“Role of spirituality in the life of millennial”

Radha Yadav*, Anindita** & Riya Gangwar***

*Assistant Professor, Jaipuria School of Business, India-201014
** Associate Professor, Jaipuria School of Business, India-201014
***PGDM Student, Jaipuria School of Business, India-201014

Abstract:
This Research paper is a practical endeavour to find out the current trend of spirituality
among the millennial in India. Spirituality is different for everyone; it is inner peace of
oneself. Some people participate in regular practices like going to a temple, church,
synagogue, mosque, and so on. For others, it's more personal—some people get in touch with
their spiritual side through private prayer, yoga, meditation, quiet reflection, or even long
walks. It is a way to keep you happy and motivated. Three Dimensions and five relationships
of the spirituality are used to analyse the millennia’s intelligence process in the present era.
Qualitative method is used to find out the role of spirituality in the young generation. Sample
size of the research is 52. Four focus group is conducted in which 13-15 members present in
each group. Millennial is based on the different region of India. The findings of the research
is that meaning of spirituality is different for the millennial, they are spiritual but not
religious, they believe in meditation and yoga but not rigid to do it all the time. Spirituality
varies according to time

Keywords: Spirituality, Millennial and Focus group

Introduction
Spirituality is a way to live happily and understand the meaning of life. Spirituality does not
change the facts of the life but it gives the strength to accept the truth when things are not in
your favour. Spirituality emphasis “things happen for a reason”.
Spirituality improves the thought process by reducing the negative effects of the life such as
death, stress, illness. Spirituality is a belief and faith that generates inside the human being
towards the things which give peace and happiness. The meaning of spirituality varies
person to person and their choices like singing, dancing, travelling, help to others etc. Stress
is the body’s instinctive response to external environment cues as well as to one’s inner
thoughts and feelings. Spirituality is the way to cope up with this stress.
Spirituality defines an active choice to surrender oneself to God’s will (Wong-McDonald,
2000). Sometimes people believe on supreme power only to mitigate the deleterious effects
of the life. Spiritual coping has been effective in protecting individuals from the negative
effects of death of a loved one, natural disasters, chronic illness, and acts of terrorism
(Zinnbauer, Pargament, Cole, Rye, Butter, Belavich, Hipp, Scott, & Kadar, 1997). In other
words spiritual is the faith and trust who save the people from the negative things. Spirituality
is the way to reduce the negative effects of life such as: death, stress, illness etc.
Lots of researches have been done on the spirituality, religion and beliefs. Millennial are
considered as independent, confident, optimistic, focused, dreamer, and more conventional
than rebellious (Kowske, Rasch, & Willey, 2010). Simple meaning of millennial; born after
20th century; all adults come in the stage of millennials. The personality of the millennial are
narcissist, assertive and Machiavellianism. (Twenge & Campbell, 2001). When things come
related to the profit and risk, millennial are high risk taker and self- motivated. Millennials
motivate or give peace by adventure, meditation, singing and doing by other activities.
(Twenge et al., 2008), older workers report finding Millennials difficult to interact with,
engaging a sense of entitlement (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010). The meaning of spirituality is
different for millennial then the older age people. Our old generation still relates the
spirituality to god and prayer, but for millennial spirituality is the work in which you feel
peace and satisfaction whether it may be prayer, singing and other things.

Purpose of the Research

Indian society is based on the hierarchy. Whether in north India or south India, Hindu or
Muslim, urban or rural, virtually all things, people, and social groups are ranked according to
various essential qualities.
Now, time has been changing. Today’s generation from different culture, religion and caste
believe in one thought i.e. do good things to others. Millennial from every religion wants
peace only. The purpose of the study is:
1. Identify the meaning of spirituality from Millennial.
2. Assessing the role of spirituality in millennia’s life and their work.

Research Methodology
Participants: All participants are selected from millennial age group. A total number of
participants for the study are 52 in which the percentage of male and female are 20% and
80% respectively.

Data Collection and Sample size: Data is collected by face to face interaction with the use
of interview method. It is pre-decided to take interview of the student for 30 minutes then
identify the accurate meaning of spirituality to get the variables. Sample is divided into four
focus groups with 13 members in each focus group based on location/region. The millennial
selected in the research are 52 diversified in a convenience sample based on the region they
belong to. The participants are both male and female and of different religion so as to obtain a
clear perspective of the research.

Statistical tools: Data is analysed through the percentage method to get the ratio of the
variables in millennial’ life. It is qualitative research, and related to subjective data. It is given
sufficient time analyse the open-ended questionnaire for each respondents.

Questionnaire content: The survey is an open ended questionnaire with questions that
attempt to nullify the hypothesis of people in regard to spirituality and its role in the life of
millennial. For convenience, the sample is divided on the basis of region as in north, south,
west and central India with each focus group consisting of 8 members. Questionnaire
contains the six variables i.e. Believe in god/ supreme power, Humanity, Inner peace, eating
habits and Karma.

