Perspectives: Feed The Spirit

“Do not conform to the ways of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will“ - Romans 12:2 NIV

In my last letter I spoke about mastering your body.

To be powerful ( especially as a man ) is to be able to bring yourself to do what you need to do regardless of circumstance.

I spoke about fasting, exercise and meditation as the activities you need to undertake in order to subjugate the body and make it your own. 

Today’s letter is a continuation of that - this letter talks about the reasons and methods for elevating your spirit and mind.

But before we go into that, we need to understand 3 very important concepts surrounding the elevation of spirit and mind.

Intelligence, Wisdom and Power

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power” - Abraham Lincoln

I asked AI for the definition of intelligence and this is the output it gave me "Intelligence is generally defined as the ability to learn, understand, and adapt to new situations, as well as apply knowledge to solve problems".

I think this definition captures the essence of intelligence pretty well. All of us can learn and understand, just at different rates.

The defining quality that marks a person as being more intelligent than another is speed. How fast do you learn? How fast do you adapt?

Wisdom is a function of your ability to make good judgments about people and situations.

The more “good decisions” you make, the wiser you are.

It’s a common misconception that wisdom is a matter of how much you know, and while that's really important, it's less about what you know, but how you make choices using the knowledge and resources that you have.

A wise man is a man who sees the big picture and orients himself in the direction of the greatest goal.

A wise man understands that he can’t control everything but he can remain grounded in the present moment and ready to play the best hand based on the cards that life deals him moment to moment.

Power is the extent of your ability to do something or act in a particular way.

Power is a function of the time, effort and sacrifice needed to manifest your thoughts into reality.

It is the degree to which you can produce an effect. 

In that sense the ultimate power would be the God who spoke into the empty universe and commanded that there be light - and there was light. No effort required, just the words.

And a man with no power is the one who has a million dreams and desires in his mind, but has nothing to show for it in reality but suffering and struggle. 

The average human being today is more powerful than our ancestors from before the 21st century.

Everybody with access to the internet has a great level of power - the power to access the world's information whenever they want and to transform or leverage that information to do great things.

Yet, In an age of expeditious comfort and democratized power, wisdom is in short supply - not to say that everyone was wise before the 21st century lol.

It seems today that most people aren’t even aware enough to zoom out and see the big picture that lies before them.

The highlight reels of social media and the sheer amount of information overload on the internet almost ensures that the mind of the modern man is fragmented and foggy.

It doesn’t help that apps like uber, chowdeck and amazon have made it super easy to get what you need for survival with minimal thought or effort.

The result is a generation of men with more power than they have the strength of character to wield and direct. A generation of “powerful” foolish men. 

How To Quickly Raise Your Power Levels

I think the first step to wielding power is to recognize the nature and extent of the power you posses. T

hat usually takes a degree of knowledge and intelligence.

One simple way for you to understand power is simply to see it in action.

Even the most foolish man recognizes power when it is wielded gracefully toward the manifestation of something tangible in reality.

I think all of us ( especially men ) recognize the power we wield physically.

It's not so hard to test how much you can bench, or how fast you can run or how long you can hold your breath.

It's easy to hold a mirror to yourself and see your reflection, but can you see what lies beneath the surface?

The physical realm is only one aspect of your being. Your body is only one aspect of you.

There is an incredibly rich and vast essence to your being that exists in a dimension your eyes can't see. And all you have to do to access a never before seen level of power in this world is to connect with that essence.

The Mind, Spirit and Soul

To define something is to limit it - to put it into a box and draw a hard separation between one thing and everything else.

When it comes to the topic of the spirit, soul and mind, I'm sure you can see why it would be hard for me to begin to dish out definitions.

I've had hundreds of conversations about existential meaning and purpose of life.

One thing that I've noticed is that no two people have an exact definition for what the soul or spirit is, but the descriptions I've heard tend to go in a certain direction.

With that in mind, allow me to describe these terms to the best of my ability.

The Soul

The soul is the essence of a person's being, it is the unique expressions of their mind, emotions, and will. I think the soul is what identifies you as you.

After my dad died, I saw his dead body about 6 times before he was laid to rest in his grave.

I remember thinking that I recognize this body, but my dad isn't here. No one is here.

