On Spirituality and the Good Life
Gregg Vanourek
Personal development & leadership excellence. Helping you craft your life & work. Co-author, LIFE Entrepreneurs & Triple Crown Leadership. Author, TEDx public speaker. New book in the works on the traps of living.
Article Summary:?
How spirituality and the good life are related, including the benefits of having a spiritual practice and examples of it.
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We all want to live a good life, but are we living in such a way as to make it likely? In many cases, the cultural influences around us aren’t helping. Think about it.
How many of us feel anxious and stressed much of the time? To what degree are we influenced by cultural messages and forces related to consumerism and?materialism, status and ego, fear and greed, manipulation and division? How many of us feel time-starved?and struggle with numbing or workaholism? These are common traps, and they take us away from a life we’ll be proud of.
“The disastrous feature of our civilization is that it is far more developed materially than spiritually. Its balance is disturbed.” -Jean-Paul Sartre, French novelist and philosopher
When we focus on material circumstances, what happens when things change for the worse, as they’re wont to do? What happens when we’re shaken up with a health scare, relationship wound, or job loss? Do we really want to let our happiness depend solely on how things are going in our life, given that change is inevitable and that we all experience ups and downs regularly?
Enter spirituality. To some, it’s a loaded word, because it comes with baggage. But to many, it’s a powerful centering practice that adds depth, richness, and meaning to their lives, whether through prayer, worship, meditation, or other means.
Those who avoid spirituality for whatever reason may want to give it a second look, because it can be an important and powerful part of human experience.
“If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.” -Thomas Merton, American Trappist monk, theologian, mystic, and social activist
What Is Spirituality?
Part of the problem is that there’s no widely accepted definition of spirituality, and many people conflate it with religion or dogma. We can think of it very simply as having to do with the human spirit, as opposed to material things. Here are some ways to think about it:
“Spirituality is the measure of how willing we are to allow grace—some power greater than ourselves— to enter our lives and guide us along our way.” -Mastin Kipp, author of Daily Love: Growing with Grace
“Spirituality is the process of living out a set of deeply held personal values, of honoring a presence greater than ourselves.” -Peter Block, author
“Spirituality for me is recognizing that I am connected to the energy of all creation, that I am a part of it and it is always a part of me. Whatever label or word we use to describe ‘it’ doesn’t matter. Words are completely inadequate.” -Oprah Winfrey, media entrepreneur, philanthropist, and author
Many people view spirituality as an age-old quest for inner peace and liberation, for awakening and enlightenment. It can include a search for self-transcendence—or rising above and beyond our?ego?(what some people call “ego death”).
Spirituality tends to involve asking fundamental questions (e.g., Who am I? Where do I come from? What’s my place in this vast universe? Is there a higher power? What, if anything, gives life meaning?). For many, it entails a recognition of our interconnectedness, and perhaps a quest to reach a higher level of consciousness or experience a sense of oneness with all.
Spiritual routines can range from daily practices to weekly services to personal prayer or faith. They tend to evolve as we age, grow, and have different life experiences.
For some, spirituality is about faith and forgiveness, or ministry and service, or peace and joy. For others, it’s about a search for meaning and?purpose, appreciation of truth and beauty, or reverence of the sacred. It can entail connecting with nature, the cosmos, or the divine. And for some people, it’s about mystery, miracles, and revelations—or deeply held aspirations for heaven or nirvana. For most, compassion and love are at the heart of it.
Paul Anderson, University of Minnesota professor emeritus, noted in a?scholarly article that the word “spirit” comes from the Latin word?spiritus, meaning “breath,” and is defined as “the vital principle or animating force traditionally believed to be within living beings; one’s essential nature.” The definition of the word “soul,” Anderson wrote, is comparable: “The animating and vital principle in the human being, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion.”
Author and social forecaster?Patricia Aburdene?noted five hallmarks of spirituality: meaning or purpose, compassion, consciousness, service, and wellbeing. According to her, “The quest for spirituality is the greatest megatrend of our era.”
