Defining Spirituality
Spirituality is challenging to define clearly, and no one can claim to understand it fully. As a bhakta of Mukitinath, spirituality can be summarized by the command to “Love your God and love (or serve) your neighbor.” This spirituality emphasizes relationships—both with God and with others, including non-humans.
Spirituality in Hinduism
For a typical Hindu, spirituality can mean many things. Terms like ‘Aanmiiham’ in Tamil, ‘Atmikta’ in Hindi, and perhaps ‘Adyatmika’ in Sanskrit are used, though they lack standard definitions. For many Hindus, spirituality is personal and individualistic. In Tamil, ‘Anmiiha vidudalai’ (liberation in spirituality) generally means liberation from karma. Practically, spirituality for most Hindus involves doing one’s dharma, which is largely social requirements and does not necessarily require personal faith.
Where Should Spirituality Be Taught?
Opinions vary on where spirituality should be taught—at home, by swamijis in the Mutt, or by gurus. Like faith, spirituality is often left to individuals to explore in a way that suits their personality. Family traditions often teach rituals, but discussions on spirituality within Hindu homes are rare. Modern developments include reading and discussing scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita, but historically, sectarian texts were recited during important functions or at temples without much philosophical discussion.
Practical Spirituality and Dharma
Swamijis understand that people usually seek practical solutions to mundane problems rather than philosophical answers. They maintain transcendental (‘paramartika’) values for themselves while addressing followers’ non-transcendental (‘vyavakarika’) needs. The concept of dharma varies across regions; for example, in Tamil, ‘Aram’ is used for ‘Dharma’ and can mean charity or duty, often leading to misinterpretations.
Interpretations and Spirituality
A universal issue across faiths is that spiritual concepts are often not clear in scriptures but depend on interpretations by exponents. Spirituality is the first casualty of such interpretations.
Brainstorm: Spirituality
Relationship as the End of Spirituality
For me, spirituality culminates in relationships—with God, Creation, and other human beings. Relationships are based on values (principles, ideology) that guide us in forming and maintaining these relationships.
Traditional Indian Paths to Spirituality
In India, three kinds of sadhanas (paths) help us cultivate these values: Jnana, Karma, and Bhakti. Jnana provides a clear theoretical understanding of values, Bhakti gives purpose, and Karma helps implement values in practical life. All three are essential, with Jnana being the most important, as it prevents Bhakti from becoming mere sentiment and Karma from becoming legalism. Without Karma and Bhakti, Jnana remains an intellectual theory without practical application.
The Role of Jnana in Spirituality
Jnana helps us understand values correctly. However, there is a danger of judging others’ knowledge from our perspective. True Jnana avoids such judgment and focuses on understanding and applying values in life.
Knowledge and Relationship
Knowledge is foundational in determining values, which are fundamental to relationships. While one should not judge others’ knowledge about God, understanding Bhakti and Karma is crucial for forming and maintaining relationships based on spiritual values.
