What Do You Really Understand By the Words Spirit, Spiritual and Spirituality? Who Is A Spiritual Personality?

For a majority of people the word spirit and its derivatives arise from various philosophical and religious concepts and give abstract meanings rather than indicating any thing real.

One dictionary gives the meaning of the word spirit as ' the vital principle or animating force within living things.

Another defines it as: a fundamental emotional and activating principle determining once's character. Alcoholic beverages are known as mild intoxication agents which cause changes in emotional and other character changes in people. For that reason, such beverages are called spirits. But these are not the only agents or principles that determine one's character and emotions!

Another meaning as defined tells like this: Any incorporeal (without material form) super natural being that can become visible or audible to human beings.

All these meanings have taken shape due to observations, experiences and analysis by intelligent and curious humans over the centuries. These conclusions are essentially assumptions because, these terms describe some conditions that humans can not directly prove as existing. They are beyond ordinary human comprehension!

Spiritual and spirituality are words commonly linked to human religions. In fact religions are more concerned with these words. There are also some men and women who are individually concerned with their spirituality and spiritual development without any religion coming into picture.

Many people do meditation, prayers and religious rituals for their spiritual growth and spiritual salvation.

Many believe that there is a spiritual part within every human which is called the 'soul' and the soul needs to be salvaged from either destruction or loitering around aimlessly after their bodies become dead and lifeless. 

Spirituality for them is the effort for salvaging the soul. The efforts could be meditation, yoga, prayers to God or gods, pooja, doing good deeds, offering to temples, churches and other places of worships and doing various other religious rituals and practices.

Some people believe in believing God essential for soul salvation. Atheists cannot salvage their souls, they claim. How can any one try to salvage some thing that they do not believe as existing?

For that matter, even God is presumed to exist in the spiritual realms, beyond the direct perception capacity of humans. Therefore, no one can prove or disprove the existence of God.

Same is with all things that are termed as spiritual.

But I have come to the conclusion that the word spirit is not merely arising out of any religious or philosophical hypothesis.

Spirit is some thing real. God is spirit and God is real.

So also is the case with all existences that are spiritual.

Modern science defines matter and energy and the possibility of their inter conversions. Matter can become material energies and material energies can transform to matter.

The sum total of matter and energy remains same while they happen to transform from one state to the other. Such inter conversions happen under certain specified conditions.

The famous Einstein's equation says that material energy equals the product of mass of material and the square of the velocity of light.

Yet we do not find all material or energies inter converting this way, except a few of the nuclear materials.

Anyway, matter and energy including all energy radiations are essentially forms of material energy. Matter is stored material energy while light, heat, electricity, etc are material energy in transit.

But what is this matter? Matter is nothing but a conglomerate of atoms arranged in various patterns.

But what are atoms?

Atoms are just dynamic groupings of just three fundamental particles, electrons, neutrons and protons, the smallest being the electrons.

But what happens when these electrons are further dissected? Though such a dissection is not very easy, our present day scientists have succeeded in doing that to some extent.

So, electrons also can be peeled off to a final naught. It is as if you peel the onion to come to a naught in the end.

In other words, electrons also unwind to some invisible energy. To put it differently, we can say that electrons are made up of minute energy concentrations comprising of energy that we are not familiar with. Let us call this energy concentrates as the 'God's particles' that build up the electrons.

Now these God's particles are the first form of matter or the most fundamental particle in the material energy realm. They are the ultimate result of our search for the most fundamental material particle. They are the 'ultimatons'!

Now, these ultimatons are to be made up of some thing. Some energy or force concentrate in some other precedent form that we are not familiar with.

And that energy is the spiritual energy. A real energy that is primordial to our material energy. You could have identified it with some other name as well. Perhaps our future scientists would call it in some other way suiting to their scientific method of nomenclature.

But this spiritual energy-or whatever you like to call it- is the original and most fundamental energy of the universe.

Since we are ignorant about it, some of our present day scientists call it the dark energy. I don't like that nomenclature. I prefer it to be called the spiritual energy. This energy is the predominant energy in the vast universe. It is more than 95% of all the energies of the universe. Our material energy is just about 5 % of the total universe energy.

Spiritual energy is the source of material energy and it existed even before material energy (both matter and its derivative energies) formed. The existence of spiritual energy cannot be directly perceived by those existing in a subordinate energy realm such as we humans.

