Greed, Pride, Prejudice, Fear, Hatred, Hopelessness: Spiritual Ills and How to Cure Them

Greed, pride, prejudice, fear, hatred, hopelessness.

These are all spiritual illnesses. They happen when we forget that we are spiritual beings, when we ignore the Divine, and let our egos overpower our souls.

You may have noticed these illnesses are rampant in the world today. That's because there are no political, financial, or scientific solutions to spiritual illnesses, and our religious institutions are obsolete failures. The only solution is for more people to build a strong and healthy relationship to the Divine -- not to be more "religious" but to be more spiritually healthy.

Spiritual illnesses can afflict an individual, a family, a community. When enough people have them they can sicken an entire country.

Spiritual illnesses drive us crazy, make us do insane things. Greed makes us steal, pride makes us lie, prejudice divides us from others and makes us fear them.
But a spiritually healthy person is giving and caring, because nothing in the world is worth more than a healthy soul.
A spiritually healthy person is confident enough to be humble, and humble enough to speak the truth.
A spiritually healthy person knows that we are each a manifestation of the singular Divine Spirit. We are all spiritual blobs pinched off the same big colorful ball of spiritual play-doh.

Spiritual illnesses lead us to hurt ourselves and those around us. Fear is a stabbing pain in our hearts and minds that keeps us from loving, trusting, living. Hatred is that same fear turned outward, our attempt to offload our pain onto those we fear, those we are unable to trust or love.
A spiritually healthy person is not afraid of anything. Not terrorists or criminals, not illness or death. Not the Devil, and (despite religious exhortations) not God.
A spiritually healthy person cannot hate, because how can you hate someone who is a part of you? How can one hate anybody or anything when we are all connected, all one in the Spirit?

And the worst of all spiritual illnesses is hopelessness. Our past has taught us hatred and fear, our future looks like more of the same. In the here and now we feel unknown and unloved. We are so disconnected from life that death seems like the only open door, the only path to reality. The suicide rate in America has gone up over 30% since 1999, and is now the second leading cause of death for those aged 10 to 34. Think about that -- our young people, some not even teens yet, are choosing death over an ego-driven, spiritually ill existence.

A spiritually healthy person is always present, here and now, addressing life's surprises and accidents with calm and ease. They are not tortured by the past, or intimidated by the future. They follow their spiritual path fearlessly, relentlessly, even when the road ahead is not clear. They know they are connected to all creatures and all of creation through the Divine Ground of Being. And they know that by staying spiritually healthy themselves, they are leading their friends, family, community and all of creation toward a future with more hope and less spiritual illness.

In coming weeks I plan to post more about spiritual illness:
Why it happens.
Why science cannot prevent it.
How and why religions are making it worse.
How to overcome it.

Plus!: Transcendental Meditation 50 years later -- a path to God that became a multi-million dollar industry.