Spiritual living is a method of conducting one's actions, attitudes, and behaviors with spiritual awareness and mindfulness of thought. An individual who practices spiritual living does not necessarily have to follow any one religion or denomination; in fact, many who conduct their lives according to these ideas don't identify with a set religion. Living one's life with openness, presence of mind and thought and an awareness of spiritual principles forms the basis of spiritual living.
All human beings are faced with a choice, according to spiritual living. An individual can choose either a materialistic life or a life guided by spiritual principles. When a person makes a conscious decision to undertake spiritual living, he or she has made a choice to embark on a spiritual journey, seeing the world with a sensitivity to spiritual significance and how that significance can inform and shape his or her mindful living practice.
Living mindfully, sometimes referred to as conscious living, is the art of living in the present moment. Since society can sometimes pressure an individual to constantly plan, prepare, dream, and remember, this can be much easier said than done. When someone lives in the present moment, however, he or she is though to be dealing only with the issues and concerns that are arising and passing away in that one moment. This results in a greater awareness of the world around him or her and sensitivity to the needs of both the individual and the surrounding world.
Spiritual living entails viewing the world as something larger than the sum of its parts. While practitioners may not follow a defined religion or spiritual practice, they tend to see all life as interconnected, springing from the same source, be it a god, nature, or the cosmos, and facing the same types of joys and challenges. Spiritual living adherents strive to make the world a better place through investigation of the self and one's relationship to others.
These principles of the spiritual life have their roots in nearly all major world religions and spiritual practices. Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Paganism are just a few religious belief systems that espouse these basic virtues. What spiritual living does, in essence, is remove the dogma and more restrictive aspects of religious devotion, making the practice a living, breathing entity that can be easily incorporated into one's daily life. This idea has also been supported by countless philosophers and academicians throughout the ages.
