One is said to get into the spirit of the occasion, or show a good or bad spirit toward something. We speak of animation of spirit or lack of spirit. We talk of a spirited horse, dog, or a good spirit of co-operation. We can often see a lively spirit in young children. What we are talking about here is something which resides in varying measures in every person and animal. Some show tremendous spirit while others are poor in spirit. It is a matter of degree. Spirit affects the enthusiasm, energy and determination we apply to the art of living. Our personal spirit translates into all aspects of personal life. It affects our ability to resist disease, our loving experiences, our enjoyment of life and our relationship with those about us.

We see the spirit of determination in all avenues of top sportsmanship and business; that confidence in self, coupled with a strong will to win. It clings on, it fights back, it refuses to give in, it displays faith in the self and an assured successful outcome. Spirit and faith join hands to form a strong belief that the seemingly impossible is possible and will be achieved. That is not to say that the person is dominated by tension. Relaxation plays a large part in success.

The history of medicine is full of examples of miraculous recoveries from potentially fatal illness; of patients who hang on in spite of great odds and refuse to die or give up a full life. The will to live has infused the patient with a spirit of determination and faith, strong enough to overcome the physical disadvantages. Dr. Charles Mayo in his book which gives the story of the founding of the famous Mayo Clinic of America stated,

"I've seen patients, with little chance to survive, use gritty willpower to work a near miracle and pull themselves through a surgical ordeal. I also came to realise that when a person wants to die, he will die - and no amount of good surgery and postoperative nursing can stop him."

It could be said that the spirit enlivens faith and that all healing is the result of faith. Sydney Jou-rard in "The Transparent Self" comments,

"Being heard and touched by another who 'cares' seems to reinforce identity, mobilize spirit, and promote self-healing. Being the recipient of love from another, appears to be a highly inspiriting event. There have been many informal observations of people, previously limp, lackluster, dispirited people, who increased in zeal, muscle tone, integration of personality and resistance to illness, once they were told they were loved by some significant other person."

This pro-life spirit, which is found within the individual person, resides deeply within the psyche. It can be encouraged or discouraged from early childhood by the attitude of a guardian or teacher.

We physical human animals do flourish in harmony with the spirit within us. We respond to an atmosphere of freedom and self expression. We achieve our best when we are doing what we like to do most. When the spirit deep within each one of us is free of restraint, we can achieve the seemingly impossible.

Soul

We have been speaking of a spirit which is part of our whole being, an inseparable component of life. We are born with it and it dies with us. Very many good people believe in another kind of spirit which has nothing to do with the spirit we have been talking about. For them, there is a spirit, often called soul, which they say resides in all humans and only in humans, and does not die with the body. The spirit is supposed to live on in an afterlife and carry the essence of this life with it. The belief that an eternal spirit or soul resides in all human beings is the real basis of religious hope of an afterlife. Without this belief the Christian faith, with all its theology and ritual, becomes meaningless. That so called eternal soul is supposed to be rewarded or punished by god in the hereafter by condemnation to a heaven or a hell or perhaps returned to earth by reincarnation.

You can take the Bible literally, interpret it symbolically or any way you wish. The Biblical belief in a hereafter necessitates that the embodiment of this lifetime experience be somehow consciously carried forward into an afterlife, and the 'soul' of the dead person held responsible for the actions or religious faith of the past life. This constitutes a conscious continuation of the present life into an afterlife. To say that the essence of this life is carried forward unconsciously would destroy the religious purpose of an afterlife. Now we know that the conscious mind is established, activated and maintained within the cranium. The conscious self is unable to function without the physical structure in which it matured. It cannot meaningfully live outside the body as a separate identity. How, then, is it possible for the spark of life which gave birth to consciousness to continue to have any force after the death of the body? The brain together with all its contents of memories, belief, rational or irrational thinking must surely perish with the body. I have yet to hear a rational explanation of how it could be possible for the contents of a human brain or its beliefs, to have any meaning or function outside the human body.

If we possess an eternal soul, does it reside within the person and what is its relationship to the physical brain? Or does it reside as a separate identity? In which way or how is it separate or exempted from the death of the body? When did it first reside in man? Did it first appear in Cro Magnon man or Homo sapiens, or should we go back four or five hundred thousand years futher to Homo erectus? In what way can the soul be preserved without a body? If the body, equipped with memory and feeling dies, how can a so called soul continue or experience reward or punishment for the attitudes or actions resulting from our thinking? What is the use of a heaven or hell, real or symbolic, if all memory and feeling die? Why is it that there is no irrefutable evidence of life after death? If you cannot give a reasonable answer to these questions I must conclude that your faith in an afterlife is without a firm foundation. Could it be that the reason is simply that there is no life after death?

