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, spiritual goals and personal experience ( Self-realization ) through Yoga and Meditation are seen as the ultimate way to attain God ( Moksha ) and are inseparable from the religion.]] Spirituality is, in a narrow sense, a concern with matters of the Spirit . The spiritual, concerning as it does eternal verities regarding Man's ultimate nature, is often contrasted with the Temporal or the worldly. It may include belief in Supernatural powers, as in Religion , but the emphasis is on personal experience. It may be an expression for life perceived as higher, more complex or more integrated with one's Worldview , as contrasted with the merely sensual. The spiritual and the religious An important distinction needs to be made between spirituality ''in'' religion and spirituality ''as opposed to'' religion. In recent years, spirituality ''in'' religion often carries Connotation s of the believer's Faith being more personal, less dogmatic, more open to new ideas and myriad influences, and more pluralistic than the faiths of established religions. It also can connote the nature of a believer's personal relationship or "connection" with their God or belief system, as opposed to the general relationship with the Deity understood to be shared by all members of that faith. Those who speak of spirituality ''as opposed to'' religion generally believe that there are many "spiritual paths" and that there is no religions who consider spirituality to be an aspect of their religious experience are more likely to contrast spirituality with Secular "worldliness" than with the ritual expression of their religion. Others of a more New Age disposition hold that spirituality is not religion, ''per se'', but the active and vital connection to a force, spirit, or sense of the deep self. As cultural historian and yogi William Irwin Thompson put it, "Religion is not identical with spirituality; rather religion is the form spirituality takes in civilization." (1981, 31) Directed spirituality One aspect of 'Being spiritual' is goal-directed, with aims such as: simultaneously improve one's Wisdom and willpower, achieve a closer connection to Deity/the universe, and remove illusions or false ideas at the sensory, feeling and thinking aspects of a person. The ' Plato 's cave' analogy in book VII of The Republic is one of the most well known descriptions of the spiritual development process, and thus, an excellent aid in understanding what "spiritual development" exactly entails. Others say that spirituality is a two-stroke process: the "upward stroke" is inner growth, changing oneself as one changes his/her relationship with God, and the "downward stroke" is manifesting improvements in the physical reality around oneself as a result of the inward change. Another connotation is that change will come onto itself with the realization that all is oneself; whereupon the divine inward manifests the diverse outward for experience and progress. Spirituality and personal well-being Spirituality, according to most adherants, is an essential part of an individual's Holistic Health and Well-being . Due to its broad scope and personal nature, however, spirituality can perhaps be better understood by highlighting key concepts that arise when people are asked to describe what spirituality means to them. Research by Martsolf and Mickley (1998) highlighted the following areas as worthy of consideration:
The Spiritual and Science Analysis of spiritual qualities in science is bedeviled by the imprecision of spiritual concepts, the subjectivity of spiritual experience, and the amount of work required to translate and map observable components of a spiritual system into empirical evidence. Nevertheless, certain connections have been made. Prominent scientists such as , one of which has been published under the title of 'Discussions with the Dalai Lama', are exemplary explorations of the overlaps between these areas. Rudolf Steiner and many people in the Anthroposophic tradition have attempted to apply scientific methodology to the study of spiritual phenomena to shape a Spiritual Science . This is not an attempt to redefine natural science, but to explore inner experience, especially our thinking, with the same rigor as we apply to outer (sensory) experience. The scientific criteria of Intersubjectivity and Repeatability have, however, rarely been met here. Spiritual traditions and communities
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