What is spirituality? Perhaps we think of it as a brilliant light.
It’s intangible and divorced from the material.
Part of the reason we think this way is because we experience suffering as disharmony between body and spirit.
To resolve the disharmony the spirit seeks spirituality outside material existence – in religion and meditative practice. Thus we transcend the hardships of physical existence. The body seeks physical pleasures to compensate for its pain and suffering.
The flight to spirituality on one hand and retreat into pleasure-seeking on the other represent divergent attempts to resolve the discord we experience.
Physical pleasure does have a healing effect, as does meditation and religion.
There’s only one problem: When body and spirit are pulling in two different directions we reinforce disharmony. The tug of war never ends.
I’m reminded of the pushmi-pullyu a Dr. Dolittle character with two heads at opposite ends of its body that looks like a cross between a gazelle and a unicorn. When it tries to move, both heads try to go in opposite directions.
Similarly when we experience body and spirit as separate independent entities that are each doing their own thing we only increase the conflict. Spirituality that serves as a ‘vacation’ from ‘real life’ has no healing power.
An alternative to this situation is possible. Body and spirit have an intrinsic ability to work as a team, with the spirit taking a leadership role.
As head of the team, spirit reigns-in the body’s excessive demands. It helps the body to transcend its pain. It utilizes the body’s strengths to accomplish important goals.
In addition to all of this spirit reshapes physicality itself. Ultimately the spirit in man has the capacity to ‘spiritualize’ the body.
Leadership figures like the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King clearly show that the meaning of spirituality is not a split or escape from the physical world but rather intense involvement in human concerns.
Their involvement in mundane needs had a profound effect on the world and on themselves. They were radiant to look at.
This phenomenon is recorded explicitly about Moses in the Bible (Exodus 34:29). His face was shining. He wasn’t aware of this but it was obvious to everyone else. He had to cover his face when speaking to the people. They could not stand the brilliance of the light. His body became spiritual.
It says in Proverbs (6:23) “For the commandment is a lamp. The teaching is a light. And the way of life is the rebuke that disciplines.”
If a friend gives us constructive criticism we can choose to think of this as spiritual guidance. When life sends us challenges we can choose to see this as physical refinement.
Rather than take flight to find the light spirituality can be found when we look for the right way to live. Spirituality can be found in the physical world.