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What is spiritual and emotional well-being?

Tagged: basics

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Emotions concern the body and mind, while spirituality concerns will.

The way humans function, will drives mind which drives body. A person is well when they act accordingly to this hierarchy. If body is driving mind and therefore will, their mind and will will rebel and this is experienced as various kinds of psychic sickness, note here that psychic is a very very rough synonym for psychological.

When a person’s physical environs don’t match how the person believes they should be, they’re emotionally distressed. Bad relationships, drama at work, family pressure add as much to emotional distress as physical illness, even more. Believing that body > mind is the root of all emotional illness, one can always use one’s mind to escape these sorts of issues one way or another, but usually don’t because of the next topic.

The reason most people are held hostage by emotional distress is that they believe that will emanates from mind and not the other way around. In the same way that mind can have power over the body, a person’s will has power over their mind. The mere act of concentrating on something is proof of this. At any time at all, you can exert your will to make your mind do something. It’s a lot of effort, and you’ll tire yourself out if you do it too often, but it’s how we improve as individuals.

Understanding that the will is in charge of the mind and that you can make any change you want given time and willpower, that’s the root of spiritual well-being. You can extend the hierarchy from will to God. This is how imperfect, ‘ordinary’ people (not enlightened supermen like me who meditated for 1000+ hours for years, and can therefore answer these kinds of questions authoritatively on Quora) gain spiritual well-being, by surrendering their beings and selves to God.

It’s the pretty much the same thing as discipline and such. Surrendering your will to a higher power is almost as hard as constantly building it up to exert it over your mind and body. If you go join the army, therefore surrendering control over your life to the government, you’ll eventually earn the protection and resources that government affiliation can provide. They will teach you the discipline you need, surrendering to the divine is the same thing. God shows you what He needs from you, you simply have to accept and incorporate it. Will, surrendered to something other than body/mind, becomes powerful enough to gain control over body/mind. You gain everything once you can lose everything.