The Essence of Everything: Find the Peace and Power of Your Spiritual Heart

By Jorma Kumpulainen

This book is for seekers of inner peace and happiness. It offers guidance and peer support for those already walking the spiritual path or considering it. Meditation is a natural state and the birthright of every human being. Recent scientific research has shown meditation and a spiritual way of life increases happiness. I began writing this book after parts of it were revealed to me during my morning meditations. For the past eight years, my morning meditations have guided and inspired my writing. Anyone who wants the power, peace and love of his/her Spiritual Heart can find it. Real and lasting change for the better, on the personal and societal level, only happens when individuals experience internal transformation. This book offers a harmonious and expansive view of our identity, meaning and position in life and in the universe. It describes our great potential for spiritual opening and harmonization: We can become fearless, harmonious, loving and happy beings. A chapter on the expression of spirituality in creative arts as well as on health effects of meditation on disease prevention and healing of some diseases are also included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504997492

Jorma Kumpulainen

The author of this book has practised meditation for over 30 years. He was never taught how to meditate because this skill appeared in him without instructions while he was a young man. He was a scientist in his previous carriere but left it behind after he had a very powerful spiritual experience which changed his life. Some time thereafter he saw titles in his mornig meditation and felt that he must start writing about these themes. This book then took its present form over a long writing process, which was based mostly on the visions he got in his regular morning meditations.

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© 2016 Jorma Kumpulainen. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Published by AuthorHouse: 01/19/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9748-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9750-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9749-2 (e)

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

1. Who are we?

Humans as psycho-physical and spiritual beings in the evolution of the universe

Spirit, evolution and holones

The creative evolutionary force of the Spirit in the dualistic time-matter-energy-space of the universe and in human life

Humans as psycho- physical beings

Overview of brain structure and function

2. Taking care of the body

Meaning of the physical body

Adequate rest and sleep

Exercise

Nutrition

Nutrition from physiological and health point of view

Optimal nutrition from spiritual, ecological and ethical point of view

Effect of nutrition on the flow of prana

3. Humans as mental and spiritual beings

Personal consciousness

Mind

Ego

Spiritual Self

Soul

Subtle bodies or koshas

Chakras and nadis

Effects of negative thoughts and emotions on the functioning of heart chakra and the flow of Cosmic energy

Vrittis

4. The grand problem of humanity and possibilities for its solution

The natural state of the humanity: exodus from paradise following the curse of separateness

What is self- consciousness, authentic morality, tribal morality, sin, good and bad?

Meanings of suffering

5. Similarities and special features of the great spiritual traditions

Rebirth of the soul

The concept of karma

Karma and God’s Grace: is there a contradiction?

The mystical concept of trinity and its meaning among the major spiritual traditions

Special qualities of Jesus Christ and the Bible

6. Lifestyle and mental requirements for walking the spiritual path

Control of stress

Control of hurry

The importance of recognising negative thoughts and emotions

The importance of being free from fear and trauma

The concept of fear and its expression

Shock and trauma

Fear of losing love

Fear of loneliness

Fear of death

Giving up spiritual laziness

Replace fears with compassion, acceptance and love

Value of acceptance, compassion and love

Power of surrendering and acceptance in difficult circumstances

Exercise difficult human relationships for the development of tolerance, compassion and awareness of the ego

The effects of our cultural background on our opinions

Recognising the limitations of science and human knowledge

Out of Tao came out one. One became two, two became three. Out of three, all creatures have been created (Lao-Tzu 1989).

Become aware of the effects of your cultural background, religion, education and media, on your views of life and spirituality

Understanding our roles

The role of work

The parental role

The adult child’s role

The role of friends, relatives and peers

The role of a celebrity or a VIP

Sexuality, the role of a man, a woman, and a couple

The roles of couples

The woman’s role

The man’s role

Our roles affect the how we see ourselves

Ego dominated versus spiritually oriented couple relationship

7. Spiritual way of life

Right attitude is the key to spiritual lifestyle and happiness

Spiritual opening

Deepening of spiritual life

Meditation

Meditation methods

Meditation states

Meditation as a daily spiritual practice

Detailed interpretation of of the Lord’s prayer

Meditation prayer to express gratitude to God

Meditation for the peace of the world and healing of life on Earth

Meditation prayer for receiving power to help fellow humans in their sufferings

Own death meditation

8. Spiritual rebirth, establishment of a new life filled with peace and love

Phases of spiritual opening

Spiritual awakening and cleansing of the chakras

Three phases of enlightenment

Inner peace and happiness

Meditation and love

Love between lovers and in family life

Fearless living and dying

Facing life’s challenges with courage

Death and facing death without fear

Helping the dying and the bereaved

Ego’s death

Many paths of spirituality

Requirements of a guru and do we need one in modern times?

