In 1987, I was accepted into medical school and began a lifelong journey of the study of medicine. In medical school I began to seek God from more than just an intellectual and informational curiosity perspective. I felt the intense need to obtain a level of spiritual enlightenment that would foster a deeper relationship between myself and God. In the beginning of my journey, I believe I felt as if reaching spiritual enlightenment would answer all of life’s questions and solve all my problems. I was far from enlightened, but I was becoming spiritually conscious.
In August of 1987, I began my first medical school class. Two months later, my beloved grandmother died of cancer. I was devastated, she was the rock of my family. I needed a very powerful anchor during this very difficult time in my life.
My grandmother was always convinced that I should be a preacher. She was the first person in my life to speak this type of word of encouragement to my spirit. She would tell me, “You sound like a preacher.” I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. I think my grandmother was also the first one who recognized my curiosity and sincere desire to better understand the Word. (More to come on my grandmother.)
My course of study in medicine was extremely humbling to say the least, often leading me to the end of self and seeking the support and assistance from a higher power. I began studying the Word more intensely trying to understand the concept of the Higher Self. I was trying to find spiritual enlightenment and higher consciousness. As my paths of seeking God and His Word and the study of medicine crossed, I became aware that the science of medicine was merely a smaller component of a much larger, albeit infinite and all-encompassing science of spirituality. It became increasingly clear to me that human beings in their finite and physical form were not simply physically imperfect beings with occasional physical unwellness, but were more inclined to be physically unwell, or in a disease state, when they were spiritually unwell.
I immersed myself into the teachings of spiritual wellness and higher consciousness. For the most part, I studied this secretly, for fear of reprisal by my friends and colleagues in medicine. While I believe they who knew the “medical student Ryan” well, but may not be as comfortable with the “spiritual Ryan”. In medical school there was such an intense focus on the study of physical disease and medical therapies, that talking too much about the concepts of spiritual wellness seemed “out of place”.
However, once I discovered the concept that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience but indeed we are spiritual beings having a human experience, everything made perfect sense. I realized that medicine, or the study of disease, or the study of physical unwellness, was not actually the study of human beings suffering from only physical disease, but of spiritual beings suffering from spiritual disease and spiritual unwellness. Thus, the diagnosis or treatment of a physical disease required a better understanding of the origin of such disease. Additionally, if there was a spiritual unwellness that led to physical disease, then there must be, at some level, the ability to achieve spiritual wellness that can lead to physical wellness.
The question then arose, were these two entities, spiritual wellness and physical disease, mutually exclusive or divinely interrelated? The answer over time has become clearly the latter, that spiritual wellness and physical disease are divinely interrelated. Moreover, it became clear that physical disease in human beings (spiritual beings having a human experience), emanates from an imbalance in spiritual wellness. When spiritual wellness was the focus of the individual human being, that individual seemed to remain in a better state of physical wellness. However, when the focus of the individual was on spiritual unwellness, their state of physical unwellness followed their spiritual focus.
For example, when an individual was focused on thoughts such as fear and doubt, they were much more likely to suffer physical disease. And when an individual was more focused on thoughts of peace and joy, they were much more likely to be in a state of wellness or well-being. Fear and doubt exist in the realms of spiritual unwellness, whereas, peace and joy exist in the realms of spiritual wellness. The spirit of fear and doubt exist in the realms of lower consciousness states, such as the subconscious and the unconscious. But the spirit of peace and joy exist in the realms of higher consciousness states that are only achievable through a focus on prayer and meditation.
I remained fascinated with the patterns and themes in the words and scriptures of the Bible. I became increasingly enlightened in how God used specific words, in specific ways, to organize and instruct our thoughts and understandings of the Word. I have always believed in the pure order of God and the order of His universe. I believe God created all things in an orderly manner and with a specific organized pattern of existence. I believe that the Bible and its inerrant Word have a defined pattern and a distinct formula in which we can use to better discern the meaning behind God’s directions and instructions to His children.
And, I believe, I found it.
I realized that the entirety of my educational experience was always in the setting of a religious and spiritual background. Religion classes were a core requirement of my studies from elementary school through college. The studies of biblical and spiritual teachings were always present side-by-side with my core courses in my institutions of higher education. On any given day in college, I would go from a course on biblical teachings, to a math class followed by a science class. This routine no doubt had the indelible effect of engraving my conscious and subconscious with God, science and math; God, science and math; God, science and math.
I am almost certain, while in the throngs of formal study, as an excitable teenager entering young adulthood, I did not fully appreciate the subtle intertwining of these different disciplines. I do, however, believe that I was aware that a transformation of some sort was taking place in my youthful mind and that that transformation would somehow solidify in the future. As I transitioned farther away from the formal educational process of the institutions of higher learning and began to incorporate these spiritual exposures into the inevitable lessons of life, their divine ordination became more apparent.
Looking back over the divinely guided path of my parochial school education, the fascination with numbers and patterns, and the transition to majoring in chemistry prior to proceeding to the study of medicine, it is evident to me that this path was always meant to lead to a greater purpose. This divine understanding was to take the direction of greater enlightenment, in which God would evolve the gifts that He placed in my spirit and soul to nurture and develop into His ultimate purpose, goal and will for my life.
God the Father placed a gift in my spirit to give to His children. He blessed me a spirit of order and organization. He instilled in me a natural fascination for numbers, patterns and systematic processes. I found this gift most useful in my early academic life especially in the field of math and science. I later used this gift to study the science of medicine to help better understand the complexities of the physical body and physical disease states.
More importantly, I used this gift to develop a system that organizes the words and scriptures of the Bible into specific levels, or realms, of spiritual wellness. God placed in me the gift to outline seven realms of spiritual wellness. I believe these realms are organized based on Gods instruction to His children found in the Bible. These realms are developed from the biblical words, phrases, and scriptures as well as philosophical teachings on spiritual concepts. I describe and document my understanding of these realms in “The Seven Trilateral Realms of Spiritual Wellness”.
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