Spirituality is not lived outside the concrete conditions in which existence is made. Being spiritual is not absent from everyday reality, but being able to understand its meaning and know how to find the meaning and value of each event and that of the people with whom we interact. Many, from the Platonic anthropological influence -which reached the religious world through Plotinus-, believe that being spiritual is to castrate and repudiate everything that from our physical dimension generates pleasure for us. And it is that for a long time the official discourse was that to be spiritual was to live in caves away from the noise and the existential tremors that human coexistence generates in us.
Some believe that experiencing spirituality is living like angels, enjoying blowing the trumpet and flying around humans. For my part, I have to say that my spiritual formation has been based on the biblical culture and the theological ideas that are expressed in it, and I really do not believe in those negative visions of humanity and pleasure. In fact, when I read the gospels, I see Jesus – the spiritual teacher and lord of life for us Christians – as one who celebrates existence around the table. He does not go to the desert to live, but he is in the middle of the festivals (John 2, 1-12) and speaks of the most simple and human situations (Matthew 15, 17). I do not see him separating anyone, but sharing with those who were despised by the religious of the time (Mark 1, 40-45; Luke 7, 36-50). His spirituality was to take life seriously; live each situation from its relationship with God, that is, from transcendence.
I think we have to recover that spirituality, and that implies making pleasure a source of meaning in life; dance and sing each situation of the story; understand mistakes as teachers of life that help us to be better; open ourselves to everything and everyone, trying to find sublime manifestations in the ordinary and beautiful of life; seek beauty, goodness and truth as expressions of what we call God and that gives meaning to life. That is why my book “Spirituality for Humans” goes beyond religious boundaries to venture into the spaces of bipeds with a brain, conscience and heart. All life has to be a source of transcendence, a constant search for existential meaning. There I make a proposal to develop our spiritual abilities and from there be happy.
I do not believe in the spirituality of those who do not smile, who do not dance or enjoy nature and the other beings that share their existence on this planet. He is only spiritual who is capable of expressing his inner world with the same intensity as his outer world. The spiritual travels outwards to know the other and the others, and inwards to know his own interior and essence. Let’s enjoy where we are and fight because that place can be better and better, but at the same time, let’s enjoy who we are and everything we can do. If spirituality does not help us to be happier, it is a trap that we have to get out of quickly to find what makes us grow and enhance each of our dimensions of life.