Spiritual Experience. . .

A Spiritual Experience is a sacred engagement with that which is believed to be a spiritual reality.

Spirituality is a worldwide phenomenon that has played a part in all human culture and is a much broader, more complex category than the beliefs or practices of any single religious or spiritual tradition.

An understanding of spirituality must take into account its distinctive qualities and patterns as a form of human experience, as well as the similarities and differences in religions across human cultures.

In all cultures, human beings make a practice of interacting with what are taken to be spiritual powers. These powers may be in the form of gods, spirits, ancestors, or any kind of sacred reality with which humans believe themselves to be connected. People interact with such a presence in a sacred manner— that is, with reverence and care.

Spirituality is not an object with a single, fixed meaning, but rather an aspect of human experience that intersects, incorporates, or transcends other aspects of life and society. It is a part of individual life and group dynamics that includes patterns of behavior, language, and thought. It assumes innumerable cultural forms.

"There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials . . . despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners."

Peter Ustinov (b. 1921), British actor, writer, director. Quoted in: Independent (London, 25 Feb. 1989).

"Zen . . . does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes."

Alan Watts (1915–73), British-born U.S. philosopher, author. The Way of Zen, pt. 2, ch. 2 (1957).

"The sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, sensed by our emotions, though hidden from our eyes. To this double nature of the visible and invisible world— to the profound longing for the latter, coupled with the feeling of the sweet necessity for the former, we owe all sound and logical systems of philosophy, truly based on the immutable principles of our nature, just as from the same source arise the most senseless enthusiasms."

Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835), German statesman, philologist. The Limits of State Action, ch. 8 (1792; repr. 1854; tr. and ed. by J. W. Burrow, 1969).

"He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men; he is marked by a sign."

Ernest Renan (1823–92), French writer, critic, scholar. Last lines of L’Avenir de la Science (1890; repr. in Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 3).

gratitude

Gratitude, gratefulness, thankfulness, grateful heart, feeling of obligation, sense of obligation, grateful acceptance, appreciativeness, appreciation, lively sense of favors received.

failure

All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.

Be benevolent: sympathize, understand, feel as for oneself, enter into another's feelings, empathize, put oneself in another's place, do as one would be done by, practice the golden rule.

Feel: entertain, entertain feelings, have feelings, cherish feelings, harbor feelings, feel deeply, take to heart, be sensitive.

hope

Hope: feel hope, cherish hope, nourish hope, nurse hope.

experience

To undergo the experience of: felt my interest rising; felt great joy.

awareness

To be aware of; sense: To be emotionally affected by.

To be persuaded of (something) on the basis of intuition, emotion, or other indefinite grounds.

to believe

Think.

to express the exhibiting of life

Living, alive, live, animate, animated, vital. These adjectives mean possessed of or exhibiting life. Living, alive, and live refer principally to organisms that are not dead but continue to live: living plants and animals; the happiest woman alive; a live canary. Animate applies to living animal as distinct from living plant life: early peoples worshipping animate and inanimate objects. Animated suggests renewed life, vigor, or spirit: became very animated when he heard the good news. Vital refers to what is characteristic of or necessary to the continuation of life: eating to maintain vital energy.

Alive: breathing, respiring, alive and kicking

restored: healthy, active: frisky, coltish, dashing, sprightly, mercurial, spirited, mettlesome, live, full of beans, animated, ebullient, chipper, peppy, vivacious, lively.

Enterprising: opportunist, alive to opportunity, with an eye to the main chance.

alive with (adjective)

Assembled: populated, over-populated, overcrowded, humming with, lousy with, alive with, full.