What does it mean to be spiritual?
This is a popular term nowadays and I am sure you have wondered like me what it really meant. We hear about the mind-body-spirit connection but what does it mean to have a spirit? What can we do to become spiritual people? For a long time, I associated being spiritual with being religious, but I have found that Spirituality goes way beyond any religion. As I began to consider this idea, I first realized the two words hidden in the word Spiritual: Spirit and Ritual. Understanding these two words will help us make more sense of all of this Woo woo.
So, what is a spirit? A spirit is all the nonphysical parts of a person that make you who you are as an individual and is also referred to as the soul. This is the soul that gives us consciousness and allows us not only to think and react to our material world but to deeply engage with and sense things in our material world. However, our spirit isn’t limited to this physical realm, but it is also our connection to the world beyond our five senses. When we want to connect to something beyond ourselves, the best easiest way to do that is by connecting to our spirit.
Another helpful distinction to make is the difference between ‘little s’ spirit and ‘capital S’ Spirit. Spirit is the source of all things. It is unconditional love, the highest vibrational essence that exists in our universe. This energy goes by many names, you might hear them called Brahman, God, Krishna, Gaia, Source Energy among others. Whatever word that you choose to use really doesn’t matter, they are all human words used to name something far beyond our comprehension.
Our spirit is connected to Spirit. Spirit is evident is in us and through us, not just us as humans, but it is reflected in every single thing in our world and in our universe. Spirit is alive anywhere there is consciousness, and where there is consciousness there is energy. And everything in our universe is made of energy. You, me, the plants outside my window, the birds, and even the device you are reading this from is made of tiny particles that are vibrating at rates far beyond what we can sense. This doesn’t mean the energy isn’t there, it’s just a bit trickier to notice. This means that Spirit is everywhere. Can you feel it?
Rituals are a series of actions or behaviors a person regularly engages in. We often think of rituals in terms of religious requirements such as prayer, fasting, Chanting, and or other ceremonies, but the word refers to anything we do. We all have rituals that we engage in every day. We wake up and whether we know it or not, we engage in our morning ritual. Maybe it looks like opening your eyes grabbing your phone and scrolling the internet or checking email. Then you are off to make your coffee, and you put on the news as you continue with your morning routine. There are tons of other rituals we engage in on a daily basis but we can hack our rituals so to speak to make them far more effective and meaningful.
What if you were to tap into Spirit as you were engaging in your daily rituals. This is where you go from just being a person with a spirit who engages in mundane repetitive rituals of daily life into a person who has a meaningful Spiritual practice.
But this leaves the question… what does it mean to Tap into Spirit? I mean it’s not like you tap your head then spin around three times and you hear “Spirit Activated” and then you can now go about your day being spiritual. It looks a lot more like consciously recognizing our inner spirit throughout the day
The interesting thing is that we can’t help but be spiritual beings. We are by nature, spirits! it’s who we are and we can’t change that fact. But what we can do is recognize the truth of who we are. We can recognize our true nature and put a little bit more loving intention into the things that we do every day. We are primarily energetic beings. Only a fraction of our consciousness is represented by the physical body. Your physical body only makes up a piece of the most important parts of you. Just recognizing this and accepting this fact is a step in the spiritual process.
We want to be connected to life. One of the most effective ways to do this is through cultivating a practice of mindfulness. Now, I don’t just mean sitting down for half an hour meditating or chanting and things like that. True mindfulness is something that goes far beyond meditation alone. It should be a practice that we carry with us through our day-to-day lives.
Taking the time to pause throughout the day and engage with our souls should be considered sacred. We can engage when we use the power of creation. We engage when we feel physical sensations of joy and even the sensations that are less favorable like anger or fear. These are just some of the opportunities for us to deeply connect to ourselves instead of overlooking those moments in life.
What if you slowed down and took the time to remind yourself of your true nature. You are a reflection of the whole universe. Engaging with this truth on a daily basis will radically transform your life. When we remember who we are and we remember the vibrant spirit alive in us we can’t help but love a little bit more passionately. We can’t help but do the things that we dream about. We can’t help but be more aligned with that unconditional loving energy that is source energy.
Our unconditional focused awareness is a very powerful and healing tool. We have the power to bring this healing awareness to the parts of ourselves that we’ve been neglecting for a long time. Making sure that we’re fully connected with ourselves is a great way to start a spiritual practice. There is much more to learn about spirituality in general but this is just a primer to help hopefully pique your interest. Recognizing the fact that we are indeed spiritual is just the tip of the iceberg in the world of spirituality. I hope that you enjoy learning much more about this topic and find it as engaging, powerful, and meaningful as I have.