The spiritual world of man is a kind of mirror in which the intellectual life of the entire society is reflected. Its basis is social consciousness with all its structural elements and social levels. At the same time, the individual also has his own, separate world, capable of functioning independently, regardless of what is happening in society.
The formation of a person’s spiritual world is influenced by:
- conditions of everyday life, both domestic and general political;
- targeted influence on the individual by society;
- practical activities in society;
- training, education, improvement, self-control.
Worldview and meaning of life evolve over time on a rational and empirical level, taking into account the psychology of society, its consciousness and ideology. Social consciousness becomes the fundamental basis on which the formation of personality takes place. Unlike the consciousness of an individual, which is focused mainly on its own intellectual content and structure, the spiritual world of a person is aimed at the embodiment of ideological goals and human essence as a whole.
What does the inner world of an individual consist of?
The spiritual world of any person contains:
- a system of values that define the worldview and give it practical meaning;
- goals that are consciously set to realize one’s value baggage;
- spiritual needs, consisting in the opportunity to understand the world around us, to express oneself through art, science, culture and other forms of human activity;
- the ability to understand and realize oneself in a social environment in one way or another;
- conviction of the significance of one’s actions for others, based on already formed views of the world;
- emotional and sensory support for one’s views and actions from an authoritative part of society.
All this is based only on society’s knowledge of the world around us and faith in its ultimate justice. Both are based on the individual’s value apparatus and his worldview, which can be:
- everyday - based on life experience and formed based on current circumstances;
- religious - based on the religious ideas of the individual;
- scientific - the authority for which is only scientific knowledge;
- humanistic - based on ideas about the scientific nature of views, their justice in a social sense, morality, as well as environmental considerations.
The system of human values, from which any worldview stems, is oriented towards the aspirations of the individual and the meaning of his life. As for the ideals of an individual, they act as a standard of behavior in society and motivate the behavior itself.
The spiritual values of an individual are not eternal. They depend on living conditions and may vary as they change. Another thing is the universal human values that modern civilization has developed over centuries. They are based on the spiritual practice of all generations of humanity, which includes the universal needs of each individual, regardless of race, nationality, class, religion or age.
The priority of universal human values over individual ones is undeniable. The inner world of any personality should be formed within this framework. The individual becomes involved in social life and gradually masters its constants, developed by time and constituting his moral foundation.
Vital energy
⠀⠀For the Spirit to incarnate into a body, it must have vitality. When the Spirit goes for incarnation, it is given life energy from a divine source - from God. Life energy is the energy of Light and Love. The volume or amount of vital energy is determined for him by spiritual consultants, Mentors. The spirit agrees to this step by right of free will or does not agree. There is no agreement - there is no incarnation on Earth in the material world.
⠀⠀Whoever creates evil and destruction does not realize the presence of the Divine energy of Light in him. Lost awareness of connection with God. We are all rays of God’s Light, his energy. God, as energy, is continuously present on Earth. Limiting beliefs in the mind do not allow a person to realize that he is a Ray of Divine Energy.
⠀⠀If a person realizes that the spiritual energy of the Spirit, embodied on Earth in the material world, was received by him from God, then he begins to feel it as a merger with God. When you enter the energy of the Light of God, you feel like an immortal being. Then the person says: “I am Light, I am God.”
⠀⠀If a person is full of Love, he does not need any commandments. Without cultivating Love in oneself, without inner Light in the soul, all religious rituals and prayers, sacrifices, donations and even death itself for the sake of faith are not valuable.
⠀⠀The words of Jesus Christ “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through me” were spoken by him about himself, for he was in a state of merging with the Light of God. If one does not come to the Father, it means that one who does not follow the path of Light does not come to the realization of merging with the Father. A person must be virtuous because virtue is his true nature.
