I have heard so many different descriptions of spirituality, and I have so many different opinions on it myself, that I find it impossible to define.
I’ll be attempting to describe what spirituality means to me, personally, later – but that is not a definition as such, because I believe that it is a very subjective, personal experience.
The majority of people would probably claim that spirituality is a good thing to have an appreciation of – and that lack of it means that we are somewhat deprived. Perhaps the opposite of spirituality is cynicism, nihilism, rampant materialism, banality, even boredom or, indeed predictability.
I don’t really know…….
What I do know, and what most people agree on, is that we perceive spirituality as something that moves us from the humdrum and/or mundane life that we sometimes find ourselves in. In that sense, it is unlikely that we can be proactively spiritual all the time. If we were, it would probably be too much for us – emotionally.
I don’t know that much about atheism but I wouldn’t be drawn to it because I don’t think that it leaves much room for mystery [1]. For example, I don’t know why we are moved by a song sung in a particular way but not the same song sung in another way. Or why we are moved by a gripping film, or falling in love with someone, even falling in love with an idea, the wonder of childbirth, or the sense of excitement that we feel when we are creating something. I could go on and on.
Our great technological advances and recent knowledge gained about our brain through neuroscience might explain the how of all the above but, even if we dig deep, the why is still a mystery.
I think that there is a danger that we might assume that the higher up Maslow’s triangle we are, the more spiritual we will be.
What I mean is that we might think that if people don’t have food or shelter (or their other basic needs met) they won’t have much time for spirituality. Yet, I meet people who are homeless and whose basic needs are not met who come across to me as very spiritual.
Or we might think that people who suffer trauma in their childhood, whose spirit is knocked out of them, and who dissociate to cope with same (who might, for example, be hopeless, chronically addicted or criminals) struggle to have a sense of the spiritual.
Yet, like the people who lack basic needs, I meet people who are addicted and who regularly end up in prison who, I sense, are intensely spiritual.
On the other hand I have met people who appear to have done very well in life, who are successful and appear happy, who do not seem to have many worries and troubles, who, one would surmise, are way up Maslow’s triangle and for whom spirituality appears [2] to be of little or no importance. In fact, in their life they appear to have parked spirituality and/or accommodated it – it seems in my very judgmental opinion anyway – expressing it in a kind of bland, lacklustre way.
All the above paragraphs are concerned with spirituality in the individual. This Sub-Chapter will discuss spirituality as it pertains to an organisation – that is, a collection of individuals with similar goals, aspirations, values and practices.
[1]. Perhaps some atheist might correct me here – I’d be open to correction.
[2]. I’m not sure whether it does or not – it just appears not to!