Truth Must Be Experienced

The writers Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketchum have written a wonderful book, mostly of stories, called Experiencing Spirituality: Finding Meaning Through Storytelling. This selection is taken from that book:

It is impossible directly to transmit or convey experience – for experience itself attests that it must be experienced – we again turn to stories: Experience is best awakened within story.

Many of these stories and themes are light, even humorous, but some are dark, perhaps uncomfortable. Both experiences, after all, fall within the experience of most of us…

Why is it that the most profound truths seem to be simplistic, even cliches? Probably, the stories seemed to say, because through much experience those who came before us discovered many of the most important truths about be-ing humanly..and having learned them they did try to pass them on. As many wisdom thinkers have observed: The good seeks to diffuse itself. But as their own experience taught, all they had to offer was their own experience.

When seekers search out those whose lives reveal a certain something – a quality variously named spirituality, sanctity, bliss, serenity – and earnestly asked, What must I do? they consistently received the only possible answer: Come follow me, see how I live.

From Experiencing Spirituality: Finding Meaning Through Storytelling by Kurtz and Ketcham, pp.2-3 (2014, Penguin).