Results & Discussions

After interaction with the millennial, result and analysis is done by the summarization of the
asked data. The results of each group are as follows

Focus group 1: Focus group 1 belongs to the western region of the country. Assigned
sample size of this focus group is thirteen in which Two-in-thirteen believe in God, worship
every day and believe in karma. Five-in-thirteen does not believe in God but believe in some
super power that indirectly controls all. Five-in-thirteen feel that spirituality is humanity;
two-in-thirteen follow the eating habits as are rooted in our religious upbringing. Sample in
this focus group have experiences the self—centred culture that they’re wonderful and that
everyone should meet their needs, but they are sceptical because they’re not notably happier.
Five-in-thirteen find inner peace in the ‘small moments.’

This suggests that millennial are searching for meaning in their life, and atheism (the religion
taught almost exclusively in public schools and by the media) doesn’t offer any ultimate
purpose. So people are turning to spirituality to find some meaning and purpose for their life.

Focus group 2: Focus group 2 belongs to the eastern India. A lot of theories came up
regarding spirituality. For example, only about half of the millennial say they believe in God
with absolute certainty, and only three-in-thirteen say spirituality is very important in their
lives. Four-of-thirteen follow various eating habits according to religion but do not believe in
the existence of God. For ten-of-thirteen, spirituality simply means humanity and that inner
peace is only attainable with humanity. Every sample in this focus group believes in karma.

One-of thirteen follow both things eating habits and help to others.

This suggests that millennial are turning away from religion faster than any other age group.
Majority of the group aren’t necessarily atheists. Two-thirds believe in God or a universal
spirit, and one in eight even pray every day. One even stated that, “I’ve rejected elements that
reflect out humanly flawed interpretation of religion, like hypocrisy, labels and judgement,
and held onto values like community, equality and social justice.”

Focus group 3: The sample size of the focus group is also thirteen with millennial belonging
to the central part of the country. Unlike the other focus group, here the sample strongly
believes that religion cannot be compared to spirituality. Both are very different concepts,
50% of the sample believes in the existence of God while the remaining 50% believes that
there is some supreme power which can’t be named. Six-in-thirteen find the source to
satisfaction or attaining inner peace is being good and doing to and for others while the other
four-in-thirteen find inner peace through acts of God. Considering the belief of sample in
karma, all thirteen believe that karma and spirituality are directly proportional to each other,
that is, ‘do good and get good.’ 100% of the sample size believes prayer is guarantee for self-
satisfaction. Three-in-thirteen follow the eating habits as per religious cultures.
According to one of the sample, “any idiot can find God in a sunset, but finding God in the
woman sitting next to you whose baby is crying continuously takes grit.”

This suggests that millennial today is dipped in celebrity culture and is looking for
authenticity, discipline and depth.

Focus group 4: Sample in the focus group 3 belongs to the northern part of the country. In
this segment too, sample has different beliefs regarding spirituality. Unlike the focus group 2,
sample in the focus group 3 strongly believe in the existence of God, and mostly because of
the religious upbringings in their respective families. Seven-in-thirteen very strongly believe
in the existence of super power, which to them is God. All thirteen people in this group also
believe in karma similar to the focus group 3. six-in-thirteen believe that inner peace is
achieved by helping those in need, seven-in-thirteen find peace with family or listening to
soothing music, while the other two believe that the source to inner peace is being alone and
looking out to the ‘human’ within themselves. As far as the eating habits is regard to
religious beliefs are considered, three-in-eight follow these practices.

This focus group clearly mention that the sample of the north region of India is very
diversified among all that they believe in humanity, eating habit as well as hobbies to get
spiritual. In this focus group, six-of –thirteen believes that vegetarian or non-vegetarian
should be consumed according to days but these samples also keep faith on humanity.

This suggests that, “the spiritual but not religious movement is driven by individualism, itself
a product of an educated, socially progressive society that places a high value on freedom and
choice.”

Descriptive Statistics

Mean of all variables of the three focus groups is 11.2 units and standard deviation of the
variables of spirituality is 6.26.

Conclusion

Study shows that Millennial are altogether having a different belief, they are more spiritual
than any other generation. The sample implies that they believe in themselves and are in
search for meaning in their life. They just seek a chance to help others instead of going to
some religious places and praying. If one were to talk to almost any millennial, there’s a good
chance they’ll say they’re not religious but they’re spiritual. Millennial seem to be more
interested in doing more good to the world rather than focused on what they should believe.
It’s not that they don’t believe in religion but their feeling is that it limits them whereas they
believe in reaching out to people and helping them. They follow various eating habits as per
the religious beliefs as they think that it has a positive effect on the minds of the people but
they refrain from believing in hardcore religious chores. They strongly believe that
spirituality is directly related to karma. The millennial believe in doing rather than in only
believing in one religion. For this generation spirituality and humanity are synonymous.
 Percentage of spirituality's variables
45

40

35

30

25
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