Vladimir Oane

What does it mean to be spiritual?

Some time ago I posted a question on my Facebook wall:

“do you consider yourself a spiritual person? and if so …. what do you think makes someone spiritual?”

It’s a question that stayed with me since my girlfriend asked my this question. I answered affirmatively as I do consider a spiritual person. The next day however I noticed I didn’t have a clear understanding of what does this mean. It’s such a overly used word that has a unique meaning for every person. 

What’s even frustrating is that most of the atheists that I know consider themselves spiritual … so clearly this is not a religious term anymore.  The confusion stems from the fact that the words “spiritual” and “religious” are almost synonyms. Or at least they were until a few years ago. Going back to my Facebook debate: some of the people who answered my questions invoked God but believing in things that transcend the material realm were more popular. 

My interpretation is that all comes down to happiness. Happiness can be explained by dividing it into three types: pleasure, passion and purpose. Pleasure has to do with exciting your senses, passion is about being involved in things that makes you thick (read more about this in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow). The purpose part is the tricky one. It means that people need to feel as part of something bigger than themselves. This can mean a variety of things but most people in this world achieve this with the help of religion. It was the only option people had for thousands of years and still inexplicably popular. 

But because more and more people became atheists (not as many and not as fast enough to make me happy) it doesn’t mean they stop looking for purpose. They just need to turn to different places. After all “Why are we here?” is one of the question we keep asking for millennia. Some turn to meditation while others start practicing all sorts of esoteric practices. And this is how the world “spirituality” became a word to encompass men’s search for meaning. The fact that everybody has a different definition for it is no longer so mysterious. 

To quote from “Spiritual, But Not Religious” by Robert C. Fuller:

Spirituality exists wherever we struggle with the issue of how our lives fit into the greater cosmic scheme of things. This is true even when our questions never give way to specific answers or give rise to specific practices such as prayer or meditation. We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is “spiritual” when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life.

PS: Octav has a post about the Facebook thread on his blog.