I think I might be missing the spirituality gene or something, but what exactly is it and why do some people crave it?

There are religious people (fear God and are trying to get into heaven), then there are atheists/agnostics like myself, and then there are those in the middle who, may or may not be into organized religion (or care about dogma), but who "want spirituality in their lives."

Could you help me understanding this? Once I stopped believing in Mormonism and God in general, I no longer craved "spirituality." For those who still do, please give me the inside scoop so I can better understand it. Thanks!

Spirituality for me is being centered in self and understanding love for everyone. Being a good human being is akin to being spiritual. Seeing the good in others is being spiritual. I lean and have always leaned towards a more Buddhist philosophy about life and spirituality.

I never fully believed in a separate Heaven and Hell. A true loving God would never cause his children to be banished from his presence.

Not sure how to describe but put very simplistically -

It is wanting to be better coupled with the feeling of love.


Love + wanting to be smarter/better/kinder = spiritual.


There are varying degrees to the feeling.

The essence of spirituality is the direct knowledge (that is, not mediated through sensory perception or mental conception) that "you" (consciousness) are not the body. Many people interpret this as awareness of subtler states ("psychic") which are mostly eclipsed by everyday physical awareness, and the practices associated with accessing these are concentration, meditation, yoga, etc. But most spiritual traditions warn against the temptation to think these intermediate states and the perceptions that accompany them are "it." They are merely the experiences of identifying with one's "subtle bodies."

Since posters have identified spirituality with love, what is the relationship? Unconditional love is exactly the knowledge of unity that transcends all body conditions. All limits to love depend on conditional judgments of others' bodies or bodily behaviors: this one is attractive, acceptable, worthy of love, and this other one is not, or is less so.

aren't all crimes due to regarding oneself and others as bodies? Don't all "temptations" involve the root temptation to regard yourself or others as bodies? Isn't "ego" primarily one's body-based identification?

By the way, to see others as their bodies entails the assumption that we ourselves are bodies. Those who see through this illusion in themselves also see through it in others.

Ex-CultMember Wrote:
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> I think I might be missing the spirituality gene
> or something, but what exactly is it and why do
> some people crave it?
>
> There are religious people (fear God and are
> trying to get into heaven), then there are
> atheists/agnostics like myself, and then there are
> those in the middle who, may or may not be into
> organized religion (or care about dogma), but who
> "want spirituality in their lives."
>
> Could you help me understanding this? Once I
> stopped believing in Mormonism and God in general,
> I no longer craved "spirituality." For those who
> still do, please give me the inside scoop so I can
> better understand it. Thanks!

Spirituality can be defined as acts of peace, love and understanding. Being compassionate is a good summary. Spirituality involves doing, not believing.

i'm an agnostic. anti corporate religious dogmas and religion in general.

i do care about spirituality.

spirituality is not who prays the softest or loudest, or self-abnegation, or unhappy faces to show the world how sacrificed you are.

spirituality is simply happiness:

- to achieve happiness to must live in the present.

- by living in the present, you develop some sort of
understanding and attachment for other human beings and other living entities.

- most importantly, happiness and spirituality go hand in hand by deciding what's important to *you*. what *your* goals are, what things make *you* want to live another day.

Spirituality is intelligence - the ability to see things exactly as they are.