Db. Gurukulam, February 10, 2012
Petter van der Veer, The Modern Spirit of Asia: the spiritual and the Secular in China and India, Hyderabad, Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd., 2014,
..What is the “spiritual”? Scholars would like to avoid this as much as possible because of its vagueness. This is most easily done by treating it as a marginal term, used only at the fringes of intellectual life, as in our period, for instance, in the New Age Movement. Iwantt to suggest that that is not a correct approach and that spirituality is in fact a crucial term in our understanding of modern society. At the same time it is necessary to reflect on the nature of this kind of concept. Certainly, it does conjure up all the conceptual difficulties that one also encounters with terms like “religion” and ‘Belief,’ and perhaps even more so. Obviously, its very conceptual unclarity and undefinability make it so useful for those who want to use it. It suggests more than it defines. Spirituality takes the universalization of the concept of religion a crucial step further by completely severing the ties with religious institutions….—p. 7
…The term ‘Religion” has developed in modern European thought as a cross-cultural, global concept that captures a great variety of traditions and practives. The universalizing deployment of the concept of religion has its roots in notions of Natural Religion and Rational Religion that arose in the aftermath of the religious wars in Europe and in conjunction with European expansion in other parts of the world….—p. 7
..In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the concept of spirituality had radical overtones, critical of imperialism and materialism, but also of established religion….—p. 35
The term “spirituality: vaguely alludes to German Geist (“spirit”) and to mysticism. It is a modern Western concept, like “religion,” “magic,” and “secularity.” There is no equivalent term either in Sanskrit or in Chinese.1 With translation in both Modern Hindi and Chinese one immediately gets in troubling confusion with the terms for “gods” and “souls” or in a mix-up with “mind” (aatmik, maansik, lingxing, jingshen)….I would merely point out that despite the ubiquitous reference to India and China (and indeed Asia) as “spiritual,” spirituality is a modern, Western term. This raises intricate problems about how indigenous traditions are translated into a universal category in ways similar to that of “religion,” but with different effects and connotations.—p. 35
…Spirituality is notoriously hard to define, and I want to suggest that its very vagueness as the opposite of materiality, as distinctive from the body, as distinctive from both the religious and the secular has made it productive as a concept that bridges many discursive traditions across the globe. My argument is that the spiritual and the secular are produced simultaneously as two connected alternatives to institutionalized religion in Euro-American modernity. I also argue that a central contradiction in the concept of spirituality is that it is at the same time seen as universal and as tied to conceptions of national identity. Moreover, while the concept travels globally, its trajectory differs from place to place as it is inserted in different historical developments.—p. 36
The spiritual as a modern category emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as part of the Great Transformation. {K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation (New York: Reinhart, 1944)} As such it is part of nineteenth-century globalization, a thoroughgoing political, economic, and cultural integration of the world…
The modern categories of “religion,’ (p.36) ‘secularism,” and “spirituality” were universalized in the age of imperialism and produced different effects in different societies. Again, these terms themselves were not new, but they were put to new uses….pp. 36-37
…In the West spirituality formed an alternative to church Christianity. Together with the so-called secularization of the mind in nineteenth-century liberalism, socialism, as well as science (especially Darwin’s evolution theory), one can find widespread movements in different parts of the world that search for a universal spirituality that is not bound to any specific tradition. Good examples in the (p.38) United States are the transcendentalists from Emerson to Whitman as well as Mary Baker’s Christian Science. Theosophy is another product of spirit-searching America and Western Europe….—pp. 38-39
For religious thinkers spirituality suggests something of higher value in distinction to the baser aspects of social life, including organized religion. That is a perception that connects German (p. 40) philosophers of the early nineteenth century with the twentieth-century influential Harvard philosopher and poet George Santayana, who has it that “this aspiring side of religion may be called Spirituality.” {Cited in Leigh Eric Schmidt, Restless Souls; The Making of American Spirituality (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005)} For romantic nationalists spirituality suggests the essence of the people, their collective spirit, which calls our attention to the fertile connection of spirituality and nationalism…. Finally, spirituality suggests a transcending of the body or, alternatively, the use of the body to gain spiritual experiences. It is these oppositions of experience versus representation, of spirituality versus materialism, of the spirit of the nation versus the concrete individual, of the spirit versus the body that are salient in the term spirituality. Most importantly, spirituality is used as an oppositional term against materialism, and thus as a critique of modern, industrial capitalism.—p. 40-41
The term “Spirituality” has a kind of global bridge function, connecting several conceptual universes that are increasingly in contact. Connecting is different from translating in the sense that translation always strives for correctness. As I have mentioned, (p.44) there is no term equivalent to “spirituality” in Sanskrit or Mandarin Chinese (although, obviously, there are words for “spirit), but this term is increasingly used to connect discursive traditions that come to be called Hinduism or Confucianism or Daosim, none of which were ‘isms” before the imperial encounter….—pp. 44-45
Defining Spirituality
Spirituality is challenging to define clearly, and no one can claim to understand it fully. As a bhakta of Mukitinath, spirituality can be summarized by the command to “Love your God and love (or serve) your neighbor.” This spirituality emphasizes relationships—both with God and with others, including non-humans.
