“	Originally Posted By: ErikMcBride Limiting Chi to a purely spiritual aspect allows people to take advantage of it, as so many have over the eons and will continue to do.	”

Erik, I have read your replies. You're probably looking for the relationship between the chinese version of spiritual aspects and the western version of spiritual aspects. I believe you're looking for Chai. In older documents than the Chinese texts, the Hebrew word is chai; it means life force/energy. The force/energy that is in all living matter. This word also means the action of living.
I'm no linguist, but you can see the progression across the cultures: chai, chi, qi, ki. What is getting a little blurred here is the difference between life as full being and life as living energy "chai". You'll notice that in the monotheistic realm, we do make this distinction. Most of us just don't think about it. In non-monotheistic faiths, however, this distinction either doesn't exist or is confused. Hence, everything is divine or has the potential of the divine "God is in everything". With this line of thinking one can choose to worship anything, for it is a piece of the "divine energy", all is deity and deity is in all. This is the folly of other faiths.
God is in all things, but did not make all things Holy and worshipful except Christ.
To compare pneuma with the eastern understanding of prana, qi, ki, or chi is wrong.
Also the Bible makes a clear distinction between the human soul (psuche) and the human spirit (pneuma).

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thes.5:23 and Heb 4:12

The unbeliever has life and lives, so human life must be in the psuche. I don't know that the unbeliever has a human spirit because of 1 Cor 2:10-16. The natural man or psuchikos - soulish man does not understand pneuma type things. So this passage also shows the difference between the human soul, the human spirit and the Holy Spirit.

If I remember correctly the Church Fathers understood the breathing by which God created man's [living] soul the operation of the Holy Spirit, not that man received a part (essence) of God.


Erik, Even though most chinese believe every soul has a spirit and rest in the Kidneys and the translation for kidneys is "klayoth" more often used as a parallel to "lev" in poetic literature. "Lev" is commonly translated as "heart". From what I'm reading in the older texts, it's possible that not every soul has a spirit as the chinese would think. Please confirm this for me by discussing what "spirit" means in the Asian world.

Hopefully, I haven't offended anyone here on this forum by using other texts besides the chinese translations. Erik, there are others that would like to know if taiji has anything to do with spirituality. If they use the Yin and the Yang along with the Tao, Taiji is spiritual in a deeper sense even though some ~may~ not have a spirit at all:
'That which is born of flesh is flesh'. Its born, it's alive, it walks and talks....but it still needs 'that which is born of the Spirit is spirit' to live with God forever.
Regarding Jesus' words about being "born again" in John 3:3, the context clearly shows that Jesus was referring to a spiritual rebirth or regeneration. In fact, the phrase born again carries the idea of "born from above," and can even be translated that way. Jesus clarified His meaning by affirming that "flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit"

What's on your mind?

Presbyter