, one could dive so deeply into themselves that they rejoin the ocean of energy from which we all stem.

This intrigued me.

Believing that everyone holds inherent joy and creativity–always accessible if we are willing to sit with it–it wasn’t hard to imagine that true bliss and serenity were within reach. Life always felt malleable, a subjective experience only as fun or meaningful as we allow it to be. So, as a self-appointed psychonaut, trying transcendental meditation felt inevitable.

With just a few utterances of my mantra, a windswept chill prickled through me. Cascades of goosebumps rippled across my skin, each hair standing, alert and intrigued. My mind swam beyond my physical form, drifting into a vast current, ebbing and flowing with hypnotic tranquility. I laughed–giddy warmth blooming in my chest. My mind buzzed yet remained still, humming with contentment, satisfied in merely existing. The fragmented aspects of myself had unified; there was no voice left to comment, only the perfect sway of the moment. I was everything. Everything was me. There was only my Self.

Since that first deep dive into consciousness, each visit has permeated my being, with a sense of endlessness. Limitations dissolve, much like a shell in the ocean, slowly eaten away by the acidity of the water, little by little until it is indistinguishable from the currents themselves. More and more, my consciousness merges with this oneness, connecting deeper with all that is and all that could be. Transcending who I once was to feel all that I can be.