When the word “spirituality” is pronounced, many people have a desire to stand at attention and at the same time … some kind of awkwardness. Perhaps the fact is that most often with pathos (but without explaining what, in fact, they are talking about) this word is used by people who are not marked with a special stamp of spirituality. Those with whom this word is most associated do not speak of spirituality in this way.
Today, many equate spirituality with religiosity. With her, the situation is clearer: more than half of the adult population of our country call themselves Orthodox. But the vast majority of them, firstly, do not go to church and rarely observe rituals; secondly, they do not differ at all from unbelievers in their values and behavior, by no means setting an example of love for their neighbor to others, and, thirdly, they somehow manage to consistently combine faith in Christ with faith in the evil eye, black magic, karma and fan Shui. There remain about 10 percent for whom Orthodoxy is something more than a pretentious word.
But even if you take only sincere faith, you still get a discrepancy. The Bolsheviks destroyed people in the name of the highest spiritual values (I’m quite serious) — justice, equality and liberated labor; inquisition — in the name of faith; the American army in Iraq — in the name of democracy… There are no such spiritual values, in the name of which bloody crimes were not committed. In this case, the highest example of spirituality must be recognized as a shahid-terrorist, who is ready to sacrifice both others and himself for his faith.
However, it is important (and this is even the most important) not so much what exactly guides you, but how. The opposite of spirituality is not so much materialism as fanaticism. All the people whom humanity recognized as true spiritual teachers did not preach only one “genuine” truth, but, on the contrary, taught to think, choose and doubt. There is an ancient wisdom: trust those who seek the truth, and flee from those who claim to have found it. In a more modern formulation (by Alexander Galich): beware, friends, of the one who says «I know how to do it.» People of true spirituality understood and understand the main thing: the relativity of any truths, the unpredictability of life and the impossibility of pre-setting a program for the entire foreseeable future by inscribing a slogan on a banner under which columns marching into bright distances will line up. Genuine spirituality is a sensitivity and receptivity to a wide range of values, but not a predetermined choice between them. This is a constant search for meaning, but not finding the final meaning once and for all, stopping spiritual growth.
And the bearers of the absolute «spiritual truth» could only be pitied. If only they hadn’t littered her statement with corpses.