What exactly is spirituality?

[Lady Revel]

Being raised in an atheist household, and totally sheltered from any type of religion I truly haven't the faintest idea. I call my parents fundamentalist atheists - my father's favorite remark to the Jehovah Witnesses who came knocking on our door was - "We are Italian, and we don't like any witnesses" - awful but true (he thinks he's funny, we aren't even Italian). As I have grown older, I never really stepped near the realm of religion, and I do not think I know a single person who is a regular church goer.

Is spirituality an ability to believe in a higher being, deity or god? Or can you be spiritual and commune with nature alone? Is it goodwill to other people? Is it mystical? Are religion and spirituality pretty much the same thing, or do you have to be spiritual to be religious?

I know I am showing my vast ignorance here, and leaving myself wide open for all sorts of ridicule, however, I cannot help but wonder what spirituality is, and whether I might have some.

[lurch]

.LR..Yes, to most of your questions. The dictionary doesn't help much either. There seems to be a further reduction of definitions all the way down to ...spirit..or spirits. and I don't believe it is talking about the cheerleaders spirit( altho, closely related when in ref to a loosing team) nor the drinkable kind of spirits, ( altho, when in excess consumed, one may find the other)

..An interesting take you propose. Perhaps there are actual examples alive today in the former USSR. If a human being was brought up with out any religion, church, god or gods, any influence of the eclectate, none what so ever, would the person have any spirituality? Would the person, still have need and yearning for , beyond the real. Would that need necessarily manifest itself in " spirituality"

Idealism, doesn't automatically mean a faith in a God or Gods.
Stuctured society( Law) doesn't automatically require God or Gods

Yet, because we have the brains that we do,,we can conceive, we can create. We do have the ability to imagine, to dream..okay, at this point, its heads, Walt Disney, tails, John Lennon..oh my , look at that, the coin landed on its edge..Cervantes,,Man of La Mancha..pay attention, to Sancho. Hes the real center of the story.

Rev,,I see it as,, we all believe in something. It may be money, ourselves, God, Jesus, Mary, Mohamed, Larry, Curley, who and whatever, but whatever, spirituality does seem to be a piece of luggage humans are stuck with. Like anything, Its What YOU make of it. You can get into Casper the milque toast ghost all the way up to The Divine Spirit. And its not linear either. It should be(imho) spherical,, 360 degreeX360 degree exploration.

What do I mean by that? At the end of Monty Pythons, " Life of Bwian" ( if you've seen it , you'll get the joke) is sung the infamous song, " Life Is A Piece of SH*T"..the circumstances of the singing really make for the outrageous hilarity. Some view the scene darkly. Yet, if you can find the uplift, the funny, in the ending,,then I'd say you are of a spirituality most human. Imho..thats the connection to keep. ..MEL

[Plissken]

Being raised in an atheist household, and totally sheltered from any type of religion I truly haven't the faintest idea. I call my parents fundamentalist atheists - my father's favorite remark to the Jehovah Witnesses who came knocking on our door was - "We are Italian, and we don't like any witnesses" - awful but true (he thinks he's funny, we aren't even Italian). As I have grown older, I never really stepped near the realm of religion, and I do not think I know a single person who is a regular church goer.

Is spirituality an ability to believe in a higher being, deity or god? Or can you be spiritual and commune with nature alone? Is it goodwill to other people? Is it mystical? Are religion and spirituality pretty much the same thing, or do you have to be spiritual to be religious?

I know I am showing my vast ignorance here, and leaving myself wide open for all sorts of ridicule, however, I cannot help but wonder what spirituality is, and whether I might have some.

Spirituality is whatever helps you with the growth and development of your inner, highest self. For some that means joining a segment of organised religion, for some it means meditation, for some it means a really good orgasm (I'm not being cute - Tantra was about the spiritual quest long before it became couples therapy), and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Generally, it also involves connecting with a higher power than most people experience in their daily lives.

EDIT: For once, I understand and agree with Lurch. If you can find the humor and message behind the "Bright Side of Life" bit, you're already well down the spiritual path. I heard once that the Dali Lama loved that movie!

[Lord Mhoram]

Lady Revel,

I would call it: "A belief and faith in a being higher than yourself."

This may or may not include worshipping this being, and may or may not include loving this being.

[Vector]

Lady Revel,

I would call it: "A belief and faith in a being higher than yourself."

This may or may not include worshipping this being, and may or may not include loving this being.

I will go along with Lord Mhoram here. I was trying to find words to express my thoughts, and this is a pretty good approximation of them...

[Plissken]

I disagree. There many spiritual paths that require no belief in a higher being.

On the other hand, very often it is some form of meditation on a higher being that helps people along their personal spiritual path.

[Vector]

I disagree. There many spiritual paths that require no belief in a higher being.

I don't know, I think Mhoram is close here, perhaps you are too literally interpreting higher being. I think you could easily interpret this as a metaphor for a higher cause/meaning than oneself.

[Plissken]

Well, sure, the higher self would be a higher being, of a sort. I can go along with that.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

For me, spirituality is a specific feeling, or a set of feelings. I identify my spirituality when I feel it. I remember when I was 12 there was a giant thunderstorm, and I snuck out of the house down to the lake (I lived on Lake Erie) and watched the waves crash madly against the shore, and saw the trees flying about wildly. That was spiritual. I knew it when I saw it. It didn't have anything to do with anything higher than myself, even a higher VERSION of myself. It had all to do with being IN the moment, experiencing the NOW and recognizing the power of it.

