The spirit denotes the inner self (the being) of a human. And to be spiritual simply means to be aware of one’s being, what we, in common parlance, call the ‘soul’.

Spirituality is a way of leading oneself in life. It is an awareness of my inner being or the true self or the soul. It is a life lead with an awareness of this ‘inner being’, using it as a compass to lead the outer worldly life.

A life that strikes this balance between the inner and the outer is a spiritual life and a person who is able to achieve this balance is a spiritual person.

-It is now necessary to understand as to what is this ‘inner being’ or the ‘soul’.

The inner being or the soul is a clean and clear mirror like slate (called consciousness) that reflects whatever is there on our mind’s (that is the ‘mann’ in hindi language) surface.

Our mind is a faculty given to us by nature that is nothing but a series of thoughts. It’s only duty and function is to think! It helps us to survive in this world by letting us think and lead the outer worldly life.

However, the inherent tendency of mind, over thousands of years of human evolution, due to various factors, has become thinking negative all the time thereby disturbing the natural flow of energy and converting our energy into emotions like anger, depression, worry, anxiety, fear etc. Such is the nature of mind. So, the mind let alone and unattended could wreak havoc! A famous example may be considered that of Adolf Hitler. There are many others!

If the mind is not at work and, therefore, no negative thinking and resulting negative emotions take place inside us, then in that case we could experience the natural flow of energy within us in consonance with our true nature that is love, happiness, bliss, ecstasy, joy and so on.

So if the mind was not at work, or not interfering with the natural flow of energy, we would experience positive emotions like love and joy and would get rid of negativity.

We can’t help mind being there! But we could always help it not interfere with the natural flow of energy within us through meditation.

Meditation gives us a witnessing eye to look within, with which we could very well see what’s happening inside! Looking with this eye we become aware of our true nature that is nothing but ‘the consciousness’. So, we get an instant benchmark to compare what ought to happen and what actually happens. Now it becomes a choice to remain within or without or both at the same time!

-So, a person who has developed this inner witnessing eye through meditation (there is no other way) that he uses as a compass to lead his life in accordance with his true nature is a spiritual person and such a life is a spiritual life and the way in which such a life is lead is called spirituality.