Leadership and the Nature of Transcendence

What can we learn about transcendental leadership from international extreme orienteering team race-competitions? As a participant journalist in Madagascar with the Raid Gauloises … plenty… both socially relevant and personally insightful!

Transcendence is a concept with definitions ranging from the philosophical and theological to the spiritual and experiential. It is often described as an inner spiritual experience of awakening to your metaphysical essence. This experience has been expounded upon in the ancient sacred literature of every wisdom tradition around the world, including The Bhagavad Gita (compiled between 500–200 b.c.e.) and The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (400 b.c.e.) in the East, and The Bible (compiled between 300 b.c.e. and 1600 c.e.) in the West.

The important reason why transcendence is so highly prized by those privileged to experience it is that it dramatically shifts our self-identity (our being) resulting in a more enlightened change of our actions (our doing).

Transcendental leadership is leadership that embraces the spiritual dimension of our lives, which includes inner transformation and self-realization. Its purpose is to assist individuals, businesses, organizations, governments, and institutions devoted to education, health, sustainability, and economic equality to evolve and elevate their individual and collective mindset, behaviors, and activities. As influential leaders shift the mindsets of their followers – on a global scale, our communities, society, and organizations will also evolve, thrive, and focus on serving the whole.

Mass awakening can only start with individual awakening because each of us is the leader of our own life. But none of us is alone. Each of us—man, woman, nonbinary individual, and child—is connected to the rest of humankind on an energetic level. All life on Earth is unified in one massive ecosystem shielded from outer space by the bubble of our atmosphere. Plus, we and the entire cosmos are also aspects of one quantum field. 

The beauty of recognizing how unified we are with one another and all life on Earth is that when we awaken to our inner reality in the knowledge of the self-divine within us, as an individual, our “exterior” reality begins to shift and our consciousness expands. Our being reflects upon and informs the world around us.

When I think of transcendental leadership, I am reminded of an experience I had being a participating journalist in a race in Madagascar in 1993. The Raid Gauloises, as it was called, was an international, extreme orienteering race, the precursor to what became the Eco-Challenge in the United States. This was a Survivor-type experience that, at the time, took place each year in remote regions of the world. 

Yes, off I went alone: following thirty-five race teams from all over the world for two weeks, while carrying my own backpack, tent, food, and water. Living in the remote island outback, each and every unique-unto-itself day and night can only be described as harrowing, foolish, extraordinary, exhilarating, and challenging. 

Yet, countless times, I also had luminous and numinous peek/peak experiences of inner and outer illumination, spiritual connection to unseen forces, and unexpected and intimate experiences of coherence with the other journalists, race participants, and, in a few cases, the local people. Sometimes these occurred when I was alone and sometimes when I was immersed in a community of strangers on a foreign and wild island in the Indian Ocean. 

Although at the time I didn’t realize it, I had accumulated four important skills and assets that would support me on this once-in-a-life-time experience: many years of a meditation practice, an athletic and strong body, social skills to navigate with others speaking in languages other than my own, and an adventurous confidence accumulated from years of travel in both first-world and third-world environments. In particular, my longtime meditation practice provided me with emotional balance, a calm and centered inner strength, intuitive sensibilities, and trust—both of myself and others.

I had a number transcendent-like epiphanies during the Raid. Among them was my discovery that when performing very challenging tasks, whether operating as an individual or as a member of a team, time appeared to slow down and the group would perform together as if from a single intelligence—without linear thinking or direction. This is the state known as coherence. It is frequently found in Indigenous groups.

Also, there were times of intense focus when I was embodied by a deeper level of knowing, such that, as needed, internal resources like endurance, courage, resilience, patience, and compassion surfaced spontaneously. 

In addition, important external resources such as shelter, food and clean water, always manifested as needed too. 

Examples of my personal realization and development were playing full out, so I was capable of being autonomously self-reliant, though still knowing when it was necessary to ask for help.

A major realization of mine was that a team is only as strong as its weakest member. The Navy Seal guys on the U.S. team, while supercompetitive men, left their egos at the door when they were in the remote bush. They were always aware of each other’s wellbeing and would seamlessly exchange roles as leaders when warranted. 

All in all, in my soul, I knew that these two weeks on my own in the extraordinary wilds of Madagascar, would inform and shape my thinking and behavior for the rest of my life. 

Through the guiding principles of conscious leadership, transformational leadership and transcendental leadership, it is the leader’s role to facilitate an expansion of the consciousness of those they lead. These people, in term, are the individuals who create the strategies, practices, and systems of the larger framework of organizations throughout the world. In turn, they have the potential to transform the larger framework of the entire shared day-to-day reality of all beings on the planet, thusly, contributing to the wellbeing and sustainability of our planet.

This article is an excerpt from Transcendental Leadership: Ageless Principles and Practices for Leading in a Time of Awakening 2021.