What are the virtues of the spirit? Are they the attributes in holy texts or something more concrete? There are ways to cultivate spiritual virtues without following a religion. Find out how to do it.
Western theology likes to rebrand, rename, and repackage all things spiritual. So, it is not surprising organized religion has a list of virtues as well. However, they differ from the virtues of the soul that we all possess.
What Are Spiritual Virtues?
The spirit or soul is that aspect of our consciousness and awareness that exists beyond the body. The virtues related to the spirit are the highest positive moral values of the psyche. These are reflected in varying degrees depending upon the health of your mental state. The healthier your mind, the more you will reflect positive thinking.
Organized religion boasts a hierarchy of traits dubbed virtues. Yet, these qualities are subjective personal attributes, not the virtues of the soul or spirit. (1) We don’t want you to get sidetracked by their version of these gifts. Let’s look at how they differ.
Christianity has seven virtues, which are the antidotes for the seven deadly sins. There are four cardinals and three theological virtues. The cardinal virtues come from Ambrose, a 4th-century Catholic. These theological virtues come from their holy text, 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.
The cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. To this, you add three theological virtues. Exactly what are the virtues of the spirit in Christianity? They define them as character traits that lead to good behavior. These are necessary to combat sin.
Spiritual virtues in Christianity are connected to penance, sacrifice and suffering. They give us a way to buy your way out of the consequences of your sinful nature. All it takes is giving them monetary offerings they call indulgences. The prize is a place in heaven. But if you don’t make restitution for your sin, then you are doomed to an eternity in hell. This money-making scheme is based on exploiting our fears, not cultivating the divine nature of our soul.
So, what are spiritual values in Western religion? They are tools used to create cash flow, relabeled to sound spiritual. The key difference is this. Spiritual virtues focus on inner qualities and personal growth. Religious virtues are about moral rules based on fear, myths, and superstitions.
What Are the Virtues of the Spirit or the Soul?
What we are talking about differs completely from the doctrine of Western theology. We are referring to the higher values of the psychic structure within our personality and instincts. They are a part of our DNA that we can experience and express in thought and action. These elements are the noble qualities of our souls. It has nothing to do with religion; it is all about consciousness and awareness.
These virtues of the soul are part of our nature; when they are alive and balanced, they make us well-adjusted and healthy humans. These gifts are the legacy of our ancestors.
Again, you cannot learn them from reading a book. You can’t wish or pray them into being. Nor can you pay for them. They are not antidotes to appease an imaginary friend. Instead, these are elements of your psyche you learn to access, experience, and put into action.
Ways to Cultivate Spiritual Virtues and Virtues of the Soul
We find and open these gifts by looking within. This requires inner work tools we call spiritual technologies, which reveal the higher virtues of your soul.
Spiritual Technologies
Spiritual technologies are tools for exploring consciousness. They result from generations of research by cultures around the world. These processes stand up to the test of science. They are repeatable and measurable. Everyone who can follow a process can use these tools. We call the practice of these processes spiritual exploration. You can list these tools in several ways. Some fall into more than one group. We like this simple method of grouping.
Critical Thinking
The first group is several analytical tools to enhance critical thinking. Many people don’t equate analytical thinking with the virtues of the soul. However, these tools help us to understand our psyche. They help us to identify harmful thought scripts and values so we can repair and replace them with healthy ones.
The Enneagram Personality Profile is the first tool of our blended learning process. This tool provides insight into the mechanisms of ego, personality, and instinct. Logical reasoning, spotting logical fallacies, and logical axioms. These are the three major tools of logical reasoning. This helps you to avoid common mistakes in assessing information.
Next, a research tool we call Comparative Analysis. This is a process to help us explore and compare belief systems. This process is a scientific process form of comparative religious studies. Together, these analytical tools give a solid foundation of common sense thinking. They sharpen your ability to discern facts from fiction.
Seated Meditation
Seated meditation is the heart of most spiritual practices. This includes a wide range of meditation techniques. It starts with Beginning Meditation and Mindfulness Meditation. It progresses to more advanced forms like Japa Meditation, the Siddhis of Patanjali.
Moving Meditation
This is another foundational element that strengthens the mind-body connection. Moving meditation is also key to our health and wellness. This progression includes several methods of energy collection. Here we teach Forest Bathing, Qigong, and Tai Chi. It also includes more contemporary processes for grounding, like Tree Grounding and Sun Gazing.
Awareness Expansion
Pathways for expanding awareness include a variety of tools. This group includes practical tools like the spiritual journal and automatic writing. Here we introduce lucid dreaming, the Shamanic Journey, or Guided Meditation. There are also techniques for third-eye awakening and soul memory awareness.
