An
Essay on
Spiritual
Substance
By
the Rev. Dave Sonmor
In
order to get a clear idea of what "spiritual
substance" is, I feel it is necessary to first
identify what is meant by spirit and what is meant by
substance. My dictionary tells me that
"spirit" is, "a persons animating
principle, intelligence, soul, or a disembodied
person," and also, "what is divine or
inspired." This then requires me to ask it (my
dictionary), "what is an animating principle?"
It tells me that, "animate means 'having
life'". Thus the animating principle would be that
which has life, hence can give life, as life engenders
life through procreation. Therefore, I would determine
that "spirit" is "that which gives
life." In our human case; that would be; that which
gives us our unique human life.
My
dictionary further tells me that "substance"
is "a particular kind of material with uniform
properties, and also, essence or reality. We might
deduce from this that human substance includes our
unique human physical body along with our human mind.
The body being a strictly physical/natural substance and
our mind, an abstract, non-material substance, along
with our life which is our spirit substance. Thus body,
mind and spirit make up the human being.
While
living in the physical/natural world our natural body
and environment play the major role in how we exist and
in what we determine to be most important in our life.
As we mature we find that our mind aspect becomes more
important to us. As young people we want to learn about
everything around us and be able to work and be involved
in both physical and mental exercises and activities.
But gradually as we soak up knowledge and develop
opinions about things, our mind aspect becomes more
prominent in our life than the physical aspect, as it is
growing while the physical aspect begins to wane. By the
time we reach sixty we may even be at the point of
becoming wise. In any event we find ourselves living
more and more in our head and less and less in the
physical activity of our body. Meanwhile The spiritual
aspect, which has been with us from our conception, has
been along on this journey throughout our life. It is
not dormant. It is just not clearly perceived by us
because body and mind have been prominent in getting us
through this earthly physical/mind oriented aspect of
our life.
We
may think that the spiritual substance in us will only
become an effective/active aspect of life after we
depart this earthly life, but in reality it has been an
essential part and has continually grown and governed
our activities, attitudes and behavior all along. It is
the substance that gives us our real human life but we
do not become fully aware or cognizant of that reality
until we cease to be in this world and become cognizant
of the life and reality of the World of the Spirit. We
then become aware that our spirit has always been that
underlying energy that guided and pushed us through our
earthly life.
While
in this natural world we tend to believe that reality is
present only in stuff that we perceive or experience
with our bodies physical senses of touch, sight,
hearing, smell and taste. If we hit a log with our fist
we quickly find that it is solid and therefore we deem
it to be substantial and real. We will also likely
experience the feeling of physical pain, which verifies
the reality of the log's existence and develops in us a
respect for that reality. Thus we can understand
physical substance and its existence But there is also a
kind of reality that is connected with our mind. Through
knowledge and experience and our ability to think, we
come to intuit that there is a substance of mind in our
human makeup. It does not have the solidity or texture
of physical objects but our experience of learning and
practicing our powers of rationality and reason are also
deemed to be real because of our experience with them.
There is a mental solidity in our thought processes
which for us is constant and durable. We can imagine and
consider things that have no physical reality or
substance to them, yet such ideas and thoughts can
produce structures of unity and cooperation that are
very real and can make life here very pleasant.
Through
the reality of our mind activity and it's connection
with our spirit and substance we can experience love. We
cannot see love with our eyes and we cannot feel love
with our touch but we none the less know love when it is
present in our life. It is beyond a doubt the highest
level of mind life that we can experience. It is not
limited to just marital love , but includes love for our
children our extended family members and our fellow
human beings. We can also experience love for the uses
that we serve to our community and organizations we
belong to. We can love the work we do.
As
we see a link between body substance and mind substance
we can also see a link between mind substance and
spiritual substance. Much of the love we experience at
the mind level is recognized by us through the joy we
experience from it. True marriage love is one form that
borders on spiritual love because that kind of love
involves caring more about the well being and the needs
of the other person than about ones own safety and
wellbeing. In other words, that their life and happiness
is more important than our own. Therefore we gladly
serve one another without always thinking that we should
be getting a reward because of some sacrifice we are
making. It is a reciprocal kind of love so it differs
from that of a parents love for their children, which is
more one sided.
This
brings us to spiritual substance which is the main
subject of this discourse. How do we know it exists? How
do we know it is real or substantial. What is it? I
suggested earlier on that spirit is an underlying energy
that guides and pushes us through our earthly life. It
is with us from conception through to total spiritual
life, which is eternal. It is "life itself"
which comes to us from only one source which is God.
Spiritual substance is not fully comprehensible to us
while we are in this world, but in the light of the
spiritual world where our spiritual senses are fully
conscious and operational for us, , we become completely
aware that the spiritual substance that we possess is
from the Lord whose very essence is love.
It
is the Lord God who provides this love and life to all
who are willing to receive it. How do we know it exists?
Because we experience it. How do we know it is real?
Because we feel it within our innermost being and share
it with others. What is it? It is our very life-force.
It is substantial and eternal. While we are in this
world we must contend with undeveloped spiritual
faculties and awareness and accept through faith in the
Lord that He will provide us with everlasting life.
The
writings of the New Church tell us, through Swedenborg's
insights and observations, that God created the universe
and everything in it from His Divine Love by means of
His Divine Wisdom. If this is true then the substance of
our material/physical world and life has its substance
from the originating substance, which is love. The
solidity of our natural substances is real to us in our
earthly life. The reality of the rocks of the universe
and our world are substance at its grossest or most
external form and yet when we break it down into the
multitude of elements contained in each grain of it we
discover more and more aspects and variables to it,
which scientists are now discovering are primarily
various forms of energy. It is not a huge stretch to see
that that energy is not in itself material.
In
conclusion I feel that it is reasonable and rational to
accept the concept that the energy, which is not
perceived by us through our physical senses, is
essentially spiritual. Therefore, we can also understand
that as love from God descends down through His creation
it does so by degrees as it moves from what is Divine
through what is spiritual to what is material.
I
think we human beings are truly blessed in that we can
actively participate in both spiritual and physical life
through a conscious relationship with the Divine. What
do you think?
Dave
Music:
Dream of Angels, Live in Love
© Bruce De Boer - Used with Permission
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