MaFulfillment, spirituality, well-being – these words are treated interchangeably in the global health market. But spirituality and well-being are not the same. According to most of the world’s great wisdom traditions, spirituality requires effort, service, and sacrifice.
The world’s major religions — Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam — all encourage practices such as yoga, mindfulness meditation, chanting, prayer and communal singing and dancing that have long been effective ways for believers to experience deep connection, often accompanied by feelings of awe, ecstasy or transcendence, and often renew their faith.
But feeling joy and connection are not ends in themselves; these feelings are emotional motivators for ethical behavior. All religions lay down rules for right conduct: think of the Eightfold Path in Buddhism, the Ten Commandments in Judaism, or the Vedic taboos and observances of Hinduism. Indigenous traditions go beyond these religions, including humans and nonhumans (or “more-than-human beings,” as Potawatomi botanist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer described our partners in nature) in the circle of those we are obligated to serve.
But today’s global wellness industry wants us to believe that spirituality is just another aspect of feeling good. Buddhist practitioner Miles Neal coined the term “McMindfulness” to describe the West’s tendency to extract practices from ancient religious traditions and turn them into “colorfully packaged bite-sized food for mass consumption.” The $1.5 trillion wellness market is trying to sell the health benefits of spirituality divorced from the ethical frameworks within which these practices were developed.
Religious ethical frameworks can be extremely harmful when used to uphold power inequalities in the areas of gender, class, race, and sexual identity. But the use of spiritual practices in the absence of ethical requirements can also be harmful. For example, scientific research has shown that yoga and meditation, rather than calming the ego and encouraging charitable acts of service, may actually increase people’s sense of “spiritual superiority” and lead them to focus on the self.
Evangelical Christian megachurches have grown precisely that: huge, through time-honored practices of choirs, music, and ritual. They generate the experience of “collective enthusiasm” that sociologist Emile Durkheim identified as the basis of religion in 1912. Old problems arise when churches associate such spiritual feelings with intolerance, selfishness, and greed rather than with ethical behavior.
As far back as the 14th century, Christians exploited people’s spiritual feelings to make money, selling “indulgences” for souls in purgatory (God’s waiting room). Martin Luther opposed this practice, saying it reduced people’s ability to give to the poor. In one of the great ironies of religious history, Luther’s theology of a personal connection with God would eventually become the basis of the prosperity gospel of some of today’s megachurches.
Living a spiritual life does not mean strictly following church dogmas, nor does it mean embarking on practices like meditation without a larger context. In fact, yoga means “yoking,” and the type of yoga that is popular in the West is just one way of connecting yourself to something, a consciousness larger than yourself. Other yogas in the Hindu tradition include work, philosophy, study, and acts of service.
I don’t want to be “McMindful.” I don’t want to extract practices from religious traditions and commodify them to give myself a sense of satisfaction. Well, I do want to give myself a sense of satisfaction. But whereas a well-being practice begins and ends there, a spiritual practice should invite me to extend myself beyond “me” and contribute to the wellness of all beings.
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I seek a spirituality that draws on millennia of wisdom and practices and applies these learnings to a contemporary ethical framework that I believe in. If I sit down for 20 minutes a day to cultivate compassion for others, then I intend to get up and act on that feeling by donating, volunteering, and being kind to people I don’t like very much. If I sing every Sunday about how God loves us all, then I intend to translate that love into charitable, nonjudgmental acts of kindness every other day of the week.
I can meditate, do yoga (actually, I’m not good at yoga), or raise my hands in group worship. But I can’t treat these activities and the emotions they produce as ends in themselves. These practices are tools that help me stay focused and develop attitudes and emotions that support me as I try to live an ethical life. Living spiritually is about connecting with the mysteries of life in deep and meaningful ways and acting accordingly.
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Jackie Baillie is the author of The Eulogy, which won the 2023 NSW Premier’s Literary Multicultural Award. When she’s not writing, she helps families navigate death and dying. She is an interfaith minister with a Master’s in Theology, and this article contains excerpts from her forthcoming non-fiction book on global spirituality across religions.
