The Essence of Spirituality

I hope you enjoyed the LDS General Conference as much as I did. I especially enjoyed it because of the research I've been doing on words and the power of words. As the Lectures on Faith teach us, "Faith works by words." And hearing the words of prophets always increases my faith.

But there was something more this conference. I was making some connections that I've never made before. The Hindu holy book, the Vedas, is believed by its followers to be divinely revealed. Many of the writings in the Vedas obviously correspond to our Biblical teachings, but others have indirect correspondence and can enlighten our own understanding of what is meant.

One of these is the Vedic teaching that “Speech is the essence of humanity.” According to this all of what humanity thinks and becomes is determined by the words that are spoken. In other words, everything has its birth in words. You cannot do something until you have first thought it and formed it into words. When we connect this idea to the teachings of John in the New Testament it expands our understanding of what John means in his gospel when he writes, "In the beginning was The Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God..."

By the same token, our words determine who and what God is to us. He is born in us by the words we choose to think and speak. We can create Him in our own image by thinking of Him as someone who acts and reacts like we do, or we can let Him give us the words of love and peace that allow Him to unfold His divine nature within us. It is then that we are changed to be like Him.

Speech is not only the essence of humanity, it is the essence of spirituality.

Oh, the Joy!

Most of the time when we think about living the gospel of Jesus Christ, we think in terms of behavior. For example, We think in terms of “Thou shalt not steal.” However, if a person wants to steal and thinks stealing would get him what he wants in life, but has been taught he shouldn’t steal, then living the gospel is very difficult. He is always having to control the urge to steal and tempted with thoughts about how the gospel is so difficult to live and is a burden in his life.

But Jacob teaches us that living the gospel isn’t about behavior; it is about thoughts. He tells us, “Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal” (2 Ne 9:39). Behavior is born out of our thinking. If we are carnally-minded and want to steal from others then living that commandment is very difficult, and eventually those thoughts can be so strong we end up stealing. But if we are spiritually-minded so that the thought of taking something that belongs to someone else is repugnant to us, living the commandment is easy.

It is this way with all gospel principles and commandments. It starts in the mind not in the behavior. We need to learn to control our thoughts and direct them so that we are spiritually-minded and then our actions will be righteous and living the gospel a joy instead of a burden. Maybe that is why the phrase, “spiritually-minded is life eternal” forms the acronym SMILE. When you are spiritually-minded the joy you feel makes you smile!