The plateau experience is a state of consciousness theorized by the seminal Humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow. Unlike Maslow’s ‘peak experience,’ the plateau is a more enduring, less emotionally salient mode of being in the world uniquely consisting of a simultaneous perception of “the sacred in the ordinary” (Buckler, 2011; Krippner, 1972).

The transformative ability of awe can be described through the way its experience necessitates a ‘stepping-out’ of one’s typical way of encountering reality. In this way, awe temporarily separates one’s experience of the world from the biases, projections, and reductionist appreciations individuals by human nature impose upon experience. Unhindered by these impositions, individuals are exposed to a true sense of interconnectedness to experience. If only for a moment, the experience of awe invites an embodied witnessing of life for exactly what it is. This phenomenological encountering entails a simultaneous thrill in glimpsing life’s vital mystery, as well as a sense of aliveness in the unhindered experience of ‘truth’ or ‘clear-seeing’. Liberated from the weight of the mechanism’s individuals have strategically developed in attempts to parsimoniously make sense of an albeit complex human experience, a sense of possibility is invoked. Opportunities for new meaning to emerge within this experience of ‘true-seeing’ present themselves.

This essay explores deep intimacy as a vehicle through which individuals may connect to transpersonal experiencing in everyday life. Taking its place as one of many pathways towards transpersonal experiencing (such as meditation, dance, moments of awe, non-ordinary or exceptional human experiencing and peak experiences, among others) this paper focuses on the less well-known ability of non-sexual experiences of deep intimacy, specifically through moments of non-verbal, tacit knowing (such as shared eye contact) as an existentially accessible entry point towards achieving spiritual well-being through transpersonal experiencing amidst everyday life.