1: Defining Spirituality

What is spirituality? It is a belief in a power greater than ourselves. That power goes by many names: the Great Spirit, a Higher Power, God, Goddess, Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Vishnu, Buddha, the Tao, to name a few. The movie Star Wars called it "the Force." In this booklet, we use the term the divine.

Living a spiritual life can lead to an elevated state of being - a state that lifts us above the details of our everyday lives and puts us in touch with the larger spiritual or philosophical issues that confront us all: the meaning of life, the nature of goodness, the reasons for tragedy and evil, the meaning of death, the nature of the divine, and so on. Attaining that elevated state is made possible by the existence of our spirit or soul.

Despite claims in the media that people are falling away from traditional, organized religions, there is still, I believe, a strong desire to be spiritual. On the one hand, people are embracing new-age faiths. On the other hand, there has been a resurgence of interest in very church-centered evangelical religions such as Pentecostalism. Clearly, much soul-searching is going on.

You yourself may be part of these trends. If not, you undoubtedly recognize their existence.

Spirituality in the context of this booklet will, however, take a different turn. Swirl is an attempt to bring universally inclusive spirituality-based living into the twenty-first century and beyond. It is meant to enhance rather than replace or interfere with current religious beliefs. It is a guide to modern faith and can help us attract what we need into our lives by recognizing and employing a few simple truths.

• Our soul is a form of energy. It enters and exists in our bodies through seven points called chakras.
• The soul, our energy, is made up of our thoughts and feelings. What we think and feel affects the development of our soul.
• Our thoughts are like electric energy, an infinite and continuous flow. What we send out into the world in the form of thoughts and questions follows the law of intelligence.
• Our feelings are like magnetic energy, pulling us into circumstance after circumstance like a magnet pulls itself to steel or to another magnet. What we feel inside follows the law of attraction.
• When we die, our soul, our electromagnetic energy, leaves our bodies. Eventually, another body will be found; this might take a day, a minute or a thousand years, but eventually the soul, the electromagnetic energy, will join with the body at the seven chakras once again to complete one spiritual cycle and begin another.

The Energy Within

The energy we feel inside ourselves is made up of our feelings, thoughts, and questions. Sometimes we consciously acknowledge these feelings and thoughts - whether they involve family, work, or leisure - and sometimes we don't. Regardless, the energy is there and it affects our lives. We can't change that. What we can change is how it affects our lives.

In Canada, where I live, we are allowed to say what we think and to share what we feel. We don't always choose to, but we can. Generally, it is safe for us to do so. In this multicultural country people are encouraged to celebrate and honor their history. We are given the freedom to build a future of our choice.

It is possible in Canada to begin with nothing more than the shirt on our backs and build a comfortable lifestyle, one that is more comfortable than what the majority of the world's population can afford. Many pioneers, immigrants, and entrepreneurs, throughout the history of this country, have proven this.

I've met some of these people and in them I've noticed one similarity: they all have the energy or spirit necessary to overcome obstacles. Within that spirit is focus, persistence, determination, a strong belief in self, and a sense of adventure - a powerful combination of thoughts and feelings that enables them to change and improve their lives.

Whatever it is that you wish to improve in your own life - your financial situation, your career, your emotional well-being - you have the power to do that through the energy within, your thoughts, questions, and feelings.

Our Sense of Community

It's often been said that as a man thinks, so he is. We sometimes forget it is also true that as a person feels, so he or she is. As a community feels and thinks, so it is...As a country feels and thinks, so it is...As a world feels and thinks, so it is.

We are all part of many communities: the world, our continent, country, province or state, city, neighborhood, home, workplace, church, sports club, and many others. Each one of us has an effect on each community we belong to. Each thought and feeling we express affects the people we connect with and, most importantly, what we attract into our lives.

Most of us have, at some point, blamed the world for our circumstances. Instead of projecting our disappointments onto others and giving the power for our lives over to the world, we could take back the power, and make our world what we want. Everything we need to make changes already exists inside ourselves. We have that power.

Changes can be as simple as wishing the world were a kinder place and choosing to think, feel, and act more kindly ourselves. The changes we make may seem small or insignificant, but they always create a ripple effect, like a pebble dropping into a pond. John F. Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country." The greatest effect we have on our country, our communities, our world, is in how we think and feel.

I believe that the purpose of the Bible and other sacred scriptures is to guide us in choosing our questions, thoughts, feelings, and resulting actions wisely. There is something amazing about these texts. Ages after they were written, their words and stories continue to trigger strong emotions and thoughtful questions in many people.

We continually strive to understand the sacred scriptures at a deeper level. But perhaps each of these scriptures would become clearer with a different type of exploration. What if we looked at all of them - the Bible along with other holy books, sacred stories and text from many civilizations and humanities - together? Finding the common denominators may be the way to discover the true teachings of the divine.