What the heck is "spirituality"?

[_zeezrom]

I think this has been asked about 15 times on this board. I'm too lazy to go look up the last thread so I'm asking it again. This comes up so often. For example, "That man is so spiritual" or "I really need spirituality in my life."

So what the heck is it?

I'm really struggling with this definition because I hear definitions and they don't make sense. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

Here on Wikipedia (sorry Stak), I found the following definition, which to me has many problems:

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of their being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an individual's inner life; such practices often lead to an experience of connectedness with a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; with other individuals or the human community; with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm. Spirituality is often experienced as a source of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.

Regarding an inner path - what does that have to do with spirituality? Anyone can focus on an inner path.
Regarding the essence of our being - we are our own people we should have the ability to consider the essence of ourselves to a deeper level than simply what we read about - i.e. we can feel things - intuition...?
Regarding the "deepest values" - what does this have to do with spirituality? You have to believe in the immaterial before you can consider a deep value? What is a deep value?
Regarding spiritual practices helping develop an individual's inner life - does this mean people that are not "spiritual" are shallow? I don't get it...
You have to be spiritual to "connect with the cosmos"? What about someone that studies planets? I'll bet they have a lot of very interesting deep thoughts and connections with the transcendent nature of the world.

It seems to me that an ability to calm down and reflect on things can provide a lot of this. Anyway, I have come away more confused about "spirituality" than ever before.

Thanks,

Zee.

[_Polygamy-Porter]

In mormondom it is a perpetual self induced emotional epiphany which confirms the bias that the Mormon church is "true".

[_Some Schmo]

It's like a used car salesmen calling himself "Honest Joe." "Spirituality" is a buzz word intended to be a shortcut to appearing deep and/or moral. It's practically meaningless (except as a code word between people who think they have some mystical god connection). I doubt people who really are deep/moral would ever use that word to describe themselves.

[_sock puppet]

In mormondom it is a perpetual self induced emotional epiphany which confirms the bias that the Mormon church is "true".

That sounds very masturbatory.

[_sock puppet]

It's like a used car salesmen calling himself "Honest Joe."

Schmo, you knew my MP?

[_TAO]

Spirituality is trust in things "which are not seen, which are true" (Alma 32:21)

Hope I helped zeez... if you need a more descriptive answer, just ask, and I'll do my best.

[_honorentheos]

Hi Zeez,

I'm probably off in my take, but this is my opinion about what the term "spirituality" means from a more universal context rather than just a Mormon one.

I think in it's most useful form, spirituality refers to one's ability to do two, somewhat opposed things at the same time. Those being:

- the ability to get outside of one's self and self-interest
- while at the same time being aware (perhaps transcendently "hyper" aware as it were) of what is essentially going on around one's self.

Outside of that, I'm not sure there is anything that is in common between the different traditional definitions.

[_Darth J]

Spirituality is trust in things "which are not seen, which are true" (Alma 32:21)

Hope I helped zeez... if you need a more descriptive answer, just ask, and I'll do my best.

An eternal principle that the prophet Alma, somewhere in the Western hemisphere circa 74 B.C., learned from the New Testament epistle to the Hebrews.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

[_huckelberry]

With Zeezrom I can be frustrated and put off by the ambiguity in that word, sprituality. It means seriously different things in different contexts. Even if one is thinking of only a limited group of uses, such as Christian spritituality I think it looks like a loose carpet bag of different things. I wonder if part of the attraction to use the word is that it is such a loose carpet bag which can be filled with different things. It is so loose that it may always carry an implied question, wonder what this sprituality is?

People when speaking can use the carpet bag to fill with differnt things. It would be pointless to expect people to agree with just what fills it. The word is a flexible container.

I think of spirit as the core aliveness of us. It connects us to other alive beings like friends. I think Christian sprituality is centrally being alert to and caring for the needs of others. Spirituality responds to ordinary people near at hand as well as people with special extra needs. I think it may be helped by spiritual disiplines like prayer and contemplation or study of scripture. All my experience says that those disciplines do not take the place of being a friend.

[_honorentheos]

I think of spirit as the core aliveness of us. It connects us to other alive beings like friends. I think Christian sprituality is centrally being alert to and caring for the needs of others. Spirituality responds to ordinary people near at hand as well as people with special extra needs. I think it may be helped by spiritual disiplines like prayer and contemplation or study of scripture. All my experience says that those disciplines do not take the place of being a friend.

Well said, huckleberry. I especially found the last sentence (underlined above for emphasis) profound in it's simplicity.

Great post!