“We suffer when we don’t find ways to allow the concerns of the soul to manifest into our lives.” -Rabbi Mordecai Finley
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The Difference between Spirituality and Religion
Some people equate religion and spirituality, but that’s a mistake. They’re related but not the same. Here’s how the Dalai Lama described it:
“Religion I take to be concerned with faith in the claims of one faith tradition or another, an aspect of which is the acceptance of some form of heaven or nirvana. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual prayer, and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit—such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony—which brings happiness to both self and others.” -Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th?Dalai Lama, in?Ethics for the New Millennium
It’s been said that religion is an institution while spirituality is an experience. The way many people think about spirituality today often includes a sharper break from traditional religious institutions than in the past, and spirituality sometimes comes with an interesting blend of things (e.g., humanistic psychology and mystical traditions, or yoga and workplace wellness).
“Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.” -Ram Dass, psychologist and spiritual teacher
The Benefits of Having a Spiritual Practice in Our Lives
Spiritual practice—and living in accordance with deeper truths and our highest values—can transform our lives by bringing us a sense of unity, interconnectedness, awe, mystery, abundance, eternity, unboundedness, lucidity, tranquility, liberation, transcendence, flow, and presence.
“The spiritual life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world of things. It is a part of every man’s life; and until he has realized it, he is not a complete human being, has not entered into possession of all his powers.” -Evelyn Underhill, English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist
A deep and lasting spiritual practice can help us realize that we’re whole regardless of the circumstances we happen to find ourselves in—and that we don’t need anything from anyone or the world to be and feel whole. A healthy spiritual practice can:
“…scientists have found, again and again, that those with a spiritual practice or who follow religious beliefs tend to be happier than those who don’t. Study after study has found that religious people tend to be less depressed and less anxious than nonbelievers, better able to handle the vicissitudes of life than nonbelievers. A 2015 survey by researchers at the London School of Economics and the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands found that participating in a religious organization was the only social activity associated with sustained happiness—even more than volunteering for a charity, taking educational courses, or participating in a political or community organization. It’s as if a sense of spirituality and an active, social religious practice were an effective vaccine against the virus of unhappiness.” -Bryan Walsh, “Does Spirituality Make You Happy?” TIME, August 7, 2017
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Examples of Spiritual Practices
Some people have never been exposed to spiritual practices, so they don’t know where to begin. Others may have had negative experiences with religious institutions (often involving shame or guilt) that they wish to avoid. So, it’s important to understand our options. ?Here are some common spiritual practices:
Spirituality and Connection
Connection and connectedness are fundamental aspects of spirituality. In her book,?The Gifts of Imperfection, researcher?Brene Brown?writes, “The heart of spirituality is connection.” To her, spirituality is “recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.”
Martin Buber, an Austrian-Israeli philosopher, once observed that “When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.” “True compassion,” wrote Buddhist teacher Pema Ch?dr?n, “does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.”
“We’re all just walking each other home.” -Ram Dass, psychologist and spiritual teacher
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Spirituality and Ego
One of the challenges with modern living is that, if we’re not careful, we can get to caught in our ego, which causes us to focus excessively on things like material possessions, image, or success—all of which lead only to fleeting pleasure for most. In this way, our ego keeps us from living from our heart and soul.
In his book, Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul, spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra distinguishes between the nature of the ego and the soul. The ego, he writes, tends to be rejecting, critical, opposing, clinging, agitated, resentful, selfish, conflicted, and judgmental. By contrast, the soul is accepting, approving, cooperating, detached, calm, forgiving, selfless, peaceful, and nonjudgmental. He notes that the ego and soul have two very different visions of fulfillment.
The ego’s vision of fulfillment:
The soul’s vision of fulfillment:
A key part of spirituality is living more from our soul and less from our ego.
“When the ego dies, the soul awakes.” -Mahatma Gandhi, Indian lawyer and transformational leader
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Conclusion
For many people, spirituality is an essential aspect of living a good life. There are many different spiritual traditions and practices. For many of us, a disciplined spiritual practice can be powerful and transformative as we take the focus off ourselves, give thanks, stand in reverence, and come back to our true nature, wholeness, and divine source.
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Gregg Vanourek?is a writer, teacher, TEDx speaker, and coach on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including?LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives?(a manifesto for integrating our life and work with purpose, passion, and contribution) and?Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations?(a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his?Best Articles?or get his?monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!
(A version of this article first appeared on Gregg Vanourek's blog.)