The only way we can become aware of anything is through our five senses. If we had never been aware of sight, sound, touch, smell or taste, no experience or understanding could have reached our minds. We would not be conscious persons at all; our brain structure would not even have developed. Before birth, we experience through our mother and the placenta. After birth, we begin to accumulate experiences independently and react to other humans and the world about us. We build up a vast resource which is personal to each of us. We add experience to experience, situation to situation, learning to learning, until we establish a vast reserve of response and counter-response to any situation. The likely response we make to any event we are faced with, will come from that reservoir of knowledge or experience. The process goes on for all of life, adding to our understanding or attitude and modifying and changing that which we have already established. Like a computer, we build up, and build on something new, a vast field of resources from which we draw according to the demands of our logical and emotional needs. But we can only draw out of our computer that which has been recorded previously. The sum total of our accumulated experience and learning comprise the only resource we have.

Life is an expression of energy. Everything in the universe is an expression of energy. Each life is like a candle, lit at birth and extinguished at death. The energy one displays during a life is bound to that life and cannot have further activity once it has been extinguished. It is pointless to ask where the energy of the extinguished flame has gone when it is blown out. It just ceases to burn oxygen or exist as a flame. It is pointless to ask where has someone put it, where is it now?

The flame of life was started by parents and grew in the mother's body to become a unique and perfect child of two utterly unique and separate persons. It is impossible to recreate the same situation again. If it were possible to recreate the same physical body of a particular child, it would still be a different person because a different age and society would have contributed a different accumulation of resources. The child would grow up to be another unique person as each child in a family is unique.

There is no doubt that the physical brain is the storehouse of all our experiences, enculturation, understanding, attitudes, learning and beliefs. All these learning experiences function as a group, each influencing the other. Together with hereditary assets, they form the whole personality. Personal experience added to enculturation results in learning. In turn learning results in understanding; understanding results in attitude; attitude results in behaviour. Behaviour is the net result of all that has gone before. Utterly destroy the storehouse of the mind in death and the whole of its resources or accumulated contents must be destroyed with it. All that is left is the impression conveyed to the minds and memories of other persons.

Do We Need a God

More importantly, I would like to know why a mature man or woman needs a hereafter or god. Are we arrogant enough to think that humankind has a different life force from all other animals? Nothing else lives forever; there is no proof of life beyond the grave. What makes us different except our arrogance or fear? In expressing a need for a god, are we not denigrating ourselves and distracting from the importance of our present existence? We are marvellously complete beings with tremendous resources. With our five senses we can communicate and experience the world and all that is in it. Is the adult person still in need of being controlled and encouraged by a father figure? Do we need someone outside ourselves to lean on? If there is a need for support, it can be provided in a practical manner by those of this earth who are willing to help. Perhaps what is really needed in those cases is a new infusion of the kind of spirit we talked about in the earlier part of this chapter, a revival of the sense of self worth, uniqueness, self trust and confidence.

A growing number of people today have a notion of a god which is very different from the personal god presented in the Bible. To them, god is the all spirit dwelling in all nature. Each one of us is said to be part of the universal spirit or mind, the all-embracing spirit or energy. Those good people usually seem to believe in the continuation of an individual spirit identity after death and in reincarnation. Their spirit world is very akin to the spirit world which filled the minds of primitive people. Benevolent and malevolent ancestor spirits were ever present to help or harass the living. Then there were the spirits of the forest and fire and many others to consider. So they move back in history to spirit mediums and magic which has no basis in scientific research or understanding. Human beings seem to be excited by the notion of magic and want to hang on to luck. For most people, emotion overrides reason. It would appear that many in our society are not yet ready to free themselves from the desire to be cured by magic.

The marvellous thing is that we are born as individuals and can achieve our own human and social potential. To do so we need to be free of the imposed negative influences of dependency. And we need to be free of the illusion that a next life is more important than this life. Dependency is a disease which inhibits the full development of our potential. The first and greatest opportunity is to accept responsibility for ourselves, then we can positively address our responsibility to the community.

Answer to Prayer or Just Luck

You would think that the law of averages and statistical information would reduce the desire for and the hope of gain through luck or prayer. But no! there is something in us which is eternally willing to risk a little in the hope of gaining a great deal. Perhaps this is an attractive quality in human beings. It makes adventure so appealing to us all and is responsible for many of the great achievements of our age.

Belief in prayer is very similar to belief in good luck, as the following story will show. The only difference is the name we give it. It is presented with my adaptations and apologies to a Chinese philosopher I have been unable to trace.

There was an old man who lived with his son on a small farm. He had two friends. One believed in god and the other believed in luck. One day the old man's horses got out and disappeared. One of his friends came to him and said "God has taken your horses, you must pray", and he replied "How do you know that it was god?" His other friend came and said "It was bad luck to lose all your horses" and the old man replied "How do you know it was bad luck?" A few days later the horses returned with several other wild horses and his friends came to see him again. The religious one said "God has answered my prayers and returned your horses, you must thank god," and the old man replied, "How do you know it was god?" The second friend came and congratulated him on his stroke of very good luck. The old man said "How do you know it was luck?" With all those horses about, the son started riding and fell and broke his leg. Again the old man's friends came and the first said, "God is punishing your son for pursuing so much pleasure." And the old man said "How do you know it was god?" The second friend came to express his sympathy for the son's bad luck and the old man said "How do you know it was bad luck?" Shortly afterwards there was a war and the soldiers came and took away the horses, but because the old man's son had a broken leg, he did not have to go to war.