SPIRITUALITY: May 2010

The True Meaning of Spirituality

The title of this article “The True Meaning of Spirituality” implies that there is a not so true or false meaning of spirituality. There is indeed a false meaning of spirituality and we get rid of this first so that we can focus on the true meaning of spirituality.

Not So True Meanings of Spirituality

Spirituality is not spiritism, although both words contain the word “spirit”. Spiritism is a system of beliefs based on the works of Hypolite Léon Denizard Rivail who used the name Allan Kardec. These works reported séances he pointed as originating from incorporeal intelligence or spirits. In spirituality we are not dealing with séances or such kind of communication with spirits.

Spirituality is not spiritualism. Spiritualism is the system of beliefs and opinions about the dead communicating with the living through mediums. Spirituality is about the living more than about the dead. Spirituality is not the practice of communicating with the dead.

Spirituality is not supernaturalism which is the system of belief in beings superior to human beings such as God and angels. In spirituality we are dealing more with human beings rather than with beings above them. Spirituality can be compatible with atheism, the belief that there is no God.

Spirituality is not at all related to witchcraft although this practice involves the use of spiritual powers, purposely to harm others for one’s own benefit.

Spirituality has nothing to do with Satanism, although Satan is a spirit. The task of spirituality is not to propagate or combat Satanism. It does not deny his existence, but it does not deal principally with how to deal with his works.

Spirituality is not related to the art or practice of exorcism, the expulsion of Satan or his demons from a person.

Nor is spirituality related even remotely to magic or sorcery, the practice of manipulating consciousness to obtain a desired objective.

Spirituality is not engaging in the practice of psychic phenomena, such as Extra Sensory Powers or ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance, channeling, ouija boards and other means.

Those are the false meanings of spirituality. They all deal with spiritual matters but not in the way we know what real spirituality is.

True Meaning of Spirituality

The true meaning of spirituality is that it is way of life that gives proper value to the spiritual dimension of our existence and creation.

This means that we acknowledge the primacy of the spiritual in our life, its essentiality, and its finality, and act accordingly.

Primacy of Spirituality

We acknowledge the primacy of the spiritual in our life. This means that we are certain that we came from a spiritual source, one that is not perceivable by our senses. This spiritual source has real connection with us even now and is really in charge of our life. We cannot get out of this connection with our spiritual source. If we are believers in God, we call this God. If we are atheists but live a life of spirituality, we may call this source Ultimate Energy.

Essentiality of Spirituality

Secondly, we acknowledge the essentiality of the spiritual in our life. This means that what is most important in our life is not material things or money, fame or position of authority, but the possession of spiritual qualities which make us more human. For us to be human is to be spiritual. Spirituality is an essential component of our humanity. Without spirituality we are no longer human beings. It is that essential.

Finality of Spirituality

Thirdly, we acknowledge the finality of the spiritual. Our goal in life is a spiritual goal, not the accumulation of riches or material rewards such as lands and buildings. The goal of our life is union with the Ultimate Spirit. In this our real and genuine happiness consists.

Not only do we acknowledge these three fundamental truths of spirituality. We act accordingly. In acting accordingly we do not have a problem because the spirit in us makes us, as it were, flow with his waves and gently pushes us to act accordingly.

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Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

The Qualities of a Spiritual Life

There are many qualities of a genuinely spiritual life. We discuss the most important of them here.

Dynamism, Force From Within

The first quality of a genuine spiritual life is its inner dynamism. This is because the source of this life is from within the person. It is not something that is imposed from without. If there is something in this life that is imposed from the outside, it may be a religious life but it is not a spiritual life.

This is why a person cannot just fall into this kind of life. It is something that he purposely enters into. He may be led into it by circumstances, such as problems that he thinks he can no longer bear. He may be initiated into it by a teacher who is kind and loving to others. But the final step into this kind of life is something that he takes by his own will. He cannot enter into this kind of life like a child who is baptized and whose responses to the officiating minister is done by his parents and sponsors.

Consciousness of More Unseen Reality

The second quality of a spiritual life is its being situated in the infinite ocean of life. The person living this life knows that he is not alone, that he is connected to an infinitely expanding universe that is mostly spiritual, that is, unseen. The average person does not know this. He thinks that only what he sees around him exists. The person who lives the spiritual life knows otherwise. He knows there is more to life than what he sees, there are more varieties of life in spaces and worlds unknown to us.

The scientists have been searching for life beyond our planet earth, beyond our planetary system, beyond our Milky Way. The person with a genuine spirituality knows that there is life out there, even beyond the billions of stars and galaxies around us. He does not have to search for life there. He knows it is there.

