How to characterize a person's spiritual needs?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

Human needs are a lack or need for something necessary for the normal functioning of an individual, a social group and society as a whole. They are an internal stimulus to activity.

Man, being a representative of the animal world, has physiological needs, the satisfaction of which is necessary to maintain security, metabolism, etc.

Identification of spiritual needs

The spiritual needs of a person are the desire to know the world around and their place in it, self-realization, self-improvement, self-knowledge.

This is a type of need, due to the inner world of a person, his desire for self-deepening, concentration on what is not related to social and physiological needs. His satisfaction is facilitated by the study of culture, art, religion, the purpose of which is to understand the higher meaning of existence.

Pyramidneeds

In general, people's needs are often represented as a pyramid. The physiological needs are at its base, and at the top are the spiritual needs of a person. These include: self-expression (in sports, religion, science, art, etc.), communication (rights, duties, etc.), self-assertion (recognition, respect, power, etc.).

This article will take a closer look at this type of human need.

Different classifications of needs

The presence of many different requests is explained by the complexity of human nature, the variety of social and natural conditions in which people exist.

It is difficult to identify stable groups by which needs are classified, but this does not stop researchers. Different authors offer their grounds and motives for classification. For example, K. Obukhovsky, a Polish psychologist, noted that there are currently 120 of them.

Basic Needs

Let's dwell on the classification of basic needs, rather generalized and widespread. Basic needs are those needs that are common to all people. These include: material, biological, spiritual and social. The important thing is that they are arranged in a hierarchical order. In order for spiritual and intellectual needs to appear, it is necessary that the physiological systems in our body function, that is, material and biological ones are satisfied. But not all authors absolutize this dependence.

Definitely, there is a need-satisfaction sequence, but one cannot think that it is absolutelythe same for all individuals. There are cases when the need for spiritual development and creativity turned out to be dominant not after other needs were satisfied (biological, recognition, security, etc.), but when even the basic requirements for housing, food and security were not yet satisfied.

Each of the above needs has a focus on a particular subject, encourages us to take possession of it.

Biological needs require the possession of vital resources, material needs - the material means necessary to satisfy all needs, social needs - forms of communication and communication with other people. The spiritual needs of a person require the mastery of spirituality.

What is spirituality? Consciousness and spirituality are the same order of concepts. However, not all consciousness is spiritual. For example, a worker who performs certain operations on a factory conveyor does them consciously, with skill. At the same time, these actions are soulless, technological. An alcoholic consciously chooses liquor and snacks. Nevertheless, when drinking alcohol, he does not see a reasonable limit, his enslavement by passion does not allow him to rise higher, he falls into the state of an animal. The main reason for such a fall is lack of spirituality.

Spiritual abilities and needs

Spiritual abilities that a person possesses lead to the emergence of spiritual needs. In a child, already in the first years of life, one can observe their glimpses - anger, fear,pleasure. At a young and mature age, if the conditions are favorable, spiritual development becomes thinner, expanded, improved, and in the period of old age it stops at the achieved height and after a while, as the body weakens, it weakens more and more. The spiritual needs of a person are created by his spiritual life, corresponding to the state, development, influence of the external environment and the material organism. The simplest, coarsest ones appear first, responding primarily to the desire to satisfy the strongest material needs, and later more complex and subtle ones appear.

Common Human Values

Over a long period of history, mankind has determined which spiritual needs are leading. They are called in a different way universal or higher values, because they are important for most people. These include, for example, the categories of happiness, love, friendship, that is, physical and spiritual intimacy with a loved one, a happy family life, love for children, the presence of devoted friends. This series can be supplemented and include here mental and physical he alth, the possibility of creative self-expression, enjoying the beauties of art and nature, interesting work and an active active life in general. Free will, that is, independence in actions and deeds, as well as self-confidence, that is, independence from internal contradictions, are also spiritual needs.

