Have you ever laid on warm ground on a late summer afternoon surrounded by the scent of succulent green grass that fills your body’s senses as you gaze at the heavens above? Vapors of particles come together forming shapes seen as clouds that appear and disappear before your very eyes. Laws that dictate these appearances are ethereal or intangible in nature much like spirit; felt but unseen they exist never the less.
Perhaps you’ve been in the middle of a fierce storm; winds blowing and dark ominous clouds swirl about threatening to touch down between you and the horizon you stare upon. You sense a ferocity of nature that can’t be controlled by any means of intervention once conditions conducive to certain environmental conditions culminate often resulting in havoc and devastation.
If you have ever witnessed the birth of a child, a sense of wonder and awe is felt as one form emerges from another; a beautiful shell imbued with the ethereal breath of life in a world of form and matter. With those first breaths a life force emerges from the newborn child which is inherent in the invisible spark of light that is elusive yet audibly apparent with each soft, gentle breath that comes forth from the child.
At the end of life, when death of the human form sets aside the shell of cells, organs, muscles, and bones which are no longer viable in physical form, perhaps you’ve watched the life force slowly, serenely separate from a body and return to the ether’s from which it came to mingle and lay once again in repose with the original source from which it came; whatever that may be. Intuitively, you sensed an ethereal spirit greater than human perception; divine and magnificent by nature – difficult to make sense of as it constantly expands and contracts – forever changing in infinite dimensions unknown without reference and relevancy of any kind.
All of these phenomena reflect an intangible essence present in life. It is energy which cannot be created or destroyed and is often associated with spirit and constructs of a spiritual nature.
Holistic professionals. for example, recognize the challenge of conveying higher mind insights relative to energetic work and the services they provide as misconceptions often prevail based on biased religious beliefs that perpetuate confusion relative to the true nature of spirituality and religion.
On a personal level, if you view life from a spiritual and mental perspective perhaps you have encountered attitudes from family, friends, and business associates who are skeptical about the nature of spirituality as it conflicts with conditioned religious beliefs they may have.
Honoring traditional religious views and embracing spirituality may at first seem daunting, since it can indeed be difficult to make sense of that which is intangible, ethereal, and elusive by nature. When we constantly mature our understandings, however, and become more physically, mentally, and spiritually coherent, flawed interpretations are replaced with true understandings that clear away limiting debris that exists.
When we truly understand the nature of intangible energy present in both spiritual and religious constructs and dispel the stigma associated with flawed thinking, spirituality looses woe-woe thinking associations as one realizes that there truly is no threat to accepted religious doctrines, since spirit or energy is present in all conceptualizations originating from the fabric of life.
Consider the constructs associated with the word faith; often associated with religious beliefs. Faith in the spiritual sense is a powerful equalizer of imbalances that appear and disappear as it represents energy in motion. When faith is manifested on a physical level it is governed by laws of nature and physics, not religious doctrines as it does not serve any specific purpose as dogma often implies.
All world religions present a valuable service as they define a code of ethics, morals, and standards to live by, while alluding to the intangible nature of spirituality without specific references as such. If however the human spirit is fractured oftentimes faith-based doctrines will backfire when one’s personal interpretation of faith is compromised through tragedy, disease, doubt, and conflict. Society then lashes out, targeting doctrine specific belief systems different from their own rather than acknowledge the true nature of pain and suffering brought on by one’s resistance to life, and the lack of personal accountability.
Religious constructs offer something to believe in, practice, and identify with, since humans tend to feel over-whelmed by the infinitesimal nature of their humanity in a universal scheme grander and far more reaching than most human minds can perceive and understand. However, we do not need to fully understand our spiritual nature to live in such a way that we do no harm to ourselves and others. We simply have to accept that which IS while we observe and reason life as it unfolds. With this clarity there is no conflict relative to spirituality and religion for the two are recognized as one.
With balanced, coherent insights accurately reasoned and implemented we begin to recognize that the human shell – much like the framework of a church – has no real substance. It is the essence of spirit that fills and gives substance to the human body. It’s the energy or essence of spirit, not concepts of spirituality and religion, which remains intact after the death of human form. Acknowledge if you will religious constructs as a way to mold beliefs and model behaviors on the earthly plane where they belong – albeit unnecessary in the spiritual realm – while continuing to truly embrace and investigate the empowering nature of spirit which shall always be an inseparable aspect in the wholeness of life itself.