The spiritual life is here and now, there and beyond.

Humility

The third quality of a spiritual life is that it is humbled by the immensity of life surrounding itself. It has a humble perspective. The spiritual life makes a person humble. The person knows he is less than a speck in this wide world. And he conducts himself accordingly. He does not boast of anything and he cannot boast when he sees all these life forms around him in all their variety and richness.

Realistic Optimism

The fourth quality of a spiritual life is that it is confident that things would turn out ultimately well for the individual person and for the entire universe. It follows the philosophy of the poem DESIDERATA that whether we know it or not the universe is unfolding as it should. The spiritual person is not discouraged by the escalating crimes and terrorism he sees in the world around him. He does not disregard these as unreal. He feels compassion for the victims of these outbursts of violence. But deep in his heart he knows that the world is getting more and more spiritual, therefore more transformed to the image of the Spirit who is goodness itself.

The basis of his hope is not in his belief that human beings are basically good. His basis is the fact that the Spirit will ultimately triumph over matter, the spiritual over the material.

Worry Free

The fifth quality of a spiritual life is its absence of worry. It is thoroughly happy and peaceful. This of course flows from the qualities above. But this quality is not like that of the stoic who happily endures everything, even the evils and suffering around him. The person with a genuine spiritual life is happy and peaceful because he knows with absolute certainty that death is not the end of life but the entrance to a better way of living, the full flowering of the spirit life.

These are the important qualities of a truly genuine spiritual life: it has an inner dynamism, it is situated in an infinite ocean of life, it is humbled by the immensity of life around it, it is thoroughly confident and optimistic, and it is completely happy and peaceful.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

How To Lead a Spiritual Life

This title presumes that the person knows what the spiritual life is. But most people do not know what a spiritual life is.

Comparison of Three Levels of Life

All of us live a physical life, the life of our body. So, we simply look at our body and ask how does this body live. We lead a physical life because of the body that we have.

Almost all of us also live a mental life, the life of our mind. We think, we reflect, we reason. So we have a mind. The ones who do not live this life would be the mentally retarded. They have a mind but their mind no longer grows. They may be 50 years old physically but their mind has remained at the level of a 1 or 2 years old. But for most of us we lead a mental life.

But to lead a spiritual life is different. For one it may be confused with leading a religious life. Up until the last century most people thought that the religious life was a spiritual life. So, we had religious orders and congregations whose members thought that they were leading a spiritual life because they were leading a religious life: praying, reading the Bible and other spiritual books, meditating, helping their neighbors, etc.

Spiritual Life Is Not Necessarily a Religious Life

But lately we noticed a phenomenon. Non-religious persons have been busy in learning more about the spiritual life. And when they discuss the spiritual life, they were not at all referring to the religious life of people. In fact, some of these non-religious persons who were doing research on the spiritual life thought that the spiritual life is in many ways totally different from the religious life.

So, the question is, if the spiritual life is different from the religious life, how do you start to lead it?

The religious life is started by a certain ritual, like baptism or the donning on of a religious garb or habit. The spiritual life is best started by a teacher who guides the student to this spiritual life. The teacher may employ a ritual or he may not. But he is there to guide the student as a tour guide would guide a traveler as they enter a building of historical importance.

This was the approach taken by Teresa of Avila who wrote a book on the spiritual life with the title of THE INTERIOR CASTLE. She conceived of the spiritual life as a mansion with many rooms or a castle with many dwelling places.

Again our question is: How do you start to lead the spiritual life? A reflection on a common experience we have may make us understand the answer to this question. After we answer this question, we answer the second question: How do you continue to lead this spiritual life after you have started leading it?

The Start of Our Spiritual Life

Here is the common experience we have which may help us understand how we can start to lead the spiritual life.

When we were children our parents told us to do something, either pick up their shoes or go to a certain part of the house. Most of the time we obeyed. There were times when we did not obey. For the times when we obeyed, we ask now, Why did we obey?

It was because we heard the voice of our parents and we naturally thought of obeying the word signified by that voice. In other words, the means of communicating between us and our parents, besides gestures and looks, was the word. This is very important to notice because it is the word which, upon reflection, we realize has power.

When we grew up, we have had more uses of the word. But it is the word that has power. In the army especially, one word can move thousands of soldiers to stand on their feet at attention. The commander shouts "Attention" and all the rest follow.

