Spirituality: How I Perceive & Understand It

When you first start exploring the esoteric world and its various topics, you’ll come across an interesting thing: there is no single consensus on what spirituality is. Some people will think that spirituality is almost synonymous with religion – as in, if one is religious, then they must be a spiritual person. Meanwhile on the other hand, others equate spirituality to meditation, mindfulness, and dare I say, a bit of an overzealous focus on positivity. The two I listed are just some of the definitions that I have heard – there’s plenty of others out there in the community.

So… what is the correct definition? I believe that this is an important place to start if you are like me, on a quest to understand and seek truth about the world we live in. It’s the foundation that I also wish for you to approach this blog with, as I am basing a lot of my information and perspectives on that. Ultimately, it will help you to understand information from my own viewpoint better.

To me, being spiritual means to act and live in harmony with our own soul, either consciously or unconsciously. When I say soul, I really do mean from deep within our own entire being. You often notice its guidance and appearance as intuition – that feeling or voice that tries to help you navigate in your own life, often times helping to avoid danger or bad situations. It also lets you know when you should dig deeper into either a topic or an activity that you ultimately find out to be something you feel really passionate about. There is a plethora of different situations where our soul guides us, but frequently people do not attune to its guidance, mostly because we do not know or remember how to do that. However, those that do, often become some of the most spiritual people you’ll ever meet, and those people don’t even have to consciously pursue spirituality! They just do so on an intuitive level, living in accordance to what feels right from deep within their whole being.

There are certain aspects that I find among people who are spiritual – as in, these aspects tend to be frequently present. One of them is an elevated state of, or the seeking of, awareness and consciousness. It is a state where we actively seek to find deeper meaning in our life and our purpose, finding what we are drawn to and called to do. It is, likewise, that same state of seeking for truth and understanding, both inside ourselves and outside. Another aspect of spiritual people is having deep morals, ethics, and having or striving towards the balance between mind, body, and soul/spirit as opposed to prioritizing only our self and our ego.

Complex, right? This is what I believe spirituality often yields, and what it encompasses. It is not dogmatic or dictating that “You must live, do, and act this way in order to achieve x, y, z,” which is kind of what you see from both religious and spiritual practitioners. Not all, but certainly a good chunk of them.

Religion, depending on what exact principles you strongly resonate with, can offer a way for one to be led to spirituality. Likewise, meditation and mindfulness can do the same. To me, they are all mechanisms that can lead to spirituality, or yield a spiritual experience. However, if they do not truly align with your soul and being, then most likely these things won’t help as much. Spirituality can be acquired in the process, but not always.

A good example: a person who meditates or prays every single day, for years – even decades. And yet, that person has not become spiritual over the years because it wasn’t the right thing to do for that person specifically. They just followed these practices mechanically, or perhaps out of tradition, and these practices didn’t resonate with their souls on a deeper level. One of the ways in which you can sense the lack of spirituality is when you see a misalignment in actions and words when it comes to morality and ethics. Not practicing what you preach, as the saying goes. This is why I do not equate religion, meditation, and practices to spirituality itself; they are mechanisms that, under the right circumstances, can yield that spiritual experience, but not always.

Often times, we are drawn to these mechanisms as a way to deal with certain problems of our own, or find comfort. For instance: there is such a thing as overfocusing on “being positive” to such a degree, that the person completely fails to acknowledge that “No, not everything is fine,” and that something needs to be changed either within us or around us. This issue with an overzealous positivity is also found among certain therapists and psychologists where they would tell their patients to just “be positive” and drown out what that person truly feels inside. It will help to a degree initially, but it ultimately leads to problems down the line because you never truly release and process these feelings – they just bottle up.

The people who believe in extremely polarized positivity may think that this is spiritual, but it is not. After all, if we do not acknowledge or process what we are going through, then how in the world can we grow and expand ourselves? The internal work that we do – especially in releasing and shedding what holds us back from being our true authentic selves and living in harmony with ourselves, our souls – is a necessary transformative process in our spiritual evolution. It leads us to that expanded awareness and consciousness, prompting spiritual growth.

I went a bit more into the subject than I originally intended, but I hope this gives you a better understanding of what I believe spirituality is, what I resonate with strongly. So, when you see me discuss spiritual and esoteric topics, then know that what you’ve just read in here is the foundation I am building upon.