The five major paths which may lead to enlightenment

9. Expression of Spirit in creative fields: arts and sciences

Science

Performing arts

Music

Visual arts

Literature and poetry

10. Role of meditation in health and in prevention and healing of diseases.

Meditation and brain function

Meditation in disease cure and prevention

Meditation and mental health

Meditation and immunity defence

Meditation and old age degenerative diseases

Meditation and ageing

11. A short introduction to the state of major world cultures, world views and religions: requirements and prospects for their improvement

Acknowlwdgements

I would like to thank Ralf Gothoni for his important contribution for allowing me to quote a part of his book in this book and my good friend Venerina Conti for allowing me to read her book free of charge which gave me valuable insight for my own writing.

Abstract

This book is dedicated to anyone who seeks lasting peace, love and happiness. Meditation is a natural state and the birthright of every human being. Would you like to learn how to meditate, as well as the scientific information about the effects of meditation on creativity, health and happiness? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this book is right for you. It’s dedicated to guide you on your spiritual path and I would like to be your fellow traveller. I’ve written this book based on intuitions and views I have mostly received during my morning meditations.

This book is written for those who seek the Truth. Finding your Spiritual Heart’s power and peace is your birthright and the ultimate reason you were born. True peace in the world will only happen once a great enough number of individuals transform internally and find peace in their Spiritual Hearts. Most people desire the pursuit of materialism and goals that do not bring peace and happiness, but frustration, inner emptiness and despair.

Finding the power, peace and happiness in your Spiritual Heart is possible if you intentionally and genuinely want it. It requires deep understanding, discipline and hard work within yourself. The work consists of devotion to God through meditation and prayer, high ethical standards in practical life and a constant awareness of the ways our ego functions. Meditation along with high ethical values and practices lead to the harmonisation and purification of the heart chakra and other chakras, the soul and the mind, and free us from the power of the ego. Meditation and internal harmonisation also bring us close to our Spiritual Heart, which at an unknown moment, mystically opens and fills our souls with God’s Grace. This book deals also with scientific information on how meditation helps to prevent and cure many illnesses.

My inspiration for writing this book is to show how humans have great potential to become harmonious, fearless, happy and loving beings. To that end, I wish to share a harmonious view of human spirituality as expressed in the worlds main spiritual traditions, and how these paths can lead to enlightenment. Furthermore, this book contains chapters on how spiritualilty is expressed in our life, arts, and creativity.

Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21)

Be still and know that I Am God (Psalm 46:10)

I Am who I AM (Exodus 3:14)

Who are we?

Humans as psycho-physical and spiritual beings in the evolution of the universe

A human being is the image of God. Is this biblical statement true, and if so, what does it mean?

Modern humans developed as a result of a physical, chemical, biochemical, biological, mental and cultural evolution that lasted over 13.7 billion years. For the establishment of each of the above evolutionary phases, a previous phase was necessary. As far as is known, modern humans are the final and most developed expression of evolution in the universe.

It is very likely that life exists everywhere in the universe, although not very commonly. This is because the laws of nature are exactly the same everywhere in the universe. On the Basis of the tremendous creative force demonstrated on earth, I believe our Creator enjoys creating life everywhere in the universe. Our galaxy, the milky way, contains about 200 billion stars. Approximately 100 billion galaxies exist in the universe, and each contains about 100 billion stars. All evidence suggests that millions, if not billions, of similar physical and chemical characteristics to our solar system, the sun and the earth must exist in the universe.

Recent research suggests the milky way is well suited for the development of life-sustaining planets. But had the milky way been a super massive elliptical galaxy, also common in the universe, it is very likely that the planet earth would have never come into existence. And even if an earthlike planet had developed, it could not have sustained life due to the lethal ultra strong gamma rays and very fast particles emitted from supermassive black holes of elliptic galaxies. On the other hand, such enormous elliptic galaxies have been very useful for the generation of heavy metals, such as copper, zinc and cobalt essential to higher life forms. Elliptic galaxies generate massive stars, in a relatively short time frame, which explode as so-called supernovas. Such explosions are so powerful that they hurl the outer layers of the star into interstellar space, and in some cases, even beyond their mother galaxies, thus creating planets like our Earth.

The evolution of planets suitable for the development of life began as a harmonious cooperation of the galaxies. Yet in terms of the evolution of life in the universe, the laws of nature have been the most crucial. Had these laws been even slightly different, the development of life would not have been possible. Indeed, science has proven that the evolution of the cosmos and life was not a random development from a statistical point a view.

