To Apply Principles

In the third section, exercises nine through fourteen, we will take what we have learned and see how to use it to develop the kind of spiritual intelligence that will enable us to get spiritual help with the daily challenges of our own everyday life. The best way of doing this is to find and systematically apply a set of principles formed by a spiritually mature person—and carefully observing the feedback that we get. Just as we have to master the fundamentals of any other complex subject, so we do with our efforts to engage the spiritual dimension. The exercises help you to identify the benefits of applying these principles and the synergy that comes from using a system of principles.

The more you learn about how the material and spiritual dimensions work together, the easier it becomes to generalize from a combination of your own and others’ experiences. You might see, for example, how your emerging spiritual intelligence is in line with the emotional intelligence that you use to run our everyday lives—and how that helps you develop both at the same time. You might see how the different areas of life contain different lessons so that you can use different aspects of everyday life to improve different aspects of your spiritual character. With each step forward, you feel the kind of deeper happiness that comes from fulfilling your own potentials and getting the most out of your own life. You are now at home in a world that is both material and spiritual.