What is meant by Spirituality?

Wikipedia defines it as a process of personal transformation in accordance with religious ideals.

This definition is questionable as Spirituality has really no relationship to religious ideals, rituals or traditions. In fact, being religious takes us away from our own Spirituality.

Osho in his talks compiled as a book ‘The Silence of the Heart’ says ‘Spirituality is not a kind of scholarship. It is nothing that you can study; it is something you have to be. … It is transformation. ….You come back a totally different person, with a new vision of life, with a new understanding, with peace in the heart, with a great silence and harmony in the being.’ *

Spirituality begins with turning our focus from others and external objects to our own self! It  is a process of discovering our own True Identity, a state of ‘Just Being’ which is a state beyond our Ego! The personal transformation that is required for this discovery is totally an internal process and definitely not in accordance with the present religious teachings and ideals!

We spend almost all our life in the ‘Ego’ state. We are all the time driven, (mis)guided or tormented by our own Ego. As such, no time is available for becoming Spiritual to live a sane life!

Strangely, becoming Spiritual by discovering our True Identity is rather simple! All that is required to be done, is to be done by our own Intellect and is to be done within us! The internal process of discovery is called Meditation. Meditation, covered in a separate post in this blog, starts simply with increasing our Awareness of both the internal situations as well as the situations external to us. We have to become aware of all the actions we are doing all the time as well as be aware internally of all the thoughts that are coming and going within our Intellect. It is as simple as that!

With time and increasing purity of Awareness we get closer and closer to our True Identity. Additionally, we have to fully accept our own self as it is now, including our Ego, as well as the external situations as they are now. This results in our Intellect becoming extremely peaceful and quiet, an ideal state for our True Identity to unveil itself!

Having discovered our True Identity we need to abide (remain) in it as frequently as we can! That is being Spiritual! Other than deep sleep, it is the most powerful and regenerative state of our Intellect as well as of our body! It is a state of total completeness when desires and expectations evaporate and so action dissolves into inaction! Here inaction does not mean no action. It implies action without any selfish desires!

However, we do need to carry out few actions daily for our sustenance and so we do need to be in the state of ‘Ego’ for some of the time to run our life and to set and achieve goals. Our suggestion for goals is that they should be extremely flexible on the time aspect as well as  be subject to revision or total change, at any time, for appropriateness based on inputs from the present moment. This will help reduce the stress within our Intellect, even when we do not achieve our goals in the specified time. Then our Intellect will  always be free, available and capable of  making good decisions as well as abiding in our True Identity as often as possible.

Spirituality at work is simply doing all our thinking and actions in a state of Pure Awareness. So, most of our waking life, we need to be Aware of what we are thinking and what we are doing; including planning flexible goals with flexible time schedule for our future!

Good living is very simple if we discover our ‘True Identity’ which is beyond our Intellect’s creation of our False Self which is our ‘Ego’. The earlier we discovery, the better it will be! Sadly, most of us die without this very essential discovery required for living a great life fully, in peace and in happiness!

Perfection in Spirituality is when our Intellect understands and experiences that it is only a vast emptiness or a complete zero –The Totality *

Religion (Spirituality) is renunciation of all that belongs to the ego. It is not really renunciation of the world: it is renunciation of the world that the ego creates. …… Religion (Spirituality) is renunciation of the false, that really does not exist at all — of the ego, of knowledge, of prejudices, of expectations, of desires. – Osho, in his talks compiled in the book ‘The Silence of the Heart’

Being Spiritual means that we are now aware that the limitations and barriers set up by our Ego and body as well as our Ego and Body are really illusions! –The Totality *                170717

Speeches , lectures and activities addressed to large group of people or masses under the guise of transfer of Spirituality are no more than just entertainment with listeners and  doers feeling good while attending and then returning back to their original state of lack of spiritual evolution. Spirituality is a process of self evolution and not a process of mass evolution. Introspection and deep meditation are doors that lead to Spirituality- The Totality  120118

Existence or Spirituality does not follow human logic or reasoning – The Totality * 180419

Spiritual health is when we appreciate that the world does not move as per our Ego’s needs and wants. It moves as per the Enormously Powerful Divine Will. Our Ego really has no option but to accept the Divine Will’s actions unconditionally to live a happy and full life – The Divinity 050522 *