Home A Narration of Transcendence

There was a point in my life when I skirted close on the edge of suicide. None would've guessed it, but I was very dissatisfied with what life had to offer me. I was not a particularly sad person; in fact I lived a relatively good life. Friends, money, intelligence, these were all things that I laid claim to, but some might say I was ungrateful; well I counter this statement by asking what exactly these things were supposed to be bringing me that I was to be grateful of. Life was dull; I was fed up with society, with the typical eight hours of work just so that I could buy more meaningless plastic 'belongings' that did not bring me any amount of pleasure. I had lived with these feelings most of my life but it was only at that particular point that I had become fed up and finally decided to act.

I had two choices, either I could leave all of the pointless nothings behind and seek the majestic life of a hermit or I could commit suicide. The answer was somewhat obvious since I knew that I could only do them both if in a certain order. So I had left society, telling not a soul, I would simply disappear. And so I did.

*****

I left into the forest; having educated myself greatly in means of survival, I was now fully prepared for whatever hardships these woods had to offer. My home was in a dark cave like the primates of our very most primitive past. I spent most of my early days maintaining survival, it was a tremendous joy to fish, hunt, or gather herbs for several hours of the day, spend roughly another hour looking after the various other requirements needed to stay alive and then the rest of the day I did as I pleased.

A good deal of my free time I spent in deep meditation. Back in normal civilization I had dabbled in so many forms of spirituality, from Christianity to the darkest occult rituals I had been seeking the satisfaction that they all claimed to hold but none of which could deliver. There were several acts that could provide sorts of pleasure, many of which induced trances where I could see into myself; what secrets were held in my subconscious. What purpose do the various spiritual factions have other than the method in which one seeks the inner self? Meditation provided time for the absence of thought which so helped my longing for satisfaction, but here in this cave I had begun to feel the spark of something different in my contemplations, at first nothing but a whisper of a faint scent of smoke, it appeared to be a thought longing to grow, finally able to be heard in the silence of this romantic form of life.

The remainder of my free time I had spent in idle contemplation or the creation of art, sometimes in useful things such as tools or weapons, sometimes for the sake of art itself in carving or painting. I would put down abstract scenes onto the walls of my cave, from the thoughts and dreams which were becoming steadily stronger and more vivid as I came more in tune with the magical forces of this natural world.

There was a stream next to my cave. I would sit for hours, in quiet contemplation, my concentration eased by the hypnotic voice of the flowing water. It spoke to me; its words caused so many new visions and ideas to crop up into my mind. Scientists back in the world of humans say that we only use 10% of our minds, something which is entirely true for those living in the 'civilized world.' The ancients from which we evolved used virtually their entire mind; they felt no need to narrate their genius to the generations ahead, their transcendence showed them how pointless it would be.

I thus began to feel a short sense of loss at what made my life so easy before, various tools and technology, the wealth which always gave me peace at mind, and most of all people that expressed love to me; these are the things most valued by society and at that point I felt that I had really taken them for granted, but the thought of going back was still sickening; I left for a reason and I was nowhere near my goal, it felt that I was pursuing the right path, but I didn't even know what my goal was besides a mental satisfaction in existence.

I lived like this for a very short time; the regret of leaving was not a permanent emotion, thank God (ha!). One of the things that made the thoughts go was the preoccupation in my dreams, which were beginning to become closer to reality and reality seeming to become less and less tangible. These were not just ordinary dreams, though, they often involved strange entities, dark abyss-like ocean reaches, and areas in space unspoken of by even the most demented fantasists. There was much fright at that time, I would constantly get glimpses of such horrible creatures that I would wake up, drenched in sweat, heart pounding, and for the first time in my life the boredom was gone, although it had been replaced with tremendous fear. Life really can be quite ironic.

