I would like to thank everybody who participated in the “Transpersonal Psychology” competition. The reception and I received this time around was far more encouraging and enthusiastic than on any previous occasion. Those who entered were willing to describe in conscientious detail experiences and powerful sentiments connected to them which could so easily draw blood from stone. On a great many occasions, I found myself being carried along an emotional rollercoaster ride like a leaf amidst an overwhelming gust by peak experiences, past-life memories, life myths, and shamanic crises that were able to resurrect an individual’s faith in esoteric spirituality and increase their receptivity to the notion of higher causes. People wrote from the deepest and most enigmatic cavities of their hearts without inhibition or fear of reprimand, and that was something I was intensely pleased to see!
For those that chose to participate, I give my earnest gratitude. The intuition and the powerful feelings connected to subjective spiritual experiences of this sort are invaluable to any equitable human being lucky and brave enough to submit to them. Sometimes, they’re just there, lying dormant within our minds until the right conditions materialize for their expression. At other times they impinge upon the societal and personal boxes we’ve jumped into (involuntarily and sometimes voluntarily!) and we find ourselves feeling a little alarmed and disconcerted even. They close small doors, open larger ones, and unleash possibilities and ways of seeing the world that we were hitherto ignorant of and never knew existed. They evoke significance in internal areas where that feeling was previously absent, draw us into an engagement with strangers we thought we had nothing in common with, and magnify our scope of purpose a trillion fold. All of a sudden, we have something to share with others and we hope that by sharing we would have contributed in some way to easing the psychological pain and scarring of those less fortunate or less spiritually orientated than we; to healing those that are ready to be healed; and to adding a diminutive cut of personal victory to the subjective, emotive ocean of human experience.
For that reason and for that reason alone, I found it really hard to judge the entries. Each carried a stamp of authentic uniqueness that made it remarkable in its own right. By virtue of the fact that we all share the same integral mechanisms of consciousness, our experiences either parallel, reflect, mimic, or correspond with illimitable others; no single peak experience is qualitatively more special, momentous, or worthy than any other. You cannot put a number, a mark, or assess a peak experience because it beholds layers of meaning usually unknown to all but the one who had it. You just can’t. It’s like picking one iridescent-coloured giant clam lying on the reef flat of the Great Barrier Reef over another that looks exactly the same. We are all connected to one another and to the cosmos; we are all brothers and sisters striving to understand the mysteries of existence and to make our inadequate time here on the earth more memorable and worthwhile; and we are all extensions and corporeal projections of the eternal Mind. We are one but we are many, and our experiences come in all forms, colours, sizes, depths, and from different angles and trajectories (depending on our ethnic backgrounds). Our beauty and nobility, our sturdiest and most remarkable feature, is certainly our diversity.
Having said that, the primary factor that enabled me to come to a decision regarding which entries should take the three prizes was the willingness of the writer to analyse, to some extent, the nature of his or her experience and what that meant within the greater context of his or her individual life path. This shows prerogative and thoughtfulness on the part of the entrant, as well as an apt demonstration of the understanding that the audience will more often than not be comprised of strangers who know nothing about the writer’s life. By doing this one provides the necessary background information that makes for a more far enjoyable and appreciative reading.
On that note my three selections were:
The Hero’s Journey: Transforming Mental Illness into a Blessing by Bret Warshawsky
Healing Agoraphobia with Divine Guidance by C. M. Gnaedig
The Me Who May or May Not Be Me by David Messineo
I chose to award a joint first prize to Bret Warshawsky and C. M. Gnaedig whose entries were just mouth-watering, with David Messineo coming in at second place. You will have the chance to read and peruse all three of these over the next week.
For those that didn’t win know that many more competitions are waiting in the wings and will be appearing on both my website and my fan pages. You’ll have the chance to pick something up somewhere along the way! The next one is tentatively scheduled for July or August. Sometimes I give away crystal and glass trophies, sometimes books, and sometimes money. There will be other great things that will be joining that list in the future like holidays with paid flights and accommodation, so keep an eye out for them.
Remember, good things come to those who wait!