Recent research suggests that life is not common in the universe. For example, only 1/10000 of the stars like our Sun are sufficiently stable to allow the development of higher forms of life. Moreover, the Earth has an exceptional amount of water, high volcanic activity, a magnetosphere and a moon which stabilizes the Earth’s rotation. All of the above factors are necessary for the development of higher life forms on any planet. Even then, the number of stars and planets is so massive that, statistically speaking, one must conclude that simple and even higher forms of life do exist in the millions, and perhaps billions, in the universe.

Among the trillions of planets in the universe, why did the Creator create life only on our tiny planet, considering that life and biological evolution on Earth have been so overwhelmingly fierce in creating new species. The most recent research indicates there are at least 10,000,000 species covering every possible niche on our planet (Kaufman 2008). From this perspective, life arises whenever and wherever the physical-chemical conditions are suitable.

While it may look like we are nothing on the cosmic scale, the value of a being may not be justified based on its size, but on its structural complexity and functional depth. The evolutionary history of our planet reveals that it takes less than a billion years for the development of primitive life forms once the conditions are satisfactory. The sun is about 5 billion years old and the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. Life has existed on Earth for about 3.8 billion years. Heavy elements, such as copper, zinc and iron that are essential to higher forms of life, form in the cores of stars that are approximately ten times bigger in mass than the sun. These stars burn fast to the point where their nuclear processes can no longer continue. This is the point where the nuclear process reaches iron. At that point nuclear power supporting the star cannot resist the star’s gravitational force, resulting in the star’s collapse.

The enormous heat generated by the collapse of the star results in the formation of heavy elements such as silver, gold, platinum and uranium, among others. The huge amount of energy released in this process causes the star to explode and shoot its outer layers into the universe. This explosion is known as a supernova and it shines brighter than the entire galaxy for awhile. Later on, such elements as iron, zinc, copper, magnesium and all other elements essential to life accumulate in the inner and outer layers of planets yet to be born. The age of supernova stars is just a few hundred million years, being by far shorter than the total age of our Sun, which is about 10 billion years. Thus over several billion years, enough time has elapsed for the development of life in other parts of the universe other than on our planet.

In fact, the elemental composition of the human body contains all the phases of the evolutionary process of supernova stars. The creation of all life-supporting elements in the supernovas are essential to the evolution of life, including that of our bodies. The human body can thus be considered as an image of the physical cosmos. The human body is a micro cosmos roughly between an atom and the whole universe, in terms of size.

Biological evolution, being only a part of all evolution, has been an unbelievably complex process in which countless forms of life have developed and vanished. Similarly, the evolution of modern humans has been a complex process in which all previous human species have become extinct. Even our own species was on the brink of destruction due to an enormous volcanic eruption that occurred about 75000 years ago, resulting in severe nuclear winters that may have lasted up to a thousand years.

It is amazing to realize that every newborn baby goes through an entire biological evolution in just nine months. Modern humans have not changed for over several thousand years and no signs of rapid evolution have been found. Genetically, we differ from our closest relative, the chimpanzee, by only about 1.5 per cent. It is no wonder that human communities, and even workplaces, sometimes resemble that of a chimpanzee community. Our psycho-physical structure and mind resemble those of ancient cavemen, and to some extent even chimpanzees. This is obvious considering human history and how our mind works. As a species, humans have not yet reached internal harmony. However, we have an enormous potential for mental and spiritual opening and to become transformed into harmonious beings.

Thus, although we have the power to reach towards internal transformation and into wholly harmonious human beings, it requires great motivation and a vigilant awareness of our emotions, desires, thoughts, and a practical way of living. This book explains the way of life needed to reach our full potential on the path to becoming peaceful, harmonious and happy human beings.

Spirit, evolution and holones

In order to understand the development of the universe in general and of our own species in particular, it is necessary to examine what the universe looks like and how evolution works. Evolution comprises the entire period of 13.7 billion years of its existence, from the moment time-space was created, to the development of the human species and the evolution of human culture, language, philosophy, art, science, and technology. What is the impetus behind this enormous evolutionary force? An easy explanation is that evolution is the practical application of the laws of physics and chemistry. These natural forces are inherently required, but there is no explanation as to why biological evolution works against the laws of the second principle of thermodynamics. This law, called entropy, presumes that the disorder in the universe increases with time, whereas the evolution of life works against entropy by increasing order and creating higher structures.

My personal intuition, and that of all sages throughout human history, discerns the evolutionary force as the Spirit of God. In terms of biological evolution, Charles Darwin demonstrated how natural selection chooses those species and individuals within species to live and multiply that are best fit to a particular living environment. Later on, it was found that the variability of genes based on the DNA molecule produced the genetic material that evolution chose to be best fit to survive. The long-held belief among scientists was that genetic mutations happened randomly and in all possible directions and from that, natural selection choose the fittest individuals.

