When lived in a balance, the list of virtues and values below are the resultant fruits of the spirit. These fruits are a reliable and observable "proof" for the results of authentic spiritual practice, spiritual growth and a congruent spiritual lifestyle within the individual.
Within Universe Spirituality and within the majority of world religions they also are considered to be the time-proven community validity and reality tests for the legitimacy of the results that are to be achieved if one is truly experiencing authentic spiritual practice and spiritual growth.
In addition to the new virtues of the New Universe Worldview in the list below you will also find virtues and values from the previous modern, postmodern and integral worldviews not specifically mentioned in earlier classical or traditional worldview lists of virtues and values. The virtues below do not absolutely imply belief in an Ultimate Reality or being self-aware that one is on a "spiritual" path. People can fully embody or practice these values and virtues as a secular humanist. The actually living of the values and virtues below can be also thought of as one of the best results and proofs of progress on achieving authentic "enlightenment."
For ages, many of these virtues and values have been called the "fruits of the spirit" in humanity’s religious materials. While one could live and demonstrate these virtues without being spiritual, claiming to be spirituality growing or having an authentic and congruent spiritual lifestyle and practice without increasingly manifesting more of these virtues lived in balance is a spiritual incongruity.
While you are reading this virtues list we strongly suggest that you have a paper and pen handy. Write each virtue listed below and after the virtue make a notation on a 1-10 scale how well you think you are living that virtue in a balanced way with the other virtues. This will help make it real and easier to see just how balanced your application of them actually is. At the end of doing this for all the virtues listed there will be a final question that you can ask yourself in relation to your ratings.
This exercise also give you a very good overview how your life is going as well. You will understand much more about how when you finish the very powerful and sobering suggested virtues exercise.
The Virtues List Part One:
Accepting - tolerating without protest or resistance, on a deeper level simply acknowledging and recognizing the inherent and neutral truth, existence and "isness" of every occurrence
Adaptable - capable of adapting to varying conditions. Adaption to continuous change is a key value of progressive evolution
Altruistic - unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others
Amiable - being friendly, sociable, and congenial
Appreciative - having or showing gratitude
Attentive - heedful of the comfort or condition of others
Authentic - true to one's own personality, spirit, or character
Autonomous - existing or capable of existing independently
Aware - having or showing realization, perception, or knowledge
Balanced – mental, spiritual and emotional dynamic steadiness. In the New Universe Worldview this particularly refers to wise balancing of the needs, rights and reponsibilities of the individual with the needs, rights and reponsibilities of the group, union or wholes to which the individual is a member
Benevolent - disposed to doing good
Capable - having general efficiency and ability
Centered - emotionally stable and secure
Charitable - merciful or kind in judging others
Committed - able act with deliberation
Communicative - able to transmit information, thought, or feeling so that it is satisfactorily received or understood
Compassionate - showing empathy
Competent - having requisite or adequate ability or qualities
Considerate - thoughtful of the rights and feelings of others
Consistent - marked by harmony, regularity, or steady continuity
Consequence-Capturing - do you accept the consequences that you or your group causes or do you deny them or pass them on to others
Cooperative - a willingness and ability to work with others. Cooperation on increasing scale is a meta progressive evolution virtue and value for the group alignment and co-creation and co-evolution critical to resolving our individual and planetary challenges
Courageous - mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty
Co-Responsible - being a co-responsible agent doing at least your approximately one six billionth fair share part to co-evolve your own life and our shared world toward the necessary improvements that you see and know need to be made.
Creative - an ability to create beauty and or art in one’s life as well as bringing increased levels of creativity or co-creativity to solving the problems of life
Decisive - to find out or come to a decision about by investigation, reasoning, or calculation
Devoted - consecrated to a purpose
Direct - free from evasiveness or obscurity
Discerning - showing discriminating insight and understanding
Eco-Friendly - displaying environmental co-responsibility, sustainability and sustainable prosperity,
Ethical - guided by that which is morally good
Evolving - moving oneself forward physically, mentally and spiritually
Exchanging - exchange appropriately and fairly with life and others is the hub principle and virtue of progressive evolution
Fair - characterized by frankness, honesty, impartiality, or candor; open; upright; free from suspicion or bias; equitable; just
Flexible - characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements
Forgiving - allowing room for error or weakness and to give up resentment. Forgiving allows the truth of this being a learning universe to be realized. Forgiving allows healing and new growth to take place
Generous - showing or suggesting nobility of feeling and generosity of mind
Good - possessing moral excellence or virtue
Grounded - having a firm foundation
Honest - free from fraud or deception. Marked by integrity. Marked by free, forthright, and sincere expression
Hopeful - desiring some good, accompanied with an expectation of obtaining it, or a belief that it is obtainable
Humane - compassionate, sympathetic, or considerate towards humans or animals
Humble - not proud or haughty: not arrogant or inappropriately assertive
Inclusive - broad in orientation or scope
Integrative - forming, coordinating, blending or integrating parts into a functioning or unified whole
Interconnected - to be or become or understand our mutually connectedness in the web of life
Interdependent - understanding that both or many parties are needed to be successful
Just - rendering or disposed to render to each one his due; equitable; fair; impartial
Loving - feeling or showing affection
Loyal - true to any person or persons to whom one owes fidelity, especially as a wife to her husband, lovers to each other, and friend to friend; constant; faithful to a cause or a principle.