As a christian, I believe that I am not my body, and when I die my soul will go up to heaven to be with my Father.

This belief and other convictions I have about life and the nature of being make up my spirit.

Spirit

The way I like to describe spirit is "the sum total of your beliefs, character and convictions".

The bible talks about spirits a whole lot - The holy spirit, the spirit of love, the spirit of wickedness. Yet when you break it down, spirits manifest in our reality as behaviors and beliefs.

The holy spirit brings you joy, peace, endurance and other fruits. As such someone with the holy spirit will behave in a certain way that reflects peace and joy.

The spirit of wickedness may compel you to anger quickly or to plan evil against a fellow man.

Regardless of what the spirit is, it works the same way, by altering your mind.

The Mind

The mind is probably the most complex concept for me to define today.

Usually the mind is described by what it does, not what it is. Which is why Wikipedia defines the mind as "that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills"

Regardless of what your definition may be, the mind is usually spoken about as if it were a separate entity from us.

With that in mind, I will define the mind simply as the seat of our consciousness.

Guard Your Mind

“Beware! Your mind is a target!” - Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The mind is a powerful force. Without it we are no different from wild animals, simple creatures of instinct.

The ability of the mind to feel, perceive, imagine and think is truly extraordinary. Regardless of your level of intelligence or knowledge, the power of the mind seems to work the same.

Yet if you look around, you will see that most people on earth simply act according to habit and instinct.

This begs the question "why?".

The problem from my perspective is that people neglect their mind.

When you neglect your mind, it runs rampant.

As a living entity separate from you but belonging to you, the mind requires your direction and mediation.

When you are unfocused or distracted (like most people today), the mind is constantly jumping from place to place, using it's powers for all sorts of silly and unproductive things that do not edify you.

Instead of using your imagination to further your goals, you might instead imagine all the ways your partner could be cheating on you.

Instead of using your willpower to work on your business, you might find that you spend it beating the hardest level of the video game you just bought.

Regardless of what you choose to do with your time, the mind will still do what it does; thinking, feeling, perceiving, imagining, remembering, and willing things into existence.

Where you focus these powers matter because they are always active.

Some people live in a reality where their mind constantly works against them. Yet some people have all they would ever want due to the proper use of their mental powers.

Guard your mind.

Do not blindly give your attention to the things that do not edify you.

Instead you need to be clear on what you want and where you are going so that your mind can help you on your journey.

You want to be the master of your mind, not the other way round.

Guarding your mind will give you a high return on investment and a significantly better quality of life.

However, there is one more thing to do in order to magnify your power and get everything you want.

Feed Your Spirit

Like I said earlier, there are spirits all around us.

Spirits do not directly attack us ( regardless of what you see in old Nigerian movies ), instead they work in a more subtle way - they influence our thoughts.

Guarding your mind is the first step to feeding your spirit.

You must watch vigilantly and reject the thoughts that encourage laziness, contempt, bitterness, resentment, depression and all other sorts of nastiness. You do not want to feed these spirits by any means.

Stop watching shows, talking to people or engaging in any behavior that may lead bad spirits to invade your thoughts.

Now, I'm not telling you to go brain dead.

You still have to let some thoughts in.

But let them be thoughts of abundance, prosperity, kindness, joy, strength, love and all good things.

By carefully letting these thoughts into your mind, you begin to strengthen the spirits behind those thoughts.

Eventually your random thoughts of good will soon develop into a good mood.

As you continue to feed the spirit, your good mood begins to become a more permanent aspect of your personality.

It begins to change your attitude towards people and the world around you.

As the spirit grows, people with discernment will eventually begin to see the underlying spirit behind your actions and it will become impossible to deny. At that point, the spirit begins to overflow from you and influence the thoughts of others around you.

You may have seen this before when you meet someone and immediately feel "good vibes".

The person with good vibes has so much fed their spirit of good vibes that it overflowed and influenced you.

Conclusion

Today's letter is my longest one yet. But at the same time, I still have a lot more to say about the topic.

A lot of the lessons I've learned recently have to do with the proper utilization of mind and spirit, and I will be sharing these lessons in the days to come.

I hope this letter has given you at least something to think about. If it did, please feel free to share my letters with those who you think will benefit from reading these words.

Until next time.

Love,

Udoka