Covid-19 And Spiritual/Religious Living

The Metaphysical Side of Pandemics

Be responsible to those you share this life with. At home, out in pubic, out in the world. Wear a Mask and get vaccinated!

What and how we think, creates our moments, day, week, month, year and life. If you approach the day with anger, in the end, you’re helping to create an angry world. Your attitude can be picked up by others, even people you don’t even know, and you can spread the anger, or hate, stress, fear etc. And the really sad part of this is, the one you will hurt the most, is YOU.

Everything in life has a component of Karma. Everything. Including a Pandemic. When an event occurs in the world that impacts billions of people, there’s no way to doubt the energy flowing through the ethereal around the world.

How many times have you participated in a holistic healing to send energy to far off areas to those in need? This isn’t any different really. Energy is energy and it flows around everyone in one way or the other.

The components of Karma don’t always mean the energy is negative. Karma is positive, negative and even indifferent. How Covid-19 came into the world created karmic debt for the person/people who exposed the first victims to the virus. Whither it was intentional or not.

Those who first passed the virus onto others, also face a measure of karmic responsibility. And that can take on a variety of forms. Were precautions taken, did the person even know they had the virus? Once they knew, did they cooperate with officials to warn those they had been in contact with? Each action we take in life, no matter how small, intended or not, creates karmic debt. This pandemic is no different.

Those who have willfully ignored warnings, refuse to wear a mask, denounce Public Health recommendations and restrictions are not doing their soul any favors. No matter what faith you follow or what you believe in, all spiritual paths teach lessons of compassion and care for your fellow man/woman. It’s the origin of the “Golden Rule”, the one thing all cultures have put in place for the good of the community. Long ago, what happened to one person in a community that relied on each other for survival, could affect everyone in that community.

Not only do these perspectives reside in cultural societies, they also exist in spiritual or religious societies. But the interesting thing is, they go hand in hand with teachings that tell us to love our neighbors. To care about others as we would care about ourselves. You would think for those of us who walk on a spiritual or religious path, would go out of our way to make sure we do our part! Wear a Mask, Get a Vaccine when it’s Your Turn!

In Metaphysical Paganism
In all the variations of Metaphysical Paganism, this Golden Rule law exists no matter how it’s written or said. It’s part of Wicca, Shamanistic traditions like my Deborean Clan, it’s even part of Ceremonial Magik practices.

The Deborean Clan
In my Clan’s Troth, we focuses on the one true law, that all we do is to live in Balance with all things through harmony, love and respect. Our Articles of Belief, also known as our Clan Troth, lists the 10 Principles of our Practice. #5 lays out the law of Karma, or the Golden Rule. #9 defines the law to care about others as you’d care about yourself.

5. What you express you shall receive.
Express harmony in all things you think, say and do. For what you send out, you shall receive 10-Fold in Return.

9. To harm others, is to harm the self.
Walk with love and you shall give compassion. Find the positive path, and you can find justice within all things.

In Wicca, the Rede begins with the principle of Love. Then it defines the principle of the Law of 3-fold. And it actually ends with An’ in it harm none. A phrase that denotes taking responsibility for your actions to NOT harm others. Again wearing a mask so you don’t harm others.

Bide the Wiccan Laws we must
In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust

Later the Rede says:
Merry Meet and Merry Part,
Bright the cheeks and warm the heart.
Mind the Threefold Law you should,
Three times bad and three times good.

In Buddhism
The Dhammapada opens with a series of verses about the importance of carefully choosing your thoughts. The Buddha begins by explaining

“with our thoughts we make the world.”

He acknowledges we will encounter people that abuse us, even beat us or throw us down and rob us, but what he says next is stunning.

He says simply,
“Abandon such thoughts, and live in love.”

In the next part of this lesson, Buddha explains the secret behind this teaching:

In this world
Hate never yet dispelled hate,
Only love dispels hate
This is the law, Ancient and inexhaustible.

In Christianity
For Christians, nothing says this better than these two passages that talk about how we should treat our neighbors. Jesus even explains just how really important this concept is. I wish Evangelicals would read the Bible they claim to revere.

Romans 13:9
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

^{Mark 12:}²⁸And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
²⁹Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
³⁰And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
³¹The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

The bottom line is, you should protect your neighbor with compassion and love. Wear a mask and stop the spread. Get a vaccine so you protect yourself, your family and your community.

In Islam
The Prophet Mohammad is reported to have said that helping out a neighbor in need may end up helping you as well.

Mustadrak al-Wasa’il, v.2, pp.78-79
“Treating one’s neighbors with kindness and being a good neighbor will result in an increase in one’s share of daily bread and the development of towns.”

Reminds me of the importance of protecting the community, because everyone depends on everyone else to survive.

The Teachings of Baha’u’llah
Baha’i teachings actually extend the Golden Rule to another level. Baha’u’llah asks humanity not just to love thy neighbor as thyself, but to prefer thy neighbor’s welfare before yourself:

Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 71.
Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.

The Lesson
For those who claim to walk a path of spiritual living, a reverence to their religion, we’re all taught that the condition of our community is just as important, if not more important than our own. Covid-19 is not a joke. It’s not a fake disease, it’s not like the annual flu, and it does spread regardless of age, race, economic standing or political partisanship.

Do the right thing!
Wear a mask! Stay home if you can! Social distance when you can’t. Stop the spread! Get vaccinated when it’s your turn!