Monday Musings: On Authentic Spirituality

Lily from bouquet in our living room

Lately I am pondering the notion of what spirituality is for me and how to describe it. Here are some quotes that resonate with me as I language my own definition for spirituality:

"Authentic spirituality awakens the soul, reconnects us with the sacred, and fills us with the passion of life. Spiritual development is not about religious rituals and practices; it is about waking up to the wonder of life." — David N. Elkins

"No matter what your spiritual condition is, no matter where you find yourself in the universe, your choice is always the same: to expand your awareness or contract it." — Thaddeus Golas

"Sometimes people get the mistaken notion that spirituality is a separate department of life, the penthouse of existence. But rightly understood, it is a vital awareness that pervades all realms of our being...Wherever we may come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual." — David Steindl-Rast


"We live in a world of theophanies. Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can happen only if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure."  —   Macrina Wiederkehr

"Saying yes, opening up, and loving:
these are the keys that will unlock the prison door."
— Arnaud Desjardins

"I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.
 For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves."

 — James Kavanaugh

"Spiritual practice is the process of coming to see our misknowledge and letting it go, to begin to experience, accept, and live the truth about how we and the world actually are.  When we begin to understand and to live this way, there is a great decrease in fear and dread, so common in human experience, caused by the huge gap between our expectations and the way things actually are.  With an appreciation of the empty nature of things, there are no more foiled expectations.  There is a lot more joy, peace, and love."  — Norman Fischer

Tell me, what does "spiritual" look like to you?

Comments

[Swirly]

I love these quotes. I feel like I am constantly searching for what spirituality means to me....and I am OK with the notion that I will likely never have it figured out.