Being transcends space and time, because space and time are abstractions. So, being is both transcendent (of abstraction) and immanent (of the body).[i] There is no transcendent realm.[ii] It only seems that way, when you subscribe to an abstract depiction of reality,[iii] framed by space and time.
The mind discovers its perspective through optic flow, which is an experience of being that becomes transparent in the service of navigating space. The perception of space is thus drawn out of the perception of being. So, we exist in both realms simultaneously,[iv] but to varying degrees depending on the situation.
This dichotomy between being and abstraction has been interpreted in countless ways in religion, psychology and philosophy. The advantage of the surfing metaphor is that it alludes to a subtle balance, based on principles that apply to the physical, biological and spiritual realms. However, this does not imply that consciousness is everywhere. The problem with that idea is that our experience of transcendence defies the notion of extension.
The idea of being “intimately interwoven with everything and everyone the mind senses”[v] is an illusion. Transcendence doesn’t just dissolve the boundary of the body, but space itself—the mind’s temporal connection overriding spatial separation. The sense of spatial connection is an afterthought—the ‘narrative interpreter’ in the left-brain trying to make sense of undirected awareness.[vi] The profound sense of oneness is not a connection with space (seemingly vast), but no space at all, just the present moment.
The illusion of spatial connection leads to the delusion of consciousness itself being everywhere. The fact that we share ‘time’ together doesn’t mean that we also share space. It’s a nice thought, but space is, by its very nature, divisible. This is an important distinction, because time (as kairos) is what connects us with our ancestral spirit. So, we risk losing this vital connection if we subscribe to a spatial characterisation of consciousness.[vii]
The ancestral spirit has a profound stabilising effect on the individual. Many are oblivious to its existence, some identifying with material possessions instead, while others ‘find themselves’ in political movements.[viii] On the other hand, the ancestral connection has been rendered in so many ways that the immaterial nature of being gets lost in the narrative. But, it’s really just an echo of our ancestors’ lives—the love they felt for each other, their animals and the places they lived.[ix]
Next chapter: Intellect.
Back to intro: Surfism.
References
[i] Rahner, K. (1982). Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, Translated by William V. Dych, Crossroad, New York, p.20.
“We shall call transcendental experience the subjective, unthematic, necessary and unfailing consciousness of the knowing subject that is co-present in every spiritual act of knowledge, and the subject’s openness to the unlimited expanse of all possible reality. It is an experience because this knowledge, unthematic but ever-present, is a moment within and a condition of possibility for every concrete experience of any and every object. This experience is called transcendental experience because it belongs to the necessary and inalienable structures of the knowing subject itself, and because it consists precisely in the transcendence beyond any particular group of possible objects or of categories. Transcendental experience is the experience of transcendence, in which experience the structure of the subject and therefore also the ultimate structure of every conceivable object of knowledge are present together and in identity.”
[ii] Ibid. p.87.
“It is a fundamental problem for a contemporary understanding of Christianity how God can really be God and not simply an element of the world, and how, nevertheless, in our religious relationship to the world we are to understand him as not remaining outside the world. The dilemma of the “immanence” or “transcendence” of God must be overcome without sacrificing either the one or the other concern.”
[iii] Ibid. p.228.
“It could still be said of the creator with the Old Testament that he is in heaven and we are on earth. But we have to say of the God whom we profess in Christ that he is exactly where we are, and only there is he to be found. If nevertheless he remains infinite, this does not mean that he is also still this, but means that the finite itself has received infinite depths. The finite is no longer in opposition to the infinite, but is that which the infinite himself has become, that in which he expresses himself as the question which he himself answers. He does this in order to open for the whole of the finite of which he himself has become a part a passage into the infinite-no, I should say in order to make himself the portal and the passage. Since their existence God himself has become the reality of what is nothing by itself, and vice versa.”
[iv] Ibid. pp.34-35.
