1
The Essentials of Spirituality, by Felix Adler
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Essentials of Spirituality, by Felix Adler This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Essentials of Spirituality
Author: Felix Adler
Release Date: June 30, 2007 [EBook #21981]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESSENTIALS OF SPIRITUALITY ***
Produced by David B. Alexander
THE ESSENTIALS OF SPIRITUALITY
by Felix Adler
The Essentials of Spirituality
The first essential is an awakening, a sense of the absence of spirituality, the realized need of giving to our lives a new and higher quality; first there must be the hunger before there can be the satisfaction.
Similar effects are often produced by widely differing processes. In the psychical world that quality which we call spirituality may be associated with and evoked by Theism, or the belief in a Divine Father; by Pantheism, as in the case of Spinoza, whose face at the very first glance impresses you with its spiritual cast; or even by the Buddhist belief in Nirvana. It may also be attained by following the precepts and striving after the ideals of Ethical Culture. For spirituality is not indissolubly associated with any one type of religion or philosophy; it is a quality of soul manifesting itself in a variety of activities and beliefs.
Before we proceed further, however, we must hazard a defi