The word is most powerful. This is the entrance to the spiritual life, knowing a word and using it to enter into the life of the spirit. The spirit is in the word as it were.

In some centers of spirituality people are trained to utter a word again and again slowly until this word sinks into their subconscious mind. This is what they call a mantra, a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that a person repeats again and again, producing spiritual effects in his being. What the mantra does is to awaken the spirit within us, just as a word would awaken physically a sleeping person.

And this is where the guide or teacher is handy. He would help the student find a mantra that is suitable for him.

This is the start of leading a spiritual life.

The Continuation of Our Spiritual Life

The continuation of leading the spiritual life is simply understanding more of the mantra that has been given to him. In some societies only the teacher and the student know the mantra. It is a secret word. But it is this secret word that gives spiritual power to the student.

The student or spiritual person meditates on the meaning of this word. He reads more about it, reflects on the meaning he finds in his readings. He does this until the time comes when he stops reflecting on its meaning. He stops reflecting because it has entered already into his very being. It is like eating. When we eat we chew. But when the food is absorbed already by our stomach we stop to chew that portion of food we were chewing before.

So, also in the spiritual life which begins from the word we reflect upon. Time will come when we can no longer reflect on the meaning of the word we had reflected before. This is because the reality of the word has already entered the depths of our being.

The ideal would be for a student to receive this word from his teacher. But this word can be any that you think is conducive to your temperament and religious upbringing. If you are a Christian, you may choose the word "God" or "Jesus". One Benedictine suggested the word "Maranatha" which means "Come Lord". If you are a Muslim you may choose the word "Allah" or "Rahman" which means "the God" or "the Most Merciful". If you are a Hindu, you may choose "Brahman" or "Atman". And so forth.

To summarize then, to lead the spiritual life, enter it first by meditating upon a word. Then continue leading this life by meditating more upon this word until you can no longer meditate on it, because this word has entered into your very being.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

The Benefits of Spirituality

More and more people now are getting more and more interested in spirituality. The reason for this is because spirituality is offering them benefits which they cannot find in religion or in their own churches. This article discusses the benefits which people have discovered in spirituality. This also tells those who are just beginning to learn about spirituality what benefits they can get from this subject matter which has been dubbed as the new black art, a way of conjuring the good things in life.

We can go through the alphabet and for each letter identify a benefit people have gotten from spirituality. That would give us 26 benefits, using the English alphabet. But that would be artificial. Somebody has already done this.

Major Benefits of Spirituality

I want to point out three main benefits which people have enjoyed in learning and being engaged in spirituality. Then I will also point out three minor benefits. But since this is a spiritual topic and there is really no end to a discussion on the things of the spirit, we can also say that there is no end to the benefits which we can enjoy in spirituality.

The first main benefit is a sense of freedom or greater freedom. Religion has often been looked at as a repressing element in one's life: Do not do this, do not do that. Now with spirituality people have found a new sense of freedom: You can do this, you can do that.

Let us give an example. In churches people are reminded by their leaders to behave properly, to come to the church services regularly and to support the needs of the church. But these injunctions are received by the church members as obligations, as things they have to do, otherwise they will lose their good standing in the church. These obligations bind them, so they feel.

On the other hand people who have left or are transcending this kind of church life find that spirituality is a life that buoys them up, that does not press them down as in the churches. Spirituality enables them to come out of themselves so that they can be themselves. A fifteen minutes sincere prayer and meditation in the secret of their room is more likely to uplift their spirit than the one hour sermon by the pastor or the fifteen minutes homily by the priest.

The second main benefit is a sense of real direction. In religion people have been trained to be directed to heaven: Do good here on earth so that when you die you go to heaven. This is the rather simplistic teaching of all religions. In spirituality, heaven is no longer a place in the distant future where we are going to after we die. Heaven happens to be just around the corner in the company of other spirits and spiritually minded people. Heaven is where we enjoy the company of like-minded spirits.

The third benefit is a sense of wholeness. Life is no longer a stream of splintered units: This is for my family, this is for my business, this is for my church, this is for my friends, this is for the charitable organizations I belong to. Life has become a whole. All the concerns and activities in life revolve around one center, the integration of the self with others.

Minor Benefits of Spirituality

Those are the main benefits. Now we go to the minor benefits which you can consider as the consequences of the main benefits.

The first minor benefit people have found in the practice of spirituality is a new sense of self-confidence. Having found their real selves as spirit beings, no longer as blind products of evolution, they now realize they have self worth more valuable than all the material treasures of this earth. This sense of self worth gives them self-confidence.

