ABSTRACT
Interest in the spiritual is as ancient as life itself. From the earliest moments, human beings have been drawn to the ultimate mysteries of existence and to the great questions that frame it: Who are we? Why are we here? and Where are we going? Although not inherently spiritual questions, they are often addressed as such, given their potential ultimate nature. While, at first, answers to such wonders presented themselves mostly in a cosmology of natural signs—earthquakes, floods, planets and constellations, parched lands, and bountiful harvests—today they come in the propositional form of insights, creeds, arguments, concepts, frameworks, and factors. From the primitive to the contemporary we have pursued the nature, meaning, and effect of spiritual dimensions in our lives. How close have we come to the point of understanding these aspects? Do we know where we are? What do the data presented here, in the context of other approaches to the topic, have to say about such a complex phenomenon as spirituality, so deep in our human experience but relentlessly elusive? The studies contained in the chapters in this volume contribute important pieces to the puzzle of ultimate questions in students’ lives. To appreciate them more fully, though, they must be seen in the context of other approaches to the topic and considered for what they might implicate for future research and practice in this domain.
