NOTES FROM THE AWARENESS: 1368

Blended human.

We’re eternal spirits inhabiting human bodies. It’s a complicated undertaking. How do we make the most of our embodied life while acknowledging that there’s much more to existence that we can engage in and interact with, both while we’re alive and after we’re dead?

If we tend only to our spirituality, yearning for the peace and freedom of another life to come, we deny the entire purpose we have for being embodied. We miss out on the joys of being physical and are simply marking time until we die. And why would we be in a body if not to honor Creation by living in the happiest, most grateful way possible?

Certainly, we should enjoy love, friendship, coffee, birdsong, dancing, and anything else essentially benevolent that our heart desires. When we savor what physical life has to offer, we contribute our experiences to the collective consciousness. Why not make them the best possible offerings we can?

Conversely, if we simply live to seek pleasure without any consideration, kindness, or gratitude, we deny our spiritual nature. Life becomes a bit stale and meaningless. We may pursue one option after another, never finding underlying joy and happiness in being.

Just as we want to care for our physical bodies to have the best life possible, we also need to care for our spiritual selves. This means connecting with beauty and divinity in whatever gracious and kindly way speaks to us. It might be walks in nature, prayer, chanting, mindfulness, meditation, etc. It simply needs to work for us and we need to practice with some regularity.

Today’s message—appropriate for me (and others I suspect)—on this vernal equinox is that I need to balance our physical and spiritual natures. When I bring spiritual understanding into how I experience the wonders of physical life, I honor my purpose as a human.

Please reflect and share. Do you bring your spirituality into everyday life?

For more on this topic, please see Chapter 12 “Are Our Lives Spiritual Enough?” from my book “The Sharing: The Owner’s Manual for Being Human.”