Spiritual Self

• o appreciate the spiritual self, a thorough understanding of religion is in order.
• Religion is important because It can provide answers to questions that people consider very relevant to their existence and help them live happier and more peaceful lives. 
• 3 Primary Functions of Religion according to Durkheim:

  • Religion provides meaning, reasons, and purpose to man's existence.
  • Religion fosters unity among believers by sharing common rituals, practices, and values.
  • Religion offers guidelines on how to live a moral life based on written doctrines and teachings. 
• 2 Kinds of Theism:

  1. Monotheism involves a belief that there is only one supreme being to be worshipped, examples are Christianity, Islam. 
  2. Polytheism involves a belief that there are more than one god to be worshipped, examples are native religions (Egyptian, Greek and Roman religions), Hinduism and Buddhism.
• 3 Forms of Religion

  • Animism
  • Totemism
  • Theism
• Animism


  Belief that spiritual beings can have good and ill effects on people's lives. Attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena. Belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe, plants, animals, or objects possess spirit.
• Totemism


  Belief in a mystical relationship between a group or an individual and a totem. A totem is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe.
• Theism


  Belief that one or more gods have created the universe and have supernatural powers to influence and control people's lives.
• Measures of Religiosity

  Dimensions of the extent of the believers' commitment to specific religious groups
• Measures of Religiosity


  • Experiential religiosity
  • Ritualistic religiosity
  • Ideological religiosity
  • Consequential religiosity
  • Intellectual religiosity
• Experiential religiosity


  • Emphasizes the believer's emotional attachment to his religion
• Ritualistic religiosity


  • Emphasizes the frequency of attendance in his religious activities
• Ideological religiosity


  • Places significance on the believer's degree of acceptance and belief of the doctrines and teachings of his religion
• Consequential religiosity


  • Revolves around how the believers observe and practice the belief of their religion
• Intellectual religiosity


  • Centers on the extent of information and knowledge about religion's historical backgrounds and doctrines
• EASTERN BELIEFS

  Emphasis is placed on the whole itself

  Focus to look at an idea as a whole.

  Preferred to generalize the ideas and show how they will reflect the same truths.
• Individualistic Self


  Located in the center (David Ho)
• Western individualism


  • Exhibits the coexistence of favorable and unfavorable conditions inherent in personal freedom
  • The right to individual freedom provides opportunities for self-fulfillment
  • It also increases the likelihood of experiencing alienation and frustration
• Traces the earliest historical roots of the western concept of the self


  To works on Philosophy (Frank Johnson)
• Analytic

  The whole is understood when differentiated into parts (Analytic deductive)
• Monotheistic


  One supreme being coexisted with the universe
• THE FOUR GREAT SYSTEMS OF EASTERN THOUGHT

  • Hinduism
  • Buddhism
  • Confucianism
  • Taoism
• Materialistic and Rationalistic


  • Focused on material things
  • Favors rational-empirical approach over superstitious explanations
• Hinduism

  Vedanta

  • Characterizes human suffering as the result of failure to realize the distinction between the true self (permanent & unchanging) and the non-true self (impermanent & change continually).

  Brahman 

  • Absolute reality; the supreme Existence. Due to Brahman's mysterious nature, it is best described by what it is not.

  Atman 

  •  Refers to the soul or spirit. The true knowledge of self. Indestructible divine essence of ourselves, that is eternally part of God. 

  
  

  The Law of Karma is the most important doctrine.

  The concept of "Reincarnation" of the soul
•  Buddhism

  Siddharta Gautama is the founder. Comes from the root word "budh" meaning "awake".

  * Teaching implies that every person has the seed of enlightenment, hence, the potential to be a Buddha. But the seed should be nurtured
• The Four Noble Truths

  1. Life is suffering
  2. The truth of the cause of suffering (Suffering is caused by attachment to desires.)
  3. The truth of cessation of suffering (Suffering can be eliminated.)
  4. Elimination of suffering is through the practice of the Eight Fold Path. 
• Eight Fold Path

  1. Right views
  2. Right aspirations 
  3. Right speech
  4. Right action  
  5. Right livelihood 
  6. Right effort
  7. Right mindfulness
  8. Right concentration
• *Man has no self (or no soul). There is only nothing and all else is an illusion. There is nothing permanent but change. The ignorance of the impermanence of everything may lead to an illusion of selfhood. This primal ignorance is the cause of life's misery, births, and rebirths. 
• Confucianism * The Core of Confucian Thought is the "Golden Rule" or the principle of reciprocity: "Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you."

  The self is a subdued self.
• Taoism

  * Reject the Confucian idea of a Relational Self.

  * The Self is an extension of the cosmos, not of social relationships.

  * The Self is described as one of the limitless forms of the Tao.

  * The perfect man has no self. 
• Spirituality is a search for what is sacred in life, one's deepest values, along with a relationship with God, or a higher power that transcends the self.

  Religion as defined by Durkheim, it is a set of beliefs and practices deemed as sacred and it unites believers as on moral community.

  By sacred, Durkheim refers to supernatural that demands respect and reverence.
• Spirituality has a much broader understanding of an individual's connection with the transcendent aspects of life. The sense of transcendence experienced in spirituality is a universal experience. Some find it in monotheistic religion, while others find it in meditation.

  Seeking a meaningful connection with something bigger than yourself can result in increased positive emotions. Transcendent moments are filled with peace, awe, and contentment-emotional and spiritual wellbeing overlap, like most aspects of wellbeing. 
• Our Meaningful Existence

  Victor Frankl's personal experiences in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II led him to develop the basic tenets of logotherapy, which were tested and found valid even amid all the dark forces in human existence. 

   Logotherapy 

  • is the pursuit of human existence as well as on man's search for such a meaning. According to this therapy, the striving to find the meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man.  
• Victor Frankl's personal experiences in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II led him to develop the basic tenets of logotherapy, which were tested and found valid even amid all the dark forces in human existence. 

  Logotherapy 

  is the pursuit of human existence as well as on man's search for such a meaning. According to this therapy, the striving to find the meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man. 
• Three different ways of discovering the meaning of life in Logotherapy:

  1. By doing a deed
  2. By experiencing a value
  3. By suffering
• Points to Ponder

  • Everyone has his or her own specific vocation or mission in life.
  •    Everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment.
  • In a word, each individual is questioned by life; and he or she can only answer to life by answering for his or her own life; to life he or she can only respond by being responsible.
• Religion involves groups of people, it is communal while spirituality involves only an individual, it is personal.

  The religious man has potentials to become spiritual.

  Actually spiritual development starts when life begins.

  The early life's experiences mold the spiritual self.
• As the child grows older he encounters issues, challenges, problems, frustrations. rejections, disappointments, pains, sufferings in their mildest forms and the like. 

   

  In spiritual life, sense of morality occupies a greater space.

  The social environment particularly the family gives the children the necessary provision to develop sense of morality.

  The parents should serve as role models to their children.
• Through observation and imitation, children learn what is right and what is wrong.

  Thus if the parents show wrong signals e.g. talking and behaving devoid of good manners and right conduct, it is not surprising their children will be their carbon copies. But when the parents have strong sense of responsible parenthood, they will do their best to become effective role models by behaving in acceptable manners. 
• Spiritual self is the inner self who is endowed with peace of mind. The man who consistently behaves and lives in accordance with the dictates of good and clear conscience enjoys peace of mind. Never will a man experience happiness and contentment if he has disturbed and bothered conscience. What a man needs is peace of mind, that is, free from worries, stress, anxieties.