Clarity of vision - a lifelong process

     Wisdom can be defined as “a developmental process involving self-transcendence. Self-transcendence refers to the ability to move beyond self-centered consciousness, and to see things as they are with clear awareness of human nature and human problems, and with a considerable measure of freedom from biological and social conditioning. This ability to move beyond a self-centered perspective is certainly an important component of wisdom. Consistent with this idea, … transcending the self is needed to move beyond ingrained, automatic ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and to connect empathetically with the experiences of others.”

     “Contemporary Western literature has revived (the centrality of self-transcendence to wisdom) through discussion of moral development as in Kohlberg’s seventh stage in which the individual begins to question the meaningfulness of existence as a rational being and the limits of formal operational thought to obtain the answer. This stage ... requires a transcendental experience and perspective. Likewise, the ability to see through illusion, through awareness of one’s own cognitive biases, has been advanced as a cornerstone in the development of wisdom. … overcoming cognitive limitations is not exclusively the province of childhood but involves a lifelong process of overcoming limited conceptions and understandings. … the process of seeing through illusion ultimately leads to recognizing the familiar self as illusory, consistent with the teachings of contemplative systems such as Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.” 
     Le TN, Levenson MR. Wisdom as self-transcendence: What's love (& individualism) got to do with it? Journal of Research in Personality 2005; 39(4): 443-457.
 
     “My transcendent experiences … were more nearly the absence of stories, as if the foreground had been removed from me and I could see deeper into a living matrix that holds everything.” 
     Jauregui A. Epiphanies. Where Science and Miracles Meet. Atria Books, NY, 2007.

Photo: Geza Radics   flickr.com/radicsge