We all do something all the time: we walk, we read, we work, we buy, we sleep, we eat, we breathe. The totality of all human actions can be combined in one word - activity. But how different are our deeds! Someone cuts the forest, and someone confesses in the temple, someone invents a car, and someone studies art. Some actions are necessary for our body, and without some our soul cannot be satisfied.
What is human spiritual activity?
The concept of spiritual activity came to us from philosophy. It also occurs in theology, which interprets it in much the same way. Spiritual activity is an activity necessary for the spiritual life of a person. Reading books, creating paintings and poems, forming religious (or atheistic!) views, understanding the value system, cultivating other positive (as well as negative) qualities in oneself, exchanging opinions that go beyond frank everyday life - all this refers specifically to spiritual activities.
Spiritual activity is also the process of finding the meaning of life, ways out of difficult situations, defining and understanding such philosophical categories as happiness and love.
Unlike material activities that exist for the sake of changing the surrounding world (construction of new buildings, medical experiments and even the invention of a new salad), spiritual activities are aimed at changing individual and social consciousness. Even mental activity, as a kind of spiritual activity, works towards this ultimate goal, because, thinking about something, a person comes to new conclusions, changes his mind about something or someone, becomes qualitatively better or worse.
Definition problems
Some sources put an equal sign between such concepts as "spiritual life" and "spiritual activity". This is not entirely correct, because the word "life" is so comprehensive that it only includes "activity", but is not limited to it alone.
Do all people on Earth have spiritual activity? This is an ambiguous question, because no matter how many interpretations of the term we read, everyone will understand it in their own way. Those who believe that spiritual activity must necessarily be creative, that is, have some kind of result that is obvious to everyone, can say a categorical “no”. From their point of view, a person who is not interested in anything other than getting money, who does not read books, does not think about the eternal, and does not strive to improve himself in the slightest, does not engage in spiritual activity.
But these skeptics will certainly be objected by those who look at this concept more broadly. They will say that even marginalsand madmen, maniacs and the most cruel murderers are still engaged, without realizing it, in spiritual activity - after all, they at least think, build some images in their heads, set goals, even if they are erroneous, and strive to achieve them. There will be those who will say that even animals, to one degree or another, carry out spiritual activity, because even a kitten, having got into a new home, begins to study it, discovering and learning about the world…
Does it make sense to break spears, trying to find a compromise in the definition of the concept of spiritual value? Probably not. After all, any philosophical concept is also philosophical, which implies a space for reasoning, polar opinions, individual understandings and assessments. And therefore, when defining this term for oneself, one can be content with one of the classical interpretations given in educational and encyclopedic literature. For example: spiritual activity is the activity of consciousness, as a result of which thoughts, images, feelings and ideas arise, some of which subsequently find their material embodiment, and some remain intangible, which does not mean non-existent at all …