The second is a new sense of creativity. This follows from the sense of self-confidence. Now they are no longer tied by the tradition of their society. This is not surprising because the spirit is a creative force. It is the Spirit who created our world or caused it to be created. Spiritual persons think along new lines. Instead of thinking that such a thing cannot be done because it has not been done before, they think "Why not?". All the inventions we now benefit from are products of people who have been deeply spiritual, who dreamed of things to come and saw visions of sights never seen before.

The third is a new sense of healthy living, both physical health and mental health. Having a new sense of freedom, of new direction in the here and now, not in the by and by, and having a new sense of wholeness, having a new sense of confidence and creativity cannot but produce a new sense of healthy living. The spiritual person affirms: I can now stay healthy with the aid of the spirit telling me what to do to my mind and body. After all the spirit knows what is best for our mind and body. It is for the spirit's interest that we remain healthy because he lives in our mind and body.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

The Meaning of Genuine Spirituality in Life

This is now the second post on the article of Dr. Gianni Zappalà. Again the title of this article is “Spirituality is the new black …and it has social impact!” Its source URL is http://www.csi.edu.au/uploads/31642/ufiles/CSI%20Background%20Paper%20No%201%20-%20Spirituality%20is%20the%20new%20black%20-%20Part%20I.pdf

If you want to read the whole article, please click that URL.

Again as in the previous post, the words written by Dr. Zappala are in italics. My reflection follows after the section in Dr. Zapalla’s article.

What is this thing called spirituality?

It may seem like a futile exercise to attempt to define something that is different and personal for everyone. The concept or definition of spirituality in part eludes many in the social sciences because of its ‘fuzzy’ nature and a lack of consensus on what it means. As with many such concepts, we often intuitively know what we mean by them even though we struggle with trying to logically define them. As David Hay observed of the experience he and his colleagues had on embarking on an empirical study of spirituality:

[T]he variety of opinions that emerged [among academics who were knowledgeable of the subject] simply increased our confusion, but something interesting did emerge from this apparent failure. Everybody agreed that whilst pinning spirituality down to an agreed definition seemed impossible, they were able to recognize it when they came face to face with it. 13

The following small selection of definitions of spirituality gives a flavor of how social scientists, many of whom are writing about spirituality and business and/or organizations and/or workplace understand the concept:

• Spirituality is ‘the careful and reflective art of developing a relationship with the sacred’. 14

• Spirituality is the ‘basic desire to find ultimate meaning and purpose in one’s life and to live an integrated life.’ 15

• Spirituality exists wherever we struggle with the issue of how our lives fit into the greater cosmic scheme of things…an idea or practice is “spiritual” when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life..16

• Spirituality is a concern ‘with our deepest sense of meaning, purpose and interconnectedness with one another and the earth we live on.’17

• The spiritual in human beings makes us ask why we are doing what we are doing and makes us seek some fundamentally better way of doing it. It makes us want our lives and enterprises to make a difference. [emphasis in original]. 18

• ‘Spirituality has to do with the paths people take in their efforts to find, conserve, and transform the sacred in their lives.’ 19

13 Hay, op.cit. p.130
14 David Tacey, The Spirituality Revolution,Sydney: Harper Collins, 2003, p.28
15 II Mitroff & EA Denton, A spiritual audit of corporate America: A hard look at spirituality, religion and values in the workplace, San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999, p.xiv
16 Robert C Fuller, Spiritual, but not Religious, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
17 Tim Costello, „Spirituality and love at work. in C. Barker and A Payne (eds) love @ work, Qld: John Wiley & Sons/Australian
Institute of Management. 2006, p.212
18 Danah Zohar & Ian Marshall, Spiritual Capital – Wealth we can live by, London: Bloomsbury, 2004, p.29
19 Brian J Zinnbauer, Kenneth Pargament & Allie B Scott, „The emerging meanings of Religiousness and Spirituality: Problems
and prospects., Journal of Personality, 67(6), p.909

Here now is my own reflection on this section:

My first comment on this section of Dr. Zappala’s article is that I am happy that now social scientists are embarking on an “empirical study of spirituality.” This implies that social scientists now acknowledge that spirituality can be studied empirically, just like any other social phenomena. Because of this spirituality has a new meaning for all of us. Where before it was the area of theologians and mystics, now it is an area of sociologists. It has more than a theological meaning, spirituality now has a sociological meaning.

That is why “pinning spirituality down to an agreed definition seemed impossible”, as we read in the article. This is because it has become a very rich concept with its entrance into the social sciences. It has become like the elephant to the perception of 7 blind men: one thought it was a tree branch, another thought it was a hand fan, etc.

