“Faith without works is dead.”

— James 2:26 (Bible)

Introduction

The Role of Physicality in Spiritual Evolution

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.

Instead, we are all spiritual beings having human and physical experiences on Earth.

Hence, we need a physical body as a vessel for spiritual evolution. Without it, we cannot transform our spiritual ideals into actual practices.

Without a concrete, finite physical form, we would be a pure state of abstract consciousness without an anchor.

Our ideals would simply remain as unrealized potential and abstraction.

I affectionately express it in my novels that it would be like a sacred flame without a candle.

This is the law of physicality.

The purpose of the One in creating physical universes with limitations is to express itself and experience free will.[1]

This is done through polarization, in which the undivided One creates the veil of Maya and polarity, leading to the forgetting of its original non-dual nature.

In doing so, the soul may experience the opposite poles of yin and yang, such as light and darkness. Only through this veil can it choose.

And only when it chooses which duality to manifest (such as joy or sorrow) may it materialize its spiritual perspective.

And only when its perspective has broadened can the spirit physically actualize that expanded inner spiritual reality.

Heaven and Hell as Physical Manifestations of Spirit

Zen maintains that heaven and hell are not places that exist in the afterlife, as purported by many religions.

Instead, they exist within us, as vibrational frequencies that we embody. If we embody negativity, our lives will be filled with suffering. If we personify positivity, our lives will reap its rewards.

Thoughts are the language of the spirit, but actions are the language of the physical plane.

Thoughts without action are mere imagination. Actions without thoughts are mere sleepwalking.

It is when we marry thoughts and action that we become expressions and manifestations of the One, bringing heaven or hell to Earth.

Do you want to see hell on Earth? Simple: just visit the history books and read about the Japanese Empire’s infamous experiments on Chinese prisoners in Unit 731, where the latter were vivisected alive.

Do you want to see heaven on Earth? Then, look no further than the acts of Jesus Christ or Mahatma Gandhi, who both reacted to violence with love and forgiveness.

Even simpler: you only need to look at yourself.

If you react with anger, hatred, and bigotry towards others, then you have physically embodied hell on Earth.

If you respond to others with love and compassion, you are heaven personified in physical form.

Tetris as an Analogy

Illustrating this law with Tetris is straightforward, as I can draw on my personal experiences to demonstrate it.

When I first started playing Tetris in my first year, I was more theoretical than practical. I would study, observe, and research Tetris methods, but I rarely fully immersed myself by playing the game.

As a result, my peers often mocked me for not backing up my Tetris guides and research with experience.

I created Galactoid Tetris WordPress, my original Tetris research and guide blog website:

However, for a long time, few people took my work seriously because I was inexperienced.

Therefore, I practiced my craft for five years until I could make many T-spin setups with little hesitation, such as:

Eventually, as I streamed on Twitch, I gathered close to 800 followers. More people were drawn to my gameplay because my Tetris guidance showed in it rather than just in my words.

I eventually became so adept that I wrote eight Tetris guidebooks:

Now, people take my works seriously and no longer disparage me as they used to.

This is because people take someone seriously only after they prove themselves by aligning their inner values with action.

Personal Applications

Physical Action as the Language of the Soul on Earth

Recently, I found my old Prima and Brady Games guidebooks on many video games: World of Warcraft, Heroes of Might and Magic II, and SimCity 2000.

I read through them and had the time of my life until I came across a Reddit thread about what had happened to Prima and Brady Games, the book publishers.

Someone said in a post that he used to read a copy of their Doom guidebook as a child. However, he could never afford a computer that could run the game because of its high system requirements.

Hence, he read the book and played it in his head.

It rekindled my memories of being a newbie in Tetris.

I was more of a scholar during the first two years of my engagement with Tetris. I had the habit of studying Tetris strategies academically, but had a pathological fear of actually playing Tetris, especially against an opponent.

As a result, I intellectualized Tetris far more than I experienced it.

It was then that I realized that a single living high-level Tetris player is more valuable than a thousand dead Tetris guides. That was when I started facing my fears and played the game seriously.

This analogy reminds me of physical life and its relationship to the spirit world.

According to afterlife studies, the spirit realm is a place of utmost beauty and limitlessness. You, as a spirit form, can conjure anything you want with a single thought.[2]

Beings in the afterlife can also access the universal knowledge archives (the Akashic Records) instantly, gaining any piece of knowledge or skill, such as quantum mechanics, with perfect understanding and retention.

Why do beings then seek physical incarnation on Earth, where it is so limiting?

Because in a spiritual realm of limitless power, saying one is spiritually enlightened there is not as valuable or as weighty as actualizing that enlightened ideal into physical action in a world of limitation.

This comes full circle in the analogy of the person who played Doom in his head. No matter how far he digests the book or can recite it verbatim, that amount of knowledge is minuscule compared to having played a single game.

In Tetris, no amount of knowledge can substitute actual playing experience.

You may know a hundred Tetris openers, but if you just regurgitate them, without actually cultivating the muscle memory to create them at the start of matches, the knowledge is worthless.

For non-Tetris players, openers are fixed setups that one can use at the start of matches. It is like Chess openings, such as the Sicilian Defense and the Ruy Lopez.

