Spiritual

[SamanthaJane]

Lately i've heard people describe themselves as being 'spritual'

What does this mean? :confused:

[blessedmummy]

hmmmmm :detective: hmmmm.. i think i remember its when people believe in spiritual things, like heaven/hell, angels, spirits(or ghosts as people seem to call them!)
i personally dont believe in ghosts as such.. but they are spirits, i also believe in heaven/hell and angels, (im a born agian christian by the way) hope this helps....

me25
Dh25:kiss:
Emily3:ecomcity:
Clare22months:ecomcity:

[Saraswati]

Being a spiritual person has nothing to do with believing in ghosts. We consider ourselves a spiritual family but we don't follow a religion, although many religious people are also spiritual. Spirituality is the essence or the core values within most religions - the bit where you are focusing on being the best soul you can be, perhaps reaching out to a higher self (you may call it praying to God) and living a life of good values based on unconditional love for all. Hopefully all of you religious folk are also spiritual!!

Many Christians seem to mis-define spirituality. It's nothing to do with demons, ghosts and holding seances.

My DH just said: Spirituality is the food, religion is the restaurant and we prefer to cook at home.

[SamanthaJane]

Okay, so if your spiritual do you pray? like, maybe not praying to god directly, but do you still pray somehow?

So you don't believe in God, so you wouldn't believe that God created the world... so how do you describe the world being created? Would it be that the universe sort of created itself?

Do you believe in things like guardian angels?

Is "spiritual" a sort of umm beleif... like "catholic" and "jewish" ??? or is it just a word to describe something else... like do u all believe one thing... or is it just a word used to describe many different beliefs?

Sorry... i dont really know what i am talking about here... but i really want to understand what it means :o

[blessedmummy]

hmmm let me see if i can explain a bit better... (this is a bit hard...)anyhow.. hope this helps... um.. in my belief ( im a born agian christian) i believe that God created the world and everything in it, including us! i also believe in angles, they are in heaven with God. anyhow.. hope this helps in someway.. um.. let me see.. um.. praying to God is a spiritual act of worship to Him, (hope you dont mind me saying this....) um... anyhow.. hope this helps in someway.. and i hope i havent offended anyone.

[Funkychicken]

Having a sense of spirituality is not something that is 'found' overnight. It is a journey that most people who are travelling this path, expect to be on their entire lifetime. I can understand your wanting to know more but I don't think it is something that can be 'explained', it is more something that needs to be experienced by a willing soul.:)

[elissas]

Being spiritual means that you choose to live on a spiritual path without necessarily subscribing to a religion. It means you are free to follow your own beliefs, and you deeply believe them (not just superficially) - whether those beliefs are "prescribed" by an institution or whether they are part of your own personally discovered belief system.

It is not just about ritual and "performing" as per a set of rules. Some of us may choose to practice rituals - whether it be meditation, prayer, church etc. But the rituals are not our spirituality. They are merely an expression of it.

It is not about going to church on Sundays and then behaving independently of that during the week. It is about letting your beliefs permeate everything you do on a daily basis. The most spiritual of practices are those that are done without premeditation, organisation, watchful eyes or rules. To be spiritual means that your day to day actions reflect your beliefs and reflect a depth of spirit that includes but also transcends the material world. The physical world and the spiritual worlds are not exclusive of one another. They are not to be treated as separate worlds. We are spiritual beings in a physical experience and we should be experiencing this world fully with all its beauty and vices. It's all part of our growth as humans, and as spiritual beings.

You can be spiritual without being religious, and you can be religious without having a skerrick of spiritual sense. Spirituality and religion are not one and the same, nor are they mutually exclusive.

I think what a lot of people mean, when referring to themselves as "spiritual", is that they do not subscribe to an organised religion - BUT they lead a spiritual life where the journey of self-discovery is wondrous and without the limitations that religions can bring.

We call ourselves spiritual. When people come to the door trying to "sell" us religion, I tell them we're spiritual - that we believe in spirituality but don't believe in organised religion. That usually confuses them into silence and they go away, hopefully pondering, but probably just thinking that I'm going to go to h3ll :rolleyes:

Hope this has helped. :p

[SamanthaJane]

Thank you! That makes sense now :yes:

[Mum&bubs]

Being a spiritual person has nothing to do with believing in ghosts. We consider ourselves a spiritual family but we don't follow a religion, although many religious people are also spiritual. Spirituality is the essence or the core values within most religions - the bit where you are focusing on being the best soul you can be, perhaps reaching out to a higher self (you may call it praying to God) and living a life of good values based on unconditional love for all. Hopefully all of you religious folk are also spiritual!!