But despite their disagreement on its definition, the social scientists agree that they recognize what it is when they come face to face with it. In other words, the meaning of spirituality can be grasped intuitively, if not logically.

The elements in their definition are: art, relationship, sacred, ultimate meaning, integrated life, beyond our selves.

First, genuine spirituality is an art. It is not a science. It is something that we practice, not something that we read about and forget, like the characters in a book. It is something that cuts into our personality. It is something that we are supposed to foster every day, otherwise we lose it, like the skill of painting.

Secondly, genuine spirituality has to do with a relationship with others, beyond ourselves. It is not delving into ourselves and losing track of the time and place we are in. It is not thinking of the I, me and mine. Spirituality is a relating with others.

Thirdly, this relating is open to the sacred, that dimension of our life which is beyond our mundane world. Here we acknowledge that there is a reality other than that which is seen by our eyes and perceived by other senses and deduced to by our reason.

Fourthly, genuine spirituality has to do with the ultimate meaning of our life, not just with our present needs and desires. There is something more to than just eating, drinking, and enjoying the present turn of events. Life has a grander purpose than just the enjoyment of pleasure.

Fifthly, genuine spirituality integrates our life. It makes us whole. In other words, spirituality is a unifying factor in our life. It unifies the many elements of our life: the physical, the material, the mental, the psychic, the financial, the ups and downs of our life.

These are the elements of a genuine spirituality and this is from the viewpoint, not of priests, pastors, religious people and theologians, but from the viewpoint of social scientists.

My last comment is that now social scientists can spot spirituality when it appears and they can distinguish the genuine one from the fake. Hopefully the social scientist can spot the genuinely spiritual person from the fake one.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Introduction to Spirituality as the New Black Art

This post and the 9 others following are mainly from the article of Dr. Gianni Zappalà, Associate Professor at the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW, and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney and Director of Orfeus Research, a boutique consultancy that assists organizations develop responsible citizenship strategies through research, evaluation and training.

The title of this article is “Spirituality is the new black …and it has social impact!” Its source URL is http://www.csi.edu.au/uploads/31642/ufiles/CSI%20Background%20Paper%20No%201%20-%20Spirituality%20is%20the%20new%20black%20-%20Part%20I.pdf

If you want to read the whole article, please click that URL.

This article is Part 1 of the Background Paper on spirituality published by the Centre for Social Impact, which is located at Level 6 East Wing, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales, Sydney NSW 2052 with telephone number 61 2 9385 6568 and Fax number Fax: 61 2 9385 6161. The website of this Center where you can find this material and other materials on spirituality is www.csi.edu.au

This Part 1 deals with the definitions and concepts of spirituality.

I found this article a very good introduction to the topic of spirituality. That is why I have put it after my topic on the functional meaning of spirituality.

With the kind permission of the author Dr. Gianni Zappalà I am posting here, in my blog on spirituality, his article in 10 parts. I will be writing in my comments or reflections before and after I present a portion of his article. His article appears in italics, to distinguish it from my comments which will be in non-italics or regular or roman text. As far as possible I have not truncated his article, lest I put something which can be misunderstood out of context. Incidentally, I find this method convenient for me in generating my own thoughts on the matter.

The article is quite heavy, I must say, as it should be, because it is dealing with fundamental terms and ideas in succinct expressions. That is why I have divided it into 10 parts and I may elucidate some of the sentences which may sound difficult for my blog readers to understand. Here is the first part.

Dr. Zappala starts his article with a quotation from David Hay in his book Something There – The Biology of the Human Spirit, published at London by Darton, Longman & Todd, in 2006. The quotation is "The enlightenment also has a down side, including the propensity to ignore or positively reject the reality of our spiritual nature, bringing in its wake a widespread sense of ultimate meaninglessness."1

This quotation implies that if we reject spirituality we are doomed to a life of ultimate meaninglessness. Nobody of us in his right mind would want that.