⠀⠀Christians who do not have Light in their Soul, who do not have their own experience of Light, understand and interpret this expression as follows: everyone must believe in Jesus Christ as God in order to be with God. Already the early Christians created a false image of Christ, not just distorting his teaching and greatness, but transforming the internal into the external - God, present in the depths of the human Spirit, was declared God in the flesh, who must be worshiped. Jesus' genetic father was from the planet Burhad.
⠀⠀Thus, a division occurs at the level of egregors: on the one hand, prayers are offered to Jesus Christ, on the other hand, Christians deny Love to everyone who does not follow the path of Christ.
⠀⠀His words apply to followers of any religious system. Reading religious literature, rituals and prayers, without putting into it your feelings, emotions and bright thoughts of Love for people, do not lead to spiritual experience. This leads away from the Light of God and will not bring real spiritual contact with God. Love is the vital energy of human development.
Knowledge is one of the pillars of the inner world
The consciousness of the individual, and with it the spiritual world of the individual in its formation, is based on acquired knowledge about the surrounding reality, which is refracted through the prism of existing information and experience and fixed in human memory. Memory records, stores and, if necessary, reproduces the results of cognitive activity. This function of the human psyche is selective: not all information received at a certain moment is remembered for a long time, but only that part of it that caused a sufficiently strong emotional reaction and has special significance in the life of an individual. Everything else is forgotten and no longer belongs to knowledge.
Cognition in spiritual life works as a method of realizing consciousness through life experience obtained as a result of the interaction of the individual with the surrounding reality. Humanity has developed two main ways of acquiring knowledge:
- Empirical. Based on sensory experience, leaving in memory specific knowledge about the environment;
- Theory. This is the knowledge that includes the historical experience of all humanity, contained in fiction and scientific literature, works of culture and art, architectural creations left over from the past.
The worldview of life, obtained empirically, begins in a child from the moment of his birth. The sense organs turn out to be a kind of windows into the world, through which the child’s spiritual life is filled with first impressions that make up his worldview. As time passes, information accumulates in memory, is systematized there, and will subsequently become a spiritual guide in practical activities.
Language becomes the main tool in the theoretical way of acquiring knowledge. It is with its help that a person accumulates and generalizes other people’s experience, which goes beyond the limits of individual consciousness. In addition, language facilitates communication with other people, as well as targeted influence on them. Through linguistic communication, a person acquires a number of norms and principles that determine his actions in the social environment.
Empirical and theoretical knowledge, brought into logical unity, form the basis of an individual’s worldview, or his intellect. The level of intelligence is determined not only by the amount of knowledge. In the first place for a truly spiritual person is the ability to use them in practice.
The role of faith in human spiritual life
Few educated people doubt that religion has become one of the leading factors in human history. Its influence on individuals, their societies and states was different. It elevated some and elevated them to the heights of culture, while it destroyed others or reduced their spiritual life to an absolute primitive. This applies to a whole range of human communities.
At the heart of every religion is Faith. When applied to a specific religious institution, we are talking about belief in a specific god. If we talk about a more general definition of faith, it consists in the belief that there is an all-powerful force in the world that can solve all the problems that a person faces in life in some miraculous way. Religion is the personification of this faith.
Depending on the ideological trends of the era, Faith can unite a variety of people or make them enemies of each other, encourage heroism or call for non-resistance to evil, promote creativity, the development of written and monumental culture, or call for the burning of great works of art at the stake and the destruction of monuments.
