There are four states of consciousness: wakefulness, sleeping, dreaming, and the transcendental. The transcendental state of consciousness is a state of awareness that is often associated with mystical experiences, and it’s the mystical that allows us to experience another aspect of the self. To say this another way, this means we have to transcend the known self to experience some other aspect of our potential unknown self. To get beyond the known self is what begins to fill in the mystery of the self, and that moment awakens us to our journey back to source. In other words, there is more to you than meets the eye.

Even thus by the great sages 'tis confessed
The phoenix dies, and then is born again,
When it approaches its five-hundredth year;

Does this sound familiar? For months you’ve been focused on a goal or outcome. Every time you sit down to meditate you’re so present with your future that you’re ‘in your future.’ You can smell it, feel it, taste it, touch it, hear it, see it—it’s practically a part of you. It’s a distant-future memory that you’re living into, and in your daily meditations you emotionally invest in how incredible your future will feel. It seems as if it’s in reach, almost tangible, and then—and then comes the day you brush up against it. Your future shows up in your life and instead of embracing it, you recoil.