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The term spirituality is tricky to define. If you asked a hundred spiritual teachers and authors, “What is spirituality?” you would probably get a hundred different answers.
However, my definition is quite simple. As described in my book The Leap, I define spirituality in two terms: expansion and connection. On one level, spiritual awakening is a process of expanding (and intensifying) awareness. I break this down into four different types of awareness. First, there is perceptual awareness, when the world around us becomes more vivid. Then there is subjective awareness, when we become more aware of our own inner being. There is also intersubjective awareness, when we become more empathic and compassionate to others. Finally, there is conceptual awareness, when our perspective on reality grows wider, moving from an egocentric to a worldcentric outlook. In spiritual awakening, our awareness expands and intensifies in all four areas.
At the same time, spiritual awakening is a process of increasing connection. As our awareness expands, we become more connected. In perceptual terms, we become more connected to our surroundings, including the natural world. In subjective terms, we become more connected to our own being. As our intersubjective awareness expands, we become more connected to other living beings (and to the natural world). As our conceptual awareness expands, we become more connected to the human race and the world as a whole.
Transcending Separation
The fundamental obstacle to spiritual development is our sense of separateness, when we experience ourselves as an ego that lives inside our minds and bodies, in separation from a world that seems to be “out there,” on the other side. As we undergo spiritual awakening, we become aware that this sense of separateness is an illusion. Our solid, rigid sense of identity begins to soften. Our identity begins to merge with the world and with other living beings. We become aware of a sense of kinship, or even oneness, between ourselves and the rest of the world, sensing that we share the same essence as all other things.
Spirituality isn’t necessarily anything to do with religion. It is based on experience rather than belief. It’s not about worshipping a divine figure or following a set of lifestyle guidelines. It’s about experiencing a more expansive awareness of reality. As a lifestyle, it’s about self-transformation, specifically, about transcending separateness and expanding awareness, moving toward greater connection with the world, our own being, and other living beings, expressing this connection through service and altruism.
Awakening Experiences
Sometimes spirituality occurs in a temporary form, in spiritual or mystical experiences, when our awareness briefly expands and intensifies, giving us access to an intensely real and beautiful world, filled with harmony and meaning.
Spiritual experiences are by no means restricted to spiritual seekers or monks and mystics. In fact, most spiritual experiences probably happen to ordinary people in the midst of everyday life, rather than in the meditation room or the temple. They can happen when we’re walking in the countryside, watching a sunset, or staring up at the stars on a clear night. They happen when we’re swimming in the ocean or running in the park, while we’re making love, helping other people, or even while giving birth.
I’ve spent around 20 years collecting and analysing reports of spiritual experiences, or “awakening experiences,” as I prefer to call them.1 It’s as if our consciousness temporarily opens up, as if limitations or filters fall away, allowing us to perceive reality more fully. There is a sense of revelation, as if we’re seeing things as they really are. In comparison, our normal awareness seems limited, like looking at a blurred black and white photograph compared to a bright colour image. Awakening experiences may last for only a few seconds or minutes, but they usually have powerful long-term effects. They bring a new sense of optimism, trust, and humility, with an awareness that life is more meaningful than we previously assumed. There are different intensities of awakening experiences, ranging from mild experiences of beauty and wonder to intense experiences of complete oneness with the universe.
Awakening experiences are essentially experiences of connection. In fact, a viable alternative term for them is “connection experiences.” They are moments in which our normal sense of separateness fades away. We are no longer isolated egos living inside our mental space. We feel a sense of connection to (or even oneness with) nature, to other human beings, or with the whole world in general. We may also sense connection in the objects and natural phenomena around us. In some way, all things, both natural and man-made objects, seem to be interrelated, as if they are part of a network of being, or all manifestations of something deeper, like plants that grow out of the same roots underground.
So in my view, this is what spirituality is really about: becoming aware that we are all part of the same spirit, and therefore ultimately one, and one with the whole world too.
