Spiritual Journey

Religion comes to mind when the word "spiritual" is used. The elements of spirituality are well included into the notion of spiritual terminology, with a strong engagement of different groups' traditions and cultural activities. Ancient communities created various ways to respect their gods while also believing in the reality of supernatural creatures. These beings took the shape of spirits, therefore the term spiritual. Individuals would congregate in shrines and other 'holy' locations to worship and give thanks for a bountiful harvest and prosperous commercial activities. Furthermore, people thought that when they went to war, these supernatural spirits would guide them to victory.Every member of the community was to respect and honor these gods as stipulated in their local worshipping rules.

Over time, man has devised ways of worship with a considerable amount of changes being seen in the modern spiritual setup. New religions have been born, others have split while others have been improved much more to accommodate the ever-changing environment. Researchers have not put anything to chance and have therefore provided mechanisms that directly determine religion. Religious activities such as church-going, giving offerings, and other behavioral actions have been and have continued to be considered the primary determinants of a person's spiritual belief. Religion has also been a subject of specialized clothing where members of a specific religious faith are expected to follow the norms. This paper will provide a brief history of religion, state the major existing religions, and also provide a framework for significant religious practices and beliefs. I will explain how religion has been used to brainwash peoples minds to compel them to certain ideas. Finally, I will provide the impact of religion on the social, political and economic structures of communities.

Brief History of Spirituality

Human religious and spiritual experiences have been profoundly ignored by mainstream psychotherapeutic principles, except for the times it has been used for psychosocial support (Kasprow and Scotton 13). Religious studies have been maintained on the discipline of psychology, characterized by an active contribution of psychologists from both social and cultural perspectives (Hill 51). Hill points out how big the literature of religion is. Scholars have not been able to completely cover the entire field since faith has grown over time to incorporate persistent and pervasive practices. Spirituality has been defined in several ways by ancient and modern psychologists.

Most popular definitions base their explanations on the theory that human being’s belief there is a more powerful universal spirit operating on each corner of the world that is greater than human understanding. A sense of harmony as a result of living in unity is developed and realization of importance of human life to further enhancement of individual characteristics. It is a way to appreciate, discover the importance and realize comfort and internal peace within yourself and the surrounding. (Hill 51). Despite the direct correlation of religion and spirituality, other cultural practices such as art and music can create an individual’s own belief. Individuals additionally discover a broad sense of being through showing of compassion and selflessness, benevolence, and realization of self-generated peace. Religion and spirituality are considered to develop over some period, often in a lifespan of a generation or individual.

The natural progression of an individual in understanding the supreme being is viewed as a significant knowledge acquired while growing up. For instance, a Christian child is taught to recognize God from a tender age. Through the Bible, a kid is taught to believe that there is God apart from understanding himself and the world. Christianity is considered one of the oldest religion in the history of humanity. Discovered in the early times, a Christian is expected to practice societal norms of love, forgiveness, respect, humility, appreciation, and condemnation of evil. Despite being fueled by emotions, as believers, we are expected to act in the highest degree of self-control regarding any matters of decision making (Hill 54). The same concept is nearly the same across different beliefs across the world.

Spiritual Concept

Back in the sixteenth-century missionaries was popularly used to spread Christianity all over the world. The United States is considered to be the source of Christian values around the globe. The ancient beliefs have evolved into a rationalized human who believes every individual has their right to choose their religion according to their spirituality. The world constitutes of a variety of people from different cultural and traditional backgrounds. Despite Christianity being a dominant religion, them exists Islamic religion that has the second largest followers. Muslims also have specialized norms that they follow strictly. The Islamic faith has borrowed a lot from Christianity, like their way of dressing. Their kids go to Madrassa which can be likened Sunday School by Christian Kids. Just like Christians Muslims believe in one supreme being, God and Mohammed was his prophet, equivalent to Jesus for Christians. One major difference between these religious kingpins is the customary use of holy books. Christians base their teachings on their bible while their counterparts use the Quran. Scholars have studied both books and have often concluded that they contain good life teachings.

The existence of heaven and hell is a common feature across all religions. Hell considered a dangerous place where wrongdoers go while heaven is likened to paradise where all the good people who live and abide by God teachings go. All sinners would eventually go to hell, and no single person wished to be one. Growing up, the believe became universal and everyone was aware of the same. The major spiritual divides believe the same.

Spirituality and Health

In the journal "Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation, health, and well-being," Fenelon and Danielsen provide a detailed approach of how spirituality determines with the well-being of an adult human being. Being a common phenomenon in recent time, scholars have studied the consequences that accompany affiliation of religion and health. As a result, adults have opted to change their faith with the belief that they will be of better health while in a particular religion (Fenelon and Danielsen 49). Religious disaffiliations have become much more common in the United States following increased reports of among Americans. It is therefore believed that spirituality plays a significant role in health that it was perceived initially by the medical community. In addition to being healthy, religious individuals are considered to be happier than nonreligious people (Fenelon and Danielsen 53).

