Sunday, 11 August 2013

Spiritual Growth And Why It Counts

By Therese Yemana


Spiritual growth has long been an important part of a person's sense of wellbeing, even before man has conceptualized the word and broke it down in many ways in which it eventually ended up in different methodologies on how one can build upon it. You name it - yoga, karma, or perhaps reincarnation. There are so many that they range from the most mystical to the most practical. But even if you are treading your own "spiritual path", or in deep need for spiritual fulfillment, an in-depth understanding of what spirituality is can be quite useful in more ways than one.

To make sure that we understand fully what spirituality is, perhaps it is important that we discuss the meaning of the root word itself; Spirit is an intangible property, one which describes something incorporeal, something mysterious and not bound by the material world. The most acclaimed scholar and physicist, Albert Einstein, alluded to spirituality through these words: ""The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious - the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science". This raises the two things he mentioned - art and science. These two have been the center of human's awareness while achieving solutions to the mysteries which have confounded us concerning the universe. These two distinct concepts, polar opposites as they may be, have paved the way to the development of technology and human awareness.

The quest for answers is deeply rooted to our inherent need to achieve knowledge about ourselves, and how we're connected to everything around us. Ordinary routines such as fixing a car engine or observing an ant farm are unconscious manifestations of this need, and as a result, connected to spirituality. You only have to read Robert M. Pasig's magnum opus, Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, to know what I'm talking about. While this disagrees with the concept of spirituality as something not bound in the material world, these physical avenues are useful channels that let us achieve that transcendence, and as a result provide us a glance into the unexplainable.

Many people achieve spiritual sustenance through meditation. Meditation is a process of serious contemplation, or turning inward to attain a profound condition of peacefulness, focus and awareness. The idea of meditation came from the Eastern cultures, and it has been developed by the West as a form of prayer. Buddhist monks are astute in their belief that meditation is the best way to Enlightenment, which explains the sanguine temperament through which they deal with others.

A common misconception most individuals make is having the notion that spirituality is exclusive to religion. While it's true that religion has helped a lot of people to lead spiritual lives, it only represents a few facets that constitute the full meaning of spirituality. Spirituality is a confluence, a heightened understanding of what we are and how we are connected to the whole spectrum of existence, and the discernment that every little thing is equally essential and dependent on each other.




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