A creative intelligence flows through the universe which holds the key to living to your potential. You can feel it pulsating in every part of your being. Like the Sun, it constantly emits energy, and you can light up yourself and the world around you when you are plugged in and switched on. You are charged with spiritual energy which needs only to be released for you to create the kind of life you want to lead.
‘Spiritual’ means ‘non-physical’. Our ideas, intelligence, imagination, sense of humour, kindness, creativity and so on – all the qualities that make us who we are – are non-physical. We seek happiness, love, friendship and peace, and all of these are non-physical too. Our spirituality creates our world, because our lives are simply a refl ection of whatever we hold in our minds.
‘Spirituality’ also relates to the meaning of life in all its splendour. Have you ever wondered who you are, why you’re here and where it leads? The only thing we know for sure is that we were born and one day we’re going to die. But do our lives matter? How do we fi t into the overall scheme of things? Many philosophers have offered their views down the ages, each shedding a little light on the subject. We can learn from them all. My aim is to share some ideas that I have found to be helpful. Use those which appeal to you; the time may come when you are drawn to the others too. The Buddha offered the best advice over two thousand years ago: Friends, do not be hasty to believe a thing even if everyone repeats it, or even if it is written in Holy Scripture or spoken by a revered teacher. Accept only those things which accord with your own reason, things which the wise and virtuous support, and which in practice bring benefit and happiness.
How will you find out if an idea brings benefit and happiness? By applying it! Reading can take you only so far. Doing reaps incredible rewards. Everything we need to build a happy and fulfilling experience for ourselves and become a force for good in the world already lies within us. Use it to create the kind of world you want for yourself, one filled with peace, health, prosperity, and happiness for all. No words can express how you feel once you have awakened the infinite power of Spirit within and experienced the freedom it brings. To quote Paramahansa Yogananda, a twentieth-century spiritual teacher, ‘You realise that all along there was something tremendous within you, and you did not know it.’
We have within ourselves a great reservoir of wisdom, strength, and peace waiting to be recognised and released. Once we are strong within ourselves, we find that outer circumstances begin to mirror the inner, and life starts to change for the better.
Spirituality Goes Beyond Appearances
Definitions of ‘spirituality’ in the Oxford English Dictionary run to several pages. This is largely because the word ‘spirit’ has many meanings. These include a sense of loyalty or cohesion (‘team spirit’), an emotional state (‘in high spirits’), a deeper sense of meaning (‘the spirit of the law’), certain chemicals (‘white spirit’) and, of course, strong alcoholic beverages (‘spirits’). There are many interpretations of spirituality, and they all relate to things outside the realms of physical nature or matter. Spirituality goes beyond the appearance of things to their underlying principles or forces. Living spiritually doesn’t necessarily mean following a particular religion, but it does infer understanding that the universe has some order and that the creative force behind it (whatever that may be) is intelligent and purposeful.
Spirituality is highly practical. It is about finding meaning and purpose in an apparently imperfect world then using what we learn to create happy, healthy, prosperous, and fulfilling lives for ourselves and others. It is not, as we shall see a special thing to be found in out-of-the-way places – it is Life itself, flowing, ever-present and abundant.
The Material World Is Not Ultimate Reality
Spirituality is founded on an appreciation that the world we detect through our five senses is not the ultimate reality. Objects that appear to be solid are not as solid as we think they are. One of the first to understand this was the Greek philosopher Plato. He realised that everything we perceive through our senses is merely an expression of universal ideas or ‘Forms’. These are independent entities which exist whether or not we are aware of them and able to grasp them with the mind. Love, for example, exists in the universe as an idea; we only become aware of it when it enters our experience. Even then, my experience of love may be different from yours. Meanwhile, the idea of love itself remains constant, permanent, and unchanging, as do other universal ideas such as wisdom, justice, honesty, beauty and so on.
For more than two thousand years, Plato’s theory was just that – a theory – and could not be proved one way or the other. Then at the beginning of the twentieth century it was verified by scientists when quantum physicists discovered a ‘substance’ or ‘energy’ out of which all physical things are formed. In other words, the universe is not solid at all. It is made of energy – and so are you!
Shadows on a Wall
Plato devised a metaphor to explain how our limited view of reality governs how we think and act. He likened us to prisoners chained to the wall of a cave, unable to turn their heads. Behind them is a fire burning brightly, and between the fire and the prisoners is a raised path. Along the pathway walk puppeteers holding puppets that cast shadows on the wall. The prisoners are unable to see the puppets. All they see are shadows; all they hear are echoes made by objects they cannot see. They mistake the shadows for reality, knowing nothing of their real cause, and only when they are released can they can turn their heads and realise their error.
The great spiritual teachers taught us not to judge by appearances and to seek what is real, not what merely looks real. There is a reality that lies outside space and time, beyond our comprehension. We can explore ideas until we discover something that feels real to us, but we would be mistaken if we thought that our perceptions were ever complete.
Are you content in the cave? Do you want to see more? Experience more? Do you accept that you cannot know everything? To be satisfied with not knowing is a profound act of spiritual awareness.
Awe and Wonder
Do you ever reflect on the mystery of life? Do you experience an overwhelming sense of awe when you contemplate this incredible planet and the universe in which we live?
Next time you see a striking sunset, a rainbow or a beautiful Moon, pause for a few minutes and just look. Ask yourself, ‘What exactly am I looking at? How did this come to be?’ Contemplate an open flower or a tree. Where did it come from? Why is it there? Why do I perceive it as I do?
Watch a star twinkling in the night sky. Its light has taken millions of years to get here. The star probably no longer exists, but you have no way of knowing. You are looking back in time!
Look at your skin though a microscope. What do you see? How did it get there? Why is it as it is? Why do the beautiful things in this world – the trees, birds, flowers, rivers, oceans, animals, clouds – come into existence? Why do they grow, reproduce, break down and regenerate? We don’t know, and that’s OK. Spiritual seekers are comfortable with the notion that we live in a profoundly mysterious universe and that it is not for us to understand everything.
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.
Albert Einstein