Spirituality in Hinduism
For a typical Hindu, spirituality can mean many things. Terms like ‘Aanmiiham’ in Tamil, ‘Atmikta’ in Hindi, and perhaps ‘Adyatmika’ in Sanskrit are used, though they lack standard definitions. For many Hindus, spirituality is personal and individualistic. In Tamil, ‘Anmiiha vidudalai’ (liberation in spirituality) generally means liberation from karma. Practically, spirituality for most Hindus involves doing one’s dharma, which is largely social requirements and does not necessarily require personal faith.
Where Should Spirituality Be Taught?
Opinions vary on where spirituality should be taught—at home, by swamijis in the Mutt, or by gurus. Like faith, spirituality is often left to individuals to explore in a way that suits their personality. Family traditions often teach rituals, but discussions on spirituality within Hindu homes are rare. Modern developments include reading and discussing scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita, but historically, sectarian texts were recited during important functions or at temples without much philosophical discussion.
Practical Spirituality and Dharma
Swamijis understand that people usually seek practical solutions to mundane problems rather than philosophical answers. They maintain transcendental (‘paramartika’) values for themselves while addressing followers’ non-transcendental (‘vyavakarika’) needs. The concept of dharma varies across regions; for example, in Tamil, ‘Aram’ is used for ‘Dharma’ and can mean charity or duty, often leading to misinterpretations.
Interpretations and Spirituality
A universal issue across faiths is that spiritual concepts are often not clear in scriptures but depend on interpretations by exponents. Spirituality is the first casualty of such interpretations.
Brainstorm: Spirituality
Relationship as the End of Spirituality
For me, spirituality culminates in relationships—with God, Creation, and other human beings. Relationships are based on values (principles, ideology) that guide us in forming and maintaining these relationships.
Traditional Indian Paths to Spirituality
In India, three kinds of sadhanas (paths) help us cultivate these values: Jnana, Karma, and Bhakti. Jnana provides a clear theoretical understanding of values, Bhakti gives purpose, and Karma helps implement values in practical life. All three are essential, with Jnana being the most important, as it prevents Bhakti from becoming mere sentiment and Karma from becoming legalism. Without Karma and Bhakti, Jnana remains an intellectual theory without practical application.
The Role of Jnana in Spirituality
Jnana helps us understand values correctly. However, there is a danger of judging others’ knowledge from our perspective. True Jnana avoids such judgment and focuses on understanding and applying values in life.
Knowledge and Relationship
Knowledge is foundational in determining values, which are fundamental to relationships. While one should not judge others’ knowledge about God, understanding Bhakti and Karma is crucial for forming and maintaining relationships based on spiritual values.
