Philosophical Writings and Spiritual Essays by August Turak

Writing with passion and conviction, August Turak demonstrates here in other essays why he won The Templeton Power of Purpose Prize and $100,000 for Brother John. Drawing on metaphors, analogies, and examples from everyday life, Turak’s inspirational style makes the profound accessible for all.

As most of us know, and August Turak demonstrates in this essay, there are rough times when life throws us a curve ball. We get in a rut and despite our best efforts to dig ourselves out, we remain stuck. We often quit or at least rationalize that we just don't have what it takes whatever the task may be. Turak found himself in this classic predicament with his golf game. No matter what he did he still shot shank after shank and began to blame his weekly instructor. At one point, he was ready to throw in the towel, but he didn't. A transformation occurred and he finally found the rhythm of his swing.

I Do and I Understand

As a part of August Turak’s mission of personal and organizational transformation, he founded the non-profit Self Knowledge Symposium for college students in 1988. Over the years, the student leadership, passion, and energy has continually overflowed into countless community projects based on Turak’s philosophy of personal and organizational success through selfless service. In an era when collegiate apathy and “slackerism” is taken for granted, the strictly volunteer students of the Self Knowledge Symposium have engineered so many amazing ventures that one of the Deans at Duke University called their success “downright miraculous.” Here, Turak describes one such “miracle” – a standing room only organ recital in the Duke Chapel by Francis Kline the Julliard trained abbot of the Trappist monastery of Mepkin Abbey. Experience Turak’s awe as we watch a passionate group of college students on an adventure fueled by nothing more than the universal urge for the transformational experience of self-transcendence. This moving account is a must read for anyone yearning for the miraculous secret to ourselves, business, and life.

Isaiah and the Darkness of God

August Turak wrote this paper while studying theology at St. John’s University. Lost in the assignment on a cold, dark, Minnesota night, he later worried that his professor would not like it. Not only did he like it, he asked him to publish it. Turak’s transformational message applies to individuals and organizations as well as to religious and secular people. A transformation of being can be found in something as lofty as the Buddha’s Enlightenment or as down to earth as Mr. Scrooge spreading Christmas cheer. Here Turak uses the Book of Isaiah and the poetry of T.S. Eliot to examine our universal longing to be transformed from selfish to selfless people from a Judeo-Christian perspective.

Looking for the purpose of life in less than 3,500 words? August Turak's essay Brother John was awarded the $100,000 Grand Prize in the John Templeton Foundation's worldwide Power of Purpose Essay Contest, which attracted nearly 8,000 essays from 97 countries. Through the metaphor of a monk's shared umbrella, Turak provides the answer to what each of us is looking for in life.

The Invitation to Transformation

After winning the $100,000 Grand Prize in the John Templeton Foundation's Power of Purpose Essay Contest, editors and publishers asked Turak to develop the moving insights in Brother John into a book. Here, Turak passionately conveys the high stakes adventure involved in accepting the invitation to truly live, the tragic rationalizations that keep most from taking life up on its remarkable offer, and two extraordinary encounters in college that compelled him to risk everything in order to solve the riddle of life and death.

Faith and Doubt at 40 Below

In this moving story, August Turak meets a young man whose brush with icy death creates the broiling urgency to find the truth about life, death, and God, once and for all.

After a lecture on Zen defies all of August Turak's expectations, he begins hanging around, trying to figure this wild, wonderful, West Virginia Zen Master out. One evening, a passing observation turns into an otherworldly encounter. In a few breathless moments, Turak faces his overwhelming fear and the tantalizing possibility of an all-or-nothing search for Enlightenment. This revelation compels Turak to drop out of college to become Richard Rose's first student.

Join the conversation! Authentic communication is the first step
toward self-knowledge and the transformative journey.
Click here to submit your questions and comments and look
for select responses from August Turak on these pages.

Copyright 2010 August Turak Site Map