We Will ALL Transcend...But NOT Alone

Your investment in making a ‘self’ out of separateness is not at issue. However, your investment in protecting that self from others is, and this is what impedes the full and deep sharing of self with those who make up your experience of a ‘world.’ Such sharing is the only purpose of … "you.”

But because you fear “them,” depth eludes you and your 'self' remains a mystery.

Your purpose is fully engaged relating with other ‘selves’ as the means of dissolving all fear. As the French existential philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, explained, “hell is other people” and other people are what you seek to protect from. The postmodern 'self' withers on the vine of humanity exhausted and paralyzed by fear and this is the alienated and estranged world we now experience.

Yet, you will not dissolve fear alone because your fears were not constructed in isolation from other egos. Fear is a mutual construct formed through interaction with your experience of a ‘world.’ We live in a moment to moment mutual exchange of fear and joy and this is what shapes our world.

However, many seem to teach that fear is annihilated by dissolving the ‘self’ into nothingness, because…it’s not really "you." This position is nothing more than egocentric ruse, since it takes an ego-self to negate an ego-self (and what ego is really gonna do that).

Non-duality does not terminate “you,” since Spirit will manifest through infinite means and there's no reason why Spirit cannot partake of "you." However, the non-dual experience is transformative because it dissolves all conflict and opposition between experiences of self, others and world. It is the freedom of absolute equality which easily facilitates an exchange of unified joy, rather than fear. Absolute equality dissolves all fear, since nothing opposes or competes with anything else.

You don’t need to dissolve yourself into some ‘spiritual’ nothingness (which may actually have the opposite effect of ‘spiritually’ magnifying the egocentric concept of "you"), but deeply engage and fully integrate your ‘self’ with your experience of a 'world.' The only way fear is fully “observed” and dissolved is in full engagement with the people that populate and give meaning to your experience of a world. Your only purpose is in relationship and that is how you will discover the fears that impede you and cause suffering.

The "Hero’s Journey" is never alone.

Fear is not experienced in isolation from the world. You cannot “enter” it alone. Your individualized treatment plan seeks to exclude all others from participation. Centuries of this very paradigm has resulted in a world of great visionary goals and plans, but little willingness to cooperate in implementing the plans simply because strangers don't work well together.

You were not constructed in exclusion from others and it will be others who will participate in your transformation as you engage with theirs, both as an infinite players in a world of finite games. Just as fear is a product of our mutual exchange, joy is also such a product and just as other people are hell…they are also "heaven"

Ask yourself this... if the entire global economic system collapses tomorrow WHO will you turn to? Your 'self'?

But, that’s why it collapsed…

Indeed, you will transcend fear by actively identifying with your experience of others, since they are what you fear. You may think that death is your greatest fear, but what about death is it that you fear? Even death is the fear of losing others, which merely emphasizes the joy others bring you. Unfortunately most spiritual ideologies have been co-opted by egocentricity and fail to integrate by promoting disengagement with the world, even though it was from the world that you constructed your ‘self.’

The solitary path only leads back to you, but together we can go all beyond the “I’ to a ‘place’ that has yet to be discovered.

No one transcends alone…  

Artwork by Naoto Hattori - "Ascension"