Speaking at Kentucky’s Cathedral Heritage Foundations’ Festival of Faiths 2000, Professor Smith observes that the Festival’s theme, Healing Mind, Body, and Soul “comes down to who we “are”-the recovery of the original divine station.” Smith describes what he considers to be the “deep lying elements” for understanding the healing of mind, body, and soul.
He answers the basic questions of “who we are” by providing an insightful analysis of the four levels of the unconscious, the most important being the sacred which, he maintains, is linked with God as our “imago Dei.”
And, he recounts his own transforming experience of this place of Beauty, Bliss, and Joy, which each of us knows in dreamless sleep. Were the mind, body, and soul not re-charged or “healed” every night by direct contact with the Divine, we could not endure our lives. Professor Smith believes we must think more highly of our “selves.”
Additional treats are his mention of a personal hero, Wendell Berry; and a moving tribute to Ram Dass/Richard Alpert (Be Here Now), whose paralyzing stroke allowed for the “gift of suffering”, closeness to God and the dismantling of the “persona.” But what is most moving about this precious footage is the wise and luminous presence of Huston Smith himself, a man who clearly embodies the virtues of the spiritual path.