WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY? Om Namah Bhagavate Vasudevaya! Om Namah Narayana! Om Namah Shivaya! We often wonder what is the difference between religion and spirituality Here are some excerpts that I found to be informative Here are a few Excerpts taken from bibliotecapleyades.net/mistic/mistic_10.htm biographyonline.net/spiritual/articles/religion_vs_spirituality.html Religion vs Spirituality Religion is a path to God. Spirituality is also a path to God. However they have differences in approach. The essence of religion: Fear God and obey God. The quintessence of spirituality: Love God and become another God. - Sri Chinmoy (1) 1. Experience vs Belief. Religion usually entails adhering to a certain dogma or belief system. Spirituality places little importance on intellectual beliefs, but is concerned with growing into and experiencing the Divine consciousness. 2. Fear vs Love. Quite often religion takes the approach of fearing God. Religion is often concerned with sin, guilt and a concept of a God who punishes. The spiritual approach to God is through the path of love. This is a love where there is no judgement - only acceptance. Spirituality feels so called sins are really just ignorance based on a false belief of who we are. 3. Where is God? Often religion talks of God as being high in the heavens. At times God can seem far from the reach of aspiring humanity. Spirituality shows us that God is omniscient and omnipresent and can be felt as a living presence in our own heart. The highest spirituality says there is no separation between the Creator and His Creation. 4. One True Religion vs Universality. Many followers of religion feel that only their path can lead to salvation. They have tremendous faith in their own religion, but at the same time they feel other religions are wrong. Therefore, they can feel a necessity to convert others to their faith. All fanaticism is false, because it is a contradiction of the very nature of God and of Truth. Truth cannot be shut up in a single book, Bible or Veda or Koran, or in a single religion. - Sri Aurobindo Spirituality feels that all religions are valid; like the analogy of many paths leading to the same goal. Spirituality embraces all the world religions, but at the same time, is not constrained by any religious dogmas or forms. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. As different streams having different sources all mingle their waters in the sea, so different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to God. - Swami Vivekananda - from Speech at World Parliament of Religions (1893) 5. Outer Worship vs Inner Worship. Religion places more emphasis on outer forms and outer rituals. Spirituality is less concerned with outer rituals. Spirituality says that what is important is a seeker’s inner attitude. Through practising spirituality we seek to develop an inner shrine in our own heart. 6. Religion is forced but spirituality is chosen 7. More differences There is not one religion, but hundreds • There is only one type of spirituality • Religion is for those who want to continue rituals and the formality • Spirituality is for those who want to reach the Spiritual Ascent without dogmas • Religion is for those that require guidance from others • Spirituality is for those that lend ears to their inner voice • Religion has a dogmatic and unquestionable assembly of rules that need to be followed without question • Spirituality invites you to reason it all, to question it all and to decide your actions and assume the consequences • Religion threatens and terrifies • Spirituality gives you inner peace • Religion speaks of sin and of fault • Spirituality encourages living in the present and not to feel remorse for which has already passed - Lift your spirit and learn from errors • Religion represses humanity, and returns us to a false paradigm • Spirituality transcends it all and makes you true to yourself • Religion is instilled from childhood, like the soup you do not you want to take • Spirituality is the food that you you seek, that satisfies you and is pleasant to the senses • Religion invents • Spirituality discovers • Religion does not investigate and does not question • Spirituality questions everything • Religion is based on humanity, an organization with rules • Spirituality is DIVINE, WITHOUT rules • Religion is cause for division • Spirituality is cause for union • Religion seeks you so that you create • Spirituality causes you to seek • Religion continues the teachings of a sacred book • Spirituality seeks the sacredness in all the books • Religion lives you in your thoughts • Spirituality lives in your conscience • Religion is in charge of the to do • Spirituality is in charge of the to BE • Religion is a dialectic • Spirituality is logic • Religion feeds the ego • Spirituality makes you transcend • Religion makes you renounce yourself to the world • Spirituality makes you live with God, not to renounce him • Religion is adoration • Spirituality is meditation • Religion is to continue adapting to the psychology of a template • Spirituality is individuality. • Religion dreams of glory and paradise • Spirituality makes you live it here and now • Religion lives in the past and in the future • Spirituality lives in the present, in the here and now • Religion lives in the confinement of your memory • Spirituality is LIBERTY in AWARENESS. • Religion believes in the eternal life • Spirituality makes you conscious of all that is • Religion gives you promises for the after-life • Spirituality gives you the light to find God in your inner self, in this life, in the present, in the here and the now Religion and spirituality do conjure up differences, but at the same time they are just terms and words. Spirituality and religion can be interchangeable. The boundary between religion and spirituality is fluid. Jai Gurudev! Hare Krishna!
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:57:19 +0000
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