Can you care about your physical appearance while being spiritual?

[Hawaiian Dreams]

When you work on what's inside, a lot of times it translate to how you look on the outside. That said, I don't think there is anything wrong with working to achieve a desired fitness. In the end, I think they both help each other to one degree or another.

[wstein]

Originally Posted by Raven47

Hi all! I have read contradicting things on the topic of: can you care about your physical appearance, change things about yourself, try and look better or your best, etc. while ascending, becoming more enlightened, and in general while being spiritual? ...

Taking care of your physical vehicle is part of being incarnate AS a spiritual being. Pretty much as long as you keeping in perspective that the spiritual is more important than the physical, there shouldn't be a 'problem'.

Spiritual difficulties arise when intellect, ego, or emotion take the position that they are they most important.

Originally Posted by Raven47

Hi all! I have read contradicting things on the topic of: can you care about your physical appearance, change things about yourself, try and look better or your best, etc. while ascending, becoming more enlightened, and in general while being spiritual?

You know you're in an ego trap when you say "I'm more Spiritual because....." If you are more Spiritual because you don't spend time in front of the mirror then that's ego, not being more Spiritual. If you align with higher vibrations and ascension - both myths by the way - then you're not aligning with yourself, and usually that means there's a part of you that you either don't like or you have judged and found lacking. It's really low self esteem, not Spirituality at all. Aligning with ascension and high vibrations is reinforcing your own perceptual lacks.

Feeling good about yourself is high vibrations and aligning with yourself as a person is ascension, because you align woth yourself as who you are and not some idealistic 'you' that you are not. How you dress and feel about yourself is an expression of yourself as much as telling everybody that you have high vibrations, it's more honest and less egoic.

[jro5139]

Personally, I think that keeping your body physically fit and healthy is more beneficial to the spiritual path than ignoring health and fitness.
Everything is connected, including your body, mind and spirit. When your body is healthier, your mind will be healthier, your spirit will also. Everything affects everything else. When your body is healthy, your mind is more clear, you are better able to focus, you can even breath better. This makes spiritual practices, such as meditation, yoga, even reading easier to accomplish.

Of course, everything should involve balance. It's not healthy to be obsessed to the point of ignoring other important things. But I see nothing wrong in wanting to look good and healthy. When you look better, you feel better, your vibration is higher, you accomplish more overall.
I think it's important to keep your motivations in check. Are you doing it for yourself or to impress others? There's nothing wrong with enjoying a little attention from the opposite sex (or same sex if that's your preference), but if you are concerned with impressing people, that indicates to me that there is a self-esteem issue going on.
If you are working out and eating healthy mainly for yourself, because you know it makes you feel better and improves your mind, as well as body, than it's all working together to optimize yourself and your life. That's the way to go, in my opinion.

[Jyotir]

The body is the temple…

The physical is the instrument of Spirit and provides opportunity for experience and realisation.

Therefore, a fit instrument allows for more expedient spiritual progress, joy, and service to others. Just reflect on how even a common cold can make one feel miserable, stifled, and frustrated. Likewise for wasting precious time recovering from self-imposed indulgences that require so much patience and attention just getting back to ‘normal’.

As such we need to take care of the physical as a means, discipline, and orientation of devotion and dedication for the purpose of serving the Highest.

Keeping the body fit and healthy, developing purity, simplicity, strength, well being, etc., supports and is appropriate for aspirants; even to pray for these things, and consciously facilitating them.

Consider that one’s appearance should reflect these things as a demonstration and example of proper orientation to others, and can also create harmony, simplicity, and inspiration within the collective, supporting others in that way. That is the proper orientation for spiritual people. It’s a responsibility to one’s own soul and to others.

Excessive attention to the physical, whether attention to the superficial by either emphasis or neglect, especially to the exclusion of the inner spiritual principles is an improper orientation for spiritual people - the negatives of stimulating demand for attention, competition, jealousy, envy, generating undesireable (conscious and unconscious) responses in others, and false values within oneself.

It is ultimately the inner spiritual necessity that must take precedence in all life-activity as an integral functioning of the spiritual path.


~ J

[7luminaries]

That is a lovely and thoughtful response Jyotir, clear and well said.
Agreed full stop.