Transcendence

Nikolai Mikhailovich Berezhnoy to explain spirituality in his work "Man and his needs"introduces the concept of transcendence. The voluminous and multifaceted meaning of this concept is widely revealed in the philosophical works of Immanuel Kant. But we are now interested in transcendence only in relation to spirituality. In this sense, it represents going beyond the boundaries of the natural everyday life of a person, beyond the boundaries of the worldview he has achieved. To transcend means to overcome the limits of one's empirical being, oneself, to want to become higher, to strive for greater freedom.

Spirituality is a transcendence of consciousness beyond the boundaries of everyday life to a religious feeling, a philosophical comprehensive comprehension of the world, an aesthetic world experience. That is, this is the desire to overcome one's consciousness, achieve higher goals, follow social and personal ideals, higher values, as well as self-knowledge. This is expressed in the desire to contemplate nature, to the beautiful, in the interest in classical works of art and literature. Culture is the substance of spirituality, containing all the spiritual development of mankind, its quintessence.

Fortitude

The concept of "strength of spirit" is used in relation to a person who consistently implements in his life once a chosen ideal, who has turned the achievement of this goal into the meaning of his entire existence. A strong-willed person does not retreat in the face of difficulties, does not panic in front of difficult life situations, does not change his beliefs for money or for opportunistic reasons. He behaves according to the criteria of justice,honor and truth. The upbringing of spirituality, firmness of spirit is the most noble task for young people, since this is the surest way to understand and find the meaning of life, to overcome failures and life's hardships.

Spirituality is the most valuable we alth of a person that cannot be borrowed or bought, it can only be created by one's own efforts. Only a spiritually rich person is capable of lasting love, disinterested friendship. The characteristic of spirituality is not only a sphere of consciousness, since it can be realized in an individual only when he has volitional qualities, the ability to direct vital forces in a specific direction. Therefore, an unspiritual person is, first of all, spineless, weak-willed. Although it should be clarified that strong-willed qualities in themselves are not akin to spirituality.

Spirituality is not just consciousness

Summarizing the above, we note that spirituality is not just consciousness, it is a function of the active essence of the individual. A person, accumulating knowledge about the external world and himself, enriches his consciousness with internal energy, and the energy tends to be expressed in the spirit, this is how self-knowledge occurs.

This is the desire to acquire and enrich spirituality, to master the inner spiritual world of a person, and are called spiritual needs. The arsenal of spirituality is very diverse. This is literature in human life, art, knowledge about people, society and the world. As well as music, philosophy, artistic creativity. Here we add the role of religion in human life.

Initiation to spiritual culture, the so-called spiritual consumption is the process of satisfying spiritual needs.

Types of spiritual needs

The most important spiritual need is the desire for knowledge, including external and self-knowledge. This was noted by philosophers of various eras. Aristotle wrote that we all naturally strive for knowledge. Michel de Montel, a sixteenth-century French thinker, argued that the desire for knowledge is the most natural of all. The aesthetic need is also a very important spiritual need. Its components: the desire to see harmony in people and nature, to master the world according to the laws of beauty. This also includes literature in human life, painting, music, poetry, the desire to improve human relationships. Another spiritual need is for fellowship. This includes friendship, love, camaraderie, consideration for each other, psychological and moral support, empathy, empathy, co-creation and exchange of ideas.

Conclusion

Needs are the driving force and basis of human behavior, its purpose and motivation. Values are objects of the external world that serve to satisfy human needs. Spiritual consumption is a process in which the satisfaction of spiritual needs, the development of the individual. The most important of them are the need for knowledge, communication, as well as aesthetic.

Spiritual values, unlike material ones, do not disappear in the process of consumption, but remain part of the spiritual world, enrich it. Comprehension, perception of them is subjective, it is connected with the unique individual experience of a particular person. Spiritual consumption is therefore often a creative process, the result of which is a change in the personal qualities of a person, the development of a person.

The formation of spiritual values, their choice for consumption is largely determined by the level of culture of the individual, his education. This is a rather lengthy process. The higher the general cultural and educational level, the higher the spiritual needs of a person, the requirements for the quality of spiritual values.