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Spiritual Growth
the spiritual
challenge of modern times
To grow spiritually in a world defined by power, money, and influence
is a Herculean task.
Modern conveniences such as electronic equipments,
gadgets, and tools as well as entertainment through television,
magazines, and the web have predisposed us to confine our attention
mostly to physical needs and wants. As a result, our concepts of
self-worth and self-meaning are muddled. How can we strike a balance
between the material and spiritual aspects of our lives?
To grow spiritually is to look inward.
Introspection goes beyond recalling the things that
happened in a day, week, or month. You need to look closely and reflect
on your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations. Periodically
examining your experiences, the decisions you make, the relationships
you have, and the things you engage in provide useful insights on your
life goals, on the good traits you must sustain and the bad traits you
have to discard.
Moreover, it gives you clues on how to act, react,
and conduct yourself in the midst of any situation. Like any skill,
introspection can be learned; all it takes is the courage and
willingness to seek the truths that lie within you. Here are some
pointers when you introspect: be objective, be forgiving of yourself,
and focus on your areas for improvement.
To grow spiritually is to develop your potentials.
Religion and science have differing views on
matters of the human spirit. Religion views people as spiritual beings
temporarily living on Earth, while science views the spirit as just one
dimension of an individual. Mastery of the self is a recurring theme in
both Christian (Western) and Islamic (Eastern) teachings.
The needs of the body are recognized but placed
under the needs of the spirit. Beliefs, values, morality, rules,
experiences, and good works provide the blueprint to ensure the growth
of the spiritual being. In Psychology, realizing one’s full potential
is to self-actualize.
Abraham Maslow identified several human needs:
physiological, security, belongingness, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic,
self-actualization, and self-transcendence. William James earlier
categorized these needs into three: material, emotional, and spiritual.
When you have satisfied the basic physiological and emotional needs,
spiritual or existential needs come next.
Achieving each need leads to the total development
of the individual.
Perhaps the difference between these two religions
and psychology is the end of self-development: Christianity and Islam
see that self-development is a means toward serving God, while
psychology view that self-development is an end by itself.
To grow spiritually is to search for meaning.
Religions that believe in the existence of God such
as Christianism, Judaism, and Islam suppose that the purpose of the
human life is to serve the Creator of all things. Several theories in
psychology propose that we ultimately give meaning to our lives.
Whether we believe that life’s meaning is pre-determined or
self-directed, to grow in spirit is to realize that we do not merely
exist.
We do not know the meaning of our lives at birth;
but we gain knowledge and wisdom from our interactions with people and
from our actions and reactions to the situations we are in. As we
discover this meaning, there are certain beliefs and values that we
reject and affirm. Our lives have purpose. This purpose puts all our
physical, emotional, and intellectual potentials into use; sustains us
during trying times; and gives us something to look forward to---a goal
to achieve, a destination to reach.
A person without purpose or meaning is like a
drifting ship at sea.
To grow spiritually is to recognize interconnections.
Religions stress the concept of our relatedness to all creation, live
and inanimate. Thus we call other people “brothers and sisters” even if
there are no direct blood relations. Moreover, deity-centered religions
such as Christianity and Islam speak of the relationship between humans
and a higher being. On the other hand, science expounds on our link to
other living things through the evolution theory. This relatedness is
clearly seen in the concept of ecology, the interaction between living
and non-living things.
In psychology, connectedness is a characteristic of self-transcendence,
the highest human need according to Abraham Maslow.
Recognizing your connection to all things makes you
more humble and respectful of people, animals, plants, and things in
nature. It makes you appreciate everything around you. It moves you to
go beyond your comfort zone and reach out to other people, and become
stewards of all other things around you.
Growth is a process thus to grow in spirit is a day-to-day encounter.
We win some, we lose some, but the important thing is that we learn,
and from this knowledge, further spiritual growth is made possible.
Learning to know ourselves is an indispensable
encounter task for spiritually growing and for to know our true
reality. Our reality is based on our focalization point. Changing our
point of focalization will change consequently our reality. Everyone
has his very own reality because Life is a state of mind. One has to
know his real condition in this world, but our all-day consciousness
does not allow us to recognize our true self's, so is it necessary to
look inward in a very honest way for to discover our weaknesses our
forces, our fears and sufferings.
Therefore meditation is the only way to know
honestly ourselves and to grow spirituality. Only by loving ourselves
can we love the creation and the others, since we're a part of this
creation. If we are not in peace with ourselves how could we be in
peace with others?
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