Spirituality

Religiousness & Spirituality[faith, purpose]: Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having beliefs about the meaning of life that shape conduct and provide comfort. Personified for example by Albert Schweitzer  (Source: VIA Institute).

The Noel Strengths Academy defines it this way:

  • A sense of connection to a presence beyond this world 
  • Having a coherent set of beliefs that shape conduct and provide comfort  
  • Perceive their own higher purpose  
  • In pursuit of the deeper meanings of life 
  • Conscious of their own role in the larger scheme of things

Yes, strengths can be overused…or underused

  • Underuse: Anomie
  • Overuse: Fanaticism

Key Research:

  • Rank order of Spirituality in populations from:
    • US : 21;
    • European:  24
    • Asia: 20
    • Latin America: 21
    • Sub-Saharan Africa: 17
    • Middle east: 20
  • The character strengths most associated with the meaning route to happiness are religiousness, gratitude, hope, zest, and curiosity (Peterson et al., 2007).
  • In addition to replication of the connection between hope, gratitude, love, zest, and curiosity with life satisfaction, the strengths that were the best predictors of future life satisfaction were hope and spirituality (Proyer et al., 2011).
  • Among high school students, other-oriented strengths (e.g., kindness, teamwork) predicted fewer depression symptoms while transcendence strengths (e.g., spirituality) predicted greater life satisfaction (Gillham et al., 2011).

Tayyab Rashid and Afroze Anjum offer 340 Ways to Use VIA Character Strengths including these four for Spirituality:

Sam talks to the head of TED, Chris Anderson, about using reason to build our morality. Sam makes the case that reason can indeed answer moral questions, and then explores the many controversies that emerge from that claim. Moral superiority? Cultural superiority? Moral progress? Chris and Sam dig in to discuss the right ways to think about defining right from wrong, and reason’s role in it all.

Oxford philosopher and transhumanist Nick Bostrom examines the future of humankind and asks whether we might alter the fundamental nature of humanity to solve our most intrinsic problems.

To find the path to long life and health, Dan Buettner and team study the world’s “Blue Zones,” communities whose elders live with vim and vigor to record-setting age. In his talk, he shares the 9 common diet and lifestyle habits that keep them spry past age 100.

“For a long time, I lived for death,” says Manwar Ali, a former radical jihadist who participated in violent, armed campaigns in the Middle East and Asia in the 1980s. In this moving talk, he reflects on his experience with radicalization and makes a powerful, direct appeal to anyone drawn to Islamist groups that claim violence and brutality are noble and virtuous: let go of anger and hatred, he says, and instead cultivate your heart to see goodness, beauty and truth in others.

Philosopher John Searle lays out the case for studying human consciousness — and systematically shoots down some of the common objections to taking it seriously. As we learn more about the brain processes that cause awareness, accepting that consciousness is a biological phenomenon is an important first step. And no, he says, consciousness is not a massive computer simulation.

Podcasts to feed your Spirituality

  • Waking up podcast: Join Sam Harris—neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author—as he explores some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events.
  • On Being focuses on the big questions of meaning with various guests. Krista speaks with inspiring people from various walks of life such as Tibetan monks, scientists, teachers and artists.This is a truly diverse podcast that tackles the very interesting questions we all begin to ask on our spiritual journeys, from meditation to yoga to food and health. There are over 100 episodes of this podcast to get stuck into and a wealth of wisdom nuggets to help you along your journey.
  • “Interfaith Voices is the nation’s only public radio show exclusively about religion. We were born just three days after 9/11, when a feisty nun got the idea to host a multi-faith panel on religion and terrorism, live on the radio. The phones rang off the hook, and it became clear that listeners were hungry for informed, respectful dialogue on religion in the public square. We carry on that mission today with our free, weekly podcast…led by that same unstoppable nun-turned-radio host, Maureen Fiedler.”

  • The Religious Studies Project (RSP) is an international collaborative enterprise launched in January 2012, hosted by Christopher R. Cotter (University of Edinburgh, UK) and David G. Robertson (The Open University, UK), and supported by the British Association for the Study of Religions, North American Association for the Study of Religion and International Association for the History of Religions. It features a weekly interview (of around 30 minutes) with leading scholars of Religious Studies and related fields. Our aim is to provide engaging, concise and reliable accounts of the most important concepts, traditions, scholars and methodologies in the fascinating contemporary study of religion, without pushing a religious or nonreligious agenda or resorting to presenting “fact files” about “World Religions”. The Religious Studies Project is produced by The Religious Studies Project Association (SCIO), a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (charity number SC047750). RSP material is disseminated under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. and can be distributed and utilised freely, provided full citation is given.

Meditations for Spirituality

Read more on meditation and kindness:

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