Transcendence

by Robert Fritz

There are two principles that profoundly impact the life-building process. One is the principle of
consequences – that is: the actions that we take produce consequences. Some of these
consequences are intended, but many are not intended or wanted.

The principle of consequences has to do with cause and effect. Almost every consequence we have
in our lives was created by a previous cause. Mastery of cause and effect is one of the most
important skills we can develop within the creative process because the creative process itself is
concerned with causing future desired outcomes (our creations.)

The other life-building principle is transcendence – we can transcend the consequences we have put
into motion. Cause and effect are suspended. Past actions do not become manifested in future
outcomes. The past, no matter what it has been, is no longer a dynamic that must play itself out.
Not only do we recognize the past is over, it is no longer at issue. We are able to re-create our lives
anew.

In spiritual traditions these principles are often called "Karma" and "Grace." Karma, a Sanskrit word
that translates to action, is the notion that until the past is complete, resolved, made right, you will
repeat past patterns. Karma is something you must "work out." You are burdened by your faulty
past actions and cannot move ahead unless you resolve the past. Creating "good karma" is like
putting something in the karmic bank that might be redeemable in the future.

Grace is something else entirely. Grace (transcendence) supersedes the past. Past actions no longer
need to be accounted for. You are freed from the influence of the past.

It's not as if the past never happened. You simply do not need to do anything about it. The dynamic
that compels us to want to resolve open issues, unsettled experiences, unanswered questions, is
gone. The train has switched to another track. The future is not connected to the past causally.

In my book The Path of Least Resistance, I use two stories to illustrate transcendence: One is
Dickens' A Christmas Carol; the other is The Prodigal Son. Both stories shine a light on the
difference between the principle of consequences and transcendence.

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge sees his past, his current life, and his probable future, and yet he is
given a second chance. His past actions were leading unavoidably to negative consequences. When
he awakes on Christmas morning the past is no longer in play. He was given the chance to turnover
a new leaf. He could begin anew. This is one of the most profound experiences a person can have,
that of being given a second chance.

The Prodigal Son story involves three main characters: the prodigal or wayward son; the "good"
son; and the father. Each character represents an aspect of the human being. The father can be
understood to represent the source of your life. The prodigal son is that part of yourself that has not
been true to yourself (or that source.) The good son represents the times you have been true to
yourself. Since the prodigal has made mistakes, gotten into trouble, has failed to live up to his
promise, the logical consequences of his past actions would be to suffer the consequences he had
set in motion. Yet he remembers he has a home, and he sets out to return to it. He does so without
expectation and with true humility. He seeks nothing by his return. To gain insight into the principle
of transcendence we need to understand his motivation. He is not attempting to resolve the past. He
isn't trying to make it right or "complete it." He simply wants to return home.

When the father hears of the prodigal's return, he is overjoyed. He had thought that his son was
dead. He now finds that he is alive. Imagine what it would have been like to discover that a loved
one who was thought dead was, indeed, alive. It is important to understand the great longing of the
father to reunite with the prodigal. There is something in us that wants to reunite with what is
deepest in us, the source of our life, so to speak. For some, this source is God, for others it is a
personal drive to create, for others, it is the universe, etc., etc., etc. We do not need to have a
common understanding of what "the source" is to understand the deeper principles in this parable.
However, we do need to understand that the father's motivation is longing to reconnect,
overwhelming love, and total acceptance. The father decides to hold a feast for the prodigal's return.

The "good" son is angry when he hears of this celebration. After all, he has worked the fields, done
his father's bidding, and lived a life above reproach. This is an interesting reversal in the story. Can
we imagine what it was like for the father to learn of the prodigal's return? If we truly cared about
the father, we wouldn't complain that we weren't getting our due. Instead, we would feel joy about
the father's joy. But the "good" son isn't thinking about others. His orientation is of payback. The
good deeds he has accomplished suddenly seem as if he had mixed motives. They were not done for
their own sake or for the sake of the father, but for some type of return on investment. He would
deny the prodigal's return to the father.

There is our source, a part of ourselves that has not been true to that source, and a part of us that
has. The longing of the source and the desire of the prodigal to reunite is one very powerful force in
play. Yet, ironically, the "good" son/daughter parts of ourselves reject the reunion. The father tried
to explain to the "good" son, "You see, I thought he was dead, but he lives."

The transcendent principle in this story is this: You want to come home to yourself, your deepest
aspects of yourself wants this too, and yet there is a part of you that seeks "to remain in the
principle of consequences," so as to resolve the past. Within transcendence, the past no longer
needs resolution, even while it remains unresolved.

One cannot "earn" transcendence. Robert Frost called it "Something you somehow haven't to
deserve." No matter what the past has been, no matter what consequences you have set in motion,
you can start again, as if life is saying to you, "Okay, take two. Let us try that thing again."

Transcendence is not overcoming the past because the past is no longer at issue, no matter what it
has been.

This is a hard notion to get, in a similar way it is hard for some people to easily accept a gift they
feel they didn't deserve. So, the irony is that, while there is nothing you can do to evoke
transcendence, you do have to learn how to accept it as a gift.

Why might people reject a possibility to begin anew? Because they feel the need to "resolve" the
past, to somehow make it right. Neither Scrooge nor the Prodigal needed to resolve their past, and
had they tried to do so, they wouldn't have succeeded. Both were given a new chance in which the
consequences they had set in motion in the past no longer needed to be played out.

After transcendence, you enter into a new state of consequences. In other words, you are in a
position to initiate new actions which are aimed toward new desired outcomes. This is why
mastering the mechanics of the creative process is so important. The new possible future is based
on a new set of actions. We learn in A Christmas Carol that "Scrooge was as good as his words."
Transcendence led to a new chain of cause and effect, and the principle of consequences was once
again in play.