To look at what it means to be spiritual is to take into account a vast number of causes, effects and abilities. To understand one’s spiritual self isn’t going to help you buy groceries, do a job search, or prepare your taxes. But it will give you a barometer of who you actually are when you’re doing those things. It’s your way of being that determines your spiritual self because it is from that place that your actions arise.
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Determining Our Spiritual Selves
You can’t define spiritual before defining spirit. I would say that spirit is the animating force within all life. It is the creative energy that connects and binds all subatomic particles together in an ever changing movement. It is not a religious principle and not a sporting tactic, but can be utilized in both those ways. Spirit arrives when you’re conceived and departs when you die. It presents itself in your manner of thinking and how you feel about yourself and the world. It can affect the quality of life and relationship to your body, and it can lead you into deeper states of mind and consciousness. The things it affects are observable and measurable, but the source of spirit itself is as mysterious as gravity.
To be spiritual is to strive for a set of values and principles. Being in alignment with one’s soul’s purpose supports the greater evolution of humanity. What of these values and principles? Who determines them and who decides whether they’ve been met?
Our Spiritual Value System
Understanding our values is one of the most important things we can know about ourselves. When doing coaching work, I often do exercises with my clients to discover their value system. This value system is the determiner for their decision making process. Consider how important our ability to make sound decisions is. Often, we’ll rely upon a hunch, a desire, or just follow the crowd when making decisions. We do this when we’re not clear about what motivates us.
When faced with multiple options, imagine what it would be like to know which option would truly give us the feeling of long-term fulfillment instead of temporary reward. A simple example might be deciding on who to date.
- The first guy is handsome, very sensual, isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, and makes decent money.
- The second guy is handsome, is a bit aloof, is fairly smart, and makes really good money..
- The third guy is not so good looking, very courteous and respectful, really smart, and makes decent money.
If you know that looks are not as important as brains for you, and money is not as important as courtesy, you might go for guy 3. How long it takes you to come to this conclusion can be quick and easy if you know what you truly value. However, if you’re unclear about your process, someone may end up getting their feelings hurt. To “know thyself” is to understand what is important and what is not as important in our lives.
Our Spiritual Core Principles
It’s important to have something to measure our spiritual growth by. The value system that each person has for themselves is a microcosm of what humanity as a whole values which is the macrocosm. For instance, we as individuals value safety. Humanity has put in place safeguards to protect each other like a justice system, regulations on how to build roads, a military, etc.
Our core principles are important factors in our relationships with others. No person exists in a vacuum. Our success amongst our peers can make or break our feeling of connectedness to our tribe, our colleagues, our friends, and our community. The values that each has may differ based on the goals of the group. For instance, in the workplace, the values for measuring success may be efficiency, team work, accuracy, and dependability. The principles underneath those values that a person may or may not have would be dedication, collaboration, integrity, and thoughtfulness. When the person works toward personally developing these principles, the values that suit the needs of the workplace come as a byproduct. Without having a system of principles, one cannot determine whether personal growth is actually being mastered.
Spiritual Responsibility for Humanity
What is anyone’s personal spiritual responsibility to what happens to humanity? I always say that being human is a group effort. None of us lives in isolation. If it weren’t for the knowledge of our forebears, we wouldn’t be able to develop all that we need to survive. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us to be who we are.
Our Collective Striving
Consider that just a few hundred years ago, the average person didn’t know how to read or write. Nowadays, it’s expected of you that you can at least send a text message. Our development of growable food strains has been improved upon for thousands of yeas. When was the last time you saw a wild tomato? Think about how society has worked out building cities and addresses where people and businesses can be found; roads for traveling and trade routes over seas have been mapped out. This has all taken place over lifetimes of collective striving.
