RunningFather blog CALLOUT: Bring me your Transpersonal Tesitimonies/accounts of transformation! |

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March 4 by The Running Son

Tell me your story…

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Links to Testimonies in response to the RFB Callout:

The Running Son: Jim’s Story (installment I) – by Jim Aldrich, Editor, the RFB

“Now Testify” – Carrie’s Story – by Carrie @ Carrie’s Cultural Commentary|

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“We read to know we are not alone.” –Shadowlands 1993

While working happily at some small task this afternoon, it occurred to me how much it would mean to hear the stories of those who have ‘found Faith’ or have transcended in A.H. Maslow’s meaning of the word. I know there are those who, like me, wandered for years before stumbling across a person, a meditation course, an aid like the Enneagram or maybe the words of Tolle, Gurdjieff or Huxley, and underwent dramatic growth because of it. Maybe someone had a genuine experience “of the intellectual variety” via science, philosophy, etc. Whatever unique variation on the theme, I would like to hear it.

Growing up Evangelical Christian, testimonies are like my old friends. Not that I trusted these friends much. Looking into the eyes of well-meaning Christian souls and listening to their manic accounts of healing and spirit slayings, I would feel pitty, then I’d feel frustrated. All I saw was the “poor [who] will always be with us”. I was one among a great many who, like me, were lost, spinning their wheels, and wanting more than life itself to be part of some miracle. These stories never resonated as true per se… yet there was truth all through them. It’s like I recognized the common need, or neediness, among humans who feel cut off, separated from the source, making things up as they go along and hoping (rather than believing) that there will be spiritual ‘resolve’ at the end of the journey. As was promised to us, “We see in a glass darkly but then face to face” and, “Seek and ye shall find”.

Now here I am. Years removed from the striving and “quiet desperation” of fundamentalism and her anxious loyalists. Of course the need is all around me still, yet I’m not the same, and I do not feel the same anxious hope, or hopelessness, in the face of it. Part of the reason is that there are testimonies that ring true for me today. Beginning with my own, then the stories of my literary heroes, I finally had the authentic accounts of transformation I’d searched for in the heartfelt narratives of my Christian acquaintances. I’d finally heard spiritual truths that corresponded to my own experience of reality. I knew I was not alone.

So I’m putting the call out. How did you get to where you are now? Did you search for answers in conventional Religion? Perhaps there was a cathartic episode or a stressful event that dislodged or illuminated you? Or did you meet a person who served as a guide or example, who taught you the expansiveness of a life lived in rhythm with all? Maybe you just woke up one morning and BAM, instant illumination.

I realize that we are entering the realm of the ineffable here. Mystical experience has rarely, if ever, been communicated in a way that the experience can be felt by the reader. There is still, however, much to tell about the hows and whys and struggles we’ve suffered to get from year A to Year B, and as we have been inspired along the way by our heroes, so may we inspire others to continue along the path.

My wish is to post all that are appropriate, and maybe begin a collection of testimonies about experiences of ‘Transpersonal’ conversion. I look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely, Jim Aldrich

Editor, The RunningFather Blog

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