Often we think of areas like spirituality and religion to be fixed by what teachers or prophets set forth in their original philosophies. And while it is true that these figures and their discoveries comprise an essential guide for future students to follow, the ways in which the teachings are understood and applied vary dramatically across time and are heavily influenced by the zeitgeist.

In this article, we’ll consider current trends in spirituality and religion and understand them in the context of 21st-century Western culture and society.

The Democratisation of Yoga and Meditation

A clear trend in the West is the democratisation of millennia-old spiritual practices like yoga and meditation.

Teachers abound, centres are available in every city, and smartphone apps now bring these once-obscure practices to our pockets via guided audios, online meditation classes, masterclasses, and more.

Many lament these changes as being the downfall of authentic spirituality. And while we should continue to safeguard deeper spiritual truth and remember the sacred origins of these practices, we must also keep in mind that their democratisation is a result of the zeitgeist.

The fact is that we live in a whirlwind society. Transport has never been so fast and widely available. Our store of information has never been so abundant and easily accessible. The same with entertainment, hobbies and career options. The world is fast and full of options.

Though these are remarkable developments, they also unsettle us. Fastness leaves us wanting to accomplish more and more, quicker and quicker. The ever-expanding buffet of options leaves us feeling unsatisfied, because we’re aware of how much we’re missing out on. Life begins to drive us crazy.

This is why many are turning to spiritual practices. They realise that despite their material abundance, their interiors are barren. They’re so outer focused that they forget about their health. Eventually they hit crisis point and are forced to change their ways.

We’ve discovered that these practices are powerful for reducing stress, treating mental health problems and bringing us more into the present, and this brings many people to their first meditation or yoga class.

Could it be that things get so fast and available that we reach a catastrophe, an infinite collapse of our attention spans, leaving us no option to abandon fastness and finally realise the problem to our existence is now within, in the realm of psychospiritual growth, not in the material world of creation and consumption?

The Fall of Traditional Religion

Traditional religion continues to fall precipitously in Western countries. Though many celebrate this collapse, it has also brought nefarious effects. So let’s try to understand this phenomenon in the bigger context of the zeitgeist, and its place in the evolutionary path of our species.

There’s no doubt that two key factors are the rise of science and the calamitous impact of fundamentalist ideologies. Science now shows us that Biblical dogma wildly misrepresents the real origins of life. Logic and reason make a mockery of religious stories and myths.

Add to that the fact that during the Middle Ages, and arguably in the First and Second World Wars, religion repeatedly legitimised the most horrific acts of murder, genocide and subjugation.

We now deeply understand that racism, sexism, classism, and all other divisive “isms” are not tolerable or viable if we want to build a peaceful Earth free of all the horrors of the past. Religion inevitably falls off the precipice with these ideologies because it has in many ways legitimised them.

The result is that religion simply doesn’t figure in people’s lives. Their faith, for better or for worse, no longer rests in a transcendent, all-knowing God, but in science and reason.

The rapid demise of fundamentalist religion is shaping our world, our faith and our spirituality in unprecedented ways, and its absence is so apparent in current culture and society.

Continue with Part 2 of Modern Spirituality Understood.