How do you define "spiritual"?

Question

Call me crazy if you wish, but I tend to use the dictionary to define words. The dictionary defines "spirit" as:

the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between body and soul.

Therefore, to be spiritual, you have to believe in a soul, which is defined as:
the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.

I, for one, don't believe in a spirit or a soul, just in the thoughts that my mind produces.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

Not all definitions of "soul" incorporate ideas or concepts of a separate entity, or a supernatural and immortal energy. One of the descriptions I saw was "the central or integral part, or the vital core" of something, or someone's "emotional or moral nature". Neither of these ideas denote something that is separate or detached to me, or anything that will live beyond someone's death.

The terms spirit and soul are subjective at best, and my interpretations of them lead me to believe that I'm a very spiritual atheist. Someone else's definitions may lead them to believe something else. That's OK - the only thing we have to have in common is our disbelief in god.

Answer 2

Nice Q

Well I define spiritual as that which is beyond time and space and not subject to the phenomena of this temporary world. A realisation if you wish.

BG 2.16: Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent [the material body] there is no endurance and of the eternal [the soul] there is no change. This they have concluded by studying the nature of both.

BG 2.17: That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.

BG 2.18: The material body of the indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end; therefore, fight, O descendant of Bharata.

BG 2.19: Neither he who thinks the living entity the slayer nor he who thinks it slain is in knowledge, for the self slays not nor is slain.

BG 2.20: For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.

Spiritual has to do with this antimaterial soul and the Unlimited Soul. The realtionship between the two and the process of how to achieve this state of enlightenment.

But if we shy away from scriptures and doctrines. What animates the body as you quote the dictionary? If we say nothing- ''it just is living'', we have to contend with that from a point of view of logic considering that creating new life or reanimating a truly dead body has never occured.You may say: ''the cells are dead'' But since modern science cannot repair cells or dead tissue, the onus is on atheistic science to prove matter produces life since this is their proposition. The scientist must prove it by experiment. Is not this what the father of modern science Galileo Galilei has shown science to be- experimental. The fact is life or the spirit cannot be disproved. Therefore the modern atheist depends on faith. Like the ''theist'' who is uses ''God'' as a crutch so to the modern atheist uses this denial to feel better about his/her thoughts, words and deeds.I much rather accept real scientists like Shrodinger and Einstein who have accepted the Supreme than Richard Dawkins.

From a spiritual point of view- we are ''all'' atheistic and theistic to different degrees. This is why some atheists turn to God at death and some ''theists'' sometimes get angry at God and become atheists or do something something that they feel is wrong in to ''punish'' God. Still different degrees. Although our actual nature is purely theistic- still due to our desire to enjoy separately from God as a ''god'' or enjoyer therefore we cant see the omnipresent divine. He hides Himself to all people who are in practical ignorance of their own eternal nature, namely, spirit and their actual relationship to the Spiritual Source. For the enlightened sages problems like belief and disbelief are irrelavent, like whether we accept gravity or not - still it is there. Similarly he/she sees the Truth. Our mistake is to project our insufficient spiritual vision on all people not understanding the realisation of certain great souls as well as those with partial divine vision.

BG 2.29: Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing, while others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all.

Answer 3

That which pervades the entire body you should know to be indestructible. No one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.(Bhagavad-gita-2.17)
Purport by A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder-Acharya of ISKCON,
(International Society for Krishna Consciousness)
The influence of the atomic soul can be spread all over a particular body. According to the Mundaka Upanisad, this atomic soul is situated in the heart of every living entity, and because the measurement of the atomic soul is beyond the power of appreciation of the material scientists, some of them assert foolishly that there is no soul. The individual atomic soul is definitely there in the heart along with the Supersoul, and thus all the energies of bodily movement are emanating from this part of the body. The corpuscles which carry the oxygen from the lungs gather energy from the soul. When the soul passes away from this position, the activity of the blood, generating fusion, ceases. Medical science accepts the importance of the red corpuscles, but it cannot ascertain that the source of the energy is the soul. Medical science, however, does admit that the heart is the seat of all energies of the body.

Such atomic particles of the spirit whole are compared to the sunshine molecules. In the sunshine there are innumerable radiant molecules. Similarly, the fragmental parts of the Supreme Lord are atomic sparks of the rays of the Supreme Lord, called by the name prabha, or superior energy. So whether one follows Vedic knowledge or modern science, one cannot deny the existence of the spirit soul in the body, and the science of the soul is explicitly described in the Bhagavad-gita by the Personality of Godhead Himself.

Answer 4

Forget the dictionary.
Spirituality is finding whatever is inside you. If there is no spirit/soul in you, let it be. Then what is in you, search it. What makes you different from matter, find it. Observe yourself. Know who you are. Know what the world is. What is its relation to you.
Expand yourself.

Soul/spirits are tokens of communication of this realization.

Answer 5

If religion is to a canal which drags water on fixed route, pre-deciding its end point

spirituality is a hilly forest rivulet...not bound by any dogma, finding its own way....not even worrying about its destination...just enjoying the journey..singing and dancing

and even an atheist can be a spiritual person

Answer 6

I define is as of the Holy Spirit.

Answer 7

When your dreams turn to dust, it's time to vacuum.