Transcendence And Beyond

A benchmark volume at the intersection of philosophy and religion

In this volume, an interdisciplinary group of scholars uses history, sociology, anthropology, and semiotics to approach Transcendence as a human phenomenon, and shows the unavoidability of thinking with and through the Beyond. Religious experience has often been defined as an encounter with a transcendent God. Yet humans arguably have always tried to get outside or beyond themselves and society. The drive to exceed some limit or condition of finitude is an eduring aspect of culture, even in a "disenchanted" society that may have cut off most paths of access to the Beyond. The contributors to this volume demonstrate the humanity of Transcendence in various ways: as an effort to get beyond our crass physical materiality; as spiritual entrepreneurship; as the ecstasy of rituals of possession; and as a literary, aesthetic, and semiotic event. These efforts build from a shared conviction that Transcendene is thoroughly human, and accordingly avoid purely confessional and parochial approches while taking seriously the various claims and behavioral expressions of traditions in which Transcendence has been understood in theological terms.

The body of the book is structured along three sections, called "WHAT?", "HOW?" and "WOW!" "WHAT?" explains the predicament of the Human condition, in which we survive as social entities at the expense of our inner harmony and bliss. It explores the process by which since our birth, we are forced by the socio-cultural context in which we grow up to abandon and forget about our Cosmic, Unlimited dimension, how we have to learn to identify with our "persona" and our role in the social drama, at the expense of our Ultimate Identity, which is no other than the totality of Existence, present, past and future. I use the analogy of a wave who forgets it is nothing but a movement at the surface of the Ocean, and is coerced into believing that it has a separate existence, independently of the Ocean and its water, and how this illusion is the source of all human misery and suffering. This section also explains the difference between traditional psychotherapy, which tries to fix the wave's problems as a wave, and my Transcendence therapy approach, which aims at helping the wave to remember that it has never been disconnected from all the rest of the Ocean, thus putting an end to the misery derived from the illusion of separateness and to the illusion of mortality. Indeed, when a wave dies, where goes the water that was in it? Just nowhere! It stays in the Ocean where it's always been! The form of the wave dies one day, but its substance is forever alive... In this section I also explain how living in and through the mind is akin to trying to appreciate music, love and art through a pocket calculator, and how stepping into the realm of Energy is the way out of the jail. The second part of the book "HOW?" is a development of the topics discussed in part one, in the context of group workshops, with anecdotes, examples taken from real situations, and it elaborates on subjects such as Fear, Breathing, Jealousy, Sex and Relationships, the Heart, Energy, Music, Trust, Observing, Taking responsibility, Talking, Taking risks, The Body, Problems, Breathing, Polarity, Violence, Teasing, Regression, Magic, Meditation The third and last section, "WOW!" shows the fallacy of trying to attain to Ultimate freedom through egocentric efforts, reveals the contradiction of trying to be reunited with the Ocean, because that would be denying that we are One with the One already! It warns against the last illusion on the Journey, that "I can become free."

What is the law of the law? What produces our craven subservience to linguistic norms, and our shocking indifference to the phenomenon of universal suffering? In a path-breaking new work of philosophy, Louis Wolcher seeks to answer these questions from the standpoint of Zen Buddhism. Bringing an Eastern sensibility into contact with three of the most important themes in Western philosophy, Beyond Transcendence in Law and Philosophy meticulously investigates three of the twentieth century's most important philosophers: Martin Heidegger - on being, Emmanuel Levinas - on ethics, and Ludwig Wittgenstein - on language. In the context of the larger Western obsession with transcending the ordinary, Louis Wolcher argues that the yearning for transcendence is born of the illusion that there is a fundamental difference between the ordinary and the profound. Employing Zen koans and stories to advance a 'deflationary' view of language and knowledge, he goes on to argue that the norms of transcendence to which we cling are not eternal truths but artefacts of desperate minds adrift on a sea of impermanence. What used to seem so majestically True, Right and Just thus shows itself to be utterly mundane: as merely true, right and just. What is left, however, is not nihilism - for clinging to a view of 'nothingness' is just as deluded as clinging to a view of 'somethingness' - but rather a new beginning of compassionate concern for the suffering of others. Beyond Transcendence in Law and Philosophy is a strikingly original synthesis of Eastern and Western thought. It will enlighten philosophers and legal theorists, as well as those who are interested in or open to the insights of Zen Buddhism.

First published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What is the philosophical sense of transcendence? What meaning can transcendence have in philosophy? What direction, organization, and order might it give to philosophy? And how does transcendence transform or inspire philosophical thinking? Sarah Allen confronts these questions as she explores Emmanuel Levinas's approach to transcendence, which is set within a phenomenological context. Levinas seeks an approach that does not subordinate transcendence to the self-referential activities of human consciousness, and which does not simply fall into ontotheological, metaphysical language about God. Looking for the philosophical sense of transcendence, Allen asserts, requires not only a questioning into transcendence, but a questioning of philosophy itself. Any reflection on human affectivity brings us up to the limits of philosophical thought and suggests that there are senses to transcendence that will always escape formulation in philosophical language.

In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, a winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books shows how four tools enabled has us humans to control the destiny of our species "A wondrous, visionary work." --Tim Flannery, scientist and author of the bestselling The Weather Makers What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements -- fire, language, beauty, and time -- our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.

This book explores the work of the religious philosopher Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) by focusing on the way he develops his own expansive adaptations of traditional religious terms. As a leading proponent of perennial philosophical and religious thought, Schuon borrows widely from specific religious traditions, expanding the scope of traditional terminology—from upāya and yin-yang to "quintessential Sufism" and "vertical Trinity"—beyond their respective traditional definitions. This is one of Schuon's strengths as a thinker, but it can also be an obstacle to understanding his writings. This study develops the full implications of these key terms by first delving into their specific traditional denotations and, secondly, exploring their universal connotations in Schuon's universe of meaning. Such a task is particularly timely when both hardened religious identities and skepticism or hostility toward religious traditions increasingly clash with each other. The current questions and challenges surrounding cross-civilizational relations make such a contribution particularly needed and likely to receive a broader attention in the years to come.