Spiritual Development

Spiritual development is the process of becoming fit for a higher level in the spirit world. There are three
areas of spiritual learning: skills, beliefs, and evolution.

 Spiritual Skills include the ability to serve as a conduit for spiritual healing and the ability to
perceive communications from spirits. However, having these abilities does not indicate that
someone is advanced spiritually.
 Beliefs are what you believe about the afterlife and the purpose of the earth life. That is also not
related to how spiritually evolved a person is.
 Evolution is primarily what spiritual development is concerned with. A highly evolved spirit might
incarnate without manifesting spiritual beliefs or skills. The process of spiritual evolution involves
the development of personality traits of a highly evolved spirit. These traits include the ability to
love and absence of selfishness. However, spirits incarnate for many different purposes and it is
not really possible to identify who among us is advanced spiritually and who is not. Therefore, it is
unwise to judge other people based on whether you think they are spiritually advanced or not.

Spiritual Evolution
Spiritualists believe that a person incarnates in order to learn. Christianity, or more correctly, the words of
Jesus, teach that what you are here to learn is: to love God and other people. Buddhism, teaches that to
be able to love you must become unselfish or in other words lessen the grip your ego holds over your
thoughts and deeds. Buddhism gives practical techniques (meditation and mindfulness) that can help you
to become unselfish.

Therefore, humility is the sign of a highly evolved soul. One should look for this characteristic when
seeking a spiritual teacher.

For humans living on earth, spiritual evolution is the most important aspect of spiritual development. This
is because in the afterlife you will have spiritual skills. In fact, spiritual skills will be the only skills you will
have at that point. Also, in the afterlife, you will have the right beliefs because you will be able to see for
yourself what the afterlife is like. However, unless you use your time on earth correctly and learn to love
and to eliminate selfishness, you will not have that ability when you move into the afterlife.

While the great religions of the world teach that developing love for others is the primary objective of
spiritual development, it is not enough to say this without some instruction on how to develop love. Our
biological nature puts up many obstacles against love. People hear the beautiful words of the great
teachers and then find that it is impossible to live according to their beliefs. This damages people
psychologically and brings disrepute to preachers and followers alike.

Therefore, it is important for humankind to have an explanation of how to develop love. Love arises
spontaneously when hatred and anger and other forms of selfish and negative thought are absent.

The way to eliminate selfishness through meditation can be found in the page on meditation. If you
practice meditation daily, then gradually over the years, without straining to be perfect, you will become
less and less self-centered and a natural love for others will arise within you. The chapter on Short
Topics has more On The Purpose of Life.

Spiritual Skills
A person's beliefs have a strong influence on his ability to develop spiritual skills. If he is skeptical and
continually attributes anomalous experiences to coincidence and "natural explanations", he will weaken
his abilities through negative reinforcement. This will also discourage spirit guides that may be trying to
help him. Each person is born having spiritual skills, but our societal attitudes result, in this way, in most
people losing awareness of their natural abilities as they mature. Therefore, it is necessary to undo the
effects of living in an unbelieving society.

To develop spiritual skills, a person must be accepting of the phenomena and must continually look for
spiritual influence in his life in the form of coincidences, hunches, and other unusual phenomena. In this
way he will increase his awareness of spiritual influence in his life and notice more and more the activity
of his spiritual skills. This positive feedback will lead to improvement and enhancement of his spiritual
skills. Therefore, it is necessary to err on the side of credulity rather than skepticism.

There is the risk of incorrectly attributing coincidence to spiritual influence, however this risk must be
borne. One must always maintain an awareness of this risk and never take rash or unwise actions based
on supposed spiritual influence and never allow belief in infallibility to take hold.

The regular practice of meditation and relaxation is also helpful in the development of spiritual skills.
These practices calm the mind and allow one to notice subtle thoughts, impressions, and sensations that
may be associated with spiritual phenomena.

Social development
Social development is about improving the well-being of every individual in society so they can reach their
full potential. The success of society is linked to the well-being of each and every citizen.

Social development means investing in people. It requires the removal of barriers so that all citizens can
journey toward their dreams with confidence and dignity. It is about refusing to accept that people who
live in poverty will always be poor. It is about helping people so they can move forward on their path to
self-sufficiency.

Every New Brunswicker must have the opportunity to grow, develop their own skills and contribute to their
families and communities in a meaningful way. If they are healthy, well-educated and trained to enter the
workforce and are able to make a decent wage they are better equipped to meet their basic needs and be
successful. Their families will also do well and the whole of society will benefit.

Learning must start early in life. By investing in early learning initiatives, we can ensure a greater degree
of success amongst our citizens. Making sure that children get a good start in their education goes a long
way to increasing their success later in life.

An affordable, high quality child care system is also needed for society to succeed. When people know
that their children are being well taken care of, they can be more productive in their jobs. When
employers have good employees their business is more likely to succeed. When businesses succeed, the
economic situation of a community is improved. An investment today in good child care programs can
provide many long term economic benefits for society.

In addition, a safe affordable place to live is very important in helping people achieve self-sufficiency. It is
the focus of family life; where families can live safely, nurture their children, build community relationships
and care for aging parents. Without a decent place to live, it is difficult to function as a productive member
of society .

Other investments in people that contribute to the economic prosperity of society include youth programs
and services, post-secondary education, job creation, promotion of healthy, active living and safe and
secure communities

To reduce poverty we need to take a social development approach and invest in our people. By investing
in people we can reduce poverty. We need to go beyond looking at government to find ways to develop
our most valuable resources, our people. We need to share responsibility with community organizations,
businesses, universities and municipalities in the task of improving the well-being of all New Brunswickers
and preventing and reducing poverty