In the name of SPIRITUALITY, one may lose out on life.
Spirituality is one of the most misunderstood words in today’s time. People do all sorts of things and name it spirituality. Instead of taking responsibility for their lives they depend on spirituality or God or meditation to take care of it.
If your relationships are not good, your health is not good, your career is not good…spirituality is not going to fix it, you have to take responsibility for it and take action to make it work.
‘Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs’ explains it very well. Self-Actualisation (the goal of spirituality) is at the top of this hierarchy. One must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth needs. Below I am mentioning these needs from bottom to top.
Note: It is very much possible to work on all these in parallel.
1. Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.
2. Safety needs – security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
3. Love and belongingness needs – friendship, intimacy, trust, and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love, being part of a group (family, friends, work).
4. Esteem needs – achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
5. Self-Actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
Here it is not being suggested that Spirituality is stupid or useless. Spirituality definitely has an important role to play in human life but not without RESPONSIBILITY.
PS: To live happily without spirituality is possible.