Healing Practices
Healing practices are the last group. This branch includes Pe Jet, Reiki, and Shiatsu. Self-care is an important element of this group. It is vital for normalizing our inner work and maintaining our health and wellness.
These tools help us reveal and remove any roadblocks in accessing the virtues of the spirit. They are the ways to cultivate spiritual virtues without the need of religious dogma.
Remember, you can’t open these virtues by reading books, praying, pretending, or reciting holy texts. A guide or partner can assist you with the above inner work tools and provide a sounding board to help you address any obstacles. A good teacher will give you the tools for your inner quest to seek your own answers. Tools are what you need, not dogma.
If you cannot find the truth within yourself, where else do you expect to find it? — Dogen
You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers won’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth – inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important. — Ajahn Chah
This quest is the inner call, what Joseph Campbell calls the Hero’s Journey (1). It is that inner voice urging us to explore the unknown. When we start our quest, we must realize that growth is not always linear. We digress and progress, but we will succeed if we continue.
Sometimes, growth comes in great leaps. However, most of the time, change is incremental. These are small, sometimes imperceptible steps. So, it’s vital to keep a spiritual journal. Using a journal will help us see our growth. This simple tool allows us to spot patterns that may hold us back.
How do the virtues of the spirit relate to our personalities? They are the highest values possible for each of the nine basic personality types. Each type has its path and its own set of challenges. Presence is the common element that helps all personality types move toward integration. Presence enables the real you to show up. To do serious inner work, we must be present.
The dominant cultural narrative is against you walking your own path. Organized religions don’t want you to investigate the gifts they cannot control. They want to keep you as a paying customer. If you find your way, you threaten their cash flow. When exploring personal growth, it’s essential to ask, what are spiritual virtues? Finding the answer will clarify the difference between your true virtues and those promoted by religion.
The Virtues of the Spirit
Below is a simple way to describe these virtues.
Appreciation is a virtue that enables a greater understanding of self. It helps us see and understand the qualities we possess. It is similar in effect to Thankfulness but different in focus. This virtue enables us to accept our flaws as unique expressions.
Blissfulness is a virtue of the spirit we equate with transcendent silence. We associate a state of awareness with the absence of internal dialogue. Bliss is pure awareness without the roadblock of the Ego. It is a place of healing, which facilitates the flow of energy.
Gratitude is a virtue of perspective. It helps us see and appreciate value. It allows us to see our situation in a way that shows us the lesson we would otherwise miss. On the list of spiritual virtues, it is the most noticeable and actionable.
Happiness is our natural state of being. It is living with a sense of meaning and deep satisfaction. This virtue results from living with a sense of playful purpose.
Joyfulness is an inner condition of well-being and good spirits; it does not rely on external conditions. It’s key to our health and well-being because it returns us to our original state of being.
Love is a sublime virtue of “connection,” a sense of deep and authentic caring and empathy for everyone and all things. This virtue is akin to the concept of Oneness.
Mindfulness allows the “virtues of the spirit” to direct the mind’s activities. It is observation without judgment. It combines thought and action with a positive purpose.
Serenity is the inner peace and balance state, a quiet place amidst the activity. It is the quality that helps us balance the mind’s intuitive and analytical aspects.
Thankfulness is an awareness of the fragile nature of life on this planet. This virtue helps us to overcome our existential fears.
How do the Virtues of the Spirit Relate to the Enneagram?
Each personality type has default elements or components. The Enneagram uses a questionnaire to determine personality and instinctual types. However, the Enneagram goes beyond just identifying the elements of the psyche. It is a system composed of exercises and practices that enable us to repair harmful thought scripts.
Integration is a concept within the Enneagram. (2) To become more integrated means becoming whole. Cultivating spiritual virtues changes your thinking. We can access these higher virtues when we start to remove all the roadblocks within our psychic structures. Integration opens the door to more options, so we are not confined to our default personality type’s default settings.
It is not a mood or change of attitude, but a concrete change made possible because of new neurological connections. When we make fundamental changes in thinking, we change the structure of the brain.
There are nine personality types in the Enneagram that correspond with the nine principles on the list of spiritual virtues. That means there are nine doorways through which we can open these virtues. That’s good news because no matter your primary personality type, there is a doorway to these higher ideals. These have nothing to do with the religious concept of virtues or sin.
What are the virtues of the spirit in a practical sense? They are the highest values of the human spirit. You know instinctively what they are we you see them in action. They are Gratitude, Love, Appreciation, Serenity, Joyfulness, Happiness, Thankfulness, Blissfulness, and Mindfulness. With these tools, we can conquer ourselves … And so then… the world does not need to be conquered. — Guru Tua
The doorways to your soul path are not within your default personality type. Instead, we find integration at the personality type’s point of integration. We must move beyond our default thought patterns to integrate, which isn’t easy. Following your soul’s path expands the available attributes.