Just as we, humans who exist in material energy realms are real, the spiritual energy realm is also real. Perhaps, more realistic because it is our source of existence and it is the major part of the universe.

Since our ultimate source of existence is derived from spiritual energy, we cannot perceive it with out physical sensory systems.

Material or physical senses are for matter and energy in the material realm. To sense, the spiritual energy we need some spiritual energy enabled tools or mechanisms.

In reality such tools or mechanisms exist within the human brain in a very limited manner. As brain ability is in varying degrees, the capacity to comprehend spiritual energy realms also exist in varying degrees in humans. Some have more ability while some have negligible.

God is the super personality and the living source that existed concurrently with the spiritual energy of the universe.

God is the super mind that kept acting over the spiritual energies. This supreme mind over spiritual energy caused the never ending creative processes of the universe.

Life is the dynamic feature that resulted and originally vested with God.

Life, personality , mind and the infinite spiritual energy that originally vested with God began to get distributed by the act of God resulting in the creation of innumerable spirit beings, spiritual energy abodes and later the material energy realms and the material beings.

It is an infinite act of an infinite power and hence cannot be comprehended by finite lower order creations fully.

Our inability to comprehend is not any logical reason for us to discard some thing very much in existence as non-existent.

That is simply foolish for any intelligent mind.

To conclude, spiritual energy realm is the source for the material energy realm. Material energy universe is a subset of the spiritual energy universe. 

Just as there are living beings in material energy realm, there are spirit beings in the spiritual energy realm.

Just as material energy and beings are real, spirit energy and spirit beings are also real. Perhaps the latter is more real than the former.

Intelligent living beings of numerous kinds  exist in the spiritual energy realm. Except God, all other spirit beings have an origin, but the majority of them do not necessarily have an end.

God is the Supreme Mind and Personality existing in the spiritual energy realm who does not have an origin or an end.

Only spirit beings can live everlastingly. They are essentially immortals so long as they do not violate the infallible laws of the Supreme Life Source.

Intelligent living beings also are numerous in the material energy realm as well. But all of them have an origin and an end. They are finite. Since they are finite, they are inherently not perfect in all matters.

Viewing in this manner, it could well be deduced that spiritual energy realm is superior to the material energy realm. Extending that logic further, we may deduce that spiritual living beings are superior to material living beings.

Matter and material energy are nothing but intelligent and complex, manipulative formations out of spiritual energy carried out by superior mind or minds that exist in the spiritual realms.

If matter is real, then spirit is also real. If there is no spiritual energy, there no material energy!

Formation and reversion of matter and material energies to and from spiritual energies could then be possible under universal techniques as framed by the Original Mind.

Transformation of lower personalities to higher levels and also from higher to lower could sometimes be possible!

The options and opportunities are tremendous!

And that is the beauty and the challenge that this vast universe poses before all intelligent personalities, superior or inferior, that happen to be in it!

[Did you read this: the mechanism of the mind?]

I Love My Dog Very Much, But Does It Have a Soul ?

It is a good thing that our love for animals has increased many fold in the recent times unlike perhaps in the past centuries.

We have many human associations who work for the well being of both pet animals and wild animals.

Many of us love our pets more than perhaps our own fellow humans who are not so fortunate as we are.

There are many in the developed nations and many in the upper class societies who think that their pets are also personalities with souls who would be there with them in the heaven with them after death. Some may even say that they would not like to go to heaven if their pets are not there. That shows their deep rooted bondage and love that they have with their animals.

Many people in India and the eastern societies think that the animals that are with them are possessed with the souls of their dear ones or relatives who died earlier.

Some of us might be just curious to know whether our loved dog or cat or horse has a soul just as we ?

None of us are very sure of these things.

Only God knows the fact. And that is a fact !

But then God lived among us some time ago to tell us about such facts.

That was the human incarnation of the Creator and Sovereign Ruler of all the material worlds that belonged to our part of the universe.

The invisible super human authors of my favorite book categorically clarify that this Sovereign of our universe is the same Jesus who is depicted in the Bible and other such books.

These authors tell us so many interesting and hitherto untold events from the life and teachings of Jesus.

The book depicts details of a year long journey undertaken by Jesus as a language interpreter for a wealthy Indian business man named Gonod and his youthful son named Ganid.