Research by Fenelon and Danielsen show that economic and demographical contrasts between religious members and disaffiliates give a point by point socio-statistic portrayal of people by religious disaffiliation conduct. Compared to religious individuals, disaffiliates are more youthful, most likely male, less likely to be married, and are all the more financially advantaged. They have a higher socio-economic achievement, higher livelihoods, they are visibly mobile, and will probably originate from successful guardians. Then again, disaffiliates will probably have encountered family problems and dissatisfaction at a younger age (Fenelon and Danielsen 53). Dezutter et al. researched to examine contributions of religious attitudes, religious involvement and spiritual predisposition in recognition of mental health. Results affirmed that distinctions in religious states of mind and orientations are essential than contrasts in religious participation. Religious attitudes and orientations significantly affected Psychological Distress while Church Attendance and Belief Salience demonstrated no such impact.

Evidence of the idea of good health and prosperity disintegrates just for the individuals who disaffiliate, which has an intriguing end product as for different types of social help, especially spousal help. Most investigations of marital focus and health contrast separated and widowed people with the consistently married, demonstrating that the two sorts of spousal misfortune are related with enduring decreases in wellbeing, which are regularly credited to diminishments in social help (Fenelon and Danielsen 58). In any case, in later years separated and widowed people frequently report poorer wellbeing than the individuals who never wed, showing that there is something interesting about the loss of social help that lessens wellbeing. This is an imperative hypothetical commitment in the writing on religious connection and wellbeing, showing that the social help getting from religious contribution is critical for wellbeing, and health may endure if ties are critical

Dezutter believes that religious demeanors and orientations speak to further established predispositions which are less corrupted by relevant elements and which are more characteristic of a person’s general working than the moderately surface parts of religious inclusion. These outcomes additionally add to an extensive developing research demonstrating that whether individuals are religiously included is minimal to their prosperity than their hidden attitudes and orientations (Dezutter et al. 816).



Touch Healing

The systems that might be associated with intervening the impacts of Healing Touch, stay theoretical as the unpretentious energies that may frame a segment of the biofield. They have started to be dependably and effectively measured only recently, constituting a zone for future investigation. Albeit electromagnetic fields produced by the body being promptly perceivable, a maintaining "life power" or chi, which is a fundamental segment of biofield treatments, still can't seem to be sufficiently measured or portrayed. Different systems exist for envisioning the biofield anyway, it stays vague what is being distinguished or captured. Despite the fact that the quantifiable electromagnetic fields created by the body likely are a part of the biofield and assume a part in interceding the impacts of biofield treatments, it stays indistinct in the matter of how and regardless of whether these electromagnetic fields are influenced by Healing Touch and other biofield treatments.

A proceeded with examination of particular biomarkers related with the anxiety and unwinding reaction frameworks would help in deciding the effect of biofield treatments on physiology (Anderson and Taylor 227). Conversely, there is a widespread belief among staunch Christians that a sick person can get better after a series of prayers. This act has gained much popularity with believers supporting their actions with evidence. Masses of people have claimed to be healed after being prayed for attributing the law to pure faith. Sick individuals are only urged to have faith in God to treat them. The scenario is likened to Jesus when He performed miracles, of raising the dead and healing the sick. Some denominations go to the extent of trying to resurrect dead people citing God's miracles cannot be underestimated. Despite the fact that biofield treatments are among the most antiquated of healing remedies, theoretical measurement of the strategies, systems, security, and viability of biofield treatments, for example, Healing Touch is as yet constrained. This absence of professional skill gives the catalyst to creating sound logical research that will show both the adequacy and the remedial capability of Healing Touch

Transpersonal Nature of Spirituality

James Williams is considered the father of transpersonal psychology, engineered the psychological research of spiritual tendencies in the various fields of religious practices. Williams provided that experiences of spiritual nature should be viewed and judged depending on their effect on people other than their specific research, religious nature or cultural affiliation (Kasprow and Scotton 13).

On the premise of this examination, there is now popular hypothesis of identity and improvement. In it, he proposed a chain of importance of requirements and inspirations, starting with the most essential physiological drives for nourishment, water, and oxygen and coming full circle in the rise of a drive toward self-completion and self-amazing quality and the disintegration of distraction with the worries of the sense of self. In later life, Maslow refined his order of requirements into a three-stage model of advancement: an inadequacy persuaded arrange, a humanistic propelled organize, and a supernaturally motivated section. As Kasprow focuses out, this model suspects and nearly parallels the transpersonal display (Kasprow and Scotton 14).

The idea of the transpersonal error presents the need of health ego of self-improvement as an essential factor for valuable transpersonal encounter: without it one can't incorporate such encounters and is in danger of mental breakdown and psychological relapse. intensively, character improvement is encouraged in other non-Western intelligence conventions that utilize different strategies to actuate transpersonal states. Regularly the participant must experience broad self-improvement and good preparation before setting the strategies, as a protection against spiritual problems (Kasprow and Scotton 15).



