Final Essay
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Defining Spirituality
I'll start by saying how much I learned in this course. I really enjoyed the history lesson going back to ancient Greece where western thought is believed to have originated. This course was also designed to teach ministers how to minister to scientificfically minded people, which is good information all ministers can make good use off in this scientific age off ours.
According to this course there are only two kinds of people. Those that are influenced by there hearts and those that are influenced by there minds. Heart people of course are those that trust there feelings, are feely touchy, are compassionate and warm and believe in things they cannot see (faith) etc. Whereas Mind people tend to be rational, logical, analytical etc., not believing anything they cannot see etc. As Ministers driven by are hearts we of course feel for mind driven people and want to help them. The only problem with this of course is that if we push to hard our efforts might backfire and all we'll accomplish is scaring people away. As this course teaches rational scientific types a lot of times will come to a place in there lives where science, as great as it is, can only go so far in answering the real deep questions about life. That's when these rational scientific types will suddenly become interested in seeking answers that science in all its greatness cannot answer. That's when they start seeking out us, the heart driven types for answers. As we learn in this course when these mind types finally decide to seek us heart types out we should be loving and kind not preachy and observe and listen. Remembering always to be a guide only and empowering people to seek out answers for themselves.
This course also takes us through a history of western thought starting with the Pythagoreans going all the way to Freud. Fascinating is all I can say. I think the philosopher I really enjoyed the most was Plato. I think the reason for this is because I'm very intuitive and spiritual and I found My spirit resonating with Plato's philosophy. Plato believed in the duality of the universe. He believed there existed another dimension or a dual or parallel universe.This world that we live in now is imperfect and there exists in another dimension a perfect dimension or universe so to speak. Jung talks about this years later and calls it the unconscious mind.According to Plato the ultimate goal of Mankind was to reach for this perfect world as much as they possibly could. A good ex., of this perfect world is shown in His allegory of the cave. After taking this course I was inspired to actually read Plato's Republic in its entirety and was amazed at how little has changed since Plato when it comes to people. Although I admitted to liking Plato this course teaches to learn from all philosophers. Balance in all things.
I really appreciated how this course ended by the author. He went on to share his personal life journey and open himself so that He could show us His real self. This takes courage and guts to say the least. I agree with the author that to be an effective minister requires one to be open and transparent with ones own life thus being believable and trustworthy. People open up to you more because they have found someone they can relate to and trust. I find that this makes you a whole lot more effective minister than someone who comes across as this perfect person on an ivory tower. If there is such a person.
Obviously there is no such thing as a perfect course, but this is definitely one of the better ones I've taken. As I said at the beginning of this essay I learned a lot and I can see myself coming back to this course over and over again for further study.
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