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What is Spiritual Health? An Interview with Tom ThompsonWhat is spiritual health? How does one become and stay spiritually healthy? To explore spiritual health, I am grateful to share with you an interview discussion I had with Tom Thompson.("What is Spiritual Health?" is actually Part II in a series of interviews with Tom. In Part I, we discussed the Awakened Mind.) Tom is a teacher of conscious living and he works with people around the world. Since the age of sixteen, Tom has been a student of psychology, Buddhism, the yogic pathways, and the enlightenment traditions. Currently, Tom and his wife Bonnie run The Awakened Heart Center for Conscious Living (TAHC). TAHC provides a spiritual community and programs in spiritual awakening and conscious living. These include satsang, meditation, yoga and related programs, plus private consultations with Tom and personal coaching sessions with Bonnie.  These programs are for those who are deeply interested in awakening to the truth of our being and living this truth in the relationships and activities of our everyday life.I want to express a deep thanks to Tom and Bonnie for the wonderful way they touch the lives of all they meet. Also, thank you to Tom for taking the time to speak with me and allowing me to share this here. I sincerely hope you enjoy the interview and exploration into the question, "What is spiritual health?" Cheers, Adam PS - A quick note about the text below: All bolded text represents questions or statements I made. All the other text on the page represents verbatim answers from Tom. Interview with Tom Thompson What is Spiritual Health? Q: What is spiritual health? Tom: Well, I think there's an essential answer, and then we'll move to other ones. The first answer is to wake up. Because it's only when somebody's awake that they're sane. And only when we're sane can we really be healthy. When we awaken, we cherish all life, including our own. But aside from that there are spiritual scriptures and many traditions. I think maintaining the whole person - physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, psychically - to have a healthy balance. And then also have that person balanced with other beings in the universe and in the world. And this requires awareness. For example, some of us tend to be more mental than heart-based. Some books like the Bhagavad Gita talk about Jnana yoga, which is a yoga of deep insight and understanding that comes from intelligence. But it also talks about Bhakti yoga, which is devotion and love. And then it also talks about Karma yoga, which is skill in action and selfless service. And Raja Yoga, the yoga of meditation. So, spiritual health is somebody who's actualizing all of these dimensions of their lives as themselves, and for themselves, but also in relationship with others. And that's where, for example, karma yoga comes in. When we have to interact in the world others, we have to do that to be part of the solution and not the problem. Again, it's not only just us. It's also asking, "How are we impacting others?" For example, to be aware that every dollar we spend is a vote for or against something. And we're really influencing the world by where we put our money. Most people aren't that aware of that, but when you see that suddenly now most supermarkets have all these organic products because they notice people are buying them. Spiritual health is taking care of the entity - the brain, the mind, the heart, the physical well-being. It's all of these. But it's also realizing the deep interconnectedness and interdependence we have with others, which is a crucial factor. And to interact in the world in a way that's bringing more health and sanity to the world. We are our environment. A lot of traditions lay out paths for spiritual health. For example, you find this in the Sermon on the Mount or the Bhagavad Gita, which is the one I'm most familiar with. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna, who's a divine incarnation or an avatar, lays out very clearly the four yogas of Raja, Karma, Bhakti and Jnana Yoga, saying this is the dharmic or harmonious way to live in the world. Q: How do you know if you're spiritually healthy? Tom: I think there's a sense of peace with yourself and with others. Part of what a lot of spiritual people don't get is to leave other people alone, unless they ask you. Some spiritual people take it upon themselves to fix others, or preach to others, or tell others that you need to be eating this diet, or you should be meditating, and so on. . .I think the peace that arises through spiritual health is a willingness to to allow the world to unfold as it does, unless of course somebody actually comes and says, "Will you help me?" or "Can I join your yoga class?" or whatever it is. It's a willingness to let things unfold as they do. And that's within ourselves too. So, there's a peace. It's coming out of peace, not an idea that there's something wrong. Q: What are some of the challenges or stumbling blocks to spiritual health that you see? Tom: I think people get grandiose. The reason I'm saying that is because I've been dealing with. . . . . .uh oh, because you're talking to me and you see me doing that? (Laughing) Tom: No, no. (Laughing) See, the fact that you're saying that is good spiritual health. For spiritual health, we want to question and ask, "What am I doing? What's my motivation? When I do something, what's really motivating me?" For example, someone came by last night advertising the "super grand master of the golden this that and the other thing" and it was just too much. This person claims to be out healing and saving everybody. I suspect if this