SPIRITUAL SELF

• The spiritual self is all about exploring your connection to something greater than yourself. It is the part that seeks meaning and purpose beyond the material world.
• THE CONCEPT OF SPIRITUALITY - It speaks of the quality of one’s relationship - with God, self, others, institutions and God’s entire creation, marked by respect, forgiveness, generous service and prayer.
• THE CONCEPT OF SPIRITUALITY - It is showing great refinement or high level of Christian maturity and concern with the higher things in life such as the Sacred or the Divine.
• THE CONCEPT OF SPIRITUALITY - It is a path of direct and personal connection with the Divine. It embraces all faiths, social and political ideologies.
• Spirit enables man to serve God and to participate in the supernatural order
• “the spirit in the Hebrew language is ruach or pneuma in Greek which means breath (breath of life). This Spirit is the disposition of an individual, a person’s habitual attitudes, as man’s supernatural power of God flow. It is the “life-giving” part of man.”
• In Hebrew, nephesh or in Greek, psyche, meaning ‘throat’ or ‘neck’, which means ‘human life’, the animating principle of human nature. In modern psychology, it is described as the “will, mind, the seat of emotion, conscience”.
• The term used by the Filipinos for spirit is a loan word, ‘espirito’ or ‘espiritu’, which is in Visayan term, ‘ginhawa’, in Tagalog, ‘hininga’ and in Ilocano, ‘anges’.
• The concept of soul, this is the ‘nonphysical aspect of the person, the complexity of human attributes that manifests as consciousness, thought, feeling, and will, regarded as distinct from the physical body.
• The Soul is the spiritual part of a human being that is believed to continue to exist after the body dies, as it was regarded as subject to future reward and punishment.
• The Bible further speaks of the soul as the innermost aspect of the person which signifies the spiritual principle in him, ‘the breath of life’.
• The Soul According to the Indigenous Filipino, “kaluluwa, kararwa, kadkaduwa, all come from the root word duwa, which means, two.
• This is because the soul has two existences - (1) physical that is connected to the human body and its life, and (2) spiritual where it exists on its own.
• Alicia Magos (1986) indicated that another cause of the withdrawal of the soul from the body is badly maltreated. The soul then voluntarily leaves the body.
• Arsenio Manuel speaks of the soul, leaving the body involuntarily as in the case of a child who is frightened.
• The notion of multiplicity of souls is common among Filipinos. According to Llanes (1956), four souls animate the body in early Ilokano: (1) Kararwa (2) Karkarma (3) Aniwaas (Aningass or Alingass) (4) Ar-aria (Al-alia)
• Loob (inner self or inner being) is the core of one’s personhood and where the true worth of the person lies. It is what makes one what he is and who he is as a person.
• According to Mercado (1994), ‘a purified kalooban is supported by prayer.’ This loob has been continually purified and strengthened acquires commitment to the cause of the individual. This happens through forms of sacrifices which includes prayers, abstinence from certain kinds of food, or comforts and sexual abstinence.
• God’s Kagandahang Loob - It connotes all that is good in a person which is the ideal among Filipinos. It is a quality of BEING which has its roots on the very heart of a person and which is given expression in the totality of one’s life of interrelationship.
• Loob and Prayer - Prayer is said to be the ‘first expression of man’s interior truth’. Interior truth refers to the core of one’s personhood, his loob, which is closely related to man’s spirit. It is the ultimate organizing center of human reality.
• Viktor Emil Frankl was born in Vienna, Austria on March 26, 1905. He is a medical doctor, a psychiatrist who developed Logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy, based on helping clients find sense of meaning and purpose in their lives.
• According to Viktor Frankl, ‘meaning is something to discover rather than to invent.’ It has the same concept with the inner happiness, life satisfaction, self actualization, deep spirituality. He believes that in life, there is an existential vacuum which means that life is empty, meaningless, purposeless, aimless, adrift and so on.
• EXPERIMENTIAL VALUES - This approach involves experiencing something or someone we value.
• CREATIVE VALUES - This is the traditional existential idea of providing oneself with meaning by becoming involved in one’s projects, or better, in the project of one’s own life.
• ATTITUDINAL VALUES - Includes practicing virtues such as compassion, bravery, good sense of humor, and the like. The ultimate goal is self transcendence, in the spiritual realm. It is a reference to God, a reference to religion.
• Researchers speak of religion as the people’s way of connecting themselves to God as they search for the meaning in life. Religion is understood as “beliefs and behaviors related to supernatural beings and powers.”
• RITUALS - are ‘patterned forms of behavior that have something to do with the supernatural realm. They are performed in a repetitive nature. They can be religious or secular.
• MAGIC - is referred to as “tricks” and “illusions” that make impossible things seem to happen, usually performed as entertainment. It is an ability which gives somebody control over the forces of nature.
• WITCHCRAFT - Understood as Kulam, refers to the idea that certain people have an inborn power to harness spirit or energies for specific purposes. An event based on the belief that certain individuals possess an innate psychic power capable of causing harm.
• WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT MAGIC, WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT MAGIC, RITUALS AND WITCHCRAFT?

  God alone is worthy of adoration, for He alone, is the ONE TRUE GOD.
• The Ultimate end is God Himself. Jesus Christ Himself gave us a clear guide when He spoke about the commandment of love (1) Love of God (2) Love of Neighbor.