Despite the challenges we face with the climate, over population, cultural differences, rising health concerns, and the deterioration of resources of Mother Earth, we do it together as a human species. We either rise to greatness or fall into oblivion. The more that a person lives up to their values and principles, the more obvious the inclination toward the welfare and spiritual health of humanity becomes. Our personal unfolding of spirit is really a collective unfolding. Ask anyone who is in service to others whether it feels better to adorn themselves or adorn another. This is one of the reasons why spiritual growth is so important, because everyone benefits from it.
The Arbor Meditation is designed to help you do two things at once and connect you deeply to Mother Earth.
Measuring Our Spiritual Growth
The effectiveness of what we do is in the results we get. Using the previous example of the workplace, the measurable results are in the performance review. The criteria being measured are specific to the workplace. The reviewer determines the effectiveness of the employee according to the guidelines they or the company have decided upon. As we’ve indicated before, the employee is measured by the values of the workplace and not of the core principles the employee holds at a deeper level. They alone can determine the success and achievement of developing these core principles within themselves.
The ease to which they’re able to meet the standards of the workplace are the results. But at a deeper level, what is the barometer? It’s the language which they use that describes themselves and their reality. Is that language optimistic or pessimistic? It’s the feeling in the body one has. Does the body feel lighter or heavier? It’s the perception of the world around them. Does is appear harmonious or chaotic?
Spiritual Gifts
Humans can be born with some pretty fantastic abilities and talents. Spiritual gifts can be the same as talents. Some are naturally great at music like Mozart. There are natural athletes like Pele. Some are natural inventors like Edison. Where do these spiritual gifts come from? I think that people develop these abilities over many lifetimes. This is an argument in support of Reincarnation. By exercising these gifts, we use the spirit within us to develop a purpose for living. Some spiritual gifts can be hereditary and tend to skip generations. Intuitive and psychic gifts fall into this category though it’s not a hard a fast rule by any means.
Thousands of case studies by Dr. Michael Newton, Dr. Brian Weiss, and Dolores Cannon involving Past Life Regression have revealed that the parents we choose rarely come from our own soul group. This is because they don’t share the same life lessons we do. They’re more apt to give us the proper conflict or challenge that we need for our personal growth. However, our grandparents and grandchildren often do come from the same soul groups. These life lessons tend to be in parallel.
The Greatest Gift
The greatest gift that I believe we all have to a greater or lesser degree is reason. Socrates had this as a natural gift: to critically evaluate the motivations behind our actions. What sets us apart from every other living being on the planet is our ability to halt our basic instinctual nature and choose our course of action. It doesn’t mean that we always do this. The ability to choose is still evolving in us. We exercise the movement of spirit within us when we self evaluate. When we question our beliefs, motives, and what is being told to us, we evolve. This spirit is alive within our mind. I think this may be where the true source of beingness exists within us.
Beingness
Martin Heidegger and Georg Hegel were two German philosophers who tried to explain our lives ontologically through the lens of our being. Heidegger was influenced by Hegel and believed that our lives should be lived practically. Because we can, we should reflect on our existence even though it will probably always remain a mystery (my arguable interpretation).
I love the mysterious. I struggle at times between wanting to leave it all alone and to stop probing the mystery for an answer about our essential nature. And… I feel the need for the opposite, to support scientific exploration into the unfathomable. Such it is being human with human motivations.
Because We Can Be Spiritual
Part of me thrills at the idea that we can never fully know ourselves or understand the universe. On the flip side, human beings also have a knack for destroying things which leaves us with the search for how to fix them. Our conundrum is that we have to learn how to take responsibility for the creative and destructive forces within us. Again, we must do these things because we can. Some say that just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Yet without action, we won’t push the boundaries and evolve. Evolution isn’t easy.
To be spiritual is both something quantifiable and measurable, as in our spiritual growth. Growth implies change. Spirit is an animating force that runs through all of creation, through all living things, and through Mother Earth herself.
Spirit is movement, which means that spirit is change, and change we must. The direction of that change is our choice. When we make the right choices, our spiritual nature grows into a way of being, and thus our beingness becomes our spirituality. Our beingness is spiritual.
