The Hierarchy of Health
Humans are resilient, most likely God-given, if not at least God-influenced, evolutionary adaptions to a problematic world. So yes, livers were meant to detoxify the body, i.e., some random toxin while foraging the Serengeti. However, they were not intended to detoxify large doses of drugs, alcohol, preservatives, and pesticides. And yes, our muscular-skeletal system was designed to recover from injury. To keep us alive long enough to ambulate, hunt, and procreate. It was not intended to keep us pain-free from years of abuse at the gym, on the track, sky diving, free diving, and skateboarding, ad nauseam. Yes, we were meant to create, love, and nurture. No, we were not designed to hate, judge, and lie. STOP IT!
Do NOT expect Medical science to save you. The technology will be able to keep you alive longer, that is for sure. However, the quality of your life in those later years solely depends on the unresolved trauma you have taken on during your life. Whether physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, EVERY trauma you have experienced will contribute to your later years’ morbidity (suffering).
“Place your oxygen mask over your mouth and nose BEFORE helping anyone else.” – Flight Attendant
Many of us feel the need to help this world that is in such turmoil. Our capacity to help is defined by the degree of OUR well-being on all levels, not just physical stamina but emotional stability, mental clarity, and spiritual connection as well. To alleviate world suffering, we must first alleviate our own. Understanding the Hierarchy of Health will help.
The Hierarchy of Health puts into perspective those aspects of our lives that will most support our health and evolution. This Hierarchy has seven tiers. The higher the tier, the greater its overall influence on your health. These seven tiers are, in order of relevance;
- Your relationship to Spirit
- Relationship to yourself
- Your primary relationships/intimacy
- Your work in the world
- Movement and structure
- Diet
- Lastly—supplements, medicines, surgery, and devices
This hierarchy is a generalization and reflects the priorities necessary to evolve into our best, healthy selves. However, at times in our lives, these priorities shift. If you are near death with pneumonia, you are not able to work on the higher levels of your life. At that time, we drop to a lower tier, take the antibiotics we need to get better, and then refocus on the true causes of the pneumonia, which will always be found in the higher levels of the hierarchy.
Your Relationship To Spirit
“A profound philosopher and mystic, Ibn Arabi’s concept of “Wahdat al-Wujud” (Unity of Being) suggests the presence of the Divine in all things and, by extension, the multitude of paths to realizing this truth. He wrote: My heart has become capable of every form: it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks, And a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Ka’bah and the tablets of the Torah and the book of the Qur’an. I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith.”—
Your relationship with Spirit is the most important aspect of your health. The essence of having a spiritual life is to be connected to something greater than yourself: Omniscient, compassionate, and one hundred percent unconditional in its love. Your spiritual life can be named or nameless; it can be organized with others or unique to yourself. An excellent relationship with Spirit is to have something consistently supportive of you in ALL of your aspects, a relationship not defined by dogma, judgment, or hierarchy.
To repeat. Your interaction with Spirit must be one hundred percent supportive and loving of you across the full spectrum of your life; with equal understanding and compassion for your darkest as well as your brightest moments.
If your spiritual life imposes its will upon you or others through vengeance, the withholding of blessings, and retribution, this will not serve you. Why would you wish to be in a relationship with an entity that acts like every authority figure you have had in your life? The One True God is not your parents, spouse, boss, rabbi, imam, or pope. The One True God is pure Love.
If, in your devotion to some spiritual path, you are coerced into imposing your will onto another, that will also create a deep disharmony within you, manifesting as illness and suffering. Contrary to the innumerable references in religious texts, your entrance into heaven, nirvana, or Jannah will not be defined by your attempts to convert the world around you. PLEASE STOP!
Being religious is not necessarily, and most likely not at all, being spiritual. When The One True God presents its unimaginable vastness through a human vessel, its interpretation is limited to the filters and beliefs of these soon-to-be prophets. Muddying the waters even more after their death, the religions based on the incomplete perceptions of these prophets impose their own filters and limitations. Subsequently, most of what is being shared as the wisdom of the prophets in congregations, mosques, synagogues, shrines, and churches has little to do with an experience of The One True God; the chances of a relationship with Spirit that supports the cultivation of your own wisdom and divinity is unlikely within a religious setting.
As you enrich your spiritual life, letting go of the dogma, darkness, and inane and insane beliefs that man has imposed upon the divine, you will find within you a source of Love and understanding that knows you completely: Your deepest secrets and fears, your remorses, lies, desires, and despair. When you listen, communicate, and pay attention to this most fundamental part of yourself, all other aspects of your life become clear. Thus, spirituality is at the top of the hierarchy of health; when your life is aligned with Spirit, you are guaranteed the best possible life.
So, how does having a spiritual life keep us healthy? With the transcendence of the archaic reductionist thinking that the body is the body and the mind is the mind comes the recognition that health and well-being require the participation, integration, and evolution of All aspects of our being: Mind, body, heart, AND Spirit. Of these four, your relationship to Spirit is the most critical.
Why is our relationship to Spirit so important? Your appreciation and communication with something greater than yourself will give you perspective and guidance through the trials of your life. With this more profound understanding of your place in the world, your decision-making process will also evolve.
Every moment of our waking life, we have options. What we eat, how we dress, how we speak, what work we do, who we love, how we judge. Most of us do not recognize these options and muddle through life like automatons in our less than brilliant life. We do not question our diet, jobs, relationships, or health. We do not reflect upon our choices and the choices yet to come. Even when we choose to make decisions, most are made from fear or desire.
When your relationship with Spirit, and again, we are not speaking of the arcane and misguided interpretations of devotees of past prophets, but a personal, untainted relationship with The One True God, is engaged, it becomes apparent that each of your decisions needs to be oriented to not only your personal evolution but to that of all sentient beings. Even our confused prophets understood that it is in being in service to others that our relationship with Spirit is enhanced.
A good relationship with spirit basically shows you the way in which the river of your life is flowing. When you understand the destined direction of your life and make the choice to follow that direction, you are, again,guaranteed the best possible life, with the least discomfort and maximum joy. Now, to stretch the analogy a little further, the river of your life may not always be wide, deep, and peacefully moving towards destiny. There will be rocks, waterfalls, piranha, turbulence, and rapids. There will be moments, and for some of us, much of our lives, when rather than go through these more challenging times, we paddle like hell to go back to where it was calm; an exhausting process guaranteed to bring illness of all forms into your life. The river KNOWS where it is going, KNOWS what is best.
One of the keys to having a good relationship with spirit is when you see the rapids, whirlpools, or rocks, turn yourself around, aim your feet downstream, and LET GO. The River will always find its way past these concerns, and you will survive. You may be a bit beaten up and ground down, but in letting go and moving through these issues, you have avoided FAR, FAR worse discomforts. When you align with spirit, the suffering will always be the minimum you need to move on.
Resistance is Futile –The Borg
To Review:
Your Relationship with spirit is the most critical aspect of your health, as it gives you perspective and guidance on all levels. This guidance allows you to make choices in your life that support your evolution and growth as a human being, which is the only reason you are alive!
When you make choices aligned with spirit, you minimize suffering and maximize health, well-being, and joy!