Identifying more with spirituality than religion is becoming increasingly common, especially among the younger generation. But with this popularity comes a trend: spirituality and religion alike, are rapidly changing and morphing into fads, rather than practices, beliefs or states of mind.
Urban Outfitters sells a shirt, which is part of the “Spiritual Gangster” collection, and it reads, “Take me to Nirvana,” and is paired with yoga wear in every photograph. The “Spiritual Gangster” collection also includes the “Buddha Mandala,” “Om Shanti,” and the “Henna Hamsa” tank tops.
In reality, the Buddha Mandala is a Buddhist symbol. However, Urban Outfitters de-scribes it as an “inspirational top … with a super soft feel and a loose and easy shape.”
A Mandala is described as, “a sacred area that serves as a receptacle for deities and a collection point of universal forces.” However, putting it on a shirt and mass-producing it misappropriates the spiritual and religious aspects of the Mandala and Buddhism.
Individuals with no ties to Buddhism are wearing these items of clothing without the slightest idea about the intense practice and deep meaning behind the symbol. These actions further fuel a societal trend belittling religion and spirituality. And all for what? Money.
Religious studies professor Sthaneshwar Timalsina lectures about the religions of India at San Diego State. He remarks on the mass production of cultural objects for profit.
“It’s a process of commodification of something sacred, because in the post-modern world, what is sacred is money,” Timalsina said. “It’s about how something sacred is eroded in the process of converting the sacred into money.”
It makes sense. America has one of the world’s largest economies, second to China, but the U.S. also has the largest gross domestic product. Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that most things here are profit-based. But this monetary value isn’t worth much at the expense of religious and spiritual value.
For example, the “Take Me to Nirvana” shirt takes a term like Nirvana, and makes it seem flimsy and easy attainable, when it reality, it’s an extremely complicated and intricate state that has been studied and practiced since fifth-century B.C.
It’s damaging to say this trend doesn’t stop at trendy tank-tops. There is a large market presence selling “spiritual, but not religious” items such as healing stones. Biology freshman Stacie Parker reflects back on her own experience with these gemstones.
“I own a handful of healing crystals that I love because they give me support when I need it,” Parker said.
However, now these gemstones are made into statement pieces. Accessory Pinterest boards are often filled with pictures of layered, boho-chic healing crystal necklaces. These all feed into the ever-growing music festival scene — don’t even get me started on the obscene amount of of Coachella pictures featuring bindi after bindi, worn simply as a fashion statement.
This only goes to show a dark side of humanity, where the sentiments of groups of people are evoked as a societal trend. Rather than a personal value, it now becomes a price. It’s spiritual and religious in one sense, but on the other hand it’s portraying some of these very high ideals as something very flimsy and not containing any higher value.
Companies such as these are not simply selling products, they’re selling a lifestyle, which, in turn is making spirituality into more of a trend than ever before. It’s morphing into an array of carefully crafted, expensive products, designed to replicate thousands of years worth of ideals and practices — all for a profit. These spiritual and religious practices cannot be marked with the price tags we see in stores.
