Top 8 Reasons Why Spirituality is Important
1. Spirituality gives meaning to life.
The spiritual seeker looks beyond the mundane to discover what is sacred in us all. This encourages us to strive towards becoming better people and finding ways to bring more peace, love, and joy into the world. Spirituality opens the mind to an inner awareness that there is something more to life than the physical body and the visible world. We come to realize there are higher levels of perception that change how we see ourselves and others for the better, inducing feelings of inner peace and helping us find our greater purpose. Expanding our awareness of what the human experience means supports self-actualization and the fulfillment of our highest potential.
2. Spirituality guides you to make better choices.
A spiritual orientation to life opens the mind to an unlimited wellspring of higher reason and loving guidance. This higher guidance is inherent and natural within all human beings, but often ignored or discounted until we are willing to question what we think we know, and become willing to move into greater levels of awareness and understanding. This innate higher guidance leads us to make better decisions that serve the highest good because it inspires us to be more caring, forgiving, and loving towards ourselves and others.
3. Spirituality supports your health.
Introspective activities like prayer or meditation quiet the mind, relieve stress, and cultivate peace from within. Meditation is one of the most effective ways to develop a level of mental control that is healing to the body and soul rather than dismissive. Experiencing compassion, forgiveness, peace, and serenity is naturally healing because these states calm the internal systems that affect our bodies, emotions, and thoughts. When a person has developed a sense of internal comfort and well-being, every-day trials and difficulties can be navigated with grace. Studies have shown that contemplative practices can lessen and help resolve physical, emotional, and mental health issues; particularly those related to stress, chronic pain, addiction, and depression.
4. Spirituality heightens inspiration and heals perception.
When the mind is open to divine influence, the way we see the world changes. Spiritual insight enables us to move out of a way of perceiving the world that is fearful and limited into an expanded way of seeing that is creative, loving, and peaceful. Inspiration flows into our awareness through the abstract levels of mind, which are readily accessed through meditation, prayer, and contemplation. These practices open doors in the mind that lead us to new ideas and creative solutions to our worldly challenges.
5. Spirituality leads to increased compassion and understanding.
Spiritual insight helps individuals see their connection to the greater whole within which we all live, and breathe, and have our beingness. This understanding leads to more altruistic, compassionate, and inclusive behavior as we come to recognize and honor the divine spirit in ourselves and others. We come to see that the health and well-being of the whole is dependent upon the health and well-being of all of the parts within it.
6. Spirituality helps you overcome hardship.
Hardships and challenges in life are inevitable. What’s important is how we deal with them. We can either fall into despair, depression, and/or self-destructive habits, or reach beyond our current limitations to discover our inner strength and grace. Developing a spiritual practice, opens us up to new levels of faith, optimism, and inner peace. These states of mind help us navigate our challenges with love, patience, and gratitude for the blessings that surround us even in the midst of hardship.
7. Spirituality lessens the fear of death.
Spiritual practices help us understand that there is more to life than the physical level of experience. There is an eternal aspect to us that is not limited to the physical world and the mortal body. Death becomes less frightening as we come to understand it is not an ending but a transition from one level of spiritual experience to another. A transition that leads us to greater freedom, unconditional love, and creativity.
8. Spirituality brings people together.
Spiritual understanding is open to anyone who seeks it regardless of religious affiliation. The desire to feel at peace, expand one’s awareness, and find the deeper meaning of life draws people of different backgrounds and faith together. During my 10 years at the Berkeley Psychic Institute, people from all walks of life and from various religious affiliations came together to study and develop their spiritual abilities. We now see the same thing happening in America with yoga. Traditionally a spiritual discipline practiced in Eastern religions, we now see people from all faiths and philosophical orientations embracing mindfulness and strengthening their mind body connection. And in my own meditation, clairvoyant healing, and A Course In Miracles classes, I see the same phenomenon happening as people from different backgrounds and faiths come together to pursue spiritual understanding. In this way, spirituality has the potential to bring everyone together because it speaks to what is universal within us all—the desire for peace, well-being, brotherhood, and love.