Through religion, a person orients his life towards a specific religious worldview, which includes the ideals, views and principles of this Faith on the structure and functioning of the world, clarifies the place of each individual in it, and tells him the true meaning of human life. This gives society:
- Comfort in times of sorrow and hope that they are not eternal;
- Energy that awakens missionary inclinations, caused by the desire to share with others your successes as a result of communication with God and thereby alleviate their lot;
- Self-control over one’s actions through a religious system of moral values, internal guidelines and taboos. This principle often extends from an individual to an entire state. In this case, huge communities of people begin to live according to the canons of this religion, often very inhuman;
- Communicative inclinations that promote unity with other people on the principles of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, or some other less significant religion. Alliances are also possible on the basis of antagonistic currents within a particular religion, for example, similar to the opposition of Catholics and Protestants within Christianity. Also, people can be united not only by religious faith, but simply by a certain commonality of views;
- Inspiration that revitalizes spiritual life, gives it tangible meaning and directs it to the goal. With the help of inspiration, life acquires an emotional coloring, is filled with feelings that inspire the path to achieving the goal, making it brighter and clearer;
- A sense of stability in life, which is based on historical experience, knowledge of religious traditions and secular laws of a given society. Religion is the most conservative of social institutions. Stability and peace are the basis of his foundations. Going beyond any canons gives rise to self-doubt, although it is this path that has always contributed to the development of all human societies.
Human spirituality
So what is “spirituality”? If we take each specific religion separately (namely, the concept of “spirituality” is now usually attributed to the sphere of religion), then we can find that sometimes the external forms of behavior and morality that certain religions and teachings offer us can completely contradict each other. However, you need to be able to see the essence behind the external. It is important to understand that this world is multifaceted and the concept of good and evil is relative. Rules and commandments were invented so that a person would take the path and gain some kind of initial basis of behavior.
However, blindly acting as it is written in some book is, as historical experience shows, a path to nowhere. As one progresses on the spiritual path, a person begins to understand that everything, in essence, can be an instrument and that there are no absolutely righteous and absolutely unrighteous deeds. At the initial stage, of course, one should adhere to the basic principles of morality of the religion or teaching that a person follows, or simply generally accepted social norms, if a person has chosen for himself the path of spiritual development outside of any religion or philosophy. But this is only necessary at the initial stage. When a person has already gained control over his mind and can act based on common sense, at this stage everything should be subjected to a more in-depth analysis and not blindly follow any stereotypes or dogmas. Compassion for all living beings should be the guiding light of the spiritual man.
It’s like in mathematics - if you have mastered four mathematical operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, then solving any complex examples, equations, identities, and so on will not be difficult. Just as a schoolchild works hard to master the four basic operations of mathematics, so a spiritual person must first cultivate compassion for all living beings. If this is achieved, then everything else follows from this.
What does spirituality mean?
Appearances are deceiving - we often come across confirmation of this statement. In spiritual development, this principle is more relevant than anywhere else. Sometimes someone who looks like a spiritual person, or a system that positions itself as a system of spiritual development, carries completely different goals. And spirituality is, first of all, the state of our soul, and not some external attributes. You can twist your rosary 24/7, read prayers and eat Easter pies, but at the same time judge others, be rude to your loved ones and, in general, hate all dissidents. Sometimes you can often see such comical situations when, during the period of a religious holiday, people buy food in a supermarket. And among purchases, alcohol makes up at least 30–50% of the total number of products purchased. And if you hint to such a person that he is not preparing a very healthy meal for himself, then the answer will be in the style of: “Well, it’s a holiday!”
All external attributes are present: a beautiful table will be set, and even toasts will be made, but all this will turn into a banal drinking session and filling the stomach. And there is another example: when a person on a great holiday does not bake pies and does not stand in church with a pathetic look, and generally does not even remember that today is a holiday, but simply does a good deed. And not even in honor of a holiday (as is often customary among pseudo-religious people), and not for the sake of some spiritual “goodies” like heavenly life after death, and not because it is written so somewhere, in some smart book, which everyone is ordered to follow, but simply because he cannot do otherwise, simply because it is a deep desire, the desire of his soul - to do good deeds.
