Finding the Fun in Spirituality

Fun and the spiritual life – how do those two concepts go together?

After years spent working in corporate America, followed by dealing with the challenges of trying to run a successful full-time spiritual business at a time when most people did not think it was possible, I sometimes felt that I couldn’t afford to equate spirituality with fun.

These days, however, I often find myself reminding my friends and clients that living a spiritual life is not about being dour and serious. Instead, being on a spiritual path should bring a person a profound sense of peace and joy. Leading a spiritual life should leave us lighter than the path we were on before, not weigh us down.

Let’s for a moment look back in history at some of the spiritual beings that have walked in human form: Jesus, Buddha, Bodhidharma, Krishna, Gandhi, the present-day Dalai Lama. All could be characterized by their profound and unwavering optimism and joy at the world around them.

Some of my friends’ favorite spiritual stories come from the Zen Buddhist tradition, and as they often point out to me, those stories are full of Zen Masters doing ridiculous, humorous, and otherwise outrageous things just for the sake of a laugh, a smile, and sometimes a moment of spiritual awakening. None of which, to be clear, are mutually exclusive.

Living a spiritual life is about knowing that there is a great purpose to the universe. You, me, the things happening around us, and everything else in creation are all playing a role in that divine purpose. That knowing, that revelation, can release and unburden us from the woes we face.

Spirituality allows us to understand and access the greater divine purpose behind the universe and our lives. That understanding inevitably leads to a divine revelation that we are united with the universe. From that unity comes peace, and from that peace comes laughter.