Spiritual training is the mineral at the centre of every profession

Originally posted in German on 2nd March 2025

by Heinz Grill

I would like to share a little personal episode from my younger years. The official medical examination was taking place for some new natural health practitioners and three doctors were examining a small group of young colleagues. One person from the group was very spiritual and had previously told us how many spiritual healings and great transformations he had already performed in his career. However, the reality of how far his spirituality had actually extended was revealed with a question regarding a medical emergency. The young colleague proudly answered the question of what to do when a patient’s breathing stops, with the answer, “Pray!” The examining doctors were not very impressed with the answer, they stopped the exam and failed the colleague.

Spirituality and vocation cannot actually come together on a trivial plane, because people will either move into a pseudo-spiritual illusionary world or will represent two poles, a so-called realistic one and another, more dreamy position. It needs a more lengthy engagement, both with the profession as well as with spiritual content, until these come together on a mature and solid plane. Real science or true economics can become highly spiritual when they are enlivened with spiritual content and imbued with creativity.

The training days in Naone with a specific amount of spiritual content should lead to a foundation for the participants that ennobles every profession they have previously learnt and can generally expand the whole of life. It could easily be thought that spirituality in particular constitutes a nice, charming, accompanying side-study to the hard reality of everyday life and gives people a little comfort in their hardships. This attitude of relativising spirituality cannot do justice to any serious study. A well-developed spiritual training, rich in content, does not lead people away from the earth and all its laws but rather establishes real, deeper relationship with all that has been learnt and builds a very creative and yet free way of approaching the phenomena of the world, such as the essential responsibilities in life, economic issues and societal needs.

If a house is built with very beautiful large windows, an abundance of light enters into the inner space. However, how can the light of the soul, which is unique to human beings, penetrate into the rooms, fill them and even magically transform them? The study programmes in Naone change people in the way they are able to perceive and differentiate between the essential and non-essential in life and create a greater freedom for people’s state of thinking, feeling and will.

What do individuals do with their previous professions in this context? In order to remedy the needs of the time, do they change their lives going forward, so that instead of a technical profession they take on a more socially orientated one? The idea that people should change an outwardly, more materially orientated profession into an educational or social one is very widespread today, but it does not really come any closer to the topic of spirituality. It makes no difference whether someone pursues an economic, technical or a socially orientated profession. In every field thoughts and content that ensue from spiritual study come to a direct or also indirect unfolding.

If someone works in a therapeutic profession, for example, they would not direct their questions based solely on a methodical, conventional or complementary approach but they would instead try to encourage the development of the patient and shift their focus from the single issue of treating symptoms to a more comprehensive therapy. In educational work, teachers will gain a totally new outlook and would no longer only put the children in the middle of their efforts, but a greater overall ideal that stimulates both the teachers as well as the children in the best possible way with regards to the question of development. A greater appreciation for the content naturally emerges. Mathematics teachers, for example, can comprehend the sense and the meaning of the numbers and arithmetic in a more cosmic context and although they naturally follow the curriculum of the school, mathematics would become not only a pure training of the memory but a lively, creative and even aesthetic field of interest.

When people meditate during a tense crisis situation at work, they do not flee into their own closed off inner world of meditation and close their eyes to a confrontation, instead they use their strength of thought more intensively and have an immediate and direct calming effect on all those present with conscious soul-feelings, that correspond to their developed soul.

During the study days, particular importance is placed on developing a synthesis of spirituality and professional worldly occupations in this way. On the one hand individuals should become freer in their professional field of activity, develop more imagination for creativity and ultimately develop a comprehensive sense of responsibility for their fellow human beings as well as for lived values in everyday life.