The idea for this book—framing a dialogue between global spiritual traditions and transhumanism on the subject of human augmentation—emerged a few years ago during a lively conversation at a conference after-party. We reflected on how little we know about the destination of the drastic current changes in the human condition. While the human condition keeps improving, still the dramatic speed of its transformation recalls Nikolai Gogol’s closing of Dead Souls, with the three-horse chariot—troika “hurtling across the snowy steppe,” as he wonders where this wild ride is heading. This image was about the unfathomable ways of Russian history, but it also, strangely, captures today’s rapid transformation in the human condition.