Spirituality – Religion
More and more people in the developed world consider themselves spiritual without belonging to a religion. Some of the world’s dominant religions believe that there is no spiritual life outside of their limits. Let’s take some time now to explore the differences between spirituality and religion.
Both spirituality and religion, at a core level, are about our relationship with God, the Divine, the Mystery, or the Absolute truth, whatever you call it. From my point of view, the similarities end here.
Spirituality as I see it is an innate dimension to our existence and our relationship with the Mystery of life. Religions are man-made structures that seek to define and control our spiritual nature. Religion used to be a one-size-fits-all culture of spirituality and in many parts of the world they still are. Spirituality is personal, fluid, and evolving. Religions are built on rigid, moralized belief systems.
Religion is based on faith and accepted beliefs that define the parameters of what is allowed to be believed. Ideas and beliefs beyond these limits are often considered heresy and are usually punishable in one way or another, including death. Religion has strict codes of what is right and wrong and applicable punishments both in this life and in the hereafter. This polarizing moralization of human behavior is a control system based on fear. Neitzsche deliberately dispelled this canon of religious dogma when he said that “there are no moral phenomena, only the moral interpretation of phenomena.”
The amazing thing is that, despite all this, there are people who can find authentic spirituality within the confines of their accepted religion.
Spirituality tends to be independent of religious doctrine and belief systems, although most people who consider themselves spiritual and not religious build a belief system that they are comfortable with. If this personal spiritual belief system becomes inflexible and rigid, it can be just as limiting to spiritual development as religion, though less likely to fill you with fear, guilt, and shame.
The human mind creates belief systems in one way or another. Most of these beliefs are received as conditions of the culture in which we grow up. Spiritual development can be seen as a process of freeing ourselves from the conditioned state of mind and therefore from a limited experience of the self. Because it is beyond the conditioned state of mind that we experience the Mystery of the Divine. In the depths of this experience of the Self beyond the mind, the boundaries of separation dissolve and the Self is experienced as One with the Divine. This process of spiritual evolution towards awakening is the very nature of life itself.
Religion, being made by man, being made in the awareness of separation, places the divine outside of us. This is true even when the source of the religion taught the spiritual truth of oneness with God. Christianity is a great example. Jesus in teaching him clearly said that the kingdom of heaven is within all of us. So how did it become a place where God lives and we go where we go after we die if we have been good and lived according to the prescribed rules?
One answer is that spiritual teachers like Jesus spoke from a more evolved state of consciousness, and those who came after them and formed a religion in their name had a less evolved level of consciousness and interpreted the teachings from this lower level of consciousness. in the following way. distorting it.
Another interpretation is that religion was identified as a means to control an entire population of people, and its teachings were distorted to this end. Taking Christianity as an example again, it seems quite evident to me that both interpretations are aspects of how Christianity became what it is today. Do not you believe it? Well, how is it possible that hundreds of years of war and countless atrocities have been committed in the name of religion, when almost all religions have a basic principle of Thou shalt not kill and Do to others what you would like them to do to you? ? or similar?
Spirituality in its nature requires the questioning of beliefs, which tends to contradict it with religion. Professing to be spiritual does not necessarily mean that we question our beliefs, but freed from the confines of religious dogma, life will inevitably provide us with the circumstances to do so more easily. Accepting this opportunity to continue advancing beyond the limits of the identity that we hold, is the means to live spirituality. So spirituality requires forging its own unique path of awakening to our true nature.
Religion requires conformity, it discourages independent thought, self-inquiry, it requires followers. That someone finds spirituality in religion is amazing to me, that they do is testament to the power of truth to shine. So is religion all bad? No, because clearly thousands of people are inspired to serve their fellow men because of their religious beliefs. And when religion inspires to see beyond the appearance of difference and is a vessel from which to expand one’s beliefs and seek direct experience of the Mystery that manifests and animates life, then it continues to serve its spiritual purpose and unity of life. spirituality and religion.