…stand at the foot of a mountain and you may be impressed by how much greater it is than you in degree, how alien it is from you in kind. Climb that mountain and confront limits of endurance beyond which you thought yourself incapable, feel the relation between yourself and the mountain’s flora and fauna as part of one interdependent ecosystem, and discover how the experience of the mountain becomes part of you and changes who you are–then you may draw close to something like transcendence.” - B. T. Newberg.John Halstead
About This Quote
The human quest for transcendence has taken millions of years to reach where we are today. It is the natural desire of the human being to find meaning in life. Is there meaning? How can it be that our species exists on this planet? These are questions that have occupied the human mind since the beginning of time. The answer to these questions may be found in our relationship with nature.
People are not separate from nature. Nature is part of us, part of our biology, part of who we are, and part of the world around us. Perhaps after all this time, we have arrived at a point where we can put an end to this search for transcendence—a point where we may have found what we have been looking for all along.
This is why Newberg has said, “...stand at the foot of a mountain and you may be impressed by how much greater it is than you in degree, how alien it is from you in kind...."
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