Your Body is your Temple

Inside:

* What to eat to boost your memory.

* What good and bad fat can do to your diet.

* Ways to help your child fight childhood obesity.

* What causes us to age?

* What is a healthy diet?
And much more…

Your Body is your Temple

Spirituality is relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material. Synonyms include immaterialism, dualism, incorporeality and eternity. Spirituality is associated with religion, deities, the supernatural, and an afterlife, although the decline of organized religion in the West and the growth of secularism has brought about a wider understanding of its nature.

While the terms spirituality and religion are sometimes used interchangeably, an important distinction exists between them. Traditionally, religions have regarded spirituality as an integral aspect of their religious experience and have long arrogated spirituality for themselves; claiming true spirituality cannot be experienced by the secular (non-religious). Declining membership of organised religions in the western world, however, has given rise to a broader view of spirituality. Those who speak of spirituality, outside of religion, often define themselves as "spiritual but not religious" and generally believe in the existence of many different "spiritual paths" - the emphasis being on the importance of finding one's own individual path to spirituality. According to one poll, some 24±4% of the United States population identifies itself as spiritual but not religious.

Secular spirituality also carries connotations of an individual having a spiritual outlook which is more personalized, less structured, more open to new ideas/influences, and more pluralistic than that of the doctrinal faiths of organized religions. At one end of the spectram, even some atheists claim to be spiritual; Whilst atheism tends to lean towards skepticism regarding supernatural claims and the existence of an actual 'spirit', for some atheists being "Spiritual" can be defined as nurturing thoughts, emotions, words and actions that are in harmony with the idea that the entire universe is, in some way, connected; even if only by the mysterious flow of cause and effect at every scale.

In contrast, those of a more 'New-Age' disposition, whilst not regarding spirituality as religion per se, see it as the active connection to some force/power/energy, spirit, facilitating a sense of the deep self. As cultural historian and yogi William Irwin Thompson (1938 - ) put it, "Religion is not identical with spirituality; rather religion is the form spirituality takes in civilization." (1981, 103)

For some, spirituality includes introspection, and the development of an individual's inner life through practices such as meditation, prayer and contemplation. Some modern religions also see spirituality in everything: see pantheism and neo-Pantheism. In a similar vein, Religious Naturalism has a spiritual attitude towards the awe, majesty and mystery seen in the natural world.

For a Christian, to refer to him or herself as "more spiritual than religious" may (but not always) imply relative deprecation of rules, rituals, and tradition while preferring an intimate relationship with God. The basis for this belief is that Jesus Christ came to free humankind from those rules, rituals, and traditions, giving humankind the ability to "walk in the spirit" thus maintaining a "Christian" lifestyle through that one-to-one relationship with God.

Spirit in the sense of 'essence' implies that spirituality also is how you deal with the 'essential' in life. The metaphysical includes deeper realizations about the relationships between things - it is non-physical, but not necessarily supernatural (cosmology is a part of metaphysics for example). Buddhism, Taoism, and ancient Greek Stoicism all have worldviews which need not include supernatural realms or transcendent phenomena. If you have a path that is sacred, and disciplined on the more profound things about Nature and life, has ritual, and so on, but is all based on a naturalistic understanding of the universe - that is spirituality as well.

Also see: NLP