You’ve heard that you are a spiritual being having a human experience, but you’re not sure if you believe it or really know what it means. You wonder, can we prove that we are spiritual beings?
In my blog post entitled, What is Spirit I explained that Spirit is the animating factor that brings the body and mind to life. Without Spirit, these aspects of your personality are simply dull, inert matter.
The body and mind are mere matter
The physical body is made up of gross matter that can be seen, heard, tasted, smelled and touched. The mind is made up of thoughts which are much more subtle and cannot be perceived by the 5 senses. And hence, the mind is known as subtle matter.
The mind that I am referring to here is not the brain. The brain belongs to the physical body and is gross matter. The thoughts of the mind appear to be localized in the brain, but they are not the brain.
Matter – whether it’s the gross body or the subtle mind – has no capacity to move or function on its own.
You may protest and say, “My mind is not mere matter! It is conscious and alive.” Notice that you said, “My mind.” Instinctively you know that your mind belongs to you. It’s not you.
You are Spirit functioning through your human body and mind.
Spirit lies beyond the perception of your five senses or thought of by the mind. Why?
Here’s an everyday example to explain this.
Think of electricity working through any of the gadgets in your home such as the toaster, fan and TV. You don’t actually see the electricity that makes these gadgets and appliances function. Yet, you know it is there, simply because they’re functioning. Electricity runs hidden behind them.
In the same way as electricity, the Spiritual you lies behind your body and the mind, enabling them to function.
You can’t experience the cause that animates your body and mind (Spirit) outside of you.
It’s because of Spirit that your body and mind are alive and functioning.
To explain this, let’s take the example of a TV. For fun, let’s say it can think and talk. One day, in a deeply contemplative mood, the TV decides that it wants to directly experience the cause of it’s thinking and talking capacity (electricity), outside of itself.
It searches for the source of that electricity and finds that it is coming from the socket in the wall. In an attempt to see electricity outside of itself, it pulls the plug from the socket in the wall. What happens? The TV immediately dies!
It cannot see and experience the presence of its cause outside of itself. It’s because of electricity that the TV is functioning.
In the same way as the TV, you can’t experience yourself as Spirit outside yourself. You can only infer that it is there because the personality ‘you’ are alive and functioning.
I hope you will take a few minutes to stop and reflect on these simple facts. In Part 2, I will share further proof that you are a spiritual being by explaining how the physical organs do not sustain life in your body. In fact, they owe their existence to something else. And, that is the animating factor called Spirit.
Continue reading more proof in the next two blog posts:
Proof that you are a spiritual being. (part 2/3)
Proof that you are a spiritual being (part 3/3)
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