Spirituality is the biggest secret for the mankind. It remained unexplained despite of all religions and spiritual practices. The prophets explained them in words, but the people made religion out of the Word without understanding the true meaning of the message. They followed the words like Gospel Truth and made a religion out of the spiritual message. The philosophers too tried to explain spirituality and wrote thousands of books like Upanishads, Gita etc but they too failed as people could not understand these deep philosophies.

Scholars too tried to explain spirituality in words and gave a number of definitions for it. Some of the definitions are

• Spirituality is matters of the spirit, a concept tied to a spirit world, a multidimensional reality and one or more deities. ...
•  concern for that which is unseen and intangible, as opposed to physical or mundane; Appreciation for religious values
•  concerned with sacred matters or religion or the church; "religious texts"; "a member of a religious order"; "lords temporal and ...
•  concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul; "a spiritual approach to life"; "spiritual fulfillment"; "spiritual values"; "unearthly love"
•   spiritual - lacking material body or form or substance; "spiritual beings"; "the vital transcendental soul belonging to the spiritual realm"
•  Having to do with deep, often religious, feelings and beliefs, including a person’s sense of peace, purpose, connection to others and beliefs about the meaning of life.

These definitions do not throw any light on spirituality. It is because, they either uses another (unexplained) term like religious faith, Soul or Spirit to explain spirituality or they explain it by stating what it is not i.e. matter.

Spirituality remains unexplained since it is nonmaterial and hence can’t be proven. It can’t be taught since; its value can not be demonstrated immediately to the disciple just like the taste of a fruit ca not be explained to person who have never tasted the fruit. Yet it can be understood easily by analogy and inferences by using one’s intuition.

The Curly Tail of a Dog

Swami Vivekananda once tried to explain spiritualism by narrating a story

There was a poor man who wanted some money; and somehow he had heard  that if he could get hold of a ghost, he might command him to bring money or anything else he liked; so he was very anxious to get hold of a ghost. He went about searching for a man who would give him a ghost, and at last he found a sage with great powers, and besought his help. The sage asked him what he would do with a ghost. "I want a ghost to work for me; teach me how to get hold of one, sir; I desire it very much," replied the man. But the sage said, "Dont disturb yourself, go home." The next day the man went again to the sage and began to weep and pray, "Give me a ghost; I must have a ghost, sir, to help me." At last the sage was disgusted, and said, "Take this charm, repeat this magic word, and a ghost will come, and whatever you say to him he will do. But beware; they are terrible beings, and must be kept continually busy. If you fail to give him work, he will take your life." The man replied, "That is easy; I can give him work for all his life." Then he went to a forest, and after long repetition of the magic word, a huge ghost appeared before him, and said, "I am a ghost. I have been conquered by your magic; but you must keep me constantly employed. The moment you fail to give me work I will kill you." The man said, "Build me a palace,", and the ghost said, "It is done; the palace is built." "Bring me money," said the man. "Here is your money," said the ghost. "Cut this forest down, and build a city in its place." "That is done," said the ghost, "anything more?" Now the man began to be frightened and thought he could give him nothing more to do; he did everything in a trice. The ghost said, "Give me something to do or I will eat you up." The poor man could find no further occupation for him, and was frightened. So he ran and ran and at last reached the sage, and said, "Oh, sir, protect my life!" The sage asked him what the matter was, and the man replied, "I have nothing to give the ghost to do. Everything I tell him to do he does in a moment, and he threatens to eat me up if I do not give him work." Just then the ghost arrived, saying, "Ill eat you up," and he would have swallowed the man. The man began to shake, and begged the sage to save his life. The sage said, "I will find you a way out. Look at that dog with a curly tail. Draw your sword quickly and cut the tail off and give it to the ghost to straighten out." The man cut off the dogs tail and gave it to the ghost, saying, "Straighten that out for me." The ghost took it and slowly and carefully straightened it out, but as soon as he let it go, it instantly curled up again. Once more he laboriously straightened it out, only to find it again curled up as soon as he attempted to let go of it. Again he patiently straightened it out, but as soon as he let it go, it curled up again. So he went on for days and days, until he was exhausted and said, "I was never in such trouble before in my life. I am an old veteran ghost, but never before was I in such trouble." "I will make a compromise with you;" he said to the man, "you let me off and I will let you keep all I have given you and will promise not to harm you." The man was much pleased, and accepted the offer gladly.

Swami Vivekananda then explained that this world is like a dogs curly tail, and people have been striving to straighten it out since; but when they let it go, it has curled up again. How could it be otherwise?

Spiritualism is Accepting Reality

The civilized men tried to make the world straight by defining what is right and what is wrong. In religions, man has defined what is good and what is evil. The acts too were divided into virtues and sins. The modern secular world created laws based on human values and divided all actions into legal or illegal and then devised a criminal justice to punish the people who do illegal acts.

A man starts learning the duality of the world since his childhood and he has been asked to make distinction between right and wrong. He also learns to follow the right path and shun the wrong path. He is explained that world must be good just like many people would like to believe that the tail of the dog must be straight. Some people even spend their life in making the tail straight. However, the tail remains curly despite of all effort but the men themselves become curly or evil in the process.

However, a spiritual man understands the truth of nature and the design of God like a scientist understand the reality of the universe. A Spiritual person like a scientist does not question why there is rain, floods, earthquakes, death, misery, illness or pain. He does not cry over the gravitational force, hot and humid weather as he knows that the reality exists for whatever reason. He rather tries to understand the reality so that he can find ways and means to make the life of the self and humanity better.

Just like there is nothing good and evil in the dictionary of a scientist, there is nothing good and evil in dictionary of a spiritual person. He understands the reality and follows the path that leads him to his goal of life.

The Universal Laws of Spirituality

The first goal of a scientist is to understand the laws of universe and discover the universal constant. For example, he has understood that the same gravitational force is the cause of all attractions that exists between material things. Hence he measures this constant called “G” i.e. “universal gravitational constant” by first using the matters known to him. Then he uses the same laws to measure the masses and distances of Sun, Moon and other stars. The scientists have discovered a number of such universal constants and universal laws from experiments and used them to measure the things and predict the events not only at the micro level of electrons but also at the Macro level of galaxies.

Similar spiritual laws have been discovered by the Prophets, Sheers and Spiritual leaders over thousands of years. These laws had been tested by the humanity across the world which consisted of diverse culture, religions, races and nationalities. These laws had been found to be true. The biggest test of the truth is that they continue to exist and believed even after thousands of years when no scientific theory can remain unaltered even for few decades.

Man is a Spiritual Animal

Jesus has summarized the true nature of man is very simple words when He said, “It is written, Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4). All people understand this truth when they realize that all material wealth and power does not make them happy and complete. They realize sooner or later that only by following the path of goodness and shunning the path of evil and temptation, they can realize happiness and peace in their life. This is the path of spirituality, which can be discovered only when one decides to move on this path. The earlier man discovers this path, the better it is for the mankind.