Transience vs Transcendence

Hot Take: Timon and Pumbaa are the worst.

Ok, so I don't really think Timon and Pumbaa are the worst - they're certainly the stars of my favorite musical number from The Lion King - but to understand why I'm bashing two beloved cinematic characters, we need to first talk about transience and transcendence.

I can't claim all the credit for this post (the initial phrasing was a remark made by a friend of mine). Still, the difference between transcience and transcendence is effectively the difference between what we think spiritual life should be versus what it ends up being.

We often think of spiritual people as transient, very breezy personalities. They live a cheerful, carefree, whimsical life with no real worries or responsibilities. They're always blissed out in spiritual ecstasy, not needing to regularly deal with the stresses that mundane people face. I'm going to call this the "Timon and Pumbaa" lifestyle because all Timon and Pumbaa do is crack jokes and have a good time under the guise of an admittedly iconic philosophy: Hakuna Matata.

To a certain extent, this is true! The advanced practitioners of spiritual life are persons with no more need for the world's trappings, having transcended the need for material things. They're consistently on a spiritual level, thereby experiencing the satisfaction and bliss that only a connection with one's true self and purpose brings. We associate transience with spiritual life because our examples are these spiritual masters (usually from afar) and therefore we end up with a misguided vision of what it means to engage in spiritual life properly. This can manifest in many ways, including and not limited to:

• Denying the body what it needs on a physical, mental, and emotional level
• Waving away responsibilities with some version of  "I'm spiritual, I don't need to do this!"
• Excusing our failings as human beings (not taking criticism well, lack of punctuality, needing to be correct, etc.) with some version of "I'm practicing spiritually, it'll all be ok in the end."
• Justifying treating other people poorly with some version of "God made me do this, deal with it."

I should also mention that I have done (and still very often do) all of these things. My saving grace is that I have a circle of friends, mentors, and teachers who can help me identify these behaviors and help me work through them. If you'll allow me a moment of humility, my personal experience of following the Timon and Pumbaa lifestyle, especially in spiritual life, inevitably results in this:

So, what to do? The solution is simple: just be honest! Be real with where you are, and proceed to work from there. Deal with the things you have to deal with, put out the fires around you, and you'll actually be fine. This is the hard part about trying to live a spiritually oriented life when you can't just leave the world behind and sit on top of a mountain somewhere: it takes a lot of work!

What is the work that needs doing? It's not just working our job and paying our bills and recognizing the needs of others, but this work has to be done with the goal of elevating our baser instincts. Grudgingly performing our duties doesn't elevate us because when our heart isn't in what we do, how will what we do affect our heart? We accept that spiritual life begins and ends with our internal state, and how we approach our responsibilities makes all the difference. Avoiding these responsibilities that come our way with the excuse of spiritual life can only work for so long because avoiding the responsibilities means we aren't growing.

The more we grow, the more we can transcend the need for material life and enter into spiritual life. The responsibility we have of shedding our lesser habits cleanses the dirt from the mirror of our heart only when we have an attitude of service. The advanced spiritual practitioners, the ones who are in reality transcendental to this world, are the people who are not bothered by the challenges they face because they see all challenges as a chance for spiritual growth, a deeper connection to their true self, and an opportunity to serve others.

If we can view our challenges this way, we're naturally going to be happy and cheerful and have all the other hallmarks of transience because these things don't bother us anymore, and our heart is clean! How to do this? Start small and ask for help from those further along than you. To return to our Lion King analogy, we need to be more like Simba: have some sense knocked into us.

Happy to be of service,
- Sid