Since the emergence of human beings, spirituality has been expressed in countless ways.
In the 21st century, the multiple expressions of spirituality make the task of helping to understand and encourage a spiritual experience that seeks a full and healthy life for each individual even more difficult.
Thus, spirituality is the state and nature of spirituality.
We use the adjective (spiritual) to refer to something that is or is related to the spirit.
The concept of spirit, in turn, has to do with immaterial entities, rational souls, virtues that encourage the works that the body performs or supernatural gifts that God grants to human beings.
Some expressions that help us understand spiritual concepts are: “Spirituality is very important to me.” “Modernity tends to ignore spirituality, but we must never forget that there are things that go far beyond our physical and material needs, and are ultimately more important.”
The concept of spirituality can therefore refer to the connection and/or relationship between a person and God or spiritual beings.
Religion is often the link that allows and encourages the development of this relationship.
That said, priests, clergy, and gurus of all kinds can be said to talk about spirituality when dealing with matters commonly thought of as religious.
However, when we talk about spirituality, it is almost always confused with different types of religions, such as Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, etc.
These religions are the effort of human beings to seek a way to express their spirituality, each in its own way.
When we talk about spirituality, in a simple and summarized way, we are talking about a person’s search for their origin, for the meaning of life, the meaning of existence and purpose in the world and what will happen after their period of existence in this physical world.
To do so, people seek the concept of transcending tangible things and thus seek a connection with something greater than themselves.
Thus, spirituality, more broadly, may or may not be related to religion.
It must be said that, and respect the choice that, for some, spirituality is not always associated with formal religion as we generally understand it.
For example: One can believe in souls, believe in ghosts, but not believe in the existence of a being that transcends everything and everyone, the Creator.
Some people confuse the spirit with the soul, but in the evangelical religion, the soul is seen as the being itself, the person, while the spirit is what is found in the soul, the body of that being.
For example, with Spiritism, a spirit is a disembodied soul and a soul is an incarnated spirit.
After death, the Bible records that the body returns to dust and the soul (spirit) returns to God, who gave and created it.
This has led to the belief that the spirit is immortal, yet this does not mean that every soul will be forgiven since after that (death) there will be judgment for all and a destiny for each “according to his works”.
It is not necessary to adhere to a particular religion or follow a religious institution (such as the Catholic Church) to develop spirituality.
The connection between man and God can be personal and intimate, without external manifestations or rituals.
Someone might say, “I don’t believe in a single, all-powerful God. My spirituality is based solely on the belief that beings from other dimensions exist. Energy affects the earth.”
In philosophy, spiritual thought is understood in terms of the opposition between matter and spirit.
Spirituality can be associated with finding meaning in life beyond the mundane.
A person who seeks an integrally healthy life should not despise the spiritual side, since this helps in the health of the individual as a whole, according to modern science itself.
