Many people erroneously think that the Highest level mentioned by Maslow is Self Actualisation, actually it is not.
In his later years, Maslow discovered there is a level higher than Self Actualisation, and that is Self-Transcendance.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/ent ... nscendence
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Dennis Ng
Self-transcendence
Maslow also proposed that people who have reached self-actualization will sometimes experience a state he referred to as "transcendence," or "peak experience," in which they become aware of not only their own fullest potential, but the fullest potential of human beings at large. Peak experiences are sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, the feeling that one is aware of "ultimate truth" and the unity of all things. Accompanying these experiences is a heightened sense of control over the body and emotions, and a wider sense of awareness, as though one was standing upon a mountaintop. The experience fills the individual with wonder and awe. He feels one with the world and is pleased with it; he or she has seen the ultimate truth or the essence of all things.
Maslow described this transcendence and its characteristics in an essay in the posthumously published The Farther Reaches in Human Nature. He noted that this experience is not always transitory and/or momentary, but that certain individuals might have ready access to it and spend more time in this state. Not long before his death in 1970, Maslow defined the term "plateau experience" as a sort of continuing peak experience that is more voluntary, noetic, and cognitive. He made the point that such individuals experience not only ecstatic joy, but also profound "cosmic-sadness" at the ability of humans to foil chances of transcendence in their own lives and in the world at large.
Maslow believed that we should study and cultivate peak experiences as a way of providing a route to achieving personal growth, integration, and fulfillment. Individuals most likely to have peak experiences are self-actualized, mature, healthy, and self-fulfilled. However, all individuals are capable of peak experiences. Those who do not have them somehow repress or deny them. Peak experiences render therapeutic value as they foster a sense of being graced, release creative energies, reaffirm the worthiness of life, and change an individual's view of him or herself. Maslow cautioned against seeking such experiences for their own sake, echoing the advice of the mystics who have pointed out that the sacred exists in the ordinary. Maslow further believed that domestic and public violence, alcoholism, and drug abuse stem from spiritual emptiness, and that even one peak experience might be able to prevent, or at least abate, such problems. Maslow's ultimate conclusion, that the highest levels of self-actualization are transcendent in their nature, may be one of his most important contributions to the study of human behavior and motivation.
Viktor Frankl expressed the relationship between self-actualization and self-transcendence clearly in Man's Search for Meaning. He wrote:
The true meaning of life is to be found in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system....Human experience is essentially self-transcendence rather than self-actualization. Self-actualization is not a possible aim at all, for the simple reason that the more a man would strive for it, the more he would miss it.... In other words, self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence (p.175).
Ken Wilber, author of Integral Psychology, later clarified a peak experience as being a state that could occur at any stage of development and that "the way in which those states or realms are experienced and interpreted depends to some degree on the stage of development of the person having the peak experience." Wilber was in agreement with Maslow about the positive values of peak experiences saying, "In order for higher development to occur, those temporary states must become permanent traits."