Then Dr. Zappala proceeds to the Introduction of his article:

Introduction

Spirituality is an increasingly significant factor shaping social trends and institutions in the 21st century. Indeed some have argued that it is the mega trend of our time and is informing and underpinning an emerging world view.2 As a recent book on the shifts occurring in society stated:

Humanity finds itself in the midst of a major shift in worldview... the shift involves a movement away from a material view of the universe and our place in it to a more spiritual view…Nature is no longer merely a neutral object for scientific investigation or a resource for industrial exploitation. It is a sacred order infused with intelligence and purpose – one with which humanity needs to cooperate..3

Before I lose any readers, let me first say that I am not using the term spirituality synonymously with religion. As this paper will make clear they are different constructs, and I regard spirituality to be a biologically prior and innate trait of humans that in some cases may lead some people to religion as we commonly know it but is certainly not the same thing as religion. This may explain the seeming paradox noted by political philosopher Charles Taylor, namely, that we are witnessing a resurgence of interest in spirituality when most social scientists accept some variant of the secularization thesis.4 Spirituality and religion are not only diverse but diverging in different directions. As has been observed in the Australian context (but is generally occurring throughout the Western world), „at a moment when Australians are experiencing a spiritual awakening, the churches that once guided that quest are being left out of the action..5

This paper is the first of several that will examine the implications of what is often referred to as the „spirituality revolution. or „spiritual turn. for organizations and business. A key aim of this project is to situate the current discourse on corporate responsibility and corporate citizenship within the broader transformation that is occurring in world views. We may not always know or explicitly acknowledge it but we (and the institutions we form) all think and act according to the assumptions of a particular world view. Having a model of the world is foundational to most people contemplating (if not answering) the most basic existential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? But world views also create constraints – they keep us (and the institutions we lead and work in) from seeing the assumptions that underlie our beliefs and subsequently our behaviour. As a recent report stated:

An increasingly greater proportion of people are recognizing that habitual ways of thinking and doing must change or we risk catastrophic outcomes. And yet the shifts in perspective being called for seem to exceed our capacity to respond. We are constrained by a limited way of thinking about the world and our potential – a worldview – that we have inherited from the past and that may be incapable of overcoming the challenges it has created.6

We stand at a point of transformation and as has occurred at other times in history (e.g. theCopernican revolution) the dominant world view has reached its use by date. In this forthcoming series of papers I will argue that we are between world views and that this transition has implications for reforming one of the most powerful institutions of the modern era – the corporation. Attempts by one of the most recent reform movements to „civilize. the corporation, namely the loose alliance of thinkers, practitioners and activists within the „Corporate Responsibility movement. have been limited by the extent to which its proponents remain within the framework of the current dominant world view. I will argue in forthcoming papers that the movement needs to embed itself more fully in the emerging world view (one that is being underpinned by a new spirituality and science) if it is to achieve its goals.

Traditionally spirituality has been somewhat marginal in the social sciences. As Charles Taylor stated in his 2007 Templeton Prize speech, „the culture of the humanities and social sciences has often been surprisingly blind and deaf to the spiritual.. Another pioneer of the scholarly study of spirituality, David Hay said, „I think people are naturally spiritual…and the culture surrounding them crushes it out of them – sometimes suppresses, sometimes represses it. And this leads to a great deal of unhappiness..7

But the winds of change are slowly blowing through the corridors of university social science faculties and business schools, slowly „restoring our sight and hearing. with respect to this key human dimension. Indeed, spirituality has become of increasing interest to management scholars and practitioners, political scientists, sociologists, social scientists more broadly, especially those concerned with wellbeing and health8, and most surprising (or perhaps disturbing!) of all, economists. As a feature article in a leading financial daily stated:

Spirituality is not just a personal quest of the twenty first century; it.s a multi-disciplinary subject. It.s cropping up in physics, in biology, health care, sociology, management, social welfare…even find economists writing on it.9

Leaving aside for the moment issues of definition, consider the following indicators of the rise of interest in spirituality in the business and management studies:

*The publication of several special issues of management journals dedicated to the issue of spirituality and organizations, spirituality and the workplace and/or spirituality and leadership;10

*A growing number of conferences, books and articles on the same topics including the first handbook on spirituality and workplace performance in 200311 and the founding of the academicJournal of Management, Spirituality and Religion in 2004;

*The formation of an approved interest group on Management, Spirituality and Religion as part of the Academy of Management in 1999;

*An increasing number of courses on spirituality and business being offered in MBA programs and the establishment of academic centres for teaching and research in the area in at least eight universities in North America including Princeton, Yale and Harvard.12

Before we turn more fully to examine the work and ideas contained in these journals and books, we need to lay some ground work for thinking and understanding the concept of spirituality, and that is the subject of this paper.

