TRANSCENCENCE

I don't think religion has anything to do with God anymore or very rarely has. It is also becoming clear that the material world is not enough for anybody. We had a century of being told by the intelligentsia that we're two-dimensional creatures, that if something can't be proved, it can't exist. That's now over. Transcendence is what everybody, in the end, is on their knees for, running at speed toward, scratching at, kicking at. October 1, 1992 ー "U2 Finds What It's Looking For" by David Frick (Rolling Stone)

…there are always two routes out of town. There always were, there always are. There’s transcendence and there’s the cover version, or the dull copy: junk-food transcendence of drugs, the “easy to digest but finally that’s gonna give you heart disease” religion. But I tend to believe that people who just want a cheap way out of their life can find zealotry in lots of places. The true life of a believer is one of a longer, more hazardous or uphill pilgrimage, and where you uncover slowly the sort of illumination for your next step. 2005 ー Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas

We're looking for diamonds in the dirt, and the music is more in the mud now. Our heads may still be in the clouds, but our feet are definitely dragging the dirt. As dark as it gets, though, we are looking for shiny moments. Those shiny moments, for me, are the same as they've always been. There are big words for them, like transcendence. 1996 ー U2 At The End Of The World ー Bill Flanagan

One thing I actually like about the drug culture, though I'm not really part of it, is that it acknowledges the other side, the fourth dimension that everybody kind of buries. For a hundred years people have been told they don't have a spirit, and if you can't see it or prove it, it doesn't exist. 1996 ー U2 At The End Of The World ー Bill Flanagan

You can't close your eyes to what’s going on in the world, but you want to hopefully make a music that tries to transcend that, and lift yourself and (if you’re lucky) other people out of that. That's always been the thing with U2. I think there’s some light in our music. March 1, 1997 ー Interview with Jo Whiley (BBC Radio 1) 
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​Addiction
Spirit Teach Me