Spirituality, Religion and Indian society

By Ranjeet Ramaswamy Iyer

wdp420059@gmail.com

Spirituality
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If we search through the Internet today we discover that there are more than 5 million entries
when we search for spirituality definition and more than 11 million entries when we search for
spirituality meaning.

When we put the quotation marks in order to search for the exact terms, we discover that there
are more than 15 thousand entries for “definition of spirituality” and more than 1.9 million
entries for “meaning of spirituality.”

This just shows us even on a cursory level the diversity of definitions and meanings of the word
“spirituality.”

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to
discover the essence of their being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”

Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop an
individual's inner life; such practices often lead to an experience of connectedness with a larger
reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; with other individuals or the human community;
with nature or the cosmos; or with the divine realm. Spirituality is often experienced as a source
of inspiration or orientation in life. It can encompass belief in immaterial realities or experiences
of the immanent or transcendent nature of the world.

Basic Meaning of Spirituality

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What is most obvious in the meaning of “spirituality” is that it comes from its root word, which
is “spirit”. The suffix “-uality” qualifies the use of “spirit” in this instance.

So a basic definition of spirituality is the quality of one’s sensitivity to the things of the spirit.
And what are these things of the spirit? These are those that cannot be directly perceived by our
senses but which can be deduced or inferred by our observations, like love, justice, peace, etc.

Basic to this understanding of spirituality is the premise that we regard the human being and/or
the rest of creation as composed not only of matter, but of something immaterial, something
invisible, something beyond our present knowledge. There is always more to what we can
perceive with our senses and know with our reason.

Religion

Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of life and the universe,
especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency, or human beings’ relation to
that which they regard as holy, sacred, spiritual, or divine.

Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give
meaning to life. They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle from
their ideas about the cosmos and human nature.

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 Symbols representing various world religions, from left to right:
row 1: Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism
row 2: Islam, Buddhism, Shinto
row 3: Sikhism, Bahai, Jainism

The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system, but religion
differs from private belief in that it has a public aspect. Most religions have organized behaviors,
including congregations for prayer, priestly hierarchies, holy places, and/or scriptures.

Academics studying the subject have divided religions into three broad categories: world
religions, a term which refers to transcultural, international faiths, indigenous religions, which
refers to smaller, culture-specific religious groups, and new religious movements, which refers to
recently developed faiths.