However, the most recent research suggests that mutations do not happen randomly in all directions, but in a certain direction. After all, considering the enormous variability between and within species, evolutionary time has been too brief for everything to happen randomly in all directions. For example, in many cases for a particular new mutation to be functionally valid, several mutations must happen simultaneously in the same direction in order to facilitate a new function. The evolution of the bird’s wing to facilitate flying is an example.

When evaluating evolution, we see that it has resulted in both enormously complex and harmonious ecosystems in all possible ecological niches and, at the same time, increasingly structurally and functionally higher organisms. In order to understand the function of evolution, and the role of humans in this system, we must understand holones. Holones are entities which have their own functions while being parts of bigger holones. All holones form holistic hierarchies. Thus subatomic particles form atoms, which make molecules, molecules form cell constituents that build living cells, cells form tissues, tissues from plants, animals and humans, and finally human societies and the human consciousness, or noosphere.

Evolution happens when a particular holone exceeds its regular structure and function. At that point something new develops. The new function cannot be predicted based on the structure and function of the previous lower holone. Spirit, the creative force of evolution is built into the evolutionary process. Holones appear and no one can predict the outcome. This is the miracle of creation.

Holones can also break down, and actually do so if unable to correctly function in their holonic system. This can be due to external damage, for example. Owing to the nature of the holonic hierarchy, the number of lower holones always exceeds that of higher holones. Biological holones can also become pathogenic; for instance, benign cells can become malignant and form cancer. This may then result in the destruction of all the higher holones it supports. Therefore, within the holonic hierarchy, the destruction of a holone higher in the hierarchy does not necessarily happen to all of the holones below it. For example, the destruction of a cell does not lead to the destruction of all molecules and none of the atoms that form its structure. Furthermore, the destruction of humankind would not lead to the destruction of many animal or plant species, but the destruction of the plant kingdom would cause the destruction of both the animal kingdom and mankind.

It is important to understand holonic values. All holones have both holarchic and intrinsic values. The intrinsic value of a holone is related to its position in the holarchy: a high position means a higher value and vice versa. Holarchic value is the opposite of intrinsic value. Thus, the intrinsic value of the animal kingdom is higher than that of the plant kingdom, but the holarchic value of the plant kingdom is higher than that of the animal kingdom.

The creative evolutionary force of the Spirit in the dualistic time-matter-energy-space of the universe and in human life

Duality is the very basic cosmic principle affecting everything in the energy - matter - time - space. Duality was present already in the very beginning of the universe. When the enormous heat generated during the creative Big Bang started to cool off and conditions suitable for the build-up of particles were created, also corresponding anti-material particles formed simultaneously. Right after that the so-called annihilation took place as the material- and anti-material particles came into contact with each other, resulting in their mutual destruction. The outcome of this annihilation was pure gamma radiation. Yet for an unknown reason, a tiny fraction of material particles was more abundant than that of corresponding anti-material particles, which is the result of the present universe. According to scientific estimates, there was 1 material particle more against several billion anti-material particles. This dualistic principle is present in everything made of energy-matter. This natural law is featured, for example, in the wave and particle nature of subatomic particles, the negative and positive poles of electricity, the left- and right - handed forms of organic compounds, masculine and feminine, etc.

The Creator, however, obviously was not satisfied with the Spiritual Cosmos alone, but also created the material world by Spiritual force. All of evolution is thus a reflection of the Spiritual force of the Creator. The Spiritual Force takes place in the material world and has kept it in a continual change since the Big Bang. Ken Wilber (1996) and Norelli-Bachelet (1981), among others, have dealt-with this subject more closely.

In our dualistic world, the secret creative forces of the Spirit ensure that everything is in constant change. Perhaps the most striking evidence is biological evolution, in which at least 99 % of all species created have been destroyed and been replaced by new species (Kaufman 2008). The effects of this evolutionary force are also evident in the development of culture, language, art, music, science and technology.

In this connection it is also important to mention that the human mind and its instruments also follow the same duality pattern. Thus, our logical thinking and emotional mind follow the principle of duality. For example, if today we have mostly positive feelings, it may be that by tomorrow they are mostly negative, etc. Negative thoughts create negative feelings and negative feelings create negative thoughts. This vicious cycle causes unhappiness and pain. Therefore, it is important to know how this can be prevented. By understanding this process deeply, it is possible to be able to recognise the rise of negative feelings and stop their detrimental emotional effects. From a spiritual opening point of view, one of the most important lessons is to learn how to eliminate negative feelings and thoughts.

In the Spiritual