This happened some years before Jesus took up his preaching in his own homeland in and around the present day Israel.

During this journey his Indian companions learnt that Jesus was an extra-ordinary youth having a masterly knowledge in many things that they began to love and respect him and were anxious to hear his opinions and views on various kinds of life experiences they had during their long journey.

And on one such occassion this incident happened where in Jesus was asked about the question of animals having souls by Ganid.

It was on an after noon on the course of their journey through the regions of the Roman empire.

That afternoon Jesus and Ganid had both enjoyed playing with a very intelligent shepherd dog, and Ganid wanted to know whether the dog had a soul, whether it had a will, and in response to his questions Jesus said:

“The dog has a mind which can know material man, his master, but cannot know God, who is spirit; therefore the dog does not possess a spiritual nature and cannot enjoy a spiritual experience.

The dog may have a will derived from nature and augmented by training, but such a power of mind is not a spiritual force, neither is it comparable to the human will, inasmuch as it is not reflective—it is not the result of discriminating higher and moral meanings or choosing spiritual and eternal values.

It is the possession of such powers of spiritual discrimination and truth choosing that makes mortal man a moral being, a creature endowed with the attributes of spiritual responsibility and the potential of eternal survival.”

Jesus went on to explain that it is the absence of such mental powers in the animal which makes it forever impossible for the animal world to develop language in time or to experience anything equivalent to personality survival in eternity.

As a result of this day’s instruction Ganid never again entertained belief in the transmigration of the souls of men into the bodies of animals.

The next day Ganid talked all this over with his father, and it was in answer to Gonod’s question that Jesus explained that :

“human wills which are fully occupied with passing only upon temporal decisions having to do with the material problems of animal existence are doomed to perish in time. Those who make wholehearted moral decisions and unqualified spiritual choices are thus progressively identified with the indwelling and divine spirit, and thereby are they increasingly transformed into the values of eternal survival—unending progression of divine service.”

It was on this same day that we (the authors)  first heard that momentous truth which, stated in modern terms, would signify:

“Will is that manifestation of the human mind which enables the subjective consciousness to express itself objectively and to experience the phenomenon of aspiring to be Godlike.”

And it is in this same sense that every reflective and spiritually minded human being can become creative.

The two Indians were learning a great truth from the Sovereign Creator of a universe of a few million worlds who was at that time travelling and helping them as an ordinary young man.

And they heard that truth together with all those invisible beings around them from the most authentic source who could have revealed it !

I have no reason to disbelieve this truth.

And what about you ?

[The bold paras are directly quoted from Paper-130 of my favorite book]

[View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ! ]



This is how we progress in form and mind !

When I read my favorite revelatory guide book, quite often I am awestruck by the sheer magnanimous gracefulness through which the superior revelators of each of the subject paper present the matter to readers like me.  Each and every stanza of the book is a wonderful and graceful presentation of some information that human beings should grasp if they have the capacity to do so.

Paper-48 of the book gives us the information regarding our first stage existence after death in a higher form of life defined as Morontia Life. There is no english equivalent of this word morontia. The definition of this word is given by the authors of the book.

Morontia is a type of material which is different from the materials that we see on earth. The earth materials are made up of about 100 odd elements which are again made of some 3 odd fundamental particles. Morontia is a material that is composed of certain fundamental particles with a different structure and internal energy levels that a morontia material can penetrate an earth material without the latter offering any resistance for that penetration.

But morontia is a material and not a form that we otherwise have known as 'spiritual'. Spiritual existence is also a real existence and it is a form higher in existence than morontia. A spiritual entity can therefore pass through both morontia material and earth material with the latters ever offering any resistance.

Just as there are material life forms as human beings, there exist morontia and spirit life forms in our universe. Majority of the material life forms exist in planets like earth which are evolved through a process involving controlled evolution. [In fact the first original life that existed must be that of God, the Universal Father God or the First Source and Centre of Everything and God existed and is existing in the Spirit Life form of the absolute original type.]

On the contrary, morontia and spirit life forms normally reside on enormous spheres that are specially designed and made by a totally planned process. The former ones are called evolutionary worlds and the latter are called architectural worlds.

There are trillions of evolutionary worlds and billions of architectural worlds in this great universe of ours.

