Looking for the Spirit

Looking for the Spirit
(One mans journey)

The well integrated person might be defined as the person who has brought the spiritual, the emotional and the physical into harmony. The person who stands on their own two feet is a person in whom the spiritual hold reins over the emotional and physical levels with complete freedom to direct them for the total good of their personality. To dream your life away is not the same thing as to live it.

There are many religions in this world, each have their own beliefs and traditions, however each of them teach one thing, a person must open themselves to their own  inner spirit and let the divine spirit take over and guide them. In Christianity, in the words of Jesus Christ “The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or lo there! For, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:20-21).

If you open your inner spirit to the divine spirit and to your kingdom within you, you will be strong with divine strength and you will hold both your emotional and physical life in your hands. If you reject your inner spirit you will find you are only half a person because the whole of a person in the eternal design of the Divine is a person standing on their own two feet and made divine. A human worthy of the name is a human who can stand on their own two feet and face reality.
They are a person who has allowed their God experience to transform their life at the deepest levels of their personality. If humans are to live a truly human life the divine spirit must dominate and order the instinctual and sentient levels of existence, where the instinct holds primacy, life is reduced to a mere animal existence, this is what makes humans different from the animal kingdom, we call it Choice and we make choices throughout our whole life, to have Love, Hate, Compassion, Kindness, Envy, Jealousy, Fear, Anger, Prejudices and many more. It is the choices we make that define us as human beings, and it is how our fellow human sees us through their eyes and what they see, is our personality.

As in all things universal there is a forward and backward movement and it is through choices and living experience that we either regress or progress and through these our way is either towards our inner spirit or away from it.

If we can embrace and accept our inner spirit we can embrace the Divine spirit and it can guide us through our lives as fully human beings and hopefully lead to better choices and quality of life. Divine guidance draws together into harmony all our levels of knowledge and intuition, and leads to a quiet confidence, far from the stubbornness and contentiousness of a human who is merely opinionated.

Therefore it is up to each human being to make the choice to seek their inner spirit in order to find the Divine spirit, to find a better life for themselves, to let the Divine guide them in their life, to find that connection to their own inner Kingdom of God. We are all born with an inner spirit no matter what we believe in and it is up to us alone to take that journey, that path, that road, that leads us to our own kingdom of God. That inner sanctum of Peace, Kindness, Forgiveness, Understanding and Compassion. Our own truths of life and love.

Love, what does this word mean? , for such a world re-noun word so many humans fail or have forgotten throughout life, throughout the ages its true meaning, it comes in so many shapes and forms and we use it to define so many things, objects, nature, experiences. But do we really understand it? Is it universal? if so, why do we fail to use it for the betterment of our humanity and inner self. Is it a life force of its own alive and waiting to be invited into our lives, is it supernatural? Where does it come from? How far does it reach? .So many questions have been asked and will always be asked about this phenomenon.

But it seems that love is the centre of human life. In Buddhism, in the words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, “Love and compassion ... are the source of human happiness, and our need for them lies at the very core of our being”.

Most humans have their own personal and individual understanding of what they call love a human love and this from what we know comes from the moment we are born into this world, the bonding between parents and child. A child through its early years will always crave love from its parents and as the child grows they become self-conscious, a love of self, then as the child attains adulthood they become other-conscious, a love of others. It seems from the moment we are born love is there.

Most humans feel the need for love we find it enriches our personalities and it can guide some of the choices we make through our life. It gives us emotional feelings when we interact with other humans or see something beautiful that takes our breath away. So love must be something we choose to accept into our life, yet as an infant how do we make that conscious choice to love. The first thing an infant receives from its parents is their conscious choice and will to love the child they have given life to, therefore their love emanates from them to their child. As the child reaches adolescent they become more self-conscious and use the love they have received to gain their own experiences of love, in themselves, in relationships, in nature, in objects, they begin to find their own way through life. At the reaching of adulthood we find we become more other-conscious, we see how others perceive us, our personalities, our choices, our actions, the life we lead, we tend to love other things of less importance, our homes, cars, jobs, wealth, outer appearance. It seems we have a tendency to stop loving ourselves in order to gain approval from others.