After all, the desire to do good deeds is our true nature. And to reveal this quality in yourself, removing the veil of false and imposed selfish attitudes - this is true spirituality. The desire for our true Self is our deepest desire. Just as a traveler in a dark forest only for a moment saw the shine of the windows of a house that could shelter him on a cold autumn night, so each of us only occasionally, in a break between the bustle of the world, can see the light of our soul, hear the voice of our true “I”. But just as a traveler, inspired by the fleeting shine of the windows of a friendly house, will tirelessly break through a dark forest, so each of us sooner or later realizes that the desire to reveal the light of our soul, our true “I” is the best thing that can be achieved In this life. And believe me, a traveler breaking through the thorny thickets of a dark forest will one day come to the edge of the forest and knock on the door of the house - towards his true “I”.
Interaction between the individual and society in spirituality
Knowledge and intelligence, as well as the ability to use them, form individual consciousness, but in themselves do not yet become the key to harmonious interaction with society. Social and civic experience become part of people's inner life only if they accept the moral and governmental foundations of this world. Only they are able to adequately evaluate their actions and activities in general.
The consciousness of an individual in a social environment is constantly controlled by reason, which consists in the ability to analyze and balance one’s achievements with intentions, which can be much broader than specific actions and are not always able to rely on generally accepted norms of a social group or society as a whole. Life in society forces people to be guided by its laws. This can cause a conflict between the individual and his own interests and needs, and from time to time push him to selfish actions that are contrary to generally accepted morality. In this case, the rule-breaker risks becoming an outcast and being ostracized by people.
The other side of this social coin is patriotism - an emotional and moral state that pushes a person to get closer to society, causing a willingness to live by its interests, to limit their material and spiritual needs for the sake of goals that seem more important than personal ones.
The sensory-emotional factor here becomes a consequence of the already formed spiritual life of the individual, who, having realized the significance of the knowledge acquired in the process of education and upbringing about society, its history, moral and religious norms, mobilizes all her intellectual baggage for the benefit of this society and thereby becomes socially significant , and not just a person in himself.
Not a single person can do without developing their inner world. Each of us, to one degree or another, has a certain amount of knowledge about life necessary for practical activities. But the highest value is only that state of the human spirit that is conducive not only to personal needs, but also to the life of society. Then the inner life of the individual will acquire true meaning and will not fall into oblivion.
Human feelings and emotions
An important part of a person’s inner world is his diverse feelings and emotions. Emotion is some kind of excitement, short-term agitation of the psyche, which arises as a result of an individual’s contact with internal or external stimuli. The main types of emotions are: joy, sadness, delight, disgust, interest, anger, surprise, shame, fear.
Every day people experience dozens and even hundreds of emotions as a result of external or internal events occurring in their lives. An external event can be meeting a friend, waiting in line for a long time, watching a movie, and others. Internal events are more difficult to recognize, but they can also evoke different types of emotions in a person. For example, an individual remembered the death of a relative and instantly experienced despondency, pain, fear, and anger. Then he thought about his work and felt disgust, dreamed about his upcoming vacation and felt joy.
Feelings, unlike emotions, are long-term experiences, stable sets of emotional connections tied to a particular object. Most often, feelings are expressed in relation to individuals, groups of people, or even the entire society. However, feelings can also manifest themselves towards inanimate objects: attachment to a mobile phone, love of money, hatred of trolleybuses.
Feelings are conventionally divided into several separate categories:
- Moral feelings - they are aimed at bringing benefit to society, at achieving mutual understanding between people. These include duty and conscience, goodwill, mercy, and a sense of justice. A person’s moral feelings are assessed by society as positive and are approved by the majority of people in society.
- Immoral feelings are a set of negative emotions aimed at an individual, a group of people or society. These usually include envy, hatred, greed, and ill will.
- Intellectual feelings are manifested in the process of people’s cognitive activity: this is surprise from an unexpectedly found solution, satisfaction from the work done, doubt about the reliability of the data.
- Aesthetic feelings are experienced by a person in the process of his contact with beautiful or ugly phenomena of the surrounding world.
All types of human emotions and feelings influence his behavior, habits and character.