Our material existence in our evolutionary world is our first life form. We develop our initial personality as human beings of this evolutionary world called earth.

Our next stage of existence is destined to be in an architectural world which is situated some light years away.

By our own scientist Mr Einstein, there is no chance of any one of us to visit such a distant world during our short life span with our material body because travel in light speed is impossible for anything that is material.

That is the limitation that we have with our material body forms.

We need to dematerialize to some form which would make it possible for us to travel by speeds much exceeding that of light to reach the next stage of our progressive existence which is in an architectural world light years away.

For that we have to leave our material body here in this world while our personality essence is taken out intact in some other form suitable for interplanetary transportation.

The process by which we leave the body here is our death here in this world.

And there exists a process by which our personality essence is preserved and taken out at the time of our material death here in this world.

There also exists a process by which our personality essence is transported to the next stage.

In the first architectural world then, we get a new body made of morontia material called the morontia body 'loaded' with the essential aspects of our earth personality.

Then our life proceeds for some years in the first stage morontia body in architectural world one.

Here our mind matures and learns more things after refreshing our memories and learnings from our first stage existence. We experience life in our second stage of existence. We are required to learn those things we somehow missed while on material life on earth plus additional things commensurate with our new morontia body capacity.

Then we proceed to our third stage of life which is in architectural world two after leaving our first morontia body to gain our second level morontia body.

We learn more things and gets more capacity to understand and perform more advanced things.

Thus we proceeds to morontia form seven and completes it to get spiritual body stage one.

This way we proceed covering several architectural worlds and perhaps study tours to other material worlds. At every stage we progress in our mind capacities with respect to knowledge, experience and much more that I am incapable of explaining with my present mind capacity.

Ultimately we reach the centre of every thing in the great universe. That is Paradise. There we will be in the presence of Universal Father God. By that time we will be highly advanced and experienced spirit beings capable of doing advanced functions that will be required to manage the affairs of this great universe during that time. Such of us who ultimately reaches the presence of God as experienced spirit beings of human origin in the distant future are going to be important functionaries of the universe affairs thereafter.

Is it not a great adventure ?

If so, why to worry much about this short life experience here in this world ?

There is no need.

But we have to pass successfully gaining certain essential learnings and experiences to be eligible to move forward.

Some essential progress in mind is needed to advance to the next advanced life form.

All those details are given in the book that I mentioned in the beginning.

I am skipping those here.

But I am intrigued to find some thing that is written in Paper-48 of this book which gives us some insight into what is called morontia mota.

Morontia mota is explained as the equivalent of human philosophy in Morontia Life. The lowest concepts of morontia mota equate with the highest concepts of human philosophy.

Now I will reproduce below those twenty eight statements of highest human philosophical concepts:

1. A display of specialized skill does not signify possession of spiritual capacity. Cleverness is not a substitute for true character.

2. Few persons live up to the faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul. 

3. Inherent capacities cannot be exceeded; a pint can never hold a quart. The spirit concept cannot be mechanically forced into the material memory mold.

4. Few mortals ever dare to draw anything like the sum of personality credits established by the combined ministries of nature and grace. The majority of impoverished souls are truly rich, but they refuse to believe it.

5. Difficulties may challenge mediocrity and defeat the fearful, but they only stimulate the true children of the Most Highs.

6. To enjoy privilege without abuse, to have liberty without license, to possess power and steadfastly refuse to use it for self-aggrandizement—these are the marks of high civilization.

7. Blind and unforeseen accidents do not occur in the cosmos. Neither do the celestial beings assist the lower being who refuses to act upon his light of truth.

8. Effort does not always produce joy, but there is no happiness without intelligent effort.

9. Action achieves strength; moderation eventuates in charm.

10. Righteousness strikes the harmony chords of truth, and the melody vibrates throughout the cosmos, even to the recognition of the Infinite.

11. The weak indulge in resolutions, but the strong act. Life is but a day’s work—do it well. The act is ours; the consequences God's.

12. The greatest affliction of the cosmos is never to have been afflicted. Mortals only learn wisdom by experiencing tribulation.

13. Stars are best discerned from the lonely isolation of experiential depths, not from the illuminated and ecstatic mountain tops.

