The dangers of addiction When a person decides to reach for and smoke a cigarette, he will feel a more or less significant effect. For example, he will feel calmer. In this way he “learns” that it is possible to achieve this goal without an inner, spiritual effort. This would not be a major problem if it occurred only occasionally. But a pleasant and comfortable experience is something one wants to have again, and so the smoker soon reaches for the cigarette at every opportunity, very often even unconsciously. And in so doing, the spirit becomes less and less accustomed to reacting out of an impulse of its own will to maintain or restore the inner balance or, as the case may be, to rediscover what is its task. The less the will is active, the weaker it becomes, and soon the smoker finds it exceedingly difficult to remain calm without resorting to the use of nicotine. He needs it and cannot manage without it. And this is what we call “addiction.”
It is important to point out that it is the spirit above all that becomes addicted, not the body. For the spirit is the only living entity in a human being that has the ability to perceive consciously. And it is the spirit — and not the body — which suffers, feels discomfort, perceives lack of something, or feels a sense of inner dissociation. The body and the brain merely transmit the sensitive information of the pain to the spirit. The normal functioning of the body may be disrupted by a drug, but the experience of addiction occurs in the nonmaterial realm of the real self. The spirit yearns for the drug in order to experience the desired state. It binds itself through its own volition to the means of addiction.
The propensity for smoking (or consuming other drugs) is not automatically eliminated with the death of the physical body. Not by chance do clairvoyants who have contact with the other world give account of departed souls who remain "earthbound" through their propensity. The avid desire to smoke holds them near those who can still succumb to this urge, and they try to satisfy their craving through the feelings of a smoker who is still in flesh and blood.
Moreover, the fact that this addictive behavior rests in the psyche and not in the physical body explains why it is so difficult to give up smoking as long as there is not an absolutely serious and firm resolution of the will based upon knowledge. External aids may be able to support the spirit’s efforts. However, they do not render the spirit more active.
Conversely, some smokers experience little or practically no unease and can stop smoking without problems as soon as the appropriate impulse of will comes from the spirit. In this case, the body begins to produce those substances again that, up to this point, were being replaced by the drug.
Some people become addicted to tobacco in a surprisingly short time. Others can indulge heavily in smoking without developing an addiction rightaway. This, too, has to do with the previous spiritual development of the person concerned, perhaps also with the past lives on earth. A smoker who dies and does not manage in the beyond to free himself of his propensity will come with this “predisposition” into a new incarnation on earth — and as soon as the opportunity presents itself the tendency will manifest again.
Tobacco consumption thus has consequences for the spirit! Through the blood radiation, nicotine allows the smoker to experience a state of relaxation and well-being. This “comfortable” path, however, endangers his spiritual development. Knowledge of these connections should induce the smoker to free himself of the smoking habit.
As we have seen, the blood radiation can be influenced and altered not only from “without” but also from “within.” In order to free oneself of the cigarette habit, it is necessary to bring about a change in this radiation — not with nicotine, but through the power of the spirit.
Photo by Flickr user Vanessa Pike-Russell
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