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Nurturing Spiritual Health For Lasting Inner Peace
How healthy are you? I'm not talking about apple-eating-healthy, I'm talking about taking-care-of-your-soul healthy.
"The same pattern applies to all sports: When you restore position, you restore function. When you improve position, you improve function”
This is from Dr. Kelly Starrett's Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance. The above quote about physical health also applies to all other areas where health is important, including spirituality.
If we are honest with ourselves, most of religion is about tweaking this or that thought or behaviour. Usually to conform to what is expected or required by the group.
It’s like rearranging the furniture on a sinking ship.
Another analogy used in social activism is that it’s important to pull drowning people out of the river. But at some point, someone needs to go upstream and stop whoever’s throwing them in.
Or, like the philosopher Judith Butler suggests… how ultimately helpful is it to help the vulnerable? Shouldn’t we be asking what people, systems, and conditions made these people vulnerable in the first place?
The same goes for spirituality.
When we lack peace of mind. When we have no joy. When we have no patience. When we hate everybody. When we are not kind or generous or compassionate.
Is it ultimately helpful, say, to just work on our peace of mind by listening to this or that guru? Reading this or that book? Doing these or those exercises?
(This watercolor print is called "The Need to Leave". Sometimes it's just time to leave and find our own path. You can click on the image or HERE to take you to where I'm selling prints of this piece.)
Shouldn’t we, at some point, ask ourselves, “Wait a minute! The religion I’m practising promises all these things and I have none of them even though I’ve been following it for years!”
It’s time to go deeper. All the way to the root.
Here’s the thing: I can’t tell you what the root is for you. But I can say that just admitting to yourself, “This isn’t working!” is enough to get the ball rolling.
Just start with that, and see what happens.