Alfred, Lord Tennyson

>universe. It is a field of pure Being, to use one of
Tennyson had experience of the transcendental realityMaharishi’s early terms.
of life and expressed this in his poetry. Alfred, LordSo when Tennyson says, “Individuality itself seemed
Tennyson “A state of transcendent wonder”byto dissolve and fade away into boundless being,” he
Dr. Craig Pearson on June 8, 2010is accurately describing the experience of
Alfred, Lord Tennysontranscending. He no longer experiences himself as a
1809—1892 • Englandlimited ego — he now experiences his true Self, infinite
If 19th-century England had anything resembling a rockand unbounded.
star, it was Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He was one of theHere, he tells us, “death was an almost laughable
most popular and exciting poets of his era, with aimpossibility.” Quite right. Pure consciousness,
riveting stage presence. He remains one of the EnglishMaharishi explains, is eternal, immortal. It lies beyond
language’s most popular poets to this day.space, time, and causation.
Tennyson was descended from King Edward III, oneTennyson describes his experiences again in a poem
of England’s most successful medievalcalled “The An¬cient Sage.” On a number of
monarchs. He began writing and publishing poetry in hisoccasions while sitting alone, he says,
teens. In 1850, when he was 41, he succeededThe mortal limit of the Self was loosed,
Wordsworth as Poet Laureate of England, and heldAnd passed into the Nameless, as a cloud
this position for more than 50 years, until his own deathMelts into Heaven. I touch’d my limbs, the limbs
— a longer term by far than any other laureateWere strange, not mine—and yet no shade of
before or after.doubt,
Tennyson was a huge and powerful figure. TheBut utter clearness, and thro’ loss of Self
Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas CarlyleThe gain of such large life as match’d with ours
described Tennyson as “one of the finest-lookingWere Sun to spark—unshadowable in words,
men in the world,” with “bright, laughing hazelThemselves but shadows of a shadow-world.
eyes” and a “most massive yet most delicate”—“The Ancient Sage”
face. Later in his life, a photographer called him “theHere Tennyson describes experiences of his bounded
most beautiful old man on earth.” His resonant,self merging into “the Nameless, as a cloud/Melts
booming voice riveted listeners when he read hisinto Heaven.” As in the first passage, he describes
poetry.this as an experience of “utter clearness.”
A highly popular poet in his own lifetime, TennysonUnbounded awareness stands in the same relation to
earned considerable money from his works. He wasordinary waking consciousness, Tennyson tells us, as a
often referred to as “the Poet of the People,”sun to a spark.
revered for reflecting the collective mind. QueenTennyson wrote the following passage in 1869, at age
Victoria herself was a fan. In 1884 she made him60:
Baron Tennyson, and Alfred Tennyson became Alfred,Yes, it is true that there are moments when the flesh
Lord Tennyson.is nothing to me, when I feel and know the flesh to be
Tennyson seemed to have had frequent experiencesthe vision, God and the Spiritual the only real and true.
of transcending, starting from boyhood and lastingDepend upon it, the Spiritual is the real: it belongs to one
throughout his life. For example, he describes:more than the hand and the foot. You may tell me that
. . . a kind of waking trance—this for lack of amy hand and my foot are only imaginary symbols of
better word— I have frequently had, quite up frommy existence, I could believe you; but you never, never
boyhood, when I have been all alone. . . . All at once, ascan convince me that the I is not an eternal Reality,
it were out of the intensity of the consciousness ofand that the Spiritual is not the true and real part of
individuality, the individuality itself seemed to dissolveme.
and fade away into boundless being, and this not aNo doubt Tennyson’s ability to have this
confused state but the clearest, the surest of theprofound experience enhanced his creative abilities and
surest . . . utterly beyond words —where death washelped make him the great poet he was (he continued
an almost laughable impossibility, the loss of personalitywriting into his 80s). Scientific research shows that
(if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only trueregular experience of transcending through the
life. . . .Transcendental Meditation technique leads to rapid and
I am ashamed of my feeble description. Have I notmeasurable growth of creativity and intelligence.
said the state is utterly beyond words?. . .Throughout history people such as Tennyson glimpsed
There is no delusion in the matter! It is no nebulousthe fourth state of consciousness, Transcendental
ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder,Consciousness, and described it with great beauty and
associated with absolute clearness of mind.precision. We are fortunate to have a simple, natural,
Tennyson offers a clear description of transcendence.effortless procedure, the Transcendental Meditation
When the mind dives within during practice of thetechnique, to have this experience on a regular basis.
Transcendental Meditation technique, mental activityREFERENCES
settles down, like waves settling on the ocean. WeTennyson, Hallam, Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir by
experience finer and finer levels of the thinkingHis Son, vol. 2 (London: Macmillan, 1899), 815-816.
process, until we transcend, or go beyond, thinking“The Ancient Sage,” in Poems of Tennyson, ed.
altogether.Jerome Hamilton Buckley (Cam¬bridge: The
What do we experience then? Consciousness itselfRiverside Press, 1958), 504.
— not consciousness of perceptions, thoughts, orTennyson, Alfred Lord, The Works of Tennyson, ed.
feelings but pure consciousness, silent and unbounded.Baron Hallam Tennyson (London: Macmillan, 1913), 940.
This is our innermost Self, the innermost reality of the