(In this article we tackle how Millennials see spirituality and how the generation which will rule the world going forward may use Spirituality to stay relevant)
The Millennial generation i.e., those born between roughly 1981 and 1997 accounts for 27% of the world population or about 2 billion people. Now that’s an astounding figure when you consider that this so-called millennial would be at the prime of their careers or on the verge of entering in to it and it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the world would be led by them in the near future. Millennials are uniquely positioned if you consider the idea in psychology known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which states that we are motivated by five basic categories of needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. Now for millennial’s 3 needs basically Physiological, safety and love already seems to be taken care by their parents/predecessors and Esteem and Self-Actualization is what likely seems to keep the millennials on their toes.
I as a millennial think that Spirituality may be the vehicle that may drives us towards our end goal. Before going forward lets first address the difference between Spirituality and Spiritualism with which people are extremely confused with. In fact, truth be told before writing this article I also wasn’t aware that these two words are not synonymous. Apparently, Spirituality exists within the mind of a person. It is a condition or a state that is achieved by a person, may be after a long period of attempts and trials. Spiritualism, on the other hand, is a belief that the spirit of the dead has the ability and prefers to communicate with the living. Another Misconception people have is that a religious person is also a very spiritual person. There is no doubt a correlation between them as the path to spirituality can be covered using the vehicle of religion. But religion can be described as a set of organized beliefs & practices, usually shared by a community or group but on the other hand Spirituality is more of an individual practice, and has to do with having a sense of peace and purpose.
I too have a very vague idea about spirituality actually is and kind of relate it to as wishful thinking. It wouldn’t be wrong to say we become extremely spiritual(temporarily) a day before the exam, just before entering the interview hall or just after a breakup. We also sometimes associate spirituality with loneliness. In today’s materialistic world its very easy to stay aloof from Spirituality. Successful celebrities have known to be very spiritual side to it and at the same time their offspring’s who have been born with silver spoons have shown an absence of that clarity regarding spirituality.
As I grow older and learn from experience, I can describe Spirituality as something which cannot be taught through a subject, instead learnt from being more kind, being self-compassionate and being hopeful.
As discussed earlier, Spiritualism on the other hand has been seen much curiosity by Millennials which deals with paranormal activities. Ghosts, spirit calling etc. is now been seen with much interest which is manifested in rising followers in Facebook pages, Instagram channels. Without going to debate where this could lead to, we should keep ourself to concentrate on our inner spirituality and not get to much engrossed in Spiritualism.
Recent memory serves us the example of Virat Kohli, the Great Indian Cricketer who had a torrid time in the recent past and used spirituality as a tool to do what he does best and is been seen as one of the best comebacks.At the end of the day, we as humans have a particular motive which we aim to achieve in our finite time in this world and we could use the path of spirituality to gain unseen heights and unprecedented success towards what we are doing.
Jai Jagannath
