Spirituality

The word Spirituality (Skt. आध्यात्म, Aadhyaatm) has various connotations and meanings depending on the tradition, culture and time. Following are some commonly used definitions of spirituality.

Spirituality is study of the essential nature of myself and of the existence itself.

It is a lifestyle which is permeated by awareness of the essential truth. The actions of a spiritual person are carried out in the light of essential truth.

It is a way of being. Remaining established in your true nature. Discarding all that which is false and unnecessary.

It also includes a study of supernatural aspect of our experience. Study of the non-worldly phenomena.

Spirituality is also about the application of spiritual knowledge in day-to-day life.

Spiritual knowledge is about the bigger picture, the whole, a wider perspective on everything, rather than the narrow and not so wise materialist perspective.

Spiritual progress is about knowing and understanding the natural evolution of the life. Some may want to speed it up.

Spirituality is seeing the unity and inter-connectivity of everything, and preferring happiness and freedom above all. It involves uprooting suffering and ending bondage completely and permanently.

It is also about liberation and ending the automated cycle of births and deaths. It is about dissolution of the individual into the universal.

There can be many more definitions or meanings. It will be interesting to know what it is not, about which there are no two opinions.

Spirituality vs Religion

Spirituality is not religion. It has nothing to do with religion. However, religion has its origin in spirituality. Religion is a narrow, distorted, corrupted and radicalised ideology, which borrows from the teachings of great masters. Initially, the teachings were pure and the intention was to educate ordinary people, but with the fall of human civilisation and culture, these teachings were politicised and used for mass manipulation, spreading hate and violence. Religious communities and institutions became corrupt, a puppet of the ruling class, who misused it, and misused the blind faith of ignorant masses to perpetuate war, racism and greed.

Spirituality is exactly opposite of religion. Here is there freedom to act, know and think. To decide one's own ethics, and to believe and explore freely. Spirituality is about love and unity, while religion is about hate and division.

Sadly there is a lot of ignorance in the minds of ordinary people, and even educated people, and they throw spirituality in the same category as religion and theology.

Although there are some good aspects of religion, and many religious people are very good natured, loving and non-violent, but they are in minority. Such people also become extremists as soon as conditions turn adverse. In many cases, it is some form of indoctrination, not their real nature.

Spirituality and spiritual knowledge is based on evidence and logic, unlike religion. That is probably the biggest difference, which overshadows every other minor differences.

Spirituality vs Materialism

Generally they can be considered opposites. But it can be said that materialistic viewpoint is only a small subset of spiritual viewpoint. From a narrow perspective, this existence does look like materialistic in nature.

Materialism originates from a need to survive. If the world and objects are not taken as truth, the survival will be threatened. So there is a natural tendency to be materialist. Knowledge is not merely about survival, procreation and hoarding. Its domain is huge. However, spiritual knowledge can be used to enhance material life also.

Sadly materialism is now just narrow-mindedness, stupidity, fear, hate and extreme greed. Materialists are usually capitalists too.They exploit and damage the environment, they consume too much, they have no ethics and morals. They are violent and prefer wars and are territorial and racist. Materialism is just another belief system based on blind faith and ignorance.

Although there are many people who are good natured while being materialist, such are minority. Usually they are unhappy and stick to this small point of view because there is nothing better around them. When they look for alternatives they find religions and other such equally corrupt ways of life, and they prefer the simplicity of materialism.

Spirituality vs Science

Science is a subset of spirituality. It is evidence based, it is logical, and it is about knowledge, technology and human welfare. However, it is limited to the study of physical phenomena and the laws governing them, which makes its domain tiny. Our experience is vast, not just physical phenomena.

Science is a direct offshoot of the path of knowledge. It utilises the similar means and methods. Physical sciences ultimately lead to spiritual realisation.

The best use of science has been in survival. Material life becomes easy with advance of science and technology.

Like everything else, its use also depends upon the intelligence of people using it, and science has also been misused, for example in creating weapons etc. Industrial revolution is a byproduct of science, which has mixed effects on this planet and on humanity in general. It is a boon and a curse at the same time.

Sadly, science and scientists have been thrown into materialist category, which is far from truth. Yes, there are many materialist scientists, but they amount to nothing. Real breakthroughs and paradigm shifts were brought about by wise men, who were not materialist at all.

More discussion on this fascinating topic can be found on the main article on science and scientists. But here are some quotes from great scientists that provide a better view of science.

Spirituality vs Philosophy

Generally philosophy is considered as the intellectual aspect of spirituality. Thinking about the deeper questions. Many spiritual traditions are highly philosophical. Sometimes the differences are insignificant.

One major difference between these two is that - philosophy is mostly opinions, while spirituality is fact based, very solid truth. Therefore spiritual study always converges on a handful of basic facts, but the philosophies diverge into a garden variety of thoughts and ideas. There is one philosophy for every philosopher.

Spirituality vs Occult Sciences

Occult sciences are concerned with application of spiritual knowledge for survival or desire fulfilment. Practices such worship of deities, gods and goddesses, control and manipulation of mind and matter, magic, powers, prediction aka astrology, numerology and many more are clubbed under occult. And ordinary people see no difference between spirituality and application of spiritual knowledge.

Occult sciences are an offshoot of spiritual knowledge. There is no doubt about it. But unfortunately, occult ways usually lead to ignorance and suffering, and are being misused. A lot of greedy, hedonistic, power hungry and other low lifers are attracted to such practices for obvious reasons.

It will be wrong to say that occult has nothing to do with spirituality and is unrelated to it, but many spiritual people distance themselves from occult, because of its bad reputation.

The path of knowledge does not oppose occult. It is knowledge too, a wider and bigger knowledge of the illusion. Again, its use and misuse totally depends on the level of evolution of the practitioner.

Spirituality vs Ethics

Generally, people perceive spirituality as being deeply connected to good behaviour, purity and human values and qualities. But these are not the goal of spirituality, nor the essence. They are by-product of the spiritual knowledge.

On the path of knowledge our goal is knowledge, not to change our behaviour to a specific kind of behaviour. You are free to act. Spirituality only provides a knowledge of the consequences of our actions. This knowledge naturally leads to an optimal kind of behaviour. No enculturation or indoctrination or force needed.

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