Practical Spirituality

von Scott Goolsby August 18, 2024

I will discuss a range of topics in this blog and many of them I would call practical spirituality. What I mean by practical spirituality is getting in touch with your spirit and higher power without dogma, regardless of your religion or spiritual path.

The beauty of practical spirituality is that it is not confined by the formalities and walls of churches, temples, religious congregations, or structured rituals. Practical spirituality is about bringing the sacred to our everyday thoughts and actions. As a result, our normal lives are filled with more joy, passion, and gratitude. It is about being conscious and ultimately living each moment with purpose, power, vibrance, and meaning. I know it sounds difficult, if not impossible, to live every moment in this way. That’s why practical spirituality is a practice and not an end. Many of us are lucky to have a few moments each day where we feel completely connected, grounded, vibrant, alive, and conscious. To infuse every moment of every day with that sublimity is the intention of practical spirituality. Whether we ever get there is irrelevant. Just touching this experience for a moment is amazing. We simply wish to build moment to moment and get as much of the practice as possible in our daily lives.

I want to make it clear that I do not believe practical spirituality is above traditional religious practices or that these traditional paths are unimportant. In fact, I feel quite the opposite since these traditions are the sources of practical spirituality. Anyone’s current religion and spiritual views will remain extremely important, even become more so, when implementing practical spirituality.

I do concede however that there is a problem with many institutions of religion, especially in the West. In my experience, it seems that people will go to their church, temple, and religious meetings once or twice a week. Afterwards, they leave spirituality behind until their next visit. It also concerns me that in many traditional paths the highest spiritual ideals and experiences are difficult to attain and may only be tasted by those who have renounced the world, vowing to embrace their religion fully and daily as priests, sadhus, monks, nuns, yogis, and so forth. Many of us really value the devotion and sacrifice of these people, and value spirituality just as greatly. However, our value of spirituality is in conflict with the values of having a family, friends, jobs, or experiencing the vast richness of the material world. This conflict causes many people believe enlightenment or experiencing the greatest beauty of spirituality is beyond their grasp. It is precisely this limiting belief I would like to dispel.

Some of the ideas that I call practical spirituality are my own and many of them come from my years of academic and personal study of philosophy, religion, meditation, personal growth, and life coaching. Whenever I can remember a specific source, I will cite it and provide some reading suggestions.

Ultimately, I want to help you make the sacred an everyday experience and to make the everyday experience sacred. This will be done through practices that bring awareness to the moment, clarity to the mind, or empowerment to the psyche. I invite you to take what works for and with you and to ignore anything that that does not resonate with who you are or your current path.