Spiritual Death is a Mass Epidemic in Modern Society.
God assured Adam that death would surely follow if he were to eat fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But the rationalizing serpent said, "You will not die." In this seductive moment, which we all experience many times each day, mankind was disembodied. We separate ourselves from the wakefulness and vitality of the present moment, as it is revealed in and through the body. We do this by thinking about our own thoughts. We create cold, lifeless worlds that are hundreds and thousands of thoughts removed from the immediacy and precision of direct experience. This is the "death of the spirit." Spirit refers to the source of "principle" or meaning. Next thing you know, a spiritual paralysis or shame set in, and the source of life—Eve—is exiled.
Dr. King waxes eloquently and poignantly on this subject.
“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
