Define Spirituality

I am curious as to how you all define spirituality. Please make it in your own words.

Personally, I think spirituality is the unity of body, mind, and environment. This is a feeling of harmony and completeness. That's a quickie, but my knowledge of this stuff is pretty weak.

Originally posted by Zander 88
I am curious as to how you all define spirituality. Please make it in your own words.

Personally, I think spirituality is the unity of body, mind, and environment. This is a feeling of harmony and completeness. That's a quickie, but my knowledge of this stuff is pretty weak.

My view is that spirituality is that sense of unity and wonder and mystery - all at the same time - of the universe.
That probably doesn't make much sense, but I get a really strong sense of spirituality when I go out bushwalking. At night, watching the stars from some remote mountain range, I feel a sense of connection with and wonder at and distance from, the rest of the universe.

Originally posted by Zander 88
I am curious as to how you all define spirituality. Please make it in your own words.

Personally, I think spirituality is the unity of body, mind, and environment. This is a feeling of harmony and completeness. That's a quickie, but my knowledge of this stuff is pretty weak.

Due to its inescapable religious connotations, I avoid using the word whenever possible.

Originally posted by Zander 88
I am curious as to how you all define spirituality. Please make it in your own words.

Personally, I think spirituality is the unity of body, mind, and environment. This is a feeling of harmony and completeness. That's a quickie, but my knowledge of this stuff is pretty weak.

I like the sound of that. But of course it is so much more. Spirit has substance too. It's not visible to the senses in that one can smell it or taste it. I'm not at all sure I can even describe it in words.

Originally posted by josephw
I like the sound of that. But of course it is so much more. Spirit has substance too. It's not visible to the senses in that one can smell it or taste it. I'm not at all sure I can even describe it in words.

Yeah, I agree. It's very difficult to put into words. I'm in the process of reading through Eastern religion/philosophy. good stuff... Hopefully I'll come back with some answers.

Originally posted by Zander 88
I am curious as to how you all define spirituality. Please make it in your own words.

Personally, I think spirituality is the unity of body, mind, and environment. This is a feeling of harmony and completeness. That's a quickie, but my knowledge of this stuff is pretty weak.

Define Spirituality

Words have meanings, so ..

Look it up yourself. That's what the dictionary is for.

Unless you want to start some new type of debate where we get to define words the way we like.

You don't debate definitions .. you set the definitions AND THEN debate the subject.

Again, all you need do is type "spirituality" into your search engine .. after that you can decide what it is about spirituality you want to debate.
You don't debate what words mean .. you look them up.

Originally posted by Zander 88
I am curious as to how you all define spirituality. Please make it in your own words.

You can't define it in any useful way. You have to, like, blow it out of a horn.

Originally posted by rwingett
Due to its inescapable religious connotations, I avoid using the word whenever possible.

I dislike the word too.

Protestant theologian Paul Tillch said many years ago that, in his opinion, the word had become bankrupt. He thought that “spirit” was close, and suggested that “spirited” (as in living a spirited life; or saying “that’s a spirited horse” ) might be salvageable.

A year or so ago, both BdN and I were trying to argue that the word ought to be dropped—when bbarr shut us down with a definition that he found acceptable. I didn’t save it, but it had something to do with experiential contact with “the real” (I think that was his phrase) underneath all the concepts, categories, words, etc.

I use the word “mystical” for that—also a dangerous word because of the religious connotations, and I generally include the caveat that I don’t mean “supernatural.”

Nevertheless, the word "mystical" has a kind of "technical" usage in the literature, and "spiritual" arises in common discourse, even among nontheists--so it's difficult to escape the terms...

Originally posted by jammer
Define Spirituality

Words have meanings, so ..

Look it up yourself. That's what the dictionary is for.

Unless you want to start some new type of debate where we get to define words the way we like.

You don't debate definitions .. you set the definitions AND THEN debate the subject.

Again, all you need do is type "spirituality" into your search ...[text shortened]... out spirituality you want to debate.
You don't debate what words mean .. you look them up.

Well, there are a whole bunch of different definitions and takes on it. Saying a definition doesn't mean you understand it.