-Pius Moras.
|“We are not human beings having spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.(Teilhard de Chardin-French |
|Geologist, Priest, Philosopher and Mystic). |
|These words that I first read in 1972 while I was writing a term paper on this great philosopher Teilhard de Chardin during my philosophy |
|studies at the Institute of Philosophy and Religion in Pune remained in memory and found a new meaning in 1978 while pursuing my studies in|
|Social Work at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai. |
|Introduction: |
|All of us are aware that all persons including the care givers, those cared and their families have a spiritual dimension. One cannot give |
|what one does not have. Unless one is spiritual it is difficult for him/her to touch the other person spiritually and contribute to his/her|
|overall development and empowerment. Only the one who is healed from within can heal others and spirituality helps us to be complete |
|persons from within so that we could help others in need. Victor Frankl has said “The spiritual dimension cannot be ignored, for it is |
|what makes us human.” Actually this spiritual dimension can serve as a missing link in our practice of social work. |
|Human beings could be compared to a 4 wheel vehicle. Each wheel represents an aspect of human nature. We have physical, emotional, |
|intellectual and spiritual dimensions. When there is an imbalance in anyone of these dimensions, a need for intervention arises. While a |
|Doctor deals with the physical dimension, a friend or a family with the emotional, a