What is driving fast-paced millennials towards Spirituality and Meditative Practices?

It was just like any other normal working day of an IT Guy. You are working and in one tab there’s this Facebook tab which you will find open in every other system. You take a little break from work and find yourself scrolling through these hundreds of unsolicited updates on the facebook page. While going through all these, you find one interesting post of a friend who has recently visited Pondicherry and shared this amazing picture with the hashtags #Spiritual # Peace # Relaxed. 

This pic was of Auroville, which is also known as Matrimandir. It’s not like any other tourist place, but it is a place for individual silent concentration.  A place which should be visited in an appropriate physical and mental state.

On checking with my friend, I found that he felt really relaxed on visiting that place.

Similarly, I came across another such post from another friend who has recently joined meditation classes because of the restlessness she felt due to her busy job life.

Thinking about all this, it really is a point of discussion that in the time of internet and social media which helps people to connect with each other easily, how people are suffering from stress and various other factors and are really looking for inner peace and getting inclined towards being Spiritual.

If Compared with the previous Generation i.e Generation X(born in 1965 - 1980), Millennials(Born in 1981 - 1996) have experienced the rise of the Internet world and the present day availability of social media tech platforms. In fact, the terms of engagement have changed completely today either in Social content or in education or in expression.

If we talk about the figures, according to a report published in one of the leading newspapers, among the total internet users of approx. 566 million in India, 60 percent are youths and with such easy access to the Internet, social media users in India stood at nearly 326.1 million. And they are spending most of their time using multiple social media platforms, nearly about 27 hours a week.

Among such large user base of social media users, a significant percentage have shown some interest in one or the other topics of occult science including Astrology, Spirituality, Meditation, Natural healing, Morality, and Social Ethics. 

The growing popularity of Vipassana ( a form of meditation) among the youths proves the eternal question of self-identity is still as relevant today as in medieval time. Recently organised Kumbh Mela(Largest Spiritual Gathering in the World) which witnessed a huge crowd of youth from all over the world validates this popularity.

We may argue how religion and the holy scriptures are relevant today as they were in middle age, but the answer is yes as it heals identity crisis and encourages soul searching. The very scripture of Veda or Bible may not have an economic solution but it Inspired Mahatma Gandhi to envision his kind of India. The topics of occult science  Viz   Karma, Spirituality, Meditation, morality, etc may seem only to be certain words but carries a significant meaning in one’s life and practices.

These factors are again coming back which were missing for a long time. Now millennials which were earlier so busy in their daily work routine have started taking their time out for themselves. Also with the present day of the internet, more and more tech platforms are coming up which encourages people towards their look for inner peace with various allied topics and helps them in getting connected to each other thereby building a spiritual awakened community.

As for example, one of the biggest spiritual social content platforms in India i.e Speaking Tree is having 8.5 million viewers monthly.

Similarly talking about R-Gyan which is a  Social Spiritual Tech Platform and with 0.5 million plus monthly viewers, it aims to promote the social participation of millennials on alike subjective topics. It can be referred to as a Spiritual Instagram with a touch of Quora which millennials can relate to.

Such figures and data clearly show the inclination towards spirituality and related matters, after all, long and repeated exposure sanctify things. The quest to decipher the mysteries of life encourages more and more people especially the millennials who are equipped with the most powerful tool in the form of internet and social media to look for inner peace.

The relevance of spirituality, religion, and faith had and would continue to prevail for the very basic reason that modern technology has given it an ideal medium to multiply and expand.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house