Experiencing the Exceeding

 

The human being lives and experiences existence within a state of Exceeding. This Exceeding Human Being is the very language of transcending the human self.
Max Picard highlights this concept when speaking of silence:

Wo das Schweigen ist, da wird der Mensch vom Schweigen angeschaut; es schaut den Menschen an, mehr als der Mensch das Schweigen. Er prüft das Schweigen nicht, aber das Schweigen prüft ihn.

"Where silence is, the human is looked upon by silence; it gazes at the human more than the human gazes at silence. He does not test the silence, but the silence tests him."

It is useful to compare Exceeding with the Sun, just as Plato compared it with the Good.

The sun is the Exceeding in which the world grows and lives. Under the sun, the senses develop and flourish, whereas in darkness they remain at a minimum level—ἀμβλυώττουσι ("they are short-sighted"), as Plato remarked.

Without sunlight, the eyes do not see, and colours do not exist.
The sun is to biological life what God is to spiritual life. Those who grow in the sun develop in biological form, while those who grow in God develop in spiritual form.

Darkness and light are the individual’s pre-existence, defining the conditions of growth. They are the premises of existence, independent of the singular "I" (individuum) itself. The "I" that emerges will differ depending on whether it grows in darkness or in light.

God, however, is the Exceeding that gives birth to the "Spiritual I". The spiritual cannot be birthed within pre-existence. The "Spiritual I" is already in mente Dei—in the mind of God—before it comes into being.
The biological I comes into existence only when it is thrown into the conditions of pre-existence (Dasein), unfolding within human history (saeculum—the world).

Saint Augustine alludes to this light—this sun—in Confessiones XIII, 10, 16, when he writes:
Et cum te primum cognovi, tu assumpsisti me, ut viderem esse, quod viderem, et nondum me esse, qui viderem.
My translation is somewhat forced, but I interpret it as:
"And when I first knew You, You took me with You, so that I might see the existence of what I saw, that I was not yet the being that would have seen [would have become]."