Edward’s Diary Entry 129: Am I Spiritual?

Someone said the other day in passing that I, Edward Wells, was more of a “spiritual type” as compared to that someone who was more “earthly”. It was said in Spanish, so it was more espiritual versus terrenal, not to be confused with “alien” as opposed to “terrestrial”! Although I’m a bit of an alien as well, I suppose.

Well, on this blog the word “spiritual” is infrequently used, and perhaps only figuratively or poetically at that (well, only about 35 times so far!). But there are at least two things to say about this.

1) We are all spiritual in the sense that we have to be more than just body, mind with its thoughts and feelings, and awareness, and that what really makes us “tick” must be a “spirit” if you want to use that term, whatever it means.

2) I cannot really accept the appellative of “spiritual” when most of the time I am talking about body and mind only, with a small amount of self-awareness thrown in for good measure. Learning and talking about body and mind is on the earthly level, at best the terrestrial psychological level, including a degree of self-awareness, and only beyond that – and for the moment far beyond that – lies the realm of the spiritual.

I might accept the adjective “spiritual” if we trace it back etymologically to “spirit” in the sense of “a breathing (respiration, of the wind, inspiration, hence “life”)”. I do certain breathing exercises and practise bringing self-awareness into breath, along with sensing exercises involving breath and the body. But that’s about it.

You see, in today’s world, anything goes by the name of “spiritual” if the subject isn’t just gossip, news, politics, religion or mankind’s and society’s constant troubles. As long as you throw in a few words about souls, spirits, beliefs, chakras, consciousness, meditation, third eyes, masters of wisdom or gurus, even nama and rupa, you’re supposed to be “spiritual”, even if you’re only repeating, parrot-like, someone else’s opinion or what you’ve read in a book.

So no, Edward knows a little too much to be “spiritual” in that sense, as words are not realities, are they? And “spiritual” in the sense of being capable of consciously living on another and higher dimension, if any – that’s not true about me…yet. I’m very down-to-earth in a way. And when you’re digging in the earth, a spade is always a spade. And words are just words, unfortunately. The only thing that could be called a little close to reality is that I do have a feeling that there must be a life force or spirit or prana or soul or higher body or Absolute or vital link with the cosmos, or some other term if you like, because the reasoning intellect cannot only satisfy itself with the inputs of the five senses and accept human interpretations of impressions as the basis of All There Is. And until such a time as one forges such connections within one’s own self, it’s going to be pretty hard to talk about what the “spiritual” world really is.

That’s why I am always reviewing the way the body and the mind, especially the mind, seem to function, because the first step is to clear up what is going on down here, before we start trying to describe what might be happening up there (or inside) in the so-called “spiritual world”.

So let’s just take it step by step and maybe we can stay on the right track… Stick with me, ye spirits!