Next, we learn about the thought triggers that send us toward integration or disintegration. We can traverse in either direction rather quickly. So, inner work investigates both directions while enhancing our inner observational ability.
Our personality has three key elements: our primary type, and the types in the direction of integration and disintegration. The first doorway of the “virtues of the spirit” is embracing the type in the direction of integration.
We should not discount the point of disintegration. The “point of disintegration” is a second doorway to the spirit’s virtues. We can gain entrance to this higher value once we fully open the door toward integration. Then, the higher values of our default personality type are also available. Therefore, the basic triad becomes a corridor between all three points. The more integrated we become, the more we put these higher philosophical arguments into action.
One of the easiest ways to understand how our personality types relate to one another is by a graphical representation of the Enneagram. Below is the Enneagram showing the direction of integration for the nine types. We’ll explain how each type corresponds with each virtue.
This chart shows how “type one” integrates by moving to “type seven,” and type one’s direction of disintegration is toward type four.
Personality as a Doorway to the Virtues of the Soul
The movement between integration and disintegration pathways provides the first doorway. Cultivating spiritual virtues is a conscious inward journey. One of the best tools for this is the repeating question exercise. With this method, you discover the thinking processes and values that are boundaries to your integration.
Type One — The Reformer
If this is your default personality type, serenity is the “virtue of the spirit,” which is the most readily available. The Reformer, type one, has a passion for order. Because the world is not orderly but sometimes chaotic, serenity grounds this type. It enables “type ones” to move more freely toward “type seven.” They learn to embrace and appreciate what they are and are free to move to type four to the balance of Thankfulness.
Type Two — The Helper
Type two. These are the helpers of the world. Love is the natural virtue to resolve here. This expansiveness enables the movement to the balance of Thankfulness at four. It also provides stability to move in the direction of integration to point eight, where strength becomes mindfulness.
Type Three — The Achiever
The achiever longs to open their hearts to joyfulness. It’s the discovery that joy exists beyond and despite achievements. This virtue of the spirit enables movement to type six, where blissfulness is the key to calming anxiousness. It also provides the road to type nine, where happiness anchors life.
Type Four — The Individualist
Type four is the individualist, so feeling like they are a part of the world is the key to Thankfulness. Finding the calm sea of emotion and life enables movement to the serenity of type one. They gain the strength to move towards the trust of Love within type two.
Type Five — The Investigator
To the investigator, it’s the truth that matters, but gratitude is the virtue of the spirit that enables them to “let go” and be grateful. It provides the fuel to find Mindfulness at type eight. Moving to the virtue of appreciation at seven is also more available.
Type Six — The Loyalist
Blissfulness is the doorway to quench the fire of anxiety, and it is the first doorway for the loyalist. The anchor of happiness awaits the loyalist at type nine. It complements the Joyfulness of life at point three.
Type Seven — The Enthusiast
The enthusiast finds appreciation, and the balance needed to find meaning in everything. Gratitude opens the heart further at point five. Serenity is the perfect virtue of the spirit to balance life for the seven.
Type Eight — The Challenger
The challenger needs mindfulness to open the virtues of the spirit. The “tough” persona projected by type eight finds its purpose in the Love of point two. Finding gratitude, the challenger lets go of control and moves to point five.
Type Nine — The Peacemaker
Type nines are the most likely to misidentify their type. The peacemaker sees themselves reflected in the other types more often than any other personality type. Happiness is the anchor and hardest door for this type to open. Once the first door opens, they can find Joyfulness at point three. Blissfulness is often a surprising revelation for all types, but point six is the perfect complement to balance this type.
Summary
Each personality type has its own ways to cultivate spiritual virtues. The triads above are the starting place. We have access to all nine personality traits and all nine virtues of the soul. Personality and instinct are necessary mechanisms that connect our consciousness to our bodies.
Opening these gifts contained in our DNA helps us conquer our failings and balance our lives. In this way, we do not need to dominate others; the opposite is true. We can then open our hearts and lives to promote friendliness, compassion, and happiness to everyone and everything.
Our inborn spiritual desire to seek the unknown and explore our awareness fuels our journey. You do this as you create a path of your own. Mythologies are signposts that show us we can do it. They point the way, but we all have different lives. We must find our way. Ask yourself. what are spiritual virtues and how do they influence my thinking and values?
In Conclusion
Your soul path is unique. Don’t get distracted or sidetracked by religious dogma. Above all, regularly connect with the source of being. Learn about and use the ancient spiritual technologies of spiritual exploration to forge your path. Namaste. “Blessed Be.”
References
(1) Modern theories in philosophy and religion. Archive.org
(2) The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types. Goodreads.com