Falling together

practical spirituality in an impractical world

Paul Schwartzentruber

pp. 407-434

in: Ananta K. Giri (ed), Practical spirituality and human development, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

This chapter attempts to elaborate on the ethical elements of a practical spirituality, in contrast to the traditional religious paradigm of transcendence. It argues that an ethical logic is intrinsic to the concrete situation of praxis in ordinary time in contrast to abstract moral norms or dimensions of sacred time. It develops a model of traditional religious practice and traces its reformation in contemporary secular spiritualities. It concludes by stressing that practical spirituality is always rooted in a traditional context and not in the secular marketplace, but it may be thereby quite radical in its socio-political claims, as is illustrated by Gandhi.