14. Whet the appetites of your associates for truth; give advice only when it is asked for.

15. Affectation is the ridiculous effort of the ignorant to appear wise, the attempt of the barren soul to appear rich.

16. You cannot perceive spiritual truth until you feelingly experience it, and many truths are not really felt except in adversity.

17. Ambition is dangerous until it is fully socialized. You have not truly acquired any virtue until your acts make you worthy of it.

18. Impatience is a spirit poison; anger is like a stone hurled into a hornet’s nest.

19. Anxiety must be abandoned. The disappointments hardest to bear are those which never come.

20. Only a poet can discern poetry in the commonplace prose of routine existence.

21. The high mission of any art is, by its illusions, to foreshadow a higher universe reality, to crystallize the emotions of time into the thought of eternity.

22. The evolving soul is not made divine by what it does, but by what it strives to do.

23.  Death added nothing to the intellectual possession or to the spiritual endowment, but it did add to the experiential status the consciousness of survival.

24. The destiny of eternity is determined moment by moment by the achievements of the day by day living. The acts of today are the destiny of tomorrow.

25. Greatness lies not so much in possessing strength as in making a wise and divine use of such strength.

26. Knowledge is possessed only by sharing; it is safeguarded by wisdom and socialized by love.

27. Progress demands development of individuality; mediocrity seeks perpetuation in standardization.

28. The argumentative defense of any proposition is inversely proportional to the truth contained.

I am not sure how much of the above concepts are appreciated by you if at all you ventured reading these.

But if you are able to appreciate the meanings of at least half of these, you are indeed in a path of mind progress.

Perhaps you are a personality who is going to advance further in form and mind !

Use some fraction of your mind to think about it !

Best Wishes !

[Do you feel curious to know more about my favorite book that I mentioned above? Click Here ! You will get the links here to read the book online. If you are eager to read Paper-48 of the book right away Click Here !]

Spiritual Evolution of Man

I am not sure whether these passages would be of any interest to professionals and youngsters, basically interested in their advancements in material prosperity through career advancements. Being a engineering professional myself with decades of working experience in our country, I am pained at the level at which the run for material prosperity and advancements blinds people from being logical and concerned with their development as matured personalities having the strength of character. The effects are visible. Those of us with no spiritual strength are powerless to defeat societal evils like corruption and injustice evolving out of incompetency and immorality.

Though religious, we are not sure of the existence of the intelligent divine administration that prevails invisible and doubt the purpose of God in allowing trials and tribulations in our lives.

My conviction is that, we need to progress both materially and spiritually. That progress has to be made by honest physical and intellectual work, without adopting short cuts to achieve temporary success!  Money power is our invention and it is necessary for accomplishing our tasks of material development for comfortable living in our world. Working for earning money power is justified, hence.

But this should not be at the total neglect of the purpose of our supreme and invisible Creator. How do we know that purpose?

Our God given intelligence has to be used for material and spiritual advancements, both. There has to be a balance in our efforts. We need to develop as matured personalities.

Material advancement, though necessary, is inferior to spiritual advancement and the latter makes a person matured, generous, pious, gracious and fearless - qualities that he gets from his unseen Creator. For a society to be worth of happy living, spiritual advancement of man is a must.

Religion as it exists today has only limited role to play in the spiritual advancement and much has to come from the individuals self eagerness for acquiring the same.

The following are a few passages taken from a topical subject of revelatory knowledge, dealing with the topic of spiritual evolution of human beings, taken from my supreme guide book which has been inspiring and developing me slowly to greater levels of knowledge transcending the hitherto known limits of human wisdom in a manner not exactly philosophic or abstract. The joy of this transcendence further motivates me to share it with at least a few of my fraternity potentially enabling them to progress to real spiritual development quite different from those ways generally and traditionally accepted in our world. To make the passage more understandable to an uninitiated reader, I have modified some words from the original. The words modified by me are given in bold.

Now read:

With the advancing evolution of an inhabited planet and the further spiritualization of its inhabitants, additional spiritual influences may be received by such mature personalities. As mortals progress in mind control and spirit perception, these multiple spirit ministries become more and more co-ordinate in function; they become increasingly blended with the superintending governance of the first three original and divine centers of universal power.  

