Let’s critically examine our lives by keeping our mortal nature in mind. This means we should not only fulfill our physical needs but also nurture our spiritual side to feed our soul. Remember, there are so many fields of knowledge that we can’t afford to be a jack of all trades, especially given our limited time.
As we grow up in certain environments, we are influenced by them. If the people around us believe we should be just like them, that’s a short-sighted philosophy. For instance, if you’re a religious person, you can’t dictate how a medical doctor should believe. You may be against blood transfusions, but a doctor must focus on the life-saving benefits of it. Similarly, if a musician enjoys and feels deeply connected to music, no one should tell them otherwise. It’s their right to enjoy life as they wish, just as religious individuals have the right to practice their beliefs, and the same rights allow LGBTQ+ individuals to live freely.
The problem has been, and still is, that religious people often try to enforce their traditions, customs, and rituals on others as if they were universal rules. When it comes to knowledge, we must understand that everything evolves. Just because our ancestors rode horses doesn’t mean we should as well. Cars allow us to live faster and more efficiently, so why should we stay stuck in the past? If you are religious, that’s fine, but you cannot stand in the way of medical or other advancements. These are entirely different fields, and interfering would go against the natural progress and evolution of humanity.
Everyone should be allowed to operate freely in whatever field they choose. Simply put, everyone should have the freedom of choice. If you choose to stay behind, you can’t keep everyone around you there as well. Whether it’s science, technology, medicine, or religion, no one should impose their will on others or suppress other fields of knowledge. While there are limitations in every field because we are constantly evolving, it’s unfortunate that in some societies, suppression still occurs, and as a result, progress suffers. If we don’t learn to balance our fields of knowledge, we risk staying stuck in the past.
Believing that one field of knowledge is enough for human progress is a misguided notion. For example, if you are scientifically advanced but unhappy in life, it could be a sign of imbalance that you may find within spirituality. Likewise, if you are religious and follow all the rules but feel spiritually unfulfilled, you need to find and address that imbalance. Missing out on happiness and contentment in life, despite having resources and comfort, is a deficiency that should be taken seriously. Balance across various fields of knowledge is essential to well-being.
The first step to finding balance is accepting that our knowledge is still evolving. If you believe your knowledge is complete and superior to others, not only are you being prejudiced and discriminatory, but you also close yourself off to seeing how other knowledge could benefit you and humanity. If you can’t see your potential for growth, you might get stuck in outdated knowledge by choice. This mentality is often seen in conservative groups, where individuals not only choose to stay behind but also try to hold others back. Even in religious contexts, this approach goes against God’s will, as religions were never meant to control human populations.
Religious institutions often don’t believe in individual freedom. Like communism, they prioritize the collective over the individual, leading to inherent injustice for individuals. This is visible in their efforts to suppress individual rights, and it is evident in the migration patterns of people seeking better lives. If everyone were inclined toward religious governance, they would flock to religious nations, yet the opposite is true. People migrate for peace, financial stability, and freedom, often leaving religious nations for secular ones. Look at the countless people risking their lives on boats to escape religiously governed nations and enter secular societies in search of a better life.
Why is this happening? Why can’t religious nations keep their people happy and secure? This should be a cause for concern. Remember, individuals make up a group, a nation, or a religion—not the other way around. While we are born into groups, we remain a part of them by choice. The strength of any community depends on its ability to retain individuals. Communities that lose more members than they gain are on a path toward decline, as seen in the example of an Italian community that paid and provided housing for young couples to move in because they were losing population faster than they were replenishing it. A religious or political community can become a ghost town if it continues losing individuals.
If communities can’t provide peace, security, and sustenance, they should at least avoid oppression. The strength of a community is much more fragile than it appears. For centuries, migration has occurred, and it has revealed a stark contrast: the progress and prosperity of nations receiving migrants versus the poverty of those losing people. Communities and nations should examine the causes of their losses. Why allow one field of knowledge, like religion, to oppress and limit the potential of individuals and communities?
If knowledge has many fields, why should one be able to suppress the others and rob individuals of their potential? If you fail to address the emotional and religious extremism, you must at least let your thinkers explain the long-term consequences. A ship full of feelers can still be saved by one thinker.
In today’s world, if you are buying technology, medicine, and other modern gadgets from advanced nations, it’s likely that they were invented by individuals your community lost due to oppression, lack of personal freedom, or poverty. I do not belittle religious knowledge—it holds spiritual value—but it is one exclusive aspect of an individual’s life. If we are taught that religion can provide for all our needs, history shows this is not the case, nor is it proving successful today. I often repeat the phrase “political religion” because religious politics robs individuals of their potential. People migrate and benefit other nations because of the politicization of religion. For instance, shooting and killing girls who want to be educated is nothing but politics. Spirituality, however, teaches us to follow God’s will.
