The poet Tennyson (1809 – 1892) seemed to have had frequent experiences of transcending, starting from boyhood and lasting throughout his life. For example, he describes: ". . . a kind of waking trance — this for lack of a better word — I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. . . . All at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest . . . utterly beyond words — where death was an almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life . . . I am ashamed of my feeble description. Have I not said the state is utterly beyond words? . . . There is no delusion in the matter! It is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder, associated with absolute clearness of mind."
Tennyson offers a clear description of transcendence. When the mind dives within during the practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique, mental activity settles down, like waves settling on the ocean. We experience finer and finer levels of the thinking process, until we transcend, or go beyond, thinking altogether. What do we experience then? Consciousness itself — not consciousness of perceptions, thoughts, or feelings but pure consciousness, silent and unbounded. This is our innermost Self, the innermost reality of the universe. It is a field of pure Being, to use one of Maharishi’s early terms. So when Tennyson says, “Individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being,” he is accurately describing the experience of transcending. He no longer experiences himself as a limited ego — he now experiences his true Self, infinite and unbounded. Here, he tells us, “death was an almost laughable impossibility.” Quite right. Pure consciousness, Maharishi explains, is eternal, immortal. It lies beyond space, time, and causation. Tennyson describes his experiences again in a poem called “The Ancient Sage.” http://www.bartleby.com/236/98.html http://www.bartleby.com/236/98.html On a number of occasions while sitting alone, he says, "The mortal limit of the Self was loosed, And passed into the Nameless, as a cloud Melts into Heaven. I touch’d my limbs, the limbs Were strange, not mine — and yet no shade of doubt, But utter clearness, and thro’ loss of Self The gain of such large life as match’d with ours Were Sun to spark — unshadowable in words, Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world." Here Tennyson describes experiences of his bounded self merging into “the Nameless, as a cloud / Melts into Heaven.” As in the first passage, he describes this as an experience of utter clearness. "Unbounded awareness stands in the same relation to ordinary waking consciousness", Tennyson tells us, "as a sun to a spark." No doubt Tennyson’s ability to have this profound experience enhanced his creative abilities and helped make him the great poet he was (he continued writing into his 80s). Scientific research shows that regular experience of transcending through the Transcendental Meditation technique leads to rapid and measurable growth of creativity and intelligence, among many other benefits. Throughout history people such as Tennyson glimpsed the fourth state of consciousness, Transcendental Consciousness, and described it with great beauty and precision. We are fortunate to have a simple, natural, effortless procedure, the Transcendental Meditation technique, to have this experience on a regular basis. Tennyson's own technique? "This has often come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently till, all at once, as it were, out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being." Tennyson's Christian name was Alfred - so presumably "Alfie" for short. Now to me "Aaaaaaall-feeeee" sounds like a decent bija mantra for a novice. The experiences he had resulted in poems such as The Higher Pantheism (later mercilessly parodied by Swinburne!) which come close a mystical vision of our situation. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174590 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174590