person could really heal everybody we wouldn't have to be getting little brochures to hear about him. So, I think we can get delusional, and we can get grandiose. We can believe things that are not true. The other side of spiritual teachings is there a lot of things that are very dangerous for people to believe. Every spiritual system, for instance, thinks it's the best one. And, so thinking, "Other systems are lesser systems" - that's grandiose. That's delusional. The mind is a survival mechanism, and built into spirituality is the mind's survival. So you might say in a certain way that spirituality is the ego's greatest invention for self-survival. And if we're not really looking at that and questioning that, what you'll often see in spiritual groups and realms are people who are crazier and more deluded than perhaps they would have been if they didn't start doing this stuff. It needs to be questioned. And again, it takes honesty. Simple honesty. Do you really know this is true? People put forth all sorts of things without really questioning them or examining them. So, I think we need to be on our toes in terms of watching out for that. And question our motives. Question the motives of teachers, for example people who say, "I'm the grand master of of this and that." If you were really the grand master, don't you think we could figure that out on our own? Vigilance. We need to be vigilant. The human mind is a delusion-making machine. It's amazing how fast we can go into delusion. But, if we're standing there questioning it and suspecting this might happen, then our commitment is to honesty and not our delusion. Now, there's an idea. (Laughing.) Q: What can people do on a daily basis to promote spiritual health? Tom: I think the most important thing to do is what you said earlier very honestly when we were talking before the interview. You said when you first meditated you experienced yourself as . . . . . .Yes, at my first silent meditation retreat I experienced myself as a little greedy ball of neurotic ambition . . . Tom: Okay, beautiful. The reason people don't meditate is because that's what they experience. They say, "Oh my God, I didn't know I was this crazy!" (Laughing). Because we're always distracting ourselves. Even spiritual practice - reading the books, doing the practice - it's distracting ourselves. Meditation is the end of distracting ourselves. We're sitting down, we have nothing to do, it's utter boredom because there's no entertainment. So, that's important. Any form of meditation that provides entertainment isn't true meditation. So, in true meditation, you're simply sitting with no agenda and you can't help but start experiencing your authentic emotions, feelings, and thoughts. And the last person we want to be left alone with is ourself. (Laughing). Right there, we start becoming sane, and I think meditation really puts us in the pressure cooker. Because there we are with the truth of ourselves. We can't get up and run away, turn on the TV, start chanting mantras, start doing headstands, and so on. . .We've just got to be there, with that bubbling mass of neurosis and really start looking at it and telling the truth. In meditation nobody's programming you. Nobody's telling you what to think or believe. You've stepped outside every system and you're just simply sitting there with what's actually happening right now with yourself. And, of course dealing with that is the first step. Later on hopefully we find other things. But I think that's the truth. You said it very well. I think that's why people don't meditate. They think, "Oh my God I'm crazy!" (Laughing.) Q: You used the phrase "true meditation." How does that type of meditation differ from other types of meditation? Tom: If you're doing something, it's not meditation. It's concentration. So, if there's a method or technique - which is okay - there's still an objective, there's still a goal, we're still up to something, we're still trying to change or shift something. We still have an agenda. And, the agenda may be to quiet our mind or to get our brain to work in a certain way. To have the body work a certain way. And, that's okay. But, in true meditation we're letting go of all agendas and all ideas that things should be different than they are right now. And so in that, that's terrifying to the mind because the mind is a control freak. Because, again, the mind is survival oriented and it's always trying to orient reality in a way that it feels safe and that it's going to survive. So in true meditation, all agendas are being put aside and we allow ourselves to experience what is. We actually discover we're being meditated. We're being lived. The whole universe is being lived. True meditation is like pole vaulting. First you're holding on to that pole going up, but then you have to let go of it and you're free falling. So, for most people, concentrative meditation - which is a method or technique - is much more satisfactory to the mind because it still gives us a sense that we're actually in control doing something. True meditation is the willingness to let go of that. True meditation is letting go of the illusion of control. I hope you've enjoyed our discussion, "What is Spiritual Health." Thank you again to Tom for taking the time to speak with me, and for the wonderful way he has touched so many lives. To further explore the question, "What is spiritual health" and find directions for natural meditation, please visit Tom's site, The Awakened Heart Center for Conscious Living. Namaste. Leave What is Spiritual Health and Return to Spiritual Development Leave What is Spiritual Health and Return to BPGR Home Related Articles
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