Difference between Spirituality and Religion

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 Spirituality
Spirituality is inborn. Spiritual experiences are
as natural to human beings as breathing.
Spirituality is an experience within yourself,
inexpressible and unforgettable.
Spirituality holds that you and the Divine are
One, inseparable. Thus, the purpose of
spirituality is simply to fully remember this
fundamental truth.
Spirituality asserts that you are inherently
perfect, whole, and lovable. You do not need to
"heal" or change. Although you will be happier
if you realise your perfection, which is what
spirituality helps you do.
Spirituality acknowledges that everyone's
spirituality is uncompromisingly unique; no
one can say what another's spiritual path could
be.
Spirituality aims for personal experience of the
Divine, and an internal understanding of what
you believe to be true.
Spirituality is having a personal, intimate
relationship with your Source.
Spirituality is the seeking of union with the
Divine.
Religion
Religion was created by humans to explain,
contain, and stimulate spiritual experiences.
Religion is other people telling you what that
experience is supposed to be.
Religion claims that the Divine exists outside
of you, and you are apart from it. Thus, the
purpose of religion is then to make you
acceptable to this outside judge.
Religion asserts that humans are imperfect
and/or ignorant, if not actively sinful and evil.
Religion then aims to set you straight and
guide you how to improve yourself.
Religion imposes one person's spiritual
experience upon others.
Religion aims for acceptance of what other
people have experienced and said to be true.
Religion seeks a relationship with the Divine,
but not union. Religion separates you from
the Divine, while seeming to encourage
closeness.
Religion is the rules about the seeking.
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 Spirituality
Spirituality does not have rules. The most it
offers is guidelines and spiritual practices that
have helped others and are likely to benefit
you.
Spirituality is internally focused. What occurs
is between you and the Divine, alone.
Spirituality is talking to God yourself, and
hearing the Divine's response.
In spirituality, morality is subject only to the
approval of the Divine.
The aim of spirituality is to create
opportunities for direct experience ofthe
Divine.
Spirituality is having a mature relationship
with your Divine Source.
Spirituality is learning to be your own Sacred
Chalice, your own container for Divine
Energy.
Spirituality insists that you can only KNOW
what you have experienced for yourself.
In spirituality, everyone has the potential to
achieve the goal of full awakening, by
whatever path is right for them.
Spirituality is meant to serve the Divine, and
by extension, all of life.
Religion
Religion insists on its rules as absolute truths.
Religion is externally focused. The experience
isn't the focus, but whether you're following the
rules is.
Religion puts an intermediary (priest) between
you and the Divine.
In religion, morality is dictated by obedience to
an authoritarian rulebook (law).
The aim of religion is to make you a cohesive,
beneficial member of the congregation.
Religion is the toddler-version of spirituality: it
is a stepping stone and guide toward spiritual
union.
Religion serves as a container for spirituality,
for those who have found the real purpose of
religion. For others, religion acts as a pseudo-
spirituality, relieving them of the responsibility
to actually live a spiritual life.
Religion usually demands unquestioning
obedience to dogma. You KNOW what you
are told to know.
In religion, the goal of personal "salvation" is
achieved only by those who adhere to its
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beliefs and rules.
Religion is meant to serve spirituality, yet it is
commonly twisted around to be exactly the
opposite.
Workplace spirituality

Workplace spirituality is not about organized religious practices. It is not about God or theology.
Workplace spirituality recognizes that people have an inner life that nourishes and is nourished
by meaningful work that takes place in the context of community. Organizations that promote a
spiritual cultural recognize that people have both a mind and a spirit, seek to find meaning and
purpose in their work, and desire to connect with other human beings and be part of a
community.

Historical models of management and organizational behavior had no room for spirituality. The
myth of rationality assumed that the well-run organization eliminated feelings. Similarly,
concern about an employee’s inner life had no role in the perfectly rational model. But just as
we’ve now come to realize that the study of emotions improve our understanding of
organizational behavior, an awareness of spirituality can help you to better understand employee
behavior in the twenty first century. Of course, employees have always had an inner life. So why
has the search for meaning and purposefulness in work surfaced now? There are a number of
reasons. Spiritual organizations are concerned with helping people develop and reach their full
potential. Similarly organizations that are concerned with spirituality are more likely to directly
address problems created by work/life conflicts.

What differentiates spiritual organizations from their non-spiritual counterparts? Although

research on this question is only preliminary, there are five identified cultural characteristics that
tend to be evident is spiritual organizations.

1. Strong Sense of Purpose:

• Spiritual organizations build their cultures around a meaningful purpose.

• Although profits may be important, they are not the primary values of the organization.
• People want to be inspired by a purpose that they believe is important and worthwhile.

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2. Focus on Individual Development:

• Spiritual organizations recognize the worth and value of people. They aren’t just
providing jobs.
• They seek to create cultures in which employees can continually learn and grow.

3. Trust and Respect:

• Spiritual organizations are characterized by mutual trust, honesty and openness.

Managers aren’t afraid to admit mistakes.
• The president of Wetherill Associates, a highly successful auto parts distribution firm,
says: We don’t tell lies and everyone knows it. We are specific and honest about quality
and suitability of the product for our customers’ needs even if we know they might not be
able to detect any problem.

4. Humanistic Work Practices:

• These practices embraced by spiritual organizations include flexible work schedules

group and organizations based rewards narrowing of pay and status differentials,
guarantees of individual worker rights, employee empowerment and job security.
• Hewlett Packard, for instance, has handled temporary downturns through voluntary
attrition and shortened work weeks (shared by all), and longer term declines through
early retirement and buyouts.

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5. Toleration of Employees Expression:

• The final characteristic that differentiates spirituality based organizations is that they
don’t stifle employee emotions. They allow people to be themselves to express their
moods and feelings without guilt or fear of reprimand Employees at Southwest Air, for
instance are encouraged to express their sense of humor on the job, act spontaneously and
to make their work fun.

A website in its article on Workplace Spirituality suggests six effects that can be associated with
a model of workplace spirituality in an organization. These are as follows:

1. Emphasizes Sustainability

A systemic view of work and contribution in the world promotes links between sustainability and
an awareness of limited resources. This approach to design, production, and commerce is being
increasingly associated with spirituality because it seeks to contribute to the greater good in the
world. It also has the potential to actually increase market value and attract investors.

An understanding of sustainable growth and development includes a well-thought-out strategy

that identifies potential long-term impacts or implications of actions that could have an eventual
negative impact on business. This systemic view of global business means that a company will
constantly reassess the long view of risks and rewards associated with doing business in the long
run, including a careful ongoing review of potentially negative and unintended consequences of
business decisions on individuals, societies, or the environment.

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2. Values Contribution

More than providing excellent service for customers, global service indicates a larger sense of
responsibility to contribute to the betterment of the world. While the local family business may
not provide products and services that will improve the quality of life in third world countries,
American companies historically have fundamentally understood that part of their role is to make
the world a better place through the products or services that they sell. Today’s spiritual
organization is deliberate in implementing a vision that is built around contributions to the
betterment of mankind. It promotes work outside of the organization that contributes to and
“gives back” to society through community and volunteer service. Spiritually aware managers
and businesses consider themselves servants of employees, customers, and the community.

3. Prizes Creativity

Creativity is a necessary part of the business cycle. When technology, markets shifts, and
demographic changes force organizations to rethink products and services, creativity is the key to
successfully navigating those changes. The artistic industries have long recognized the spiritual
nature of individual and group creative processes, and many educators understand the
importance of seamless, daily incorporation of creativity in helping their students learn. The
spiritual workplace recognizes that being creative is not necessarily reserved for a special few,
but that all people have creative capacities. A spiritual workplace provides resources to help
people to uncover their creative potential and to practice creativity within the organization.

4. Cultivates Inclusion

Businesses are increasingly becoming core sources of community for people in societies. The
spiritual organization respects and values individuals’ life experiences and the lessons learned
from them. Such an organization is intentional in its efforts to include individuals who bring
appropriate skill sets to a particular job, but who may have been excluded historically from
participating in a professional community of practice due to circumstances they did not choose.
Such historic exclusion from the workplace has included people with physical disabilities, people
whose skin color or ethnic origin differs from those of the majority population, and those who
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have been discriminated against due to gender or sexual orientation. Increasingly, corporations
are seeing the value of their employees working together in community toward a commonly held
vision. They have a sense that the concepts of love and acceptance within a cultural context of
care builds a sense of community that supports the work of the company and that has a direct
impact on the bottom line.

5. Develops Principles

Organizations have begun to realize the benefits of treating the whole person by actively
supporting the formulation of ethical principles that promote personal growth, long-term
character development, and personal connections of faith and work development. Assisting
employees in integrating personal growth, learning, and faith with job performance benefits the
organization. This type of principled emphasis includes providing resources that help employees
better understand themselves, develop successful professional and personal relationships, and
enhance personal management skills. Employees are encouraged to develop an accurate and
realistic sense of the impact that other people have on them and the impact that they have on
others.

6. Promotes Vocation

Organizations have long been aware of the benefits of shared ownership of corporate values by
every member of the organization. By acknowledging that one’s general search for spiritual
growth and fulfillment need not be separate from one’s work, organizations lay the groundwork
for spiritual development to assist in engendering understanding among employees. Companies
that understand workplace spirituality go beyond being supportive of learning and development
by helping employees develop a sense of “calling” or identification of passion about their lives
and their work. Such companies emphasize the discovery and appropriate utilization of
individual giftedness and encourage employees to use their unique skills within the organization.
Grounded religious faith development is recognized as an important and deeply personal part of
growth for many people, one that can help them more easily recognize their vocations.

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Spiritual Quotient (S.Q.)

Spiritual Quotient (SQ) is the third value in a set of three measurements that combine to create a
more balanced and complete picture of your overall capacity for wisdom and ultimate ability to
live a happier and more rewarding life.

While Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is a measure of your ability to solve logical problems, and
Emotional Quotient (EQ) refers to your ability to gauge the emotional dynamics of a situation;
Spiritual Quotient (SQ) is your depth for perception and intuition. Someone with a high Spiritual
Quotient is a person who is in tune with their connection to nature, a person who is fully aware
of the diversity, complexity and absolute wonderment of the fascinating world and universe we
all inhabit and lives their life from this perception and understanding.

Spiritual Quotient (or SQ) is the ultimate intelligence, they claim. This is the intelligence used to
solve problems of meaning and value. "Is my job giving me the fulfillment I seek?" "Am I
relating to the people in my life in a way that contributes to their happiness and mine?" Answers
to these questions determine whether we will find happiness or not. IQ and EQ are inadequate in
such issues. "Spiritual intelligence," explains Ram Mohan, a Vedanta teacher, "is about the
growth of a human being. It is about moving on in life. About having a direction in life and being
able to heal ourselves of all the resentment we carry. It is thinking of ourselves as an expression
of a higher reality. It is also about how we look at the resources available to us. We realize that
nature is not meant to be exploited. Ultimately, we discover freedom from our sense of limitation
as human beings and attain moksha."

Anand Tendolkar, a workshop leader, says: "For me spiritual intelligence is about pondering
over my life's purpose. Just being in touch with that question is fulfilling. Finally I realize that
there is an immensity to me. As I move along the path, deeper levels of myself get unfolded,
leading to fulfillment."

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Humans are essentially spiritual beings, evolved to ask fundamental questions. "Who am I?"
"Where am I going?" "What do others mean to me?" It is an ability to answer questions like
these that lead people to personal growth workshops. Spiritual intelligence motivates people to
balance their work schedules to spend time with the family. Or an executive with a high SQ
might look beyond profit margins and devote time for voluntary work with orphans. Spiritual
intelligence also addresses the need to place one's life in a shared context of value.

The transformative power of SQ distinguishes it from IQ and EQ. IQ primarily solves logical
problems. EQ allows us to judge the situation we are in and behave appropriately. SQ allows us
to ask if we want to be in that situation in the first place. It might motivate us to create a new
one. SQ has little connection to formal religion. Atheists and humanists may have high SQ while
someone actively religious may not.

Eight signs of high SQ

1. Flexibility

2. Self-awareness

3. An ability to face and use suffering

4. The ability to be inspired by a vision

5. An ability to see connections between diverse things (thinking holistically)

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6. A desire and capacity to cause as little harm as possible

7. A tendency to probe and ask fundamental questions

8. An ability to work against convention

Concept of Maya

Maya in Indian religions, has multiple meanings, centered around the concept of "illusion".
Maya is the principal deity that manifests, perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of
duality in the phenomenal Universe. For some mystics, this manifestation is real. The word
origin of maya is derived from the Sanskrit roots ma ("not") and ya, generally translated as an
indicative article meaning "that". The mystic teachings in Vedanta are centered on a fundamental
truth that cannot be reduced to a concept or word for the ordinary mind to manipulate. Rather,
the human experience and mind are themselves a tiny fragment of this truth. In this tradition, no
mind-object can be identified as absolute truth, such that one may say, "That's it." So, to keep the
mind from attaching to incomplete fragments of reality, a speaker could use this term to indicate
that truth is "Not that."

In Hinduism, Maya is to be seen through, like an epiphany, in order to achieve moksha

(liberation of the soul from the cycle of samsara). Ahamkar (ego-consciousness) and karma are
seen as part of the binding forces of Maya. Maya may be understood as the phenomenal
Universe of perceived duality, a lesser reality-lens superimposed on the unity of Brahman. It is
said to be created by the divine by the application of the Lila (creative energy/material cycle,
manifested as a veil—the basis of dualism). The sanskaras of perceived duality perpetuate
samsara.

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Stories related to ‘Maya’ concept

1. Story of dividing the elephants

“A man died, leaving behind 17 elephants as his only wealth. He had three sons,
According to his will; the first son should get one-half of his wealth, the second one-third
and the third one-ninth. Now how could the sons divide 17 elephants among themselves
in the manner stipulated? The king, who happened to be passing by on his elephant, said
he would solve the problem. He alighted from his elephant and put it beside the 17 of the
dead man’s. He said he had added his elephant to the 17 to make the number even. So the
first son got one-half of the 18 that is nine elephants. The second got one-third of the 18
that is six. The third got two, one-ninth of the 18 elephants. The king said: “This leaves
one elephant, the one I added to your father’s collection. I take it back now that the
division of the elephants among you is over.” The sons were happy that the division was
in accordance with their father’s will.

However, was the division indeed in accordance with their father’s will? It was not. It
was a mere illusion that they had kept to the provisions of the will. Such is the nature of
illusion that we take comfort from what we see as just and get upset over what we
perceive as unjust.”

2. Story of Narada fetching water for Krishna

Once Narada said to Krishna, “Lord show me Maya.” After a few days Krishna asked
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Narada to make a trip with him towards a desert. After walking several miles Krishna
asked Narada to fetch some drinking water. Narada entered a nearby village and knocked
at a door which was opened by an extremely beautiful young girl. At the sight of her
Narada forgot everything and began talking with the girl. That talk ripened into love; he
asked the girl’s father for the daughter; they were married, lived there and had three
children. After twelve years his father-in-law died and Narada inherited his property. He
lived, as he seemed to think, a very happy life with his wife and children, his fields and
his cattle, and so forth.

Then came a flood. One night the river rose until it overflowed its banks and flooded the
whole village. Houses fell, men and animals were swept away and drowned and
everything was floating in the rush of the stream. Narada had to escape. With one hand he
held his wife, and with the other two of his children; another child was on his shoulders
and he was trying to ford this tremendous flood. After some time the child on his
shoulders fell and was swept away by the current of the water. In trying to save that child,
Narada lost his grasp of the other children who were also lost. At last his wife was also
torn away from his tight clasp and Narada was thrown on the bank, weeping and wailing
in bitter lamentation.

Behind him came a gentle voice, “My child, where is the water? You went to fetch a
pitcher of water for me, and I have been waiting for you; you have been gone for quite
half-an-hour.” “Half-an-hour!” Narada exclaimed! Twelve whole years seemed to have
passed through in his mind; but in fact all these scenes had happened in half-an-hour
only. And this is Maya.

These stories provide an insight into one of the principal doctrines of Hinduism which
says that the phenomenal world is simply an emanation of divine energy that has been
filtered through Maya. This is reiterated in the Mahabharata when the voice of a Yaksha
asked Yudhishtir: ‘Of the entire world’s wonders, which is the most wonderful?’ the
celebrated reply was: ‘that no man, though he sees others dying all around him, believes
that he himself will die’. This is Maya.

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Bibliography

1. http://www.wicca-spirituality.com/religion_spirituality.html

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2. http://www.citeman.com/4019-workplace-spirituality/

3. http://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2010/08/six-components-of-a-model-for-workplace-spirituality/

4. http://ultimatelifestyleproject.com/spiritual-quotient/

5. http://www.lifepositive.com/mind/evolution/iq-genius/intelligence.asp

6. http://wikipedia.org

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