Tony Buzan - The Power of Spiritual Intelligence - 10 ways to tap into your spiritual genius

An additional feature is Spiritual Intelligence ‘Spirit Boosters’, to increase the power of the workouts, which take the form of ‘Intentions’ and ‘Affirmations’ that you can repeat to yourself on a regular basis. They will help you refine and strengthen your purpose in life, and by repetition, will reinforce these synaptic connections in your brain, thus increasing your mental and spiritual power.

The Spirit Boosters have been carefully worded to protect you from the many pitfalls that ‘false positive thinking’ can get you into. Their purpose is to keep:

your body grounded

your mind clear

your soul rooted

your energy flowing

your Spiritual Intelligence and your life continuously enhanced.

The Power of Spiritual Intelligence also includes Mind-Maps ®– colourful, graphic learning tools that I have spent my life developing. They are brilliant route-maps for the memory, allowing you to organize facts and thoughts in such a way that the brain’s natural way of working is engaged right from the start. Within the chapters there will be examples of and reference to Mind-Maps ®, as well as exercises in which Mind-Maps ®will be used to enhance and develop your Spiritual Intelligence.

By following the ideas contained in this book, you will be able to enhance and develop your Spiritual Intelligence. To give you some idea of your progress along your spiritual path, try answering the following questions; and then come back to them when you have finished the book!

1 Do you feel ‘at one’ with nature? YES/NO

2 Are you playful? YES/NO

3 Do people consider you childlike (not childish)? YES/NO

4 Do you like children? Do they respond truly to you? YES/NO

5 Are you known to be sympathetic to the problems of others? YES/NO

6 Do people come to you for help with personal, ethical or spiritual problems? YES/NO

7 Do you enjoy all kinds of weather? YES/NO

8 Do you dislike many kinds of weather (cold, heat, rain)? YES/NO

9 Do you like animals? Do they respond truly to you? YES/NO

10 Do you go out of your way to kill flies, bugs and ‘creepie crawlies’? YES/NO

11 Do you believe honesty is the best policy? YES/NO

12 Do you believe the human race has a true purpose? YES/NO

13 Do you believe charity and charitable work is only for ‘do-gooders’? YES/NO

14 Do you often experience feelings of awe and wonder? YES/NO

15 Do you have moments of great joy? YES/NO

16 Do you have feelings of oneness with all round you? YES/NO

17 Do you regularly pray or meditate? YES/NO

18 Do questions about the purpose of life, the nature of good and evil, and the relationship of humans to the universe intrigue or excite you? YES/NO

19 Do you like the ‘sound of silence’? YES/NO

20 Do you care for our planet? YES/NO

21 Do you love yourself? YES/NO

22 Do you pick up your rubbish? YES/NO

23 Do you feel there is an individual or some power/energy greater than you? YES/NO

24 Are you hopeful? YES/NO

25 Are you enthusiastic? YES/NO

26 Are you compassionate? YES/NO

27 Are you grateful for your life? YES/NO

28 Are you respectful and considerate of others? YES/NO

29 Are you creative? YES/NO

‘Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the oceans, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.’

(St. Augustine)

The first principle of Spiritual Intelligence is the realization that you are a miracle and are wonderful! There is no doubt about it, and you should hold yourself, and others, in awe. Each one of us is more precious, valuable, rare, beautiful and priceless than the most precious and rare ruby or diamond.

A miracle is defined as any ‘amazing or wonderful’ thing or event, or ‘a person or thing that is a marvellous example of something’ – as in ‘a miracle of design’. The word ‘miracle’ derives from the Latin miraculum, a wonder, or wonderful thing. You cannot argue – all the evidence supports the fact that you are amazing. Consider the miracle of your own engineering:

your body is made up of 200 intricately sculptured and mechanically perfect bones; 500 muscles with billions of muscle fibres, and seven miles-worth of nerve fibres to keep it all co-ordinated

your eyes, ears, nose, skin and mouth are each so sensitive and complex that scientists are at a loss to explain how they all work, let alone replicate their functions adequately

your heart is the most amazing mechanical pump yet devised, beating an average of 36 million times every single year of your life

your brain contains a million, million brain cells – equivalent to 167 times the population of the planet – each single one of which is more powerful than the standard personal computers we are relying on more and more!

We also know that you are more unique and more different from each other person on earth than any snowflake is from its fellows.

Moreover, we know that the atoms of which you are made come from the stars. You are, in the very real sense of the word, a Starchild!

Each one of us is capable of the most amazing feats of courage, endurance, heroism and sacrifice, as well, unfortunately, as the worst excesses of greed, selfishness, depravity and cruelty – this is the miracle of being human.

‘Be humble for you are made of earth.

Be noble for you are made of stars.’

(Serbian Proverb)

The Bigger Picture

A common activity for young children all over the planet, who are just beginning to explore the wider dimensions of their world, is to send a letter to a friend or pen pal, addressing it as follows:

My friend Jane Fitzgerald,

16 Paradise Street,

London,

England,

Europe,

The World,

The Milky Way,

The Universe.

These children are beginning to sense, as the Spiritually Intelligent do, that the universe is their home, and that they live in a series of bigger and bigger neighbourhoods.

It is the universe’s vastness that creates a sense of excitement, wonder and awe, and which raises all kinds of spiritual questions about the meaning of our existence, and our individual place and significance in that universe.

‘Every now and then,

Take a good look at something

Not made with hands;

A mountain, a star,

The curve of a stream.

There will come to you

Wisdom and patience,

And above all, the assurance

That you are not alone in the world.’

(Sidney Lovett)

And this universe is vast:

our Earth is just one of the nine planets in our solar system that circles our sun

our sun is tens of thousands times bigger than our Earth, and yet is only a small example of the ten thousand million suns that make up our local galaxy, on the edge of which we spin