Member-only story
Being “Spiritual” Is More Ordinary Than You Think
It is time we disenchant the concept of spirituality.
For a long time, I used to shy away from the word “spirituality.” Even today, I worry a little that when I mention it, some folks may misunderstand me.
Maybe they’ll think I’m talking about magic. Some sort of dogmatic woo-woo. Or — as I’ve seen it happen — in some cases, people just synonymise “spirituality” with “religion.”
I am writing this post because I yet need to define spirituality, even if just for myself. Or… do I? Maybe humans are, actually, allowed one area of experience that doesn’t have to be fully explained? A realm that can be seen as valuable, even though not all of its phenomena can be explained by science yet?
Can we see our spiritual experiences as valid — even if we cannot validate them away with our rationality?
One of my core beliefs is that spirituality and science are two sides of the same coin. My intuition tells me that the languages of science and spirituality often describe the same phenomena — just from different angles of what in our culture can be symbolically called “the head” and “the heart.”
The wisest people on this planet have often told us that, in order to gain the most complete knowledge about the world…
