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The word spirit derives from the Latin, spiritus - soul, courage, vigor, breath, related to spirare - to breathe.
(Chambers Dictionary of Etymology)
The spirit of something is the essence of that thing. The breath of that thing. To live a spiritual life is to seek to define oneself as something other than all of this outward stuff. I am not my job, my family, my income. I am not your idea of me. I am not my own idea of me. I am not my feelings or my thoughts or even the sum total of my opinions.
If I am not these things, what am I?
To have a spiritual awakening is to become aware of this thing that I am somewhere at the center of the swirl of feelings, needs, wants, desires, obsessions, ideas, opinions, beliefs. It is a concept that begins to come life in us when we stop to ask ourselves the question: what am I, really? It is a place within that begins to reach toward "me" as soon as I begin to reach toward it. It is an experience of self on a level that has been untouched by any of the garbage and abuse we've put ourselves through, in this life or any other. It is a place of self-identity waiting patiently for us to slow down just enough that we may feel it, so subtly,
like the hint of a cat almost brushing our leg in a darkened room...
What was that?
Today I will slow down for a moment, and breathe. I will ask myself the question, who breathes? Who watches the breath being taken? Who stands back behind it all as witness?
 Sunrise and Dune, Death Valley
Copyright © 2011 Jeff Kober
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