What is Spirituality

Spirituality is a misused word today. It has nothing to do with God or religion, but is generally considered to be so. Etymologically, it is about ‘life spirit’, which exists in all creatures, so spirituality is not limited to humanity only. It represents desire of a creature to keep on living. Religious people of the world have given it a new meaning - ‘knowledge of the self as an integral part of the almighty God’. This, they say, is achieved by ’spiritual awakening’, exercises, which is controversial because every spiritual guru tells a different method of this exercise. In science and mathematics, there are no ambiguities. If there exists an ambiguity in some phenomena, they are not scientific. So, spirituality is not a science, it is only a hypothesis.


Process of spiritual-awakening is a psychological game, played by a guru on his disciple, making him to believe that he is not what he is, but something else like a super-human, an integral part of the almighty God. This I call his ’super-consciousness’.


Super-consciousness of a person is his day-dreaming, wherein he imagines some super-hero role for himself and starts behaving in that role, like that in a drama. Since, the role is of his choice and satisfying to his desires, he feels satisfied and pleased. This relieves him of his some tensions for some time. But when the hero comes off the stage, he realizes his reality and feels miserable. As a result, he starts longing for a permanent role for himself. But his existence in the world brings him face-to-face with the realities, and he faces a disappointment, making him more miserable than what he was without a spiritual experience.


For hermits, who keep away from realities of the world, such fictitious spiritual roles suit and they fulfil their desire of remaining in their super-hero roles for longer durations. They are often treated as super-souls or ‘mahatmas’ in India. They are no better than the ordinary human-beings but for their factitious roles.


Why there is so much of hyp about spirituality all over the world? It is just because some persons are doing business of it and thus providing temporary day-dreaming relief to troubled innocent people just like a temporary shelter in a refugee camp. The victims of this business feel that their temporal relief is because of their limited exercise and hope to get a permanent relief in future, which never comes. The world today has a large number of satisfied preachers and advocates of spirituality but not a single satisfied practitioner.


To conclude, spirituality is an exercise of ‘bluffing the self’ for momentary pleasures.