Why Does Having an Empowering Spiritual Philosophy Matter?

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“What we think, we become.” Buddha said 2500 years ago. 500 years earlier Solomon was even more direct, “As a man thinks in his heart, so he is.” The correlation between our thinking/feeling centers of being directly affects who we are and who we will be in the future. It’s impossible to be anything else.

This is why so many are stuck in life. So what can we do about it?

The Apostle Paul exhorts in the New Testament: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The Greek word translated transformed is the word metamorphoo derived from meta “to change” and morphoo “form” or to change form. It’s the same word we get metamorphous that we use when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. When we renew our thinking/feeling, who we are and what we are becoming changes along with it. People call this a paradigm shift. We exchange one pattern of belief that doesn’t work all that well for an empowering belief pattern that changes our lives.

Paradigm shifts are extremely challenging and somewhat rare for most people because something has to engage us with enough force/inspiration to break the old patterns of belief; an extremely hard thing to do. To add greater difficulty to the challenge our thinking/feeling center often is directed by our subconscious thoughts and beliefs. These subconscious thoughts and beliefs rule our lives while flying under the radar of what we think we believe and they often cannot tell the difference between reality and the not real. That’s why we sometimes act or respond in ways that we can’t figure the reason why.

There is nothing holding us back but our own beliefs. They run very deep. So what do we do?

We create an empowering philosophy to revolutionize our thinking. By formalizing and writing down a focused simple philosophy that is above all empowering we almost have a portable brain formatted without limiting beliefs. This is the key between having beliefs that control us and beliefs we control. By creating a philosophy of beliefs around concepts that create a Great Big Life, we can act from our philosophy rather than an often unknowable mish mash of limiting beliefs. It’s our litmus test we test our actions by before we act.

Michelangelo was once asked how he created sculptures that were such masterpieces. He answered simply, “You chip off everything that shouldn’t be there.” Creating an empowering philosophy gives you a far superior and intentional belief system to chisel your own life into a masterpiece.

To do this we’ll begin with Merriam-Webster’s simple Definition of spirit: “the force within a person that is believed to give the body life, energy, and power.” In other words, it’s safe to say our spirit is life’s true essence.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist wrote: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” It stands to reason that if indeed our true essence is we are spiritual beings and our life energy and power derives from our spirit then a tremendously key aspect of having a Great Big Life is our ability to grow our spiritual capacity.

Jesus showed us he deeply understood the importance of spirituality when he spoke of his purpose: “I have come that they may have life, life to the fullest.” An empowered spiritual life is the key to a life overflowing with fullness.

Unfortunately, humankind has this strange flaw of turning spirituality into a system of doctrine and rules we call religion so we can be the ones in charge rather than simply aligning with an infinite Creator – to true spirituality’s detriment. I understand we do this because it’s too big for us and we don’t do well with things too big. We don’t like feeling small and insignificant.

But what if rather than making us feel small and insignificant, the spiritual realm’s very vastness is meant to convey our tremendous significance and potential by showing us we have an infinite playground larger than our wildest imagining designed for us to play in?

Understanding our spiritual capacity and how to grow it.

Jesus radically redefined spirituality. More than anything he removed religion from spiritual participation. One of his oft-used phrases was, “You have heard it said, but I tell you the truth…” That’s the nice way of saying your religious leaders have it wrong and I’m setting the record straight. He went so far as to call these leaders and teachers white-washed tombs – meaning they looked good on the outside but what they taught was spiritual death which resulted in their own inner decay.

When finite, narrow seeing humans seek to narrowly define and describe an infinite, incomprehensible being we call God we end up with something that traps us rather than sets us free. So Jesus kept it simple and often intentionally vague because he wanted it to be relevant and applicable to any age, culture, or scientifically advanced civilization. By practicing and growing in these simple few concepts we are able to grow our spiritual capacity, leading to a life lived to its fullness. Jesus clarified four spiritual realities we all must grow in:

1. God as an intimate Father. This explains what our position to the Universe really is.
2. We as his children with His spiritual DNA. This explains our true birthright and inner quality we are created with and its benefits.
3. His realm woven into the fabric of the universe. This explains the spiritual physics of the Universe we live in. It’s all part of one thing.
4. How to use these spiritual resources. The daily practice of applying our position, birthright, and available resources for a far greater life.

Jesus’s purpose was to show us the way to the fullest possible life, he revealed that a life that impacts their world was the best way to experience true fullness in life. Jesus claimed he was, “…the way, the truth, and the life.” In other words, he came to show us the truth about the way to life lived in its fullest.

In 15 days to Impact you will discover the framework to an empowering spiritual philosophy for your own life of fullness and impact you actually are created to have.