In the 2005 book A New Earth, spiritual writer and teacher Eckhart Tolle speaks of the arising of a collective spiritual awakening affecting humans on a global scale.
Dr Anna Halafoff , coordinator of the Spirituality and Wellbeing Research Network at Deakin University, and an associate professor of sociology, says many prophecies exist that we’re coming into a time when more of us are becoming aware of our spiritual potential and the importance of living in harmony with one another.
Prophecies aside, evidence suggests there may be rising interest in thinking about the spiritual side of life. A 2021 McCrindle report, Australia’s Changing Spiritual Climate, found during Covid, 47 per cent of Australians surveyed were spending more time mulling over the meaning of life and their own mortality. Thirty-three per cent were thinking more about God. Interestingly, youth led the way, being much more likely to have partaken in spiritual conversations and thoughts, Bible reading and praying, than their elders.
Research by Dr Halafoff and her colleagues shows significant percentages of young Australians in generation Z identify as spiritual. She relates this to the fact spirituality has gone mainstream. “You see it in popular culture,” she says. “You see references to spirituality — crystal shops or mushroom elixirs being sold in cafes in menus that look like spell books, the popularity of astrology, for example, or a concept like karma showing up in a Taylor Swift song.”
Partly, this is due to the intertwining of spirituality with wellness, which in itself has grown exponentially. “A lot of the things that people are doing now for their health and wellbeing have connections and origins to some spiritual movements, knowledges and ideas,” Dr Halafoff says.
But some of us don’t associate spirituality with downward-facing dog or mushrooms. Others don’t want to step inside a church. Given the variety of opinions and experiences, what is spirituality, exactly?
Defining the spiritual
Spirituality differs from person to person — which is why it can be such a source of conflict and contention. Our view can also change over the course of our lives.
In its broadest sense, Dr Halafoff defines it as a sense of connection with something greater than oneself. “So that could be with some kind of consciousness, with the universe or with the more than human natural world,” she says.
A definition cited by Spiritual Care Australia describes spirituality as intrinsic to humans and how we seek and find meaning, purpose and transcendence as well as experience relationships to ourselves, others, nature and the significant or sacred. Typical spiritual questions and topics concern death, life’s meaning, our identity and purpose, how to transcend suffering, loss and death.
A common spiritual concept is the belief in an immaterial, immortal “soul” or “higher self”. Rumi, the 13th-century Sufi mystic, described this part of us as an “essence” of “pure consciousness … born from the rays of God’s majesty.”
Spirituality in Australia
What we ultimately believe and how we engage in spirituality is heavily influenced by our culture. Research by Dr Halafoff and her colleagues shows there are three main types of spirituality we tend to turn to in Australia.
Indigenous spirituality is practised by Indigenous communities and is place based and diverse from community to community. Research shows there’s an increased interest in Indigenous culture, knowledge and spirituality, Dr Halafoff says.
Religious spirituality involves following a religion or deity, such as Christianity, Islam or Hinduism. It’s usually more institutional and organised and, typically, it’s equated with a connection to God, the universe or nature. “There’s that more kind of interior relationship that people build with supernatural forces, alongside devotion to a religious faith,” Dr Halafoff says.
Holistic spirituality as it’s known by academics, is an eclectic spirituality popular in the West today. It draws upon the spiritual knowledge of Indigenous societies, the counter-culture revolution (of the 60s and 70s), associated with hippies, peace, love, Buddhist and Hindu teachings, and the New Age movement of the 1990s with its fusion of spirituality with wellness and harmony with nature.
Nature Connection
Environmentalism and the green movement are viewed by some as a new religion with its own deity (Mother Gaia), morality and sense of guilt/sin (arising from growing awareness of environmental issues).
Dr Halafoff says there’s increased interest in nature connection in Australia and globally — there isn’t necessarily a spiritual motive attached to this, but there can be. She attributes this trend to the stress and pressure of modern life and our need to create a more harmonious, peaceful self and world. Data shows females in particular are aff ected by these stresses, Dr Halafoff says. They’re also more likely to pursue a spiritual practice than males.
There’s also a lot of crossover that occurs between the different streams of spirituality, Dr Halafoff adds. We may, for example, practise religion based spirituality alongside permaculture and meditation, crystals and astrology.
Spiritual Awakening
Dr Halafoff says research shows interest in the spiritual dimension of life is often triggered by a significant life event that involves suffering. This inevitably leads us to ask the big questions in life, she says. “Often, people in this case turn to some of these spiritual, religious texts and teachers to help provide some of those answers.”
In A New Earth, Tolle examines how old age, illness, disability, personal tragedy and other forms of loss weaken attachment to our outer form. He frames this positively as an opportunity for inner and outer transformation through spiritual awakening to the existence of our higher self and a higher power, creator or consciousness. According to Tolle, this process can help free us from the suffering inherent in living within our emotions and the ego survivor brain, helping us to discover the inner peace and joy of being. Central to this idea is the Buddhist]
philosophy of life as suffering, dissatisfaction, impermanence and illusion and the Christian concept of sin and salvation, Tolle says. This spiritual awakening has variously been described within religious and spiritual traditions as rebirth, consciousness, enlightenment, liberation, truth and more.
On a less intense level, Dr Halafoff says spiritual awakening can also come about through our curiosity, reading or exploration, life stress or connections to others wit