Many Christians seem to mis-define spirituality. It's nothing to do with demons, ghosts and holding seances.

My DH just said: Spirituality is the food, religion is the restaurant and we prefer to cook at home.

Yep my mum is spiritual & you pretty much summed up what she says about it. She also believes that everyone has a guardian angel protecting us & guiding us all the way all you have to do is ask for her or something like that.

[Mister Noodle]

SJ: when I've seen people use it, it's usually code for 'warm fuzzy feelgood stuff that I don't want to answer questions about'.

However, looking at the word itself gives some info on what it "should" probably mean.

The word 'spirit' means 'breath' (as in respiritory, inspiration, expire, etc.) and nothing more. Early beliefs (from plato's time and far earlier) held that the breath was the animating force of the body - which seems fair; no dead thing breathes, no living thing (by early definitions) doesn't.

So the breath was equated with the life, of the person - that which was the person that was not the body, that which departed with death.

However, as knowledge of science, medicine and the natural world increased, the word got squeezed out of its original meaning. Breath itself got thrown away as the animating principle, because it could be understood - not only was the answer demonstrably there, people didn't want something understandable. If you can understand something, you know its limits, you know what it can and cannot do, you can't pin false hope on it.

So the referent of 'spirit' got vaguer and vaguer as history went on. It's not breath, it's not thought, it's not emotion, it's not personality. All of the latter are far too mundane and easy to grasp - they have no hidden behaviour to pin magical thinking on.

So, take away someone's mind and body, and what's left, you can call 'spirit'.

Of course, I personally believe this leaves nothing at all; words don't have to point to anything real. But we digress.

'Spirituality', then, is the collection of issues pertaining to this non-physical, non-mental thing that is commonly supposed to dwell within us.

The most important part seems to be that it can't be directly apprehended, understood or controlled. Some kind of primal subconcious, perhaps - some deeply buried core of ourselves that can only be dimly influenced by ritual, trance, meditation, prayer, strong emotion and other altered states.

This gives people the ability to indulge in all the magical thinking they want - they constantly fiddle with the way they think and feel, in the hopes that this will bring about some desired underlying change in themselves, or generate some qualitatively better kind of happiness or contentment than the kinds they can get for themselves.

It's a nice prop for religion - it explains why we can't see or hear supposedly omnipresent gods. They idea is that gods don't speak to us, they speak to our spirit - so you can only hope to glean vague hints and tendencies and subliminal whispers in reply. This of course means that if you don't seem to get a reply, it's no big deal, because the answer was far too subtle for you to hear - and so you don't have to give up hoping. And of course, you can take anything at all as an affirmation, if you want.

Highly addictive.

[B-belle]

Are you a scientist Mr noodle? Or something similer?

[Mister Noodle]

Nah, I'm just a geek :)

[Saraswati]

Elissas - you explained it perfectly. Thank you! :yes:

[alicesmum]

while i agree with everything mr noodle said, and think the word 'spiritual' is often over-used and mis-used, i think it has some usefulness.

for me, it means an awareness that i am a speck in the universe, but a connected speck!

it has to do with me remembering and acting with an awareness of my interconnectedness with all things, which is actual very real in a physcial sense. a oneness with the universe if you will. i am a part of nature and under its laws, just like everything else. i come from it and return to it. ego is not real. i think it is the ego that wants to believe there is a soul. but when you remember where "you" came from and where "you" return to, ego weakens. for me, it also has to do with my remembering I cannot understand everything (or even very much) with my puny little brain and there's something quite 'spiritual' about sitting with this awareness.

Ken Wilber explains it beautifully in his book "No Boundary" which should still hold some appeal even for the most skeptical pragmatists.

[Vcub]

Oh and I thought you never listen to me Krissy:hugs: But yes i do believe in my guides,...also i would like to say, that spiritual ppl do not push there belief's on other ppl, like i have noticed alot of religious ppl do.

[bronny-jane]

Okay, so if your spiritual do you pray? like, maybe not praying to god directly, but do you still pray somehow?

So you don't believe in God, so you wouldn't believe that God created the world... so how do you describe the world being created? Would it be that the universe sort of created itself?

Do you believe in things like guardian angels?


hey sj, i talk to the universe, would practically be praying, i just chat away and ask for things or am thankful, i dont think the universe is higher then me, i believe its within me and im within it:D

i have no idea how the world was created but i do like the big bang theory.

i do beleive in guides and other spirits that will aid you if you ask.

i dont however believe in heaven or hell, but more of a holding place were we can choose to be reborn or stay, and where we plan our destiny...even the bad things that happen, they do help you to grow and be more compassionate towards everything.

[SamanthaJane]

Thanks BJ :yes: