You Could Be A Spiritual Atheist

You don’t have to be a theist or god-believing to be spiritual. But rather, you must be non-physical in your mind to be spiritual. Theists, atheists as well as agnostics can be spiritual if they choose to.

What is spiritual practice? Is it difficult, as most people tend to believe? Spirituality has everything to do with our mental attitude and almost nothing to do with our life in the physical world. It follows that spiritual pursuit should involve our mind rather than our physical body. Thus, one may continue living a normal life and doing all that seems necessary in every given situation and yet, be spiritual. How? 

One way of pursuing a spiritual way of life is by being aware that there is an invisible big picture of which your existence is only a small part. Then, spiritual pursuit would essentially be a sincere and durable recognition that there is an invisible spirit behind all this physical creation and your life in it. If we are able to establish our mind firmly in this kind of frame, nothing in the physical world will disturb, agitate or excite us. We will believe that whatever is happening must be a part of a big and long term plan that we do not know of. In other words, we will believe that “whoever” or “whatever” is behind this creation, knows what needs to happen and is in charge of the world. This can be said to be the theist’s way of being spiritual.

Some people may find it difficult to believe that there is god or some intelligent phenomenon behind all that is happening in this world. Yet, they can also be spiritual if they can believe that this world is inconsequential. After all, we do not take anything from this “inconsequential” world with us when we die! Then, why should we bother about what has happened in the past, or is happening at this present moment or whatever may happen in the future? This is how even atheists can become “spiritual” in the sense that they will be “non-physical” by virtue of their indifference to the physical world.

There may be a category of people who may be in between or who are called as agnostics – people who do not reject the existence of god (or big picture) but do not accept it either. They simply say that god may be there but that they do not know. They may not believe that there is a big picture, nor do they think the world to be inconsequential. So, they think that the world and our lives in it are created to give each one of us a big enough canvas to paint our own picture as we want it and to the extent of our capability. As such, these people take active interest in their lives in this world. Even then, such people can simply tell themselves to take things as they come while putting in their best efforts to “paint as big and as beautiful a life picture” as they can. But they should be aware that the “painting” does not matter to anyone other than themselves as an individual and that too only so long as one is alive. This awareness can also be regarded as spiritual pursuit because people who are in such awareness will not be disturbed, agitated or excited about anything that happens or does not happen.