Spiritual Body

Our spiritual health is related to our steadfastness in our pursuit of our personal spiritual quests. Many people believe that we are here for a purpose. If we can find time to slow down enough to look inward; we will tune into an inner voice that will guide us. Shakespeare said "Above all else, to Thine own self be true". To the extent that we can do this; we will have spiritual health.

In each area I suggest a two part process is essential. In the case of spiritual health, the first part is personal. We must initially chose to get to know ourselves well enough to hear our inner voice (which may be related to intuition). Then we must chose to follow this voice. It can be seen as the choice between our social conditioning, our desires to accumulate material possessions that often keeps us trapped in jobs that don't feel right for us and that inner voice that is often suggesting we do something of benefit for society. Carlos Castaneda gave an analysis of the battle between "reason" and "will" in his books. Basically there is a choice involved here. Individual Liberty is the key ingredient for spiritual health. Some refer to it as Freedom.

The second ingredient necessary for spiritual growth is that we must be free to explore these spiritual questions socially as well as personally. In America the promise for "freedom of religion" speaks to this issue. The individual must be free to pursue their spiritual needs. This responsibility to secure our individual liberty to grow spiritually must be protected by our governments.

In western society, we give little thought to what our spirit may be. Our typical concept might be the thought of a ghost, like Casper or a whitish cloud like shape pictured leaving a body when a person dies or possibly a haunting by a poltergeist. We give little thought to the nature of our spiritual makeup.

Eastern society approaches this quite differently. The west refers to spiritual energy as grace, but gives little explanation of what happens. We may seek grace but then what? We just try to collect it and save it; like putting coins in a piggy bank. Eastern cultures have elaborate models of our personal spiritual anatomies and how spiritual energy affects each individual. In China the spiritual energy is referred to as Qi and this energy flows through channels called meridians. This can be affected in many ways like meditation, Qi Gong and Tai Chi and Acupuncture just to name a few. In India the spiritual energy is referred to as Prana and the spiritual anatomy is organized into chakras. Again there are methods to affect these energy centers in an effort to bring them into balance and harmony for the purpose of seeking health and peace.

Spiritual imbalance does affect our health adversely. Spiritual disease may be difficult to see and may not be considered a clinical disease but as it progresses it will become manifest first as mental illness and may eventually also affect our physical health. My suspicion is that the prevalence of depression in the world today is in large part, due to our personal choices to ignore our inner voices.

Some resources in the area of spiritual makeup.

Daniel Reid

Harnessing the Power of the Universe: A Guide to Chi-Gung

Carolyn Myss

Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine...

Barbara Brennan

Hands of Light: A Guide to Healing...

Light Emerging: The Journey of Personal...

Rosalyn Bruyere

Wheels of Light

Energy Medicine: