There is an interesting kind of practice found in many countries in the eastern hemisphere of the world that are not religious (as the word is generally used in Western societies) but are spiritual nonetheless.
They tend to be centered around cultivating those aspects of the spirit that will best give the practitioner an advantage in the physical world.
Some of these practices involve attaining an altered state of consciousness where the mind is turned from discriminating thought, and is fully unified, and completed, and acts as one whole thing.
(Note: though considered an altered state of consciousness from a Western point of view, the goals of such practices tend to be to make it the normal state of consciousness.)
This is supposed to give the practitioners instantaneous wisdom, and knowledge of right action in any given circumstance. It is supposed to aid any physical action the practitioner takes, and is supposed to give deep spiritual insight.
Examples of such practices include Buddhism and Taoism. In devoted practitioners, unusual abilities are learned, such as the feats of certain martial artists who can break boards and bricks with their bare hands, or who can hit a target 20 yards away with an arrow, blindfolded, from memory.
The way in which such unusual abilties are conferred, according to many practitioners, is that mind, body, and spirit all learn to move as one.
This allows the practitioner to focus all of his or her resources upon the task at hand, instead of the minute fraction of them that is all most people can bring to bear.
