What is Spirituality?

[Gawain of Orkeny]

What the hell are you doing here then SFTS Run along son

[Strike For The South]

I have work at 6 tmrw. Opening cahier.

[Bijo]

its waking up every morning and enjoying the time you have on this earth for whatever reason. Take to spend with family and freinds and less with your stuff. Trust me when people are with people the rewards are so much greater than a seige of Rome. Go bowling take a girl out see what life has to offer. Im only 16 and I cant wait to see what around the corner. Life is to short to be anyhting but happy and virle. Say hello meet new friends smell flowers.

Can't you stay on the topic of spirituality? I'm not talking about typical things of the easily understandable physical world -- this is about certain hard-to-explain states of being one can find oneself in. Things that ordinary people usually don't go after, higher purposes of the mind, etc., etc. Philosophy, and so on.

Waking up is waking up. Spending time with people is spending time with people. Going out is going out, etc. To say that these things are spirituality is plain wrong (in the sense that is meant in this topic), or maybe this can be properly countered.

(And if you assume to know me, unassume.)

[Banquo's Ghost]

Can't you stay on the topic of spirituality? I'm not talking about typical things of the easily understandable physical world -- this is about certain hard-to-explain states of being one can find oneself in. Things that ordinary people usually don't go after, higher purposes of the mind, etc., etc. Philosophy, and so on.

Waking up is waking up. Spending time with people is spending time with people. Going out is going out, etc. To say that these things are spirituality is plain wrong (in the sense that is meant in this topic), or maybe this can be properly countered.

That's rather harsh. Especially since you asked "What is spirituality?" - you cannot then go around determining what other people's sense of spirituality may feel like.

Many people experience a sense of spiritual well-being in these familiar, yet wondrous moments. Indeed, the sense of wonder evoked by moments in life can often be the beginning of a belief that there is something more, something indefinable that blesses us and enhances our lives. It can be the beginning of the search for the spirit.

Even atheists can experience these extraordinary, ordinary moments that uplift. They can be very mundane - a sense of the spiritual does not have to be all angelic fanfares and miraculous risings from the grave. It can be the sense of wonder at a flower, a child's laugh, a long-forgotten but evocative fragrance. These small things can bring us to question life and its meaning, either through faith, reason or just the search for more happiness.

[Gawain of Orkeny]

These small things can bring us to question life and its meaning, either through faith, reason or just the search for more happiness.

In other words the miracle that is life.

[macsen rufus]

I think what everyone's pointing at from different perspectives is that spirituality is somehow related to being fully human, stepping out and above the day to day, but also seeing the grander sense of things IN the day to day as well. As Blake (I think...) put it, "seeing a universe in a grain of sand, eternity in an hour".

It is possible to separate spirituality from religion, but probably not the other way around. Religion is partly an attempt to codify spiritual experience and insight, and universalise it. I recognise your description of a "disconnected" state (the glib reply would be to say "that's just being stoned", but I do know such states can come over you under the wierdest of conditions and prompted by some strange stimuli).

As for Gawain's comments about children etc, it's probably one of the profoundest things he's said in these boards, so is well worth reflecting upon

And of course don't forget, Lao Tsu came back to the town and went drinking with the butchers.