“It is self-evident that this transcendental experience of human transcendence is not the experience of some definite, particular objective thing which is experienced alongside of other objects. It is rather a basic mode of being which is prior to and permeates every objective experience. We must emphasize again and again that the transcendence meant here is not the thematically conceptualized “concept” of transcendence in which transcendence is reflected upon objectively. It is rather the a priori openness of the subject to being as such, which is present precisely when a person experiences himself as involved in the multiplicity of cares and concerns and fears and hopes of his everyday world. Real transcendence is always in the background, so to speak, in those origins of human life and human knowledge over which we have no control. This real transcendence is never captured by metaphysical reflection, and in its purity, that is, as not mediated objectively, it can be approached asymptotically at most, if at all, in mystical experience and perhaps in the experience of final loneliness in the face of death. Such an original experience of transcendence is something different from philosophical discussion about it, and precisely because it can usually be present only through the mediation of the categorical objectivity of man or of the world around him, this transcendental experience can easily be overlooked. It is present only as a secret ingredient, so to speak. But man is and remains a transcendent being, that is, he is that existent to whom the silent and uncontrollable infinity of reality is always present as mystery. This makes man totally open to this mystery and precisely in this way he becomes conscious of himself as person and as subject.”
[v] Newberg, A.B. & D’Aquili, E.G. (2001). Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, p.4.
[vi] Gazzaniga, M.S., et al. (1998). Cognitive Neuroscience: the Biology of the Mind, W.W. Norton & Company, Fourth edition, 2014, pp.146-7.
“The interpreter has revealed itself in many classic experiments over the years. A typical observation is when the speaking left hemisphere offers up some kind of rationalization to explain the actions that were initiated by the right hemisphere, but whose motivation for the actions are unknown to the left hemisphere.”
“… but sometimes it interprets the moods caused by the experiences of the right hemisphere. Emotional states appear to transfer between the hemispheres subcortically, so severing the corpus callosum does not prevent the emotional state of the right hemisphere from being transferred to the left hemisphere, even though all of the perceptions and experiences leading up to that emotional state are still isolated. One of the authors (MSG) reported on a case in which he showed some negatively arousing stimuli to the right hemisphere alone. The patient denied seeing anything; but at the same time, she was visibly upset. Her left hemisphere felt the autonomic response to the emotional stimulus, but had no idea what had caused it. When asked what was upsetting, her left brain responded that the experimenter was upsetting her. In this case, the left hemisphere felt the valence of the emotion but was unable to explain the actual cause of it, so the interpreter constructed a theory from the available information.”
[vii] Rahner, K. (1982). Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, Translated by William V. Dych, Crossroad, New York.
“By the fact that a person finds God, that he falls, as it were, into the absolute, infinite and incomprehensible abyss of all being, he himself is not consumed into universality, but rather he becomes for the first time someone absolutely unique. This is so because it is only in this way that he has a unique relationship to God in which this God is his God, and not just a universal salvation which is equally valid for all.” p.308.
“The ground of our spiritual personhood, which in the transcendental structure of our spiritual self always discloses itself as the ground of our person and at the same time remains concealed, has thereby revealed itself as person. The notion that the absolute ground of all reality is something like an unconscious and impersonal cosmic law, an unconscious and impersonal structure of things, a source which empties itself out without possessing itself, which gives rise to spirit and freedom without itself being spirit and freedom, the notion of a blind, primordial ground of the world which cannot look at us even if it wants to, all of this is a notion whose model is taken from the context of the impersonal world of things. It does not come from that source in which a basic and original transcendental experience is really rooted: namely, from a finite spirit’s subjective and free experience of itself. In its very constitution a finite spirit always experiences itself as having its origins in another and as being given to itself from another–from another, therefore, which it cannot misinterpret as an impersonal principle.” p.75.
[viii] Klapp, O.E. (1969). Collective Search for Identity, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York, p.272.
“The goal of the crusade is noble, not merely good. Bread-and-butter values are not enough for a crusade–in an abundant society, at least. Grander purposes must be stated in abstraction to justify sacrifices; that is, the crusade draws on resources of idealism, not just on animal energy. This ideal makes possible the crusader’s noble conception of his own role–as savior, defender, knight, fighter for the right; it makes him, as Howard S. Becker says, a “moral entrepreneur” who wants to revise morality to a higher level.”
[ix] Rahner, K. (1982). Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, Translated by William V. Dych, Crossroad, New York, p.439.
“Wherever a free and lonely act of decision has taken place in absolute obedience to a higher law or in radical affirmation of love for another person, something eternal has taken place and man is experienced immediately as transcending the indifference of time in its mere temporal duration.”
Dan Webber 