*****

I had lived like so for quite some time, if I were to make an estimate I would say roughly three years, although the actual reality was now so hazy that I have really very little to base the estimations on. It was during this period, that looking back, I cannot remember what I did for food; it would make sense that I would get food but it mattered so little beyond the instinctual survival that my mind had no means of retaining such memories, but I am also speculating on the fact that I could've been getting the energy from somewhere else; I had remembered reading of Buddhist monks that could, with willpower and meditation, maintain a normal body temperature on freezing snowy mountains wearing only thin robes and sandals; if they could get energy from an unseen mental source then who is to say that I wasn't because I had been dabbling my thoughts and dreams into very unknown and uncharted territory. So few have been there, or at least so few have spoken of it; a certain shunned occultist from Damascus many years ago, a few pulp writers from the early 1900s, and who can guess at how many countless half-mad hermits (not so unlike myself at that point).

I was really enjoying these mental journeys until things began to get rather dangerous, not only were my dreams now beautiful and horrifying far beyond the realm of description, but I began to notice these entities finding their way into the physical realm. Pitch black tentacles would reach at me from the trees, there were times when hounds would nibble at my consciousness and send me into that abominable caricature of life meant to evoke all of what we hate and fear into the reality that we 'know,' horrible shrieks would erupt in the dead of night coming from right outside my cave, I would catch glimpses of gibbering masses floating nearby trying to follow my scent, and so much more far too frightening to even attempt a description without going into shuddering convulsions.

I was at this point afraid of life and death. I would've taken my life long before had I not been so afraid of what may be awaiting my soul to leave the meager protection of my body. I had attempted to stop the dreams and visions but to no avail, they just continued to get worse. Soon reality began to disappear entirely, one night I had descended into the longest dream of any spoken mortal. I had arrived in a grey world surrounded by enormous black pillars in two lines perpendicular to direction I had been facing. They extended as far as the eye could see and I was alone in the desolate colorless place, with contours and imperfections so unnatural that it caused an instinctual sense of fright at the extreme foreignness. The only sound was a strange spatial ambience created from some unknown winds or other such phenomena, and a chilling piping of flute-like instruments. They did not seem to follow any scale known to man; in fact I believe that wherever I was I had attained the ability to hear frequencies of music that cannot physically be heard by the human organism. I stood there amongst the cyclopean columns, listening with an awe and fear almost as indescribably horrific as the piping music that invaded my consciousness (or unconsciousness if it was just a sort of dream-state).

After a time the music ceased and all that was left was the noise of the lonely cosmic wind. I looked up into the starry blackness and saw many colors, beyond infrared, beyond anything speculated before, they were unbelievably beautiful, and as one cannot describe our known colors to the blind, I could not begin to hint at the clusters and dust clouds that populated the scene I was witnessing. Shortly after this time I began to ponder the nature of my being, in which I could see beyond human sight and hear beyond our frequencies, and whatever odd powers I was capable of. Raising my hands to sight, I saw that I was not in fact a physical being; my hands were invisible, non-existent, as was every material part of myself. Looking around I decided to travel, and I did travel, more travel then we have ever used the word. I traveled through, centuries, millennia, eternities; I knew all, for I had no physical limits of knowing, I had no brain, only a glorious consciousness of- What? A soul perhaps... Obviously as I write this I am not all knowing and can only remember the thoughts and experiences performed in that state. I had traveled to every reach of the universe at all times, and all done in no amount of time, for time is non-existent where one is not a physical entity. I assume that this is the fate that shall meet us at our death; I am glad that I managed to make my way back to earth, because for once, my life has meaning. The very fact that I must abide by the limitations in life gives me a purpose to go on.

These things are probably hard for one to understand, but I had awoken from this astral journey in a cold sweat in some unknown part of the woods. My clothes were in rags and I can only guess at what my life had been like in those last moments of insanity before the transcendence. My life now had a purpose, and that purpose was to exist and live, which may seem obvious, but some of the very most obvious things are those which get skewed and forgotten. My purpose was to live life and then die; I would enjoy life because my illogical organic mind makes purpose in every little action performed, I won't be perfect until I'm dead and I welcome that new existence as well, but these things are just changes of state, not better or worse. To say what happened to me after this time is totally irrelevant to the moral, for everyone's existence has a different path, mine led me back into civilization, but some would choose to exist as hermits until the end of their days. My only regret is that I have only begun to understand so late in life, and that so many do not and never will understand; the world really would be a lot better if more found their own means of transcendence.

December 13, 2006


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