The Transpersonal Experience in Religion and Culture as a Response to the Challenges of Death

The authors trace the history of ideas about death in Western philosophy, presenting death as an initiatory event whose meaning is shaped by historical era and individual consciousness. They argue that postmodern everyday consciousness is dominated by individualism, material values, ignorance of the transcendental, taboo around death, and loss of meaning. The proposed way out of this crisis is an individual attitude toward the sacred secret of being, which can fill existence with meaning and happiness. The highest manifestation of spirituality is transpersonal experience, which initiates approach to essence through symbolic death and rebirth. The absolute, revealed in experience, is comprehended intuitively and contemplatively through existential involvement.

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Abstract

The genesis of ideas about individual finiteness in Western philosophy is shown: death is an initiatory event, the meaning of which depends both on the state of human consciousness in each of the historical eras, and on the characteristics of individual consciousness. In the postmodern period, individualism, material values primacy, ignoring transcendental things, tabooing the problem of death, and the loss of meaning prevailed in everyday consciousness. The way out of the crisis is the individual attitude to the sacred secret of being, capable of filling a person's existence with meaning, significance, and happiness. The highest manifestation of spirituality is transpersonal experience, which initiates a person's approach to his essence through symbolic death and rebirth. The reality of the absolute, revealed in experience, is comprehended not rationally discursively, but intuitively contemplatively, through existential involvement.