Peace & blessings
7L

[SapphireBlue]

In my opinion spirituality equates to being authentic and you can't be authentic unless you're being "the best version of yourself" and you can't be the best version of yourself if you don't have self love.

My personal take is it's the difference between vanity or total lack thereof and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, healthy having both physical and emotional components.

Just don't go to extremes. Maintain balance. The Middle Way.

[shivatar]

of course you can. Spirituality is about that which is beyond the physical. It's not about ignoring the physical.

Look to many great sages, they usually say things like "be here now". and "now is all there is".

Look at now, really look at it. There is a physical component, and there is a spiritual component. One does not negate the other. They co-exist.

do not be like the fools who reject the physical in pursuit of the spiritual! There is room for the pursuit of both.

[Found Goat]

The Bible, as many of us know, regards personal hygiene in high esteem. One would hope, though, that a person needn’t a holy guidebook or even a spiritual outlook for her to appreciate the importance of cleanliness. It pretty much goes without saying that one who is clean, and especially by nature, has a healthy sense of self-esteem. That is to say, I think this is more psychological (i.e. the outer, a reflection of what’s inside), than anything else.

Albeit, with that said, it is one of the things I admired most during my time spent in the religious community that I was raised into, and which I eventually would go onto leave upon my becoming an adult: the hygienic and modestly attired congregants. The men and women were all well-groomed. Make-up, in keeping with what the Scriptures teach, was used by the women, moderately. Body odor was nonexistent. This was back in the day when men could wear a hint of cologne and women a touch of perfume without hyperanxious valetudinarians creating a fuss over it. All the men were clean-shaven (beards were forbidden). I suspect all the women were too, beneath their arms and pantyhose.

Sometimes while I was out and about, driving in the city, I would spot other churchgoers either entering or existing their places of worship and would be shocked to see the men underdressed for the occasion; in, say, blue jeans and a tee shirt. I used to think this was disrespectful, for a person attending church (the wearing of casuals), but I suppose so long as one is clean one needn’t have to dress up in one’s Sunday best, as if God is somehow a fashion critic. After all, it’s one’s inside that counts the most, in the eyes of the Creator. Still, I feel that is no excuse for one to be unhygienic and slovenly if one has the means of not being so.

Of course, the extreme opposite of an inattentive appearance (commonly associated with sloth) is an overly attentive appearance (commonly associated with vanity).

Personally, I have never been attracted to a woman who is overly cosmeticized, no matter how pretty the face. As the women I know who wear little makeup explain to me, this can’t be good for the skin, all those chemicals seeping into one's pores; that this is for women a leading cause of wrinkles and poor pigmentation later on in life.

The possessing of inner beauty, an inner glow, I’ve even heard a few psychologists say is a sign of one with a true and healthy spirit. Interestingly, I once knew a woman who was at one time overweight. Years later, as the result of being fed up with being fat, she took to a crash diet and lost over 100 pounds, except this ended up changing her character for the worse. What was once a sweet-natured person became, with the massive shedding of weight, a woman overly confident to the point of being blunt, domineering, and sassy. She suddenly began to think of herself as hot stuff. It was as if she let her outer transformation go to her head. This person ended up losing her likable personality for the sake of a bare midriff, skinny jeans, risque gowns, and a painted up mug that made the average clown seem plain-looking.

My feeling is that this idea of “looking one's best” seems to be an admirable one on the surface, but questionable underneath. Rather than a sign or show of an inverted heightened mindset it may simply be an act of psychological imbalance, the flip side of a slovenly appearance. In my opinion, a person who dresses plainly and who doesn't fuss with hairstyle can be just as hygienic and health-conscious as the man dressed to the nines and the woman all dolled up. It’s not as if self-esteem is synonymous with glamor.

For me, cleanliness also extends to being an orderly individual. I’m no neatnik, but I do like things, as often as is possible, in shipshape condition and prefer a spick-and-span environment to an unkempt or rundown one. This has nothing to do with my being spiritual per se; more so, I think, aesthetic, as one who appreciates beauty, a la a landscaped yard of trimmed trees and a mowed lawn over the unsightliness of overgrown grass, weeds, unpaved roads and gravel driveways.