Spiritual Energy

Love is the great union of the universe."  Theilhard de Chardin

There is no subject in the world which arouses greater curiosity than spiritual, or psychic energy. The energy that animates a body, that enlivens the soul; it lights the eyes and attracts life to itself. Spiritual energy is that which is absent in the corpse. Yet there is scant, scientific evidence that it even exists. Most have an awareness of this energy by their own, daily experience. It is often encountered in the simple, everydayness of life, and as well in the profound.

While science is largely unaware of its presence in the world, its realness, none more opaque scientifically, spawns the whole of Ethics which rests upon it. "The nature of this inner power is so intangible that the whole description of the universe in mechanical terms has had no need to take account... but has deliberate disregard of its reality," wrote Pierre Theilhard de Chardin in his work, The Phenomenon
of Man.
"The difficulties we still encounter in trying to hold together spirit and matter in a reasonable perspective are nowhere more harshly revealed... the building of a bridge between the two banks of our existence-- the physical and the moral-- if we wish the material and spiritual of our activities to be mutually enlivened. To connect the two energies, of the body and the soul in a coherent manner: science has ignored the question... [yet]we must advance."

"The inner face of the world is manifest deep within" and we are most aware of through our concrete behaviors that the two energies do combine, but we cannot easily, or not at all, make out the method. It seems, according to de Chardin, that the method is made of both a dependence and an independence, thus a mutual inter-dependence arises as it occurs to us that the "soul" must be "a focal point of transformation" at which point all energy converges. However attractive it may be to suppose that there is a direct transformation, it becomes clear that in practice, in love, it is their mutual inter-dependence, as clear as their inter-relation arising, says de Chardin writing about the nature of spiritual energy and love.

His book, The Phenomenon of Man, deemed radical when it first appeared in 1940, was blacklisted by many contemporary theologians upon its arrival; today de Chardin now occupies an esteemed place in the world of theology. His ideas give rise to the idea of humanity as a unifying factor of the universe, and man its bearer.

Confucius, the Meaning of Ren and Yi

"If what you don't want for yourself, you shouldn't to do others, then you would like others to do for you what you would indeed like for yourself." --Confucius (also K'ung Fuzi), ancient Chinese philosopher

While "the gentleman understands Yi, the small/mean man understands Li," wrote Confucius, Analects IV:16.
Here in the United States many of us grow up with the occasional, "Confucius said..." and sometimes responding with laughter. But what did Confucius really say? Why does it matter at all?
In his book, The Ways of Confucianism by David S. Nivens, Philosopher and Sinologist, writes that Confucius remains important now as then, forming a sort of moral compass with principles to guide one in positive and fruitful pathways.
The practice of Confucianism is heavily invested in what is virtue, being Ren and doing Yi. In other words, one is mostly to be concerned with Xiao, honor, along with Ren love, charity and Yi, right conduct.

Nivens takes these base ideas and draws them out over the milenia of Chinese practice. He investigates virtue in the form of  De, the power or charisma of a king or ruler who practices without force or violence. Insisting this is key to understanding the philosophy of Confucius he compares the practice of De with an example, "Humans typically feel gratitude for gifts. However in some societies, this feeling becomes magnified so that my gratitude to you comes to seem like force... De was originally this "force" kings acquired through their willingness to make sacrifices to the ancestors and to the spirits..."
However, here it 's important to be cognizant of the difference between gifts given freely and those given to obtain a measure of force. True De is in contact with humility, generosity and virtue, generally.

To do good in Confucius' view, one must be in possession of this virtue, free of simple, unrestrained self-interest. In contrast, Chinese philosopher, Mozi in an attitude of "consequentialism," takes the tack of an extreme voluntarist, or one who willingly 'scratches your back, so you will scratch my own.' Mozi then is the quintessential anti-Confucianist.
Confucius argues that virtue is every one's business and everyone is to strive within this virtue. Thus Confucius also falls into the business of enforcing the bolstering of, what the West calls, the 'weakness of the will.' "So the problem of weakness of the will enters into Chinese moral philosophy in general," writes Nivens.

 Nivens, a scholar in his own right, posits some interpretations of the ancient Chinese texts rather than mere erudition of them.  Within his book, he examines Neo-Confucianism through the study of Wang Yang Ming, another influential, early Chinese Buddhist-influenced  philosopher. "For Wang, self-cultivation is a matter of escaping the obscuration [enigma] of selfish desires, and attending  instead to the voice of one's true self.
Because one's true self is in identification with the universe... self cultivation results in the unity of all things [harmony]." So in Wang's Neo-Confucianist view, harmony with the universe, openness in mind and heart to the nature of things, the persistence of spontaneity and joy, even while in mourning, is expressive of the action of one's true, authentic self.