Although Divinity may be plural in manifestation, in human experience Deity is singular, always one. Neither is spiritual governance   plural in human experience. Regardless of plurality of origin, all spirit influences are one in function. Indeed they are one, being the spirit governance of God the sevenfold in and to the creatures of the grand universe; and as creatures grow in appreciation of, and receptivity for, this unifying governance of the spirit, it becomes in their experience the governance of God the Supreme.

From the heights of eternal glory the Third Source of Divine Power descends, by a long series of steps, to meet you as you are and where you are and then, in the partnership of faith, lovingly to embrace the soul of mortal origin and to embark on the sure and certain retracement of those steps of superiority, never stopping until the evolutionary soul is safely exalted to the very heights of bliss from which the Third Source of Divine Power originally moved out on this mission of mercy and divine superindence.

Spiritual forces unerringly seek and attain their own original levels. Having gone out from the Eternal, they are certain to return thereto, bringing with them all those children of time and space [material free willed creatures of evolutionary worlds like human beings of Earth] who have espoused the leading and teaching of the Thought Adjusters [the Fractional Power of the First Source of Divine Power residing within the minds of all human beings] thereby becoming those who have been truly "born of the spirit," or the faith sons of God.

The offspring of the Third Source of Divine Power present in your local universe, called the Universe Mother Spirit, is the source of continual spiritual service and encouragement to the children of men. Your power and achievement is "according to His mercy, through the renewing of the Spirit." Spiritual life, like physical energy, is consumed. Spiritual effort results in relative spiritual exhaustion. The whole ascendant experience is real as well as spiritual; therefore, it is truly written, "It is the Spirit that quickens." "The Spirit gives life."

The dead theory of even the highest religious doctrines is powerless to transform human character or to control mortal behavior. What the world of today needs is the truth which your teacher of old declared: "Not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit." The seed of theoretical truth is dead, the highest moral concepts without effect, unless and until the divine Spirit breathes upon the forms of truth and quickens the formulas of righteousness.

Those who have received and recognized the indwelling of God have been born of the Spirit. "You are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwells in you." It is not enough that this spirit be poured out upon you; the divine Spirit must dominate and control every phase of human experience.

It is the presence of the divine Spirit, the water of life that prevents the consuming thirst of mortal discontent and that indescribable hunger of the unspiritualized human mind. Spirit-motivated beings "never thirst, for this spiritual water shall be in them a well of satisfaction springing up into life everlasting." Such divinely watered souls are all but independent of material environment as regards the joys of living and the satisfactions of earthly existence. They are spiritually illuminated and refreshed, morally strengthened and endowed.

 In every mortal there exists a dual nature: the inheritance of animal tendencies and the high urge of spirit endowment. During the short life you live on your world Earth, these two diverse and opposing urges can seldom be fully reconciled; they can hardly be harmonized and unified; but throughout your lifetime the combined Spirit ever ministers to assist you in subjecting the flesh more and more to the leading of the Spirit. Even though you must live your material life through, even though you cannot escape the body and its necessities, nonetheless, in purpose and ideals you are empowered increasingly to subject the animal nature to the mastery of the Spirit. There truly exists within you a conspiracy of spiritual forces, a confederation of divine powers, whose exclusive purpose is to effect your final deliverance from material bondage and finite handicaps.

The purpose of all this ministration is, "That you may be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man." And all this represents but the preliminary steps to the final attainment of the perfection of faith and service, that experience wherein you shall be "filled with all the fullness of God," "for all those who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God."

The Universal Mother Spirit never drives, only leads. If you are a willing learner, if you want to attain spirit levels and reach divine heights, if you sincerely desire to reach the eternal goal, then the divine Spirit will gently and lovingly lead you along the pathway of son-ship and spiritual progress. Every step you take must be one of willingness, intelligent and cheerful co-operation. The domination of the Spirit is never tainted with coercion nor compromised by compulsion.

And when such a life of spirit guidance is freely and intelligently accepted, there gradually develops within the human mind a positive consciousness of divine contact and assurance of spirit communion; sooner or later "the Spirit bears witness with your spirit (the Adjuster) that you are a child of God." Already has your own Thought Adjuster told you of your kinship to God so that the record testifies that the Spirit bears witness "with your spirit," not to your spirit.

