Spirituality

"The captive soul" (soul in bondage) by Elihu Vedder. Most spiritualities seek "liberation of the soul" trapped or dominated by matter

The concept of spirituality (from the Latin spirit) now has different meanings depending on the context of its use . It is traditionally linked to religion in the perspective of the human being in relationship with a higher being ( God ) and the salvation of the soul. She relates a perspective philosophical , the opposition to the matter and the spirit (see mind-body problem ) or of interiority and exteriority . It also means the search for meaning , for hope or liberation and approaches related ( initiations , rituals , personal development , New Age ) . It may also, and more recently, to be understood as divorced from faith in God , to evoke a "spirituality without God" ^{, ,} . She sometimes refers to the aesthetic aspects of literature .

Although the aspirations and practices will be developed spiritualists so often very prescriptive (in the context of churches established, or rites traditional) to render the terms religion and spirituality synonyms for several centuries, the concept of spirituality applies actually means and universal human beliefs and behaviors prior to historical religions , associated with the hope of survival after physical death , a notion more or less akin to that of the soul , as an coherent entity, independent of the body , and propitiatory rites close shamanism (to call a good game, good harvests and so on. see prehistoric funerary rites). Some saw this as a simple expression of the survival instinct , even a way of not confronting the reality of our own mortality , according to others it reveals the intrinsic memory of the immortality of the soul . If all religion is based in spirituality, all spirituality is not a religion. According to some authors, the distinction would be as follows: there would be in a collective perspective of religion and spirituality a more individual .

The Helix Nebula , sometimes called "Eye of God"

Spirituality in the context of religion

Religious spirituality is generally associated with the aspiration to "connect" (Latin religare, possible root of the word religion). It is then essentially to connect with God , the Divine , a transcendent reality , a link that would, by extension, the man also to connect to itself, to others, the nature or in the universe .

Having supplanted the more or less unstructured spirituality of Paganism or the animism , the spirituality Jewish, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, have developed without any real competition for many centuries, until the Enlightenment. In all countries where these religions had failed to win, spiritualities local, however, continued to grow.

Related Practices

Various practices are derived from religious spirituality:

• the meditation , the prayer , reading (of sacred texts (see lectio divina ) and their commentaries, devotional books), hearing ( reading aloud , sermons );
• intellectual or manual work, reading (of books or other scholarly traditions), writing, singing ( sacred music ), "good works" (helping the needy or poor, preaching, instruction );
• the reflection , the commitment in society, the meeting and especially the dialogue.

Some of these activities are solitary, some collective, some are living in voluntary seclusion (monastic cell) and other "outside" (civil society). Some are contemplative , others more practical. The choice of activities and the relative importance given to each can approach the "spirituality" which differs in every spiritual tradition.

Photograph of a dervish ecstasy during a ritual Sufi

All these activities are clearly defined and organized when the spiritual experience is lived in a monastery (or its equivalent monastery , ashram , brotherhood ), while domestic tasks are also included in the field of spiritual practice and therefore stipulated by the monastic rule.

The concept of "spiritual experience"

Spirituality is not limited to a conceptual or dogmatic. The spiritual experience (or experience mystical ), through research of interiority, of self-knowledge , of transcendence , of wisdom , or where the limits of the human condition is inseparable from the intellectual process. Therefore spirituality generally results in bodily processes, emotional and mystic , seeking to make the experience a transcendent , a relationship (according to etymologies of religion ) with God , the Self , the Consciousness , the Soul , the Worldwide , etc. Becoming. For some, the goal of spirituality is a profound exploration of the interior, leading to spiritual awakening , an intimate conversation, or the assumption of an altered state of consciousness and sustainability.

The spirituality outside the context of religions

Humanism, neo-paganism, secular spirituality, New Age

Spirituality as an expression of a desire as old as mankind existed before the religious institutions. After several centuries of religious spirituality almost exclusively, the emergence of the philosophy , the decline of membership in major religions and the transition to society postmodern led a party of "believers" to claim again a spirituality without belonging to a religious institution, expressing, for example, a preference for humanism (which fall under atheism or not) ^, . Another origin of this transformation lies in the fact that the secularization of society , the "religious" place greater emphasis on spirituality, to search for individual mystical experiences, whereas before "in the greater society religiously, the demand is heading in the direction of a more worldly religion" .