How did our religions become political systems? That’s another story. But my question is this: if God’s hands are the hands of human individuals, how does cutting off God’s helping hands serve God’s purpose? Removing human politics would reveal that God does not want to lose God’s helping hands. Spirituality teaches us about free will, justice, compassion, and love. You can be proud of any field of knowledge, including religious knowledge, as long as it remains purely spiritual. To me, God is pure and innocent, so using God for political purposes is a spiritual sin. When religion becomes politically tainted, human insecurities and rules arise, and spirituality is lost.
Religious beliefs should benefit individuals, not groups, because when you prioritize the group, politics follows. With politics comes prejudice and discrimination, straying from spirituality and tarnishing God’s name. Committing spiritual crimes in the name of God only deepens the wrong.
If you wish to live in a certain era of evolution, that’s your right. But you don’t have the right to control others, not even your own children when they become adults. We all come into this world as individuals, breathing our own quota of oxygen. We arrive with our own personal life stories, and while you may mean well, you simply are not given control over others. You can’t even ensure that someone keeps breathing if they’re in trouble, so you must learn to let go and allow others to choose their own paths in life. If someone chooses science over religion, that’s their right, just as it’s your right to be religious.
Our problems begin with personal extremes, prejudice, and discrimination, and these have nothing to do with God. They stem from individual insecurities, often amplified by the fear-based rhetoric of our groups. Religions should be free of these fears and insecurities, but instead, they demonstrate them through oppressive rules. Yet, at the same time, they preach the strength of God’s will. Why?
To me, you either believe in God’s will wholeheartedly, embracing spirituality, or you use fear to control people through politics. Speaking out of both sides of your mouth is political, not spiritual. This is why I believe in our versatility and our ability to manage all aspects of life like a CEO. We all have an evolving nature and can’t evolve in one area while remaining stagnant in others. If we evolve in a balanced way, we prevent becoming extremists in one area while remaining ignorant in others.
You cannot place boundaries around any field of knowledge and expect to grow in a balanced way. Communities should strive to provide individuals with the freedom to stay and evolve. Imbalanced evolution is not a winning strategy for any group, especially not politically. If you lag behind in certain fields, your community will lose individuals to migration, leading to the opposite of what you intended—loss of political power.
MMA fighter Jon Jones was once speaking casually on camera. I don’t remember the event or the date, but his words stuck with me. Since my blog touches on this subject, I wanted to expand on what I believe and think about his message. So, I’ll start by quoting what he said:
“If you believe that you have something special, even a gift from your higher power, then stop questioning it, because it’s insulting to your creator to think that they would place limitations on what they’ve given you.”
To me, these words, spoken by a thoughtful fighter so effortlessly, conveyed a spiritual truth more clearly than many religious scholars. If one truly believes in this way, they can easily see through the politics that often hide behind religious teachings demanding individual obedience. The general population of religious believers tends to undermine the significance of human individuality. Understanding the spiritual relevance of the individual, and why humans are endowed with free will, is crucial to grasping the larger picture of spirituality.
No authority or entity should discourage individual abilities because, in truth, God is glorified through human evolution. Logically, in our actions and decision-making, God is always with us because we cannot function without help from the things we rely on, things over which we have no control. The importance of this was made especially clear during the COVID-19 pandemic when we all became acutely aware of the value of free oxygen. Yes, we’re helped by nature, or God, to provide us with oxygen, but the understanding of its importance came from people who respected God’s gift enough to discover everything that allows us to thrive today.
Belittling the individual has long been, and continues to be, a political agenda used by both religious and non-religious leaders to control populations. It’s not God’s will to limit human beings. If that were the case, people would succeed without hard work, and human effort would hold no value. Why would anyone put time and effort into achieving goals and raising the bar for future generations? Why would we strive for progress to keep evolution moving forward? Our evolving nature comes from God. If our limitations don’t come from God, why are religious leaders so intent on enforcing them? There’s likely a political agenda at play, tied to those who seek control over ordinary people. But we shouldn’t rush to judgment.
Politics aside, I personally believe that these hurdles contain a hidden wisdom of adaptation. They slow down our progress but provide an opportunity for growth. No, I won’t credit religious authorities, because they don’t embrace the concept of adaptation. They want us to be locked in the era when our prophets lived. I agree with Jon Jones, but only partially, because evolution comes from the constant pursuit of higher levels, bit by bit. There’s wisdom in continually striving for more. For example, if you lift a 10-pound dumbbell and stick with that weight, your body will adapt to that level of stress and won’t progress further. You have to push yourself, lifting heavier weights and digging deeper, to trigger your body’s response and build muscle. This process of adaptation is ingrained in our DNA, meaning God intended for us to have no limits—but we struggle with extremes.