The consciousness of the spirit domination of a human life is presently attended by an increasing exhibition of the characteristics of the Spirit in the life reactions of such a spirit-led mortal, "for the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance." Such spirit-guided and divinely illuminated mortals, while they yet tread the lowly paths of toil and in human faithfulness perform the duties of their earthly assignments, have already begun to discern the lights of eternal life as they glimmer on the faraway shores of another world; already have they begun to comprehend the reality of that inspiring and comforting truth, "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." And throughout every trial and in the presence of every hardship, spirit-born souls are sustained by that hope which transcends all fear because the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by the presence of the divine Spirit.

To know more and read this great treasure of revealed knowledge visit my website:

http://www.urantia-india.faithweb.com/

[Reproduced from the Author's Blog at SiliconIndia]

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit !

“Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. Those who are readers of the Bible might have read this famous discourse Jesus gave to the multitudes, many times. It is a verse from chapter 5 of the gospel according to St. Matthew in the New Testament Bible.

But have you ever thought of the deep lying message hidden in this verse? Only those who feel poor in spirit will ever hunger for righteousness. Only the humble seek for divine strength and crave spiritual power.

In the New Testament we also read about Jesus making his point clearer by telling the story of the two men visiting the temple to pray. One man was a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee was an important person of the society and the other was an ordinary worker of the society with little knowledge and importance. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself: 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, extortionists, unlearned, unjust, adulterers, or even like this publican. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' But the publican, standing at some distance did not lift his eyes to heaven but beat his breast, and said, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Jesus then explained that God heard the prayer of the poor publican. He said something like this: “I tell you that the publican went home with God's approval rather than the Pharisee, for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted."

Yet on another occasion some mothers brought their small children to Jesus for his blessings, but the disciples prevented them. Jesus reprimanded the disciples and said: "Do not prevent the little children to come to me; forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Verily, verily, I say to you, whosoever receives not the kingdom of God as a little child shall hardly enter therein.”

Remember, it is difficult for those with a high level of pride and ego to receive God’s grace and blessings. We have to learn to humble ourselves. Humility is the virtue that God likes. Ego and pride are vices that originate from powers that are ungodly and prevents one from receiving the graceful blessings from God. These vices are so destructive that those nurturing these knowingly or unknowingly are bound to destroy themselves, both materially and spiritually.

We often hear about ego clashes. A person blind with self pride cannot accept the view points of others. A society composed of egoistic persons can never hope to have peace. They are bound to clash till all of them perish. If not, peace and harmony will not be there. All will have to live in constant fear and anxiety about others like them. A person who nurtures self importance and pride in his or her own stature with little regard to others are not the children of God. They cannot love each other and care for others. They will do anything to satisfy their egos.

Violence often results from hurt feelings of egoistic persons. Egoistic persons cannot easily change. They feel that they are always right. Even when God himself were to offer them some good counseling, they are bound to reject it. No teacher can ever teach a student who boast himself of superior knowledge than the teacher himself. Knowledge is like water. It flows to low lying areas! We live in a society full of egoistic individuals. Though Jesus had tried to make us understand this again and again, we are yet to understand it.

Many claim to be Christians, followers of Jesus Christ. But they cannot change their ways and their heart. Their egos and pride do not allow them to be humble and accommodative. They cannot forgive others. They aspire for power, money, wealth, position and importance all for satisfying their egos. No matter what Jesus might have reminded them. They are all a divided lot fighting for superiority and never ever willing to accept what Jesus had taught them again and again. Their leaders might do the ritual of washing the feet of others as a meaningless imitation of what Jesus did centuries ago without ever forgoing their egos!

We believe in what we consider as right. But for evaluating right or wrong, our pride won’t even allow us to listen to our inner voice! Extreme pride and ego are characteristic traits of young adults migrating from childhood to adulthood. With age and experience, maturity develops. The more mature a person, the less his or her ego. Unfortunately, many people now-a-days only grow in age, but not in maturity. They seem to get no opportunity to learn from life experiences! But is it necessary to burn your fingers again and again to learn that fire can destroy? When in power many Saddams never ever imagine that they would one day face utter disgrace! When they enjoy power, money, wealth and position, they are high in spirit, making them potentially against divine providence.

True happiness, peace and love are characteristics of heaven. Our earth can be heaven. If only it is filled with blessed people. But to receive divine blessing, we need to empty our hearts of the all filling egos!

[Reproduced from the Author's Blog in SiliconIndia]