Db. Gurukulam, February 10, 2012
Petter van der Veer, The Modern Spirit of Asia: the spiritual and the Secular in China and India, Hyderabad, Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd., 2014,
..What is the “spiritual”? Scholars would like to avoid this as much as possible because of its vagueness. This is most easily done by treating it as a marginal term, used only at the fringes of intellectual life, as in our period, for instance, in the New Age Movement. Iwantt to suggest that that is not a correct approach and that spirituality is in fact a crucial term in our understanding of modern society. At the same time it is necessary to reflect on the nature of this kind of concept. Certainly, it does conjure up all the conceptual difficulties that one also encounters with terms like “religion” and ‘Belief,’ and perhaps even more so. Obviously, its very conceptual unclarity and undefinability make it so useful for those who want to use it. It suggests more than it defines. Spirituality takes the universalization of the concept of religion a crucial step further by completely severing the ties with religious institutions….—p. 7
…The term ‘Religion” has developed in modern European thought as a cross-cultural, global concept that captures a great variety of traditions and practives. The universalizing deployment of the concept of religion has its roots in notions of Natural Religion and Rational Religion that arose in the aftermath of the religious wars in Europe and in conjunction with European expansion in other parts of the world….—p. 7
..In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the concept of spirituality had radical overtones, critical of imperialism and materialism, but also of established religion….—p. 35
The term “spirituality: vaguely alludes to German Geist (“spirit”) and to mysticism. It is a modern Western concept, like “religion,” “magic,” and “secularity.” There is no equivalent term either in Sanskrit or in Chinese.1 With translation in both Modern Hindi and Chinese one immediately gets in troubling confusion with the terms for “gods” and “souls” or in a mix-up with “mind” (aatmik, maansik, lingxing, jingshen)….I would merely point out that despite the ubiquitous reference to India and China (and indeed Asia) as “spiritual,” spirituality is a modern, Western term. This raises intricate problems about how indigenous traditions are translated into a universal category in ways similar to that of “religion,” but with different effects and connotations.—p. 35
…Spirituality is notoriously hard to define, and I want to suggest that its very vagueness as the opposite of materiality, as distinctive from the body, as distinctive from both the religious and the secular has made it productive as a concept that bridges many discursive traditions across the globe. My argument is that the spiritual and the secular are produced simultaneously as two connected alternatives to institutionalized religion in Euro-American modernity. I also argue that a central contradiction in the concept of spirituality is that it is at the same time seen as universal and as tied to conceptions of national identity. Moreover, while the concept travels globally, its trajectory differs from place to place as it is inserted in different historical developments.—p. 36
The spiritual as a modern category emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as part of the Great Transformation. {K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation (New York: Reinhart, 1944)} As such it is part of nineteenth-century globalization, a thoroughgoing political, economic, and cultural integration of the world…
The modern categories of “religion,’ (p.36) ‘secularism,” and “spirituality” were universalized in the age of imperialism and produced different effects in different societies. Again, these terms themselves were not new, but they were put to new uses….pp. 36-37
…In the West spirituality formed an alternative to church Christianity. Together with the so-called secularization of the mind in nineteenth-century liberalism, socialism, as well as science (especially Darwin’s evolution theory), one can find widespread movements in different parts of the world that search for a universal spirituality that is not bound to any specific tradition. Good examples in the (p.38) United States are the transcendentalists from Emerson to Whitman as well as Mary Baker’s Christian Science. Theosophy is another product of spirit-searching America and Western Europe….—pp. 38-39
For religious thinkers spirituality suggests something of higher value in distinction to the baser aspects of social life, including organized religion. That is a perception that connects German (p. 40) philosophers of the early nineteenth century with the twentieth-century influential Harvard philosopher and poet George Santayana, who has it that “this aspiring side of religion may be called Spirituality.” {Cited in Leigh Eric Schmidt, Restless Souls; The Making of American Spirituality (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005)} For romantic nationalists spirituality suggests the essence of the people, their collective spirit, which calls our attention to the fertile connection of spirituality and nationalism…. Finally, spirituality suggests a transcending of the body or, alternatively, the use of the body to gain spiritual experiences. It is these oppositions of experience versus representation, of spirituality versus materialism, of the spirit of the nation versus the concrete individual, of the spirit versus the body that are salient in the term spirituality. Most importantly, spirituality is used as an oppositional term against materialism, and thus as a critique of modern, industrial capitalism.—p. 40-41
The term “Spirituality” has a kind of global bridge function, connecting several conceptual universes that are increasingly in contact. Connecting is different from translating in the sense that translation always strives for correctness. As I have mentioned, (p.44) there is no term equivalent to “spirituality” in Sanskrit or Mandarin Chinese (although, obviously, there are words for “spirit), but this term is increasingly used to connect discursive traditions that come to be called Hinduism or Confucianism or Daosim, none of which were ‘isms” before the imperial encounter….—pp. 44-45
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