Spirituality

It is important to understand that for the old man spirituality is a spirituality based on mind-body unity. Mind-body unity refers also to the unity of concept and action - acting according to what one believes and believing what is right.

Thus, for the movement, perfection of the purpose of creation is not achieved by focusing on individual spiritual development. Neither is it the development of intellectual capacity or external skills. It is a perfection in love according to the original purpose of creation, which is happiness through living for others.

Efforts can only be effective if they are in line with design and purpose. Thus perfection according to the original purpose can only occur by living for others, based on altruistic motives. That is a reflection of God’s life style, who gave out of himself in creating the universe.

The teaching’s explanations about eternal life and spirit world don’t seem to flow directly from the other concepts explained above. A thin link is provided through the remark that God, being eternal, created his human counterparts also as eternal beings. However, it may be possible to accept the first part and still assume that life is finite, disregarding a few resulting inconsistencies.

Some people experience the spirit world directly. But that way of validation is the exception rather than the rule.

However, the belief in eternal life and quite detailed concepts related to it, are an important foundation of the movements value system and behavior. In the next section I describe the most important concepts of the teaching on the spiritual world.