It is the same with life. We may harbor all the ideals of spirituality all we want, but if it is not put into action, then it is just one’s imagination.

Being Honest With Oneself to Grow in the Physical Plane

The law of physicality can be generalized to many aspects of one’s earthly incarnation as well. Consider the following cases:

Do you often preach values of love and acceptance, but secretly, deep down, you harbor a veiled disdain for certain people of some countries or races?
Do you often say that you are an honorable person who does not betray others? Still, deep within, are you plotting to take down someone’s reputation?
Do you often say you wish to donate a million dollars to charity, but end up donating not a single cent?
Do you often say that you wish to write a hundred books in this life, but end up not writing a single chapter after vowing to do so for many years?
Do you say you wish to find a passionate hobby or project that you can lose yourself in and go with the flow, but never did after decades?
Do you tell yourself that you wish to reach ego transcendence? Yet, you are envious of or threatened by people more spiritually evolved than yourself?
Do you often say you wish to learn from the best Tetris players, yet you are fearful of their playstyle, because you fear that it exposes your lack?

If the above questions made you realize that you have only internalized an ideal, but have not acted on it, then you have not grown in that regard.

Many people, when they realize this, are defensive. Others, instead, look within and ask why and how they have not yet grown.

Once one has identified the cause, one can grow.

Social and Global Applications

Dismantling Oppressive Social Structures

Since the physical expresses the spiritual, many oppressive social systems are manifestations of groups or people with negative intentions.

In graduate school, I studied a school of thought called Critical Theory. It involves identifying such oppressive structures and the means to dismantle them so humans can be freer.[3]

In my view, humanity now faces three primary oppressive structures that urgently need dismantling.

First, huge corporations that monopolize everything, take power away from consumers, and implement unfair and unhealthy social practices.

I have always suspected that huge US AI companies deliberately released their AI models for free to capture a large chunk of the market share first.

They will then make people so dependent on the AI models that they can charge $200 per month.[4]

Then, many AI companies (as is already the case) fire employees and replace them with AI.

People then use AI to such a degree that creatives like artists and writers are replaced with AI-generated models.

These AI firms will then have so much power that they can influence elections and put people in power who support their continued predatory policies.

In the long run, if left unchecked, these AI firms will monopolize everything and use unfair practices such as underpaying employees and offering lower-quality products.

Second, many forms of media shape the narrative through propaganda, manipulation, or advertising, eroding human critical thinking and freedom.

Some CEOs of major social media and tech companies, such as Meta, YouTube, and Apple, have publicly discussed restricting their children’s use of social media and technology.

Yet they keep promoting their products despite their harmful effects. Instagram has been linked to high suicide rates among teenage girls, while TikTok has eroded viewers’ attention spans.

Many Western news outlets, such as CNN and Fox News, continuously spout inaccurate information about the state of the US economy and other countries.[5]

For instance, during 2022, the US had a technical recession. However, many Western media outlets redefined what a recession was and concluded that the US was not in one.

This extends to the endless inaccurate news that they spread about countries which the US considers rivals or enemies.

They do this to manufacture consent and create an obedient population that can support the White House in pointless or unjustified military campaigns.

Many corporations also use advertisements to ingrain people from a young age into loving Coca-Cola or McDonald’s, even though these foods are loaded with unhealthy sugars that contribute to obesity or diabetes.

Third, corrupt politicians and the military-industrial complex in some countries continue a system of worldwide neo-colonialism.[6]

They advocate military alliances that coerce other countries while implementing economic reforms that prevent protectionist policies in developing countries.

This allows foreign companies to enter the countries, exploit their resources, and outcompete budding local industries.

They then channel their war machine to start wars non-stop in many countries to manipulate the stock market and bolster the value of the military-industrial complex.

The result is perpetual, pointless war.

George Orwell’s 1984 has come true.

Hence, these three oppressive social structures must be dismantled. A government and global initiative must be formed to regulate them for the benefit of employees and consumers.

I suggest the following methods:

Let corporations be subordinated to governments that regulate and review their potentially unfair malpractices and redistribute wealth to the people.
Let governments regulate social and news media to prevent the spread of false or damaging information that sustains harmful narratives.
Progress towards a grassroots democracy where power can no longer be concentrated in the hands of politicians who advocate wars and overseas exploitation.

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (1939); Max Heindel, The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception (1909). Both traditions hold that the soul chooses physical incarnation as the vehicle for spiritual evolution. Concrete experience is unavailable in purely spiritual realms.

[2] Robert Monroe discussed this capacity of consciousness in the non-physical realm extensively; see Robert Monroe, Far Journeys (1985) and Ultimate Journey (1994). Monroe’s out-of-body experiences described astral environments where desired experiences manifest instantly.

[3] Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944); Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (1964). The Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory shows how oppressive social structures reproduce themselves through culture and ideology, maintaining existing power relations.

[4] Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism (2023). See also current OpenAI and Anthropic pricing structures, which already charge $20-200 per month for premium access as of 2026.

[5] Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, Manufacturing Consent (1988). Documents how mass media manufactures public consent for corporate and governmental agendas.

[6] John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004). Perkins documents how US corporations, financial institutions, and government agencies exploit developing nations through economic coercion, debt traps, and military intervention to maintain neo-colonial dominance.