[Fist and Faith]

Jem, your last sentence reminds me of this quote. Again, I've quoted it before. (Seems I need some new quotes... ) From Dan Millman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior:

One time I finished my best-ever pommel horse routine and walked over happily to take the tape off my wrists. Soc beckoned me and said, “The routine looked satisfactory, but you did a very sloppy job taking the tape off. Remember, every-moment satori.”

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

YOU need new quotes?
Hahaha!
The only reason you would need new quotes is if you didn't have a different, specific quote for every single situation that came up.

[Worm of Despite]

I disagree. There many spiritual paths that require no belief in a higher being.

I don't know, I think Mhoram is close here, perhaps you are too literally interpreting higher being. I think you could easily interpret this as a metaphor for a higher cause/meaning than oneself.

If the higher cause can qualify as writing and enjoying life, then yeah, I'm spiritual. I've been religious, and I know the utmost feeling of peace you get when you feel secure and able to communicate with your God/Gods. Now that I'm an atheist, I find that such inexplicable, sublime feelings still occurs within me--just in different forums than a church.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

-excellent- post. The same inexplicable sublime feelings. Definately. I went through a religious period, I went to youth groups and Renewal retreats, and did all that. When I stopped doing the Xtian thing, I got the -same- sublime payoff. The same euphoria, and the same fulfillment.

[Edge]

'Spirituality' is a prime example of an English word which modern context has stripped of any real or objective meaning.

Apparently, nowadays the only criteria for being considered spiritual, is to apply the word to oneself. As in: "I don't actually, you know, like, really believe in anything religious or stuff, but I'm, you know, a really, like, spiritual person... you know.'

Heaven forbid that being 'spiritual' should actually involve belief in the concept of 'spirits'... no matter how semantically correct that would be.

[Vector]

Heaven forbid that being 'spiritual' should actually involve belief in the concept of 'spirits'... no matter how semantically correct that would be.

I think the spirit refered to is one's own soul or spirit, as in

concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul; "a spiritual approach to life"; "spiritual fulfillment"; "spiritual values"; "unearthly love"

Words certainly do evolve with society, especially ones as abstract in meaning as this one.

[Worm of Despite]

From a very similar thread, but I think, since it's morphing into the same one, this post has a place here:

In the Gradual interview, SRD said:

So: when I say I'm not a religious person, I mean I don't adhere to--or even listen to--anyone or anything who thinks that he/she/it can tell me THE TRUTH ABOUT LIFE. On the other hand, I'm *very* interested in the efforts of my characters to discover and name their particular versions of THE TRUTH ABOUT LIFE. And I'm so interested, of course, because I'm trying to do the same thing they are. In my view, therefore, I'm a spiritual rather than a religious person; and I write stories about spiritual questions rather than about religious answers.

Haha!

[Kymbierlee]

Well, that sums it up very nicely, I think....

[Fist and Faith]

I often come down on people who have similar beliefs as mine when they get rude/insulting/etc. Partly because I don't want to be associated with religion-bashing any more than most Christians want to be associated with the Ku Klux Klan.

However, in the interest of fairplay...

'Spirituality' is a prime example of an English word which modern context has stripped of any real or objective meaning.

Apparently, nowadays the only criteria for being considered spiritual, is to apply the word to oneself. As in: "I don't actually, you know, like, really believe in anything religious or stuff, but I'm, you know, a really, like, spiritual person... you know.'

Heaven forbid that being 'spiritual' should actually involve belief in the concept of 'spirits'... no matter how semantically correct that would be.

I'm not talking about your point (I'll get to that in a sec), I'm talking about the sarcasm and whatever other negative attitudes can be found in your post. Ya know? This thread has been a great, friendly exchange of thoughts on a sensitive subject, and I, for one, would appreciate if we could all keep it that way.

As to your point... We don't expect anyone to use the word soft in the same sense Romeo used it when he said, "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks," even though we might hold Shakespeare up as the greatest writer of the English language. Why? Because language changes. Yes, the meanings of words change over time, sometimes drastically. I don't suggest we should ever expect the definition of spiritual to not allow the concept of "spirits," but I don't think it should require that concept either. As I've said elsewhere, I think the spirit in spirituality can be the searching, yearning, struggling human spirit. I think the search for meaning, happiness, and contentment are spiritual matters, whether or not the search involves spirits.

[Lord Mhoram]

www.lexpages.com/SGN/paschal/SPIRDEFN.html
An interesting essay by Paschal Baute on spirituality.
From the essay,

Spirituality is living one's life from the realization that the body/mind/ego personality we have been taught to identify with is just the tip of our iceberg, our little head sticking through the window of the senses into this world, whereas our true body is the universe. It is recognizing that our perceived world is mostly an illusion, a shared dream we are asleep in, and that the goal of life is to awake to our real Self which is vast and multidimensional--already intimately connected with all of creation, with a twin shadow self that is already scripted, mostly primitive, and hidden from us, but that this whole Self is already One with this mystery we call God/dess whose essence can hardly be understood, but to which we give names as Eternal Wisdom, Ultimate Reality, Birther of all Life, S/he Who Is, etc.

[Edge]

I'm sorry, I expressed myself very badly, and I apologise for coming across as sarcastic and offensive.

My point was simply that 'spiritual' has become a rather nebulous term, not referring to any specific faith or even 'faith' in general. Basically, it just means believing in anything other than the purely physical realm, and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Having said that, I think my post had a rather negative tone purely because I get rather irritated with the use of the word in a specific context - which is, celebrities who call themselves 'spiritual' just to be trendy and appear to be 'deep'.

And if there are any celebrities reading this who consider themselves spiritual, I apologise.