Inner Peace of Mind Measurement

There are other possibilities for inner-peace of mind measurement that I have not included: weight, posture and ease of bodily movement. If you or your favorite New Age teacher is overweight or has poor posture or moves like a much older person, why? Don't these conditions often show a lack of respect for the body, the current spiritual vehicle? The excuse often given for these conditions is, "I am transcending the physical body." This excuse is a trap/detour that I shall discuss further in Chapter 9. Wherever you see a spiritual or religious teacher whose body is not optimum, I suggest you be suspicious about whatever words of "wisdom" they may be dispensing about physicality or the body and be cautious about everything they say. In Chapter 9, I give several examples of spiritual teachers with optimum bodies.

Body Measurements Suggested Follow-up. Blood pressures, heart rates and fingertip temperatures are measurements that are well correlated with how much tension and stress are in the body. I suggest you test yourself and ask all your New Age teachers, group leaders and fellow travelers about their test results. If you/they show "average for the culture" results, I believe that you/they are not in a state of inner peace of mind. For more on these three measurements of inner tension, please see Chapter 9.

When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean
And billows wild contend with angry roar,
'T is said, far down beneath the wild commotion
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore.

Far, far beneath, the noise of tempests dieth
And silver waves chime ever peacefully,
And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flyeth
Disturbs the Sabbath of that deeper sea.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-1896