JiyanLu - Week9

Week 9

Religions and spirituality have not only provided the humans the support system, but it also has given the meaning for their existence. Since the inception of humans, the philosophical quest tried to address the question of the purpose of the world, and several scholars have provided different answers. However, when it comes to spirituality, its only purpose is to make a world a positive and a better place for humans to coexist in harmony and peace. The main theme of Shahjahan’s article is how spiritualism can improve the art of knowing and why it should be included into the academic spaces.

Spirituality itself is the motivational system, which enables the person to keep following the aim knowing that there will be some high power that will help in the low moments. The prospects of an individual experiencing the level of anxiety are lower as they anticipate that if they continue to do hard work, their reward is guaranteed with supernatural being’s bestowment. Therefore, through the example of personal life, the author establishes that the world is in despair without spirituality. The quest for knowledge based on validity and quantitative methodology has mold the thought process in all domains of human experience. What they practice in academies become the part of the cognitive thinking process. Spiritualism is beyond empirical reasoning, and therefore, it has become restrictive in academic spaces.

However, it is worth noting that the world and life is not only for empirical, valid, and logical reasoning. Neither feelings or thoughts can be always empirical and measured on the validity scale. Spiritualism provides the art of knowing such nuances, which helps individuals to attain peace and, as Shahjahan said, not become “robots.” Therefore, spiritualism should be provided space in the academies, if not for research, for the purpose of cherishing life in a meaningful way or as a method of healing inner self.  

Work Cited

  Shahjahan, Riyad. “Spirituality in the Academy: Reclaiming from the Margins and Evoking a Transformative Way of Knowing the World.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 18, no. 6, 2005.

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