But it is mostly from the second half of the twentieth ^century that develop spiritual non-religious approaches, with the New Age , the adoption by the West of Eastern practices, often divorced from the religion that contained them, and psycho-spirituality. Franoise Champion describes this emergence of new religious movements of "mystic-esoteric nebula" ^, , wherein, according to Claude Riviere "the primacy of personal experience and the spiritual path of each (...) the inclusion of health (therapy, healing) and happiness here on earth in the sight hello, (...) a monistic world without separation from the natural (environmentalism), the supernatural, science, religion and magical practices popular or esoteric " . In the discourse of practitioners of various postmodern spirituality, there are two main trends "to connect to your inner self (to connect to you) or move closer to each other (to connect to the outside of oneself)." The function of the spiritual path is then 'connected to each other fervently, in broad terms: whether God (a vertical connection, Ellison, 1983), a relative of the dead, the nature or cause (for a horizontal connection). But in the absence of the strict religious dogma, spirituality is expanding to new fields, in which are sometimes called "spiritual" acts as "pay to feed a homeless man and then eat with him, talking with him to do him good "or" help children with learning difficulties "or share" intense moments with his children, his relatives, to be associated with them "or" be in harmony with nature " .

Among these new emerging diseases, a movement is distinguished from others and call themselves secular spirituality . Lay spirituality sees the existence of a "spiritual intuition that unites all humanity" able "to develop a true" spiritual science "and" Scientific Spirituality "" . She said after a "democratization of spirituality leading to a" secular spirituality freed of institutional religious control " . The philosopher Vladimir Janklvitch tried to approach and, following Bergson , closer to what he perceived as a fundamental human spirituality, or "first philosophy", near the Buddhist conception.

The Buddhism expressed in fact, its emergence, the need for a regeneration of spirituality beyond the dogmas of Vedism dominant in India. Even today, according to Matthieu Ricard , French translator of the ^14th Dalai Lama "(Dalai Lama) is very attached to the concept of" secular spirituality " , states that "religion is a personal choice and that the half of humanity did not practice elsewhere and that contrast the values of love, tolerance, compassion advocated by Buddhism affect all humans, and cultivate these values has nothing to do with Being a believer or not " . "

"The Philosopher in Meditation, Rembrandt , 1632

The neo-paganism of the ^twentieth century is a resurgence of beliefs and practices, more or less revisited, which preceded Christianity before the end of the ^fourth century.

Spirituality Philosophy

The philosophy is an approach which is based in principle on the reason. Spirituality is based on the concept more elusive and uncertain of the "inner experience" or belief. For the philosopher, the speech should always refer to a possible experience ( Kant ) and never speculate on the vacuum. Philosophy more relevant in the "thinking" where spirituality is concerned with the "Spirit" in the spiritual sense of the word. While for Spinoza , however, there is something about the intuition (or obviousness ( Descartes )), not only the experience empirically , and leading to the truth , the philosopher, in general , spirituality is a valid concept, as long as it does not "refers to beliefs, religious or otherwise" and it is defined as "the impact of the truth (as such) to the subject (as such) " .

Combination of spirituality and psychotherapy

In doctrines such as Sufism , the Taoism , the Hindu , the Buddhist , the human being is regarded as suffering from the imbalance of his emotions, his mental fixations, his "Memoirs" ( vasana and samskara Sanskrit) and lack of harmony between the different components being: mind, body, speech and so on. The "spiritual healing" is usually sought with the support and guidance of a teacher, guide, called Lama , Guru or cheykh according to tradition. Through the relationship between disciple and master, he sometimes played the role of a therapist before the hour, and the disciple was close to the " patient "of modern medicine. This spiritual approach remains limited today to the regions where the relationship of master and disciple is seen as a natural component of human relations.

A psychotherapy group

But the therapist has come to play a similar role (which, moreover, France, led to the development of legislation in order that the profession is better managed and that the therapist is less confused with the image of guru ). The experience of groups of Alcoholics Anonymous has often been cited as an example or, alternatively, pointed at as a combination of psychotherapy and spirituality .

In Western countries, some psychoanalysts came to believe that some diseases may not find resolution by analysis alone. After demonstrating the important role of society in the neurosis , the analysis sometimes led to problems described as "spiritual." Some psychoanalysts, including Jung , turned to the study of practices from traditional religions to "heal the soul" . Thus, in the 60s, the work of Jung in collaboration with Abraham Maslow, to Assagioli among others, in collaboration with scientists and Buddhist monks, gave birth to transpersonal psychology.

The New Age , syncretic , eclectic, has blurred the traditional religious symbols in developing a spirituality without boundaries nor well defined. The use of psychotherapy most diverse (as well as non-conventional medicine ) is dominant. The traditional separation between the spiritual advice and counseling therapy is often blurred.

A critique of postmodern spirituality

According to some authors, what they call "spirituality fugitive (fleeing the company) would be the result of a" lack of transcendence in social space. The break with the world of these new spirituality leads them to "move freely" to the point no longer be questioned because of the existence of spaces created for this purpose. . The assertion common in some forms of spirituality "free" from the postmodern, that spirituality does not need the "truth" (or objectivity), but only of "beauty" and absence stress, sexual, financial or intellectual is a subject of debate for both established religions that for secular observers generally associate these new currents of sects by the potential abuses that they believe contain.

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