The footnotes in this section are here:
1 David Hay, Something There – The Biology of the Human Spirit, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2006, p.xi
2 Patricia Aburdene, Megatrends 2010 – The rise of conscious capitalism, Charlottesville: Hampton Roads, 2005
3 Edmund J Bourne, Global Shift – How a new worldview is transforming humanity, Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 2008, p.53
4 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Harvard University Press, 2007
5 Deirdre Macken, „Faith in modern spirits., Australian Financial Review, April 5-9, 2007, p.48
6 Institute of Noetic Sciences, The 2007 Shift Report: Evidence of a World Transforming, IONS, 2007
7 Interview with David Hay, „A child.s spirit., Encounter program, ABC Radio, 19 November 2006.
8 Andrew J Weaver, Kenneth I Pargament, Kevin J Flannelly & Julia E Oppenheimer, „Trends in the Scientific Study of Religion,
Spirituality, and Health: 1965 – 2000, Journal of Religion and Health, 45(2), 2006, pp. 208-214.
9 Macken, op.cit, p.48
11 R.A. Giacalone & C.L. Jurkiewicz (eds), Handbook of Workplace Spirituality and Organizational Performance, Armonk, NY: M.E.
Sharpe, 2003.
12 On MBA courses, see C. Driscoll & M. McKee, „Restorying a culture of ethical and spiritual values: A role for leader
storytelling., Journal of Business Ethics, 73, 2007, pp.205-17. In 2008 I developed and taught the first (to my knowledge) graduate
course on spirituality and business at the University of Sydney as part of the Master of Public Policy/Public Affairs program.

Here now is my own reflection on this section:

What Dr. Zappala is saying is that spirituality is now a force to be reckoned with. It is shaping our society and our institutions. It is no longer marginal, as it was in the past. We are moving away from a materialistic view of the universe to a spiritualistic view.

If only the Catholic Church did not suppress the writings of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., this trend would have happened a long time ago. Fr. de Chardin already posited the aliveness and spirit present in all beings, even the stones and iron that we step on. This was a far away idea from that of Aristotle who classified creation under the animate and inanimate beings. The inanimate beings were considered those which do not have life, such as the soil and the elements. Surprisingly this is still being taught in seminaries which are supposed to train the future leaders of this Church. The Catholic Church has a long way to go in the path of spirituality.

We are now discovering that all things are breathing with life, with the spirit.

Also if the Catholic Church had only heeded the interpretation of Scripture scholars that we are composed of body, soul and spirit, instead of just body and soul, as Aristotle taught, this renaissance on spirituality would have happened a long time ago, most probably within the Church.

What has happened is that the ones who rediscovered spirituality are not primarily in the religion or theology segments of our academe. They are in the social and business sciences. What a paradox! We may soon or late have sociologists and business executives teaching our priests and nuns about spirituality!

I can only give a brief reflection here, as the longer it is, the more probable it will be that my blog readers will be weary. They will weary their spirits.

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Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Functional Meaning of Spirituality

When we ask “What is the functional meaning of spirituality?” we mean by this what is its meaning with regards to its function or use for us.

Etymological Meaning

Basically spirituality is the quality of one’s sensitivity to the things of the spirit. This definition makes spirituality encompass everything that we cannot see directly with our eyes, directly perceive by the other senses and know by our mere reason. That is the basic meaning of spirituality, a little more than its etymological meaning, the meaning from its root word “spirit”.

The Meaning of Spirituality from Different Perspectives

Spirituality has a meaning beyond the etymological. It can have a theological meaning, from the perspective of those studying theology or the science about God. It can also have a psychological meaning, from the perspective of those who deal with the workings of our inner psyche. Perhaps this is the most popular meaning of spirituality, a look into the inner workings of our conscious, subconscious and preconscious life. Lately spirituality has been viewed from a biological perspective, by men and women who study plants and animals in general.

Functional Meaning

It can also have a functional meaning, or as some would have it, an operational meaning.

Briefly stated, the functional meaning of spirituality is that it is an attitude whereby we view and consider things from the perspective of the invisible realities which guide our daily activities in all facets of our life.

Viewed from this perspective spirituality is first an attitude, a state of mind or a feeling, a disposition, an outlook on life. This outlook on life is a product of different factors in our life—the genetic code we inherited from our parents, the upbringing we went through, the education we had, the challenges and problems we were exposed to in our life.

Very crucial to this meaning is the phrase “from the perspective of the invisible realities”. All of us, whether religious or atheists, realists or idealists, agnostic or believers, do behave according to realities which are invisible. All of us have ideas which control or influence our lives, and these ideas are invisible, they partake of spiritual qualities.

