EMERGENCE OF GLOBAL SPIRITUALITY NOTED

By Nadine W. Scott

Star-Bulletin Writer

There is an immediacy about it. People all over the world are recognizing the spiritual side of man’s nature, and as a result, religion is having a field day.

That’s how Mits Aoki sees it, that each of us has a spiritual dimension — that sense of the transcendent, the need to reach beyond, to recognize that, is sacred and holy. "It’s that part of us that is always seeking meaning, values and purpose and I see this awareness of man’s spiritual dimension emerging all over the world."

Aoki is a minister of the United Church of Christ whose ministry is as a professor of religion at the University of Hawaii and director of the Foundation for Holistic Healing. In the latter role he will conduct a workshop from 2 to 5p.m. February 26 at the Church of the Crossroads.

But in an interview this week he was concerned with this spiritual awakening, that spiritual quality one can sense in works of art, music and literature, that mystic quality that has no name.

This "is where religion comes in, for religion has the courage to name that sense of mystery and holiness. That’s what I mean by God, the Christ. Religion gives you the name.

"That was always the function of religion, but we forgot it for a long time."

And the name, he continued, is not just the word — God, or Christ — but an evocative expression of all that name means. "When I say Abraham Lincoln, what does that mean? The emancipation, the Civil War, four score and seven years ago, the face of the man. It’s endless. The power of a name."

Aoki remembered the first line of the Tao Te Ching that says the name that cannot be named, so they called it the Tao. "Whatever the name is, why not call it Buddha, nature or God or Tao, then it has a face. In the spiritual realm we might call it life force, but that is no name. Religion gives it a name — Christ, the Virgin Mary, and that puts a face on it, even if it only points to it."

When you bring together the spiritual and religion, he said, you have a traditional name for what you are talking about, "which is nature and grace. Grace does not destroy nature but fulfills it. Religion is not something strange and foreign to a person, rather it takes the spiritual nature and fulfills it, gives it its largest powerful meaning."

For those who scoff at religion, Aoki said instead of the word religion, why not use another name. "Instead of calling it religion or God, let’s call it love. That has nothing to do with the church."

Put the spiritual nature of man together with the name called love and you have the most powerful healing source in the world, he said.

Which brought him to talking about his work in holistic healing. "Love does not fight illness or disease. It affirms it, embraces it, gives this disease meaning and thereby transforms it."

He has observed that in our culture we focus all our emphasis on the body and anything that attacks it. "We have to destroy it and we call it disease. How powerful it has become."

He takes a different tack. "I teach how to focus on something else, on the spiritual nature of man. We really begin to tap into aspects we have neglected for centuries."

His job, as he sees it, "is to help you tap the spiritual side, love and use it as a resource for healing. You begin to see your cancer differently. You begin to see it has some meaning for you, it is telling you something. Find out what it is trying to tell you -- once you see what love does, you have a whole new perspective.

"Love is the most powerful resource in you, if you use it. But if you fight the cancer you give it tremendous power. Anything you fight you give tremendous power."

Alcoholics Anonymous does not fight drinking; they talk about God. Overeaters Anonymous does not mention food. They talk about God. "Love has the amazing courage to name this cancer as something that is trying to tell you something. It opens wider dimensions of self, gives you a new perception of self."

When pain becomes unbearable, he said, take a pill "but long before, I teach you other techniques. I allow you in pain to focus on the spiritual side, on the love side of you, releasing other forms of energy. The more you focus on the negative, the more power it gets."

Two things are involved in pain, he said. Memory, remembering how it felt the last time you hurt, and anticipation — will you be able to go to work tomorrow. "You experience pain in the past and in the future. You are not experiencing pain in the now."

Love experiences pain in the now, he said, "opens the now. Open yourself to cancer, to pain — affirm it, nurture it and you will have amazing results in your tolerance for pain.

"If we can somehow combine religion with the spiritual, we’ve got something fantastic going on."

"Healing has always been there and is not something we bring in from the outside — medicine, doctors. Healing is removing obstacles that prevent the spiritual side from emerging."

Aoki said the amazing recognition of the spiritual side of man’s nature that is surfacing all over the world is revolutionary. But love must come to say to the spiritual side of man "Hey, we are allies, if you only let me help you."