Puro da lamang sa kaugalingon? Yay lamang para sa kadaghanan? This question can be raised by an outsider looking in… better, an insider looking out. When the observer sees the majority is concentrating on what they can get and NOT what they can give. When observations are focused on the rich trying to become richer can be seen... While around, the pathetic situations of their neighbors are glaringly present. When the leaders are focused on what they can get while the people and the place they vowed to serve are slowly dying and begins to degenerate.
Psychological egoism suggests that all behaviors are motivated by self-interest. In other words, it suggests that every action or behavior or decision of every person is motivated by self-interest. It also suggests that every action must be motivated by self-interest (qcc.cunny.edu).
The view that human beings act from self-interest and from self-interest alone is not new. It has long been the dominant view in psychology and in much of Western thought. Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth century philosopher, believed that human beings always acted from self-interest. On one occasion Hobbes was seen giving money to a beggar. When asked why, he explained that he was trying to relieve his own discomfort at seeing the beggar in need.
But isn’t man also capable of transcendence? It has been a common for some people who reach the epiphany of being one with the universe. That level of understanding is reached when the true meaning of life is to become an instrument of the common good.
Haven’t we stopped for a minute what drives us? There are even instances when we befriend the persons who can feed our selfish needs. We are oftentimes labeled as “users” when we fail to see the other person’s worth since we are always focusing on the things that we need.
Transcendence, according to Kowalski (2019) refers the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.
When can the person experience transcendence? Is it correlated to his intelligence? Is it when his deficits and needs are already satisfied based on what Maslow theorized?
A new paper in the Review of General Psychology, “The Varieties of Self-Transcendent Experience,” defines these states as transient moments when people feel lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life, their sense of self fades away, and they feel connected to something bigger. In such states, people typically report feelings of awe and rapture; of time stopping; and of feeling a sense of unity with other people, nature, God, or the universe.
The transcendent experience is marked by a subsumption of the individual self in an all-encompassing reality. The boundary between the self and the outside world is broken and a more expansive perspective diffuses throughout all aspects of one’s experience.
All the while, Gorelik (2016) theorized that the Self fizzles out and gets replaced by something greater than one’s self. Such experiences are often accompanied by the revelation of some heretofore hidden, inexpressible truth communicated by a higher intelligence or all-pervading sentience.
This implies that a certain level of understanding must be reached to transcend from the self to an encompassing state where one will become aware of the need of others, his environment and the feeling connected to others.
Meditation is an act of training in awareness and getting a healthy sense of perspective. The person is not trying to turn off his/her thoughts or feelings. The individual is learning to observe them without judgment. And eventually, one may start to better understand them as well. It is in this state when the person becomes aware of his connection to all other elements surrounding him/her.
But we fail to remove ourselves from the hustle of the world. We are looking for “happenings” all the time so not to be bored. Boredom is actually a by-product of NOT confronting ourselves, our feelings and the things that affect us including the needs of others, the plants, animals, insects and the universe in general.
This writer has started to have an intensive reading literature related to this to come up with a theory related to leadership. The leaders that we have and will have must possess this meditative and reflective state to be able to situate themselves to the needs of other people and the place and the natural elements around to become of service to them.
Do we have these types?
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