Self-Spiritual Actualization

In Osborne's depiction, the plateau is described as one decision among a significant number of occupying and cooperating with the figurative mountain—decisions. few acknowledge regardless of the discomfort of the plain. He portrays this picture trying to separate the terms holy person, spiritualist, start, yogi, and sage (Osborne 92), utilizing the mountain way as a portrayal for the different means in which one can achieve Self-acknowledgment, i.e., ''finish disintegration of the mixed-up conviction that there ever was some other than-Self in you'' (Osborne 97). consequently he states, in following the lessons of his master Sri Bhagavan ''there are no phases on this way'' (Osborne 95), reflecting Maslow's understanding of the level as a heavenly body of remarkable encounters Osborne likewise declares that albeit one might be honored with looks of unadulterated Self-acknowledgment, past all states, which will suffuse and illuminate as long as he can remember Realization isn't ordinarily unchangeable when initially achieved (Osborne 95), a remark that offers similarity with Maslow's perception that pinnacle encounters are transient and level encounters expect work to settle.

Osborne infuses fresh impulse into a truly necessary alteration, one that would help the more noteworthy task of enhancing Maslow's work on self-actualization, including the level involvement, to more extensive consideration. He focuses on the gravity of understanding the shadow side of self-appreciation, particularly in light of expanding religious terrorism and fear based oppression in the 21st century, and contends the requirement for standing up to a portion of the less-created zones of self-extraordinary research (Gruel 58). He affirms that the truly necessary remedy to Maslow's hypothesis—one that perceives deep sense of being as a fundamental measurement of the human condition—would aid an all the more socially mindful brain science.

According to Dezutter et al., the restricted predictable estimation of the religious orientations is because of the way that the hidden objectives and motives are significant only to religious individuals, and are not suited to portray non-religious people's motivational position towards spirituality. Future research on the religion– psychological well-being affiliation is essential. A first proposal is to analyze the bearing of impacts in the relationship between religious attitudes and psychological health. In this regard, the cross-sectional nature of our examination is an imperative impediment and cross-slacked lengthy research is required. Such an examination would enable one to look at whether emotional condition predicts individuals religious attitude and orientations and which segments of psychological well-being are critical in the above regard (Dezutter et al. 816).

If Maslow was still alive, it would be hard to state in which direction he would have taken his ''unfinished symphony'' of the level understanding and what affect a managed center may have had for request, research, and application in the different branches of brain research and past. It is additionally fascinating to contemplate what he would have made of the present world, its occupants, and our inclination (or scarcity in that department) for achieving ideal prosperity inside ourselves and for each other. One of Maslow's most noteworthy presents for us is maybe his unbounded positive thinking in humankind's ability to encounter something exceptional in the conventionality of regular day to day existence. His accentuation on regarding the characteristic procedures of the human mind and unfurling of life stay critical indications of how to be all the more completely human, quirks and all, in a consistently expanding engineered and complex world (Gruel 60).





Social-Economic Impacts of Spirituality

The spiritual structure represented by Christianity composes strong practices and procedures that have been in place since ancient civilizations. The protestants, Catholics and orthodox exercise varied practices which distinguish their kinship from the others. Most of these kinships for instance recognize baptism as being born spiritually. Believers are baptized and given Christian names. Ancient believers as portrayed in the bible offered animal offerings in shrines as a means of pleasing the Supreme being. Modern day offerings are in form of money and related resources that vary in value. Modern Religion has been highly commercialized to the extent that there has been an emergence of class among the congregation. These developments have reduced trust in the undertakings of the church causing some Christian faithful to move to other denominations.

Conclusion

The features of spiritual journey are numerous and differential. They extend from close passing background to mysterious union, from soaring in conditions of religious light to shamanic excursions to the progenitor world, from taking off through skies loaded with heavenly music to riding forms of sound, from experiencing profound scenes to soaring through the passage that interfaces the physical world to higher universes of being. In the past, spiritual journey may have been considered a dark type of supernatural quality on one hand, or as "astral projection" on the other. The enthusiasm for it was extremely constrained. Be that as it may, the current enthusiasm for the indigenous religions of innate people groups, which incorporates shamanic encounter, has included another class of involvement to the rundown, and a specific respectability to the classification. Likewise, the tremendous enthusiasm for close demise encounter has incredibly extended the familiarity with profound travel and out-of-body understanding as an important type of otherworldly investigation.

It is in this setting of distance from the spiritual world that a few Christians anticipate and even look to achieve the apocalypse all together that they be "raptured" or taken into paradise. Essentially, a few Muslims confer suicide as a demonstration of religious war to achieve paradise. Notwithstanding when such occasions realize so much evident demise, enduring, and annihilation, they are alluring in light of the fact that they are accepted to likewise achieve otherworldly profound experience and quick grand salvation. The inspirations for the two gatherings are mind boggling however absolutely one essential inspiration is the edgy want for the otherworldly experience of paradise, and obliteration of the earth as well as the physical body is just a way to this eminent end.





























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