By Steve K.

To live a spiritual life requires honesty, an open-mind, and a willingness to be humble. This is true in my experience, but I would also suggest that these three qualities of character are deeply interrelated with three other fundamental virtues of living a spiritual life. These are love (heart), courage, and faith – which are the essence of the human spirit.

It’s love (heart) that inspires vulnerability, and therefore honesty with myself and others about my feelings, insecurities, fears, and flaws. Love and honesty are interdependent and support each other. Love in the form of care and compassion is also the driving force of ‘service’ to others, which is another essential virtue required for spiritual growth.

Love, courage, and faith need each other. As I grow spiritually, I’m increasingly inspired to act from all three virtues. Love, my life force (my heart), inspires me to act with courage and to do the next right thing with faith in meaning and purpose beyond myself. To act out of love requires courage, and faith (trust in myself, others, life, and ultimately that which is greater) sustains both.

To be open-minded requires me to be courageous and humble. The courage to be open-minded includes being willing to face uncertainty and the unfamiliar, to explore outside of my comfort zone, and to confront the possibility of change and growth. Being open-minded also involves intellectual vulnerability and humility when engaging with opposing viewpoints which require me to be courageous.

Being ‘willing’ to practice spiritual principles, which often involves self-sacrifice, facing difficult emotions, self-discipline, vulnerability, and acceptance of life on its terms, requires a large degree of faith and trust.

The chief sin within Christian philosophy is pride and its main manifestation is self-centred fear. Fear of inadequacy, fear of rejection, fear of life, fear of loss, fear of the unknown, fear of genuine intimacy etc. Both pride and fear block my connection to others and to the divine. They limit life, relationships, and my capacity to love myself and others. Loving oneself is not the same as being fearfully self-absorbed.

Love, Courage, and Faith: An Antidote to Fear

It’s often suggested that fear is the opposite of love in a spiritual sense. Living by love (heart), and therefore, by courage, and faith enables me to overcome my fear and embrace the uncertainty of life and to live it more fully. Love opens and expands my heart, whereas fear retracts my spirit (life force).

The book ‘Love is Letting Go of Fear’, by Gerald G Jampolsky, places great importance upon our mental outlook in choosing love over fear. He suggests that we can choose to forgive and let go of our demands, expectations, and blame where others and life is concerned.

This outlook takes great faith, courage, and practice. I must be ‘willing to believe’ in the healing power of love and its ability to transform my life for the better. I can let go of my past, stop worrying about and projecting my future, by just living in the here and now. I can practice trusting in my intuitive wisdom rather than reasoning with a fearful ego mind.

In terms of my philosophy of life, I have a choice in how I view the world and my experiences in it. The psychologist and philosopher William James advocated pragmatism in relation to our spiritual beliefs. Believing in the transformational power of love is a positive and beneficial thing that I can choose to do for myself. Belief in… and practice of… love over fear… this is my courageous choice.

A core principle of Jampolsky’s book, is that what we give in love to others, we receive in equal measure. By giving love without demands we expand the love within us. This is how the power of love eradicates my fear – by loving others I feel loved myself; what I give, I also receive; what I teach, I also learn.

I suggest that human healing and spiritual growth are to be found in the practice of love, courage, and faith, and by letting go of fear.

1. The subsection titled ‘Love, Courage, and Faith: An Antidote to Fear’ is a revised excerpt from an earlier post titled ‘Recovery is Practicing Love Over Fear’. By Steve K.