Learning - we live in a learning universe where learning is constant. Are you actively continuing to grow by learning
Ministering - to supply or to things needful; esp., to supply consolation or remedies
Multi-Perspective Holding - being able to see a situatiion from mutiple personal or disiplinary perspectives is a sign of psycological and developmental maturity and a new virtue honored in the New Universe Worldview
Open-minded - ready to entertain new ideas
Patient - good-natured tolerance of delay or incompetence
Peaceful - peacefully resistant in response to injustice
Positive - takes on a much wider and deeper positive meaning from the progressive evolution perspective. It sees the universe as a generally safe place where progressive evolution eventually evolves everything for the good of the whole and where evolution at this very moment is not inherently deficient, but it is at the best state that it has every been in and there is rational reason and hope to see humanity proceeding and progressing for millions of generations to come. (For more information on the science and reasoning behind these very positive progressive evolutionary attitudinal concepts see our progressive evolution materials and particularly the New Universe Principles Part 2 the Success Attitudes.)
Productive - producing, or able to produce, in large measure; fertile; profitable, also creating or maintaining productive, equitable and ethical relationships of exchange with others, society and world
Responsible - to be reliable; to be trustworthy
Self-Disciplined - correcting or regulating oneself for the sake of improvement
Self-Honoring - appropriate self-honoring and self recognition of our importance in life and in the universe is essential to healthy and effective living. The self-respect demonstrated by appropriate self-honoring is a healthy and indispensible form of self-love without which we simply would not function well in our relationships with others
Sufficiency - the quality or state of being sufficient, or adequate to the end proposed, knowing when "enough is enough" particularly in relation to the excesses of materialism
Tolerant - showing respect for the rights or opinions or practices of others
Transparency - having transparency in those actions and areas that could significantly adversely effect the wellbeing of the groups and whole unions that you belong to is essential for the necessary adaption, correction and wellbeing of those groups and whole unions. To fail to be sufficiently transparent and open in those mentioned areas often leads to eventual crisis or collapse of those groups and whole unions that you belong to. Transparency is a necessary group safeguarding virtue
Trustworthy - taking responsibility for one's conduct and obligations. Worthy of trust or belief
Truthful - conformity to reality or actuality
Willing - voluntarily disposed or inclined towards
More Important Virtues from a Developmental Perspective, The Virtues List Part Two
The values and virtues of the New Universe Worldview citizen embrace and integrate the non-pathological manifestation of the whole developmental spiral of life. The following developmental spiral of life virtues and values are copied with permission from a book entitled Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution by Steve McIntosh.
Think of the follow descriptions as how certain virtues cluster at a particularly level as we develop and grow from the earliest tribal consciousness and tribal developmental level virtues through to the later universe consciousness and universe developmental level virtues. Ideally, each new developmental level includes and encompasses the non-pathological values of the previous developmental level and transcends them within its own new developmental value cluster. (When reading the following continue listing any new virtues you encounter and continue rating how you are applying them.)
The totality of additional virtues and values that the New Universe Worldview and universe conscious citizen ideally embraces are:
a.) The Tribal Consciousness Contributions to the Spiral (AKA Magic Consciousness): Family and kinship loyalty; strong sense of the enchantment of the world; innocence; imagination; closeness to nature
b.) The Warrior Consciousness Contribution to the Spiral (AKA Mythic Consciousness): Individual empowerment; initiative; action orientation
c.) The Traditional Consciousness Contribution to the Spiral: Sense of civic duty; law and order; appropriate respect for authority; strong moral regard for group members; preserves traditions; loyalty; hope, and a strong sense of faith
d.) The Modernist Consciousness Contribution to the Spiral: Meritocracy; upward mobility; the middle class; excellence through competition; science; technology; confidence in progress
e.) The Postmodern Consciousness Contribution to the Spiral: World centric morality; recognition of human potential; increased responsibility for people and the planet; compassion and inclusion; celebration of the feminine; renewed spiritual freedom and creativity
f.) The Integral Consciousness Contribution to the Developmental Spiral: Practical world centric morality; compassion for all worldviews; revival of philosophy; seeing spirituality in evolution; overcoming the culture war; renewed insistence on achieving results
g.) The Universe Consciousness Contribution to the Developmental Spiral: Practical Universe centric morality, ability to encompass and unify all previous worldviews, revival and re-alignment of all universe sub systems and studies with principles of new cosmology and progressive evolution, overcoming of all planetary polarities, renewed insistence on establishing a balance between the needs and intentions of parts of wholes and the needs and intentions of the wholes themselves. For more see the New Universe Worldview overview. (Please note this last section G on Universe Consciousness was not part of the work of Steve McIntosh mentioned above in a-f. (The New Universe Worldview and its related links will also provide additional information relating to where many of the virtues have come from and their relation to both spirituality and nature.)
Now that you have read over all of the virtues and may have done ratings on your paper list of them, go back over your list and ask yourself how might you improve living some particular virtue that you feel could use some improvement. Be sure to also notice all of the virtues you feel you are living well because recognizing and building upon what you are doing right is even more important than noticing what is not as right as you would like it!
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