Another important phrase in our functional meaning is “in all facets of our life”. Perhaps this is what makes spirituality different from religion. Religion traditionally has been concerned with the sacred, with the things of God. And life for most of us has been dichotomized into the sacred and the profane. When we go to a church service, it is a sacred activity. But when we go to our place of employment it is a secular activity.

Spirituality does not recognize such dichotomy. All of life is colored by the spiritual, even if we are atheists or agnostics. The reason is because even these have to reckon with invisible realities, like the ideas in their head, the feelings in their heart, the joys and griefs in their relationships.

The more a person conducts his/her life according to these invisible realities, the more spiritual he/she is. The less he/she takes into consideration these invisible realities, to that extent he/she is less spiritual.

We have now a functional definition of spirituality, how it operates and what it does. It enables us to have this attitude whereby we view things from the perspective of invisible realities. Or as Raja Deekshithar said, “Spirituality makes that what is invisible and hidden within us to become visible.” http://rajadeekshithar.com/spiritualvision_article_spirituality_and_management.htm

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Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Meaning of Spirituality

Agreement on the meaning of spirituality is very important as we begin to consider this subject. This is because in the course of time this word “spirituality” has acquired diverse, and sometimes conflicting meanings.

Diverse Meanings of Spirituality

If we search through the Internet today we discover that there are more than 5 million entries when we search for spirituality definition and more than 11 million entries when we search for spirituality meaning.

When we put the quotation marks in order to search for the exact terms, we discover that there are more than 15 thousand entries for “definition of spirituality” and more than 1.9 million entries for “meaning of spirituality.”

This just shows us even on a cursory level the diversity of definitions and meanings of the word “spirituality.”

Here are some examples from the Internet of the definitions of spirituality.

According to Dictionary.com with a site in http://dictionary.reference.com/ “spirituality” is 1. the quality or fact of being spiritual; 2. incorporeal or immaterial nature; 3. predominantly spiritual character as shown in thought, life, etc.; spiritual tendency or tone; 4. Often, spiritualities. property or revenue of the church or of an ecclesiastic in his or her official capacity.

From http://www.livingwordsofwisdom.com/definition-of-spirituality.html “The definition of spirituality is that which relates to or affects the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.”

From http://www.theorderoftime.com/spiritual/spiritualessence.html#The%20definition%20of%20spirituality we have this entry. “The definition of spirituality Many wonder what spirituality is. What is the definition? The dictionary (the Merriam Webster) will tell you that it is something deeply religious, something relating to the spirit and sacred matters.”

And finally, for our purpose here, from http://www.kriyayoga.com/english/encyclopedia/spirituality.htm the entry is “Spiritual Encyclopedia: Definition of ‘spirituality’ and ‘spiritual’ Spirituality often abused as word - the true and strict definition is a directly God related spiritual being or development of spiritual being.”

That is only for its definition. When we go to its meaning we find more diversity. We discover that there are different meanings for different classes of persons. In the web we find that there is a Meaning of Spirituality Among Nonreligious Persons at http://www.joinnursingcenter.com/prodev/ce_article.asp?tid=832639

There is a meaning of spirituality for individuals with disabilities at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a727455890

And at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12175360
There is the meaning of spirituality relevant to health and nursing today.

And the wiki.answers at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_te_meaning_of_spirituality has this about the meaning of spirituality: “The meaning of spirituality is the meaning of life. To be faced with good and evil, and evolve for good into a positive energy source willing to do good in such a corrupt and manipulated world.”

Basic Meaning of Spirituality

What is most obvious in the meaning of “spirituality” is that it comes from its root word, which is “spirit”. The suffix “-uality” qualifies the use of “spirit” in this instance.

So a basic definition of spirituality is the quality of one’s sensitivity to the things of the spirit. And what are these things of the spirit? These are those that cannot be directly perceived by our senses but whose effects can be deduced or inferred by our observations, like love, justice, peace, etc.

Basic to this understanding of spirituality is the premise that we regard the human being and/or the rest of creation as composed not only of matter, but of something immaterial, something invisible, something beyond our present knowledge. There is always more to what we can perceive with our senses and know with our reason.

So the basic meaning of spirituality is that it is a term which encompasses everything that we cannot see directly with our eyes, directly perceive by the other senses and know by our mere reason. That is spirituality in its basic meaning.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

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The True Meaning of Spirituality

The Qualities of a Spiritual Life

How To Lead a Spiritual Life

The Benefits of Spirituality

The Meaning of Genuine Spirituality in Life

Introduction to Spirituality as the New Black Art

Functional Meaning of Spirituality

Meaning of Spirituality

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