Love is a good thing, it is an unseen force which grows when given unconditionally, it tolerates, it helps, it is always willing to demonstrate its good will, it brings many wonderful experiences into our lives and to do this we seem to need to start to love ourselves again, to accept and respect the love that is in us already, to accept and respect ourselves and when we do this we become more accepting of others, more loving of others , when we love unconditionally we are freed from hate, fear, anger, prejudices , we give love without looking for it in return, we give wantonly, willingly, wastefully, for we cannot love others without loving our-self first, if we have no love for our-self, how can we offer love to others. Therefore love emanates from us again and is passed on from one human to another and this is done by choice, we have to choose to love and when we choose to love, we change and when we change our life changes with us.
Many religions believe that unconditional love is linked to the spiritual realm, that it is not just a mere feeling or emotional reaction, if so, then, it seems we make a spiritual choice every time we give or accept unconditional love, therefore this spiritual choice would have an effect on us at our deepest levels of our inner spirit.
It is not easy to bring love, harmony and unity into modern life; one must take control on one’s self, to keep one’s self in the present, not in the past, nor in the future, but in the now.
The goal of a human being is not death but life. Human emotions are hard to control, however it is better not to repress them as they can give the basis for an enrich life, they offer the privilege of being deeply moved at the sight of beauty or the suffering of another, the pleasure of a work of art, the joy of a friendship, appreciating the situations in life which places you and others with you come in contact with, personal experiences and generosity prompted by affection.
Emotional reactions are not a weakness you just have to see the cause and take care of it, if someone hurts you emotionally or if you fail at something don’t be embarrassed by the emotional reaction you have, it’s nothing to be ashamed of and don’t just put it aside either because it’s not without significance.
Try to be honest with yourself, try to discover why you reacted that way, only then will you be able to do something about it, so every surge of emotion can lead to a deeper self knowledge and self possession if you recognise and accept it for what it is. The authentic spiritual life is not one devoid of all emotion, it’s one where the emotion has been given its proper place by the spirit self so it no longer opposes its self to a divine life in a person.
Blinded by self deception we have forgotten that dignity does not depend on the quantity of what we have or posses, but on the quality of interior life, it does not depend on what we do but rather who we are, it’s the depth of our spiritual life that reaches out to embrace the divine and others, the abundance of material goods won’t add anything to our personality, it might make you appear well off but it won’t actually make you so, wealth and power are themselves not bad, however when they become an indispensable condition of human worth that’s when they corrupt, they will stifle the inner life if they are valued more than the riches of the spiritual life, so we should stop for a few moments and have a look at our lives to appreciate the beautiful things in life and learn to love freely and wastefully. The spirit life will gradually transform our life from within, if we let it.
If we refuse to accept ourselves as we are we will never build a full life for ourselves because we will spend most of our time wishing we had the tools that others have to build their life, without recognising what we all ready have at our disposal, however we should not refuse to acknowledge our limitations as it would be damaging to deny their existence as they will not go away, we should accept them as they are neither exaggerating or minimizing them, realize, accept your limitations as well as your possibilities for development. A genuinely humble person fears nothing not even them -selves, they are not afraid of acknowledging their good works or limitations, of others or their environment. Always accept yourself but in reflection to others.
There is a hunger for happiness which is planted in the depths of the human heart, it is a reality of the spirit self. We should gratefully accept the pleasures which are a gift of the divine to help us through our life journey and should always seek to lift ourselves above ourselves in order to lift others. Some -times we must forget ourselves, to become self forget full in order to find true joy.
If we want to have a better communication with the deeper parts of ourselves, we have to learn to stop for a moment and with complete honesty, reflect, evaluate and decide on the course of action that our life is in, does not mean living differently to everyone else, for every aspect in life can enrich your life if you reflect on it and make it your own. The path of spiritual and personal reflection will lead to a fuller awareness of one’s life and to do this one must concentrate. Concentration is not a mode of doing but a way of being. When problems arise one needs to concentrate on one problem at a time and then move on to the next one , not problems of the past for what’s done is done, not problems of the future for that has not come, but problems of the now, the present, also the good things we do today make tomorrows history. We tend not to take notice of the present as it is of short duration, yet it alone counts the most because it alone is in our hands. Don’t neglect a single moment in life for each moment is very important in the weaving web of life.
There seems to be only one place to find your inner spiritual self in order to reach the divine creative powers that surround all things and that is through your heart and mind, through prayer and meditation we find peace and solace, we can cleanse ourselves of fear, envy, jealousy, malice, despair and sorts of additions and yet there is no set way to pray or meditate, it seems there is no need to go to church or to need a man made altar or what position or words should be used or what day it is, we are all unique individuals, but as long as we all use our hearts and minds to find our own true path there should be no reason why we can’t reach the divine creative powers around us. One needs to have faith in oneself before having faith in the divine powers, faith to hear the truth when it is spoken, faith to listen to your heart to find the answers we seek when they come to our mind, faith to find our inner spiritual self.
I have come to believe that every thought that comes to my mind is a prayer, I have started to learn to use the altar that is in my heart and therefore I try to think of only good thoughts.
 I was born into the RC(roman catholic)faith, but from my teens onwards I had lost all faith in the church, I didn’t even know if there was a Divine power, however as I progressed through life I began to wonder what if there is. I am no different from the next human, I have made some bad choices in life and I have made good choices too, but only recently have I begun to stop and think about those choices and now I do this all the time, not only has it lead me to a better understanding of myself but of others as well and so once again I progress forward. Through this progression I have found some of my inner spiritual self and it has lead me to wonderful things, like true love or appreciating the important parts of life, like friendship, nature, words, music, peace, stillness, healthy emotions, goodness.

If to me this is what is meant by a well integrated spiritual person then my journey continues and what a journey it will be. So if I can get this far, why can’t we all get that far. It would be a new beginning and a wonderful journey together and a journey of love.

“The more we choose to love the more love spreads, the more spiritual we become”.




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The Universal Life Church is a comprehensive online seminary where we have various classes in Christianity, one on Wicca, along with several Pagan courses, more than a few courses about Metaphysics with more being added regularly.