If you believe God is doing everything, you’re only half right. You need to see the whole picture to understand how God and humans work together to get things done. If you think it’s only God or only humans, you’re missing half the truth, and that incomplete knowledge will prevent further growth. On the other extreme, if you try to rush through the process without adapting, you’ll only hurt yourself and make no progress. The key is to avoid extremes. Believe that God has not, and I repeat, has not placed limitations on us. Our evolutionary drive is encoded in our DNA. Our challenges and setbacks set the pace for gradual adaptation. While politics has its role, undermining human potential is absolutely against God’s will. Jon Jones is right—blaming God for limitations is disrespectful. Willfully disrespecting God is a political move, but respecting God’s true will means doing the best we can, regardless of our mortality. We are supposed to set an example for future generations, so they can continue to evolve and, in doing so, glorify God.
It’s important to note that none of us can function without help. If we acknowledge God’s help and use it to grow, our progress metaphorically becomes God’s progress as well. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—we come from different schools of thought, which can cause our knowledge to clash, particularly when it intersects with political and social identities. Our competition drives evolution, but it can also damage us spiritually. That’s why we must deeply examine what all of this means. Our duty to evolve, balancing every aspect of life, comes from God. We should be progressing, but with peace in mind. If we’re advancing in war-making technology, we must also advance spiritually. Our true identity isn’t political—it’s spiritual. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience, not mere animals living only for survival.
Our evolutionary path has taken us out of the wild and into civilization. But we aren’t done evolving, and we’re still plagued by political and social diseases that cause us to harm one another. Looking at human evolution, one thing stands out: our thoughts shape and manifest our physical reality. A long time ago, I watched a Discovery Channel program where a small stingray fish was placed in a pool with a checkered floor. The fish blended in with its environment, becoming invisible as it changed color. I’m no zoologist, but I assume that evolution isn’t exclusive to humans—other creatures have adapted to survive in the harsh reality of the physical world. While we may not grow claws or wings, we have evolved to create comfort and progress.
Our lives are no longer stuck in the past. With every innovation, we step further into creating new physical realities. But despite all our advancements, one thing remains constant: our awareness of mortality. As mortals, things like happiness and contentment should become priorities. But this is difficult because of our constant urge to evolve, making contentment rare. The easiest way to balance happiness and progress is to believe wholeheartedly that if you achieve something, it’s a blessing, and if you don’t, it wasn’t meant to be. The sooner you accept this, the faster you guard yourself against discontentment and unhappiness. Moving on from failures quickly is essential because, in this mortal life, happiness and contentment are the ultimate prizes.
I believe that true spiritual happiness lies in our relationship with God. If you achieve what you need and want, it’s a blessing; if you don’t, it wasn’t meant to be. Accept this, because we can’t afford to accumulate disappointment and stress. Time is running out. If we understand this spiritual reciprocity with God, we might succeed in all kinds of relationships. Understanding our place in the world, and our connection with others, helps us give and receive love more easily. For example, children who recognize their parents’ provision of food and shelter will respect them more deeply. Couples who understand spiritual reciprocity may enjoy loving, successful relationships. But when we live only as physical creatures, focused on dominance and personal gain, we lose the opportunity for true peace.
Our group identities reflect our individual ones. If we take the next step in our evolution, we can move beyond the divisions and wars born of our animal instincts. Ignoring the physical realities of dominance means missing out on our spiritual growth, and in turn, failing to achieve peace. As individuals and as a collective, we aren’t there yet. The balance between the physical and spiritual aspects of life is still elusive. But if we can learn to see ourselves as creatures evolving into spiritual beings, we’ll better understand where things are going wrong. If you’re unhappy, particularly in your relationships, start with a deeper understanding of the spiritual relationship between you and God. After all, you’re alive because of oxygen and other favorable conditions beyond your control. So what are you doing for God? Since God doesn’t need anything from us, our duty is to help those around us, as they are God’s helping hands. Through physical help, we manifest spirituality into physical reality.
Understanding this reciprocity is key to understanding relationships. If you’re stuck living exclusively in the physical world, you’re limiting yourself and won’t grasp the spiritual side of life. Deep happiness and contentment are tied to spirituality. You can see this truth in how people find satisfaction in giving and being helpful. Apply this to your personal relationships and see how things change. The main challenge is that both sides must learn to give and receive simultaneously for a relationship to succeed. If you’re only focused on dominating each other, you’re living purely in the physical world. True growth lies in balancing both realms.