Spiritual-one: Blog on Spiritual Growth & Development

Spirituality and Religion

By Angus Finlayson

What are the differences between spirituality and religion? These two concepts are often misunderstood and one confused with the other. Both do however, seemingly have the same message, which is one of love and offer a path to God.

It would seem that ones interpretation of God is at the core of the misunderstandings that riddle the human race.

Here we will look at the different approaches on offer

Fear and Love:

Often religions take the approach of fearing a God and would have you take its word for it. Religion plays on peoples fear to do the right thing so they will not suffer eternally at some time in the future.

The spiritual approach to God is through the self seeking path of love. Spirituality educates us not to fear a God, but approach God through the same self seeking path of love.

Religion has without doubt been used over the centuries by the powers that be, as a tool for control and profit. Religion persuades you to explore the thoughts of others and accept them as truths.

Spirituality asks you to dismiss the thoughts of others if need be, and come up with your own. Spirituality encourages you to listen to your inner feelings as a way of telling yourself that your last thought was a truth, that your last word was wisdom and that your last action was one of love.

Echoes of the Past and Here and Now:

Religion seems to take inspiration from and place great importance on the past. Religion is in awe of the ancient religious literary texts, and offers this as the way to achieve salvation.

Spirituality is not so worried with the past and believes in the eternal Here and Now. To accomplish individual freedom and sanctuary with the eternal God we need to live in the present.

It's not the past or the future that gives us liberation it's the Here and Now. People realise peace of mind when they concentrate on doing the right thing Here and Now and look within themselves for an all knowing God.

Religion tells us that God is out of reach, high in the universal heavens, while Spirituality tells us that God is but a thought away and that we are all God. Religion has asked us to believe that we must pay penance to the great God and ask for his forgiveness for our humanly sins.

Spirituality asks us to use our own moral compass and enlightens us to the fact that our sins are no more than natural inclinations that are at the source of lessons we can learn from.

The Path:

Followers of religion believe that 'their' religion is the only path to God and that seekers involved in other religions are treading the wrong path to God. Their faith tells them that others who seek God through different means are on a road that can only end up in one place, hell.

On the other hand Spirituality is accepting of all religions and understands that there are many paths to God. Spirituality embraces all religions whilst not getting inhibited with the dogma attached to them.

Disconnection:

It would seem that there have been generations upon generations of emotional disconnection from our inner voice. Religions teach us that the answers to life lie outside of ourselves, not within.

Shame and guilt are the norm asking us to buy into belief systems such as 'I'm an unworthy sinner' and to act in a certain way to receive Gods love and approval.

We were taught we didn't deserve the things we were asking for or wanted and that we were not good enough in Gods eyes to receive them. We were told that we had no right to know or believe in our inner voice and wisdom.

Spirituality encourages us to work on spiritual self-development and take responsibility for our own lives and connect with the dialogue of our own soul.

Emphasis is focused on becoming a loving, all-embracing, healthy, happy and inspirational human being who overflows with love for us and others, the premise being that if we are whole and at one with ourselves, then we are complete and at one with the universe.

Misuse:

Religion has never been the root of the human races desolation. Religion and spirituality's core value and message is one of love, so surely the misunderstanding of religion and spirituality lies with man.

Religion has been but an instrument, and it is mans wielding of, and misuse of, which is the issue. Like any instrument or establishment, religion can be misused as a euphemistic stick to beat man and keep him from his true destiny.

The true message in both approaches is one of love, and we should all try and remember this regardless of our own personal views, beliefs or faiths.

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Spiritual Value of Relationships

By Cherise Thorne

The dynamics of any relationship whether it be harmonious or full of strife, affects all other aspects of your life. In fact, I have seen that the quality of our lives often largely depend on the types of relationships we are engaged in. Therefore, it is imperative to ascertain what your soul is trying to gain through your connections with others so that you may eventually only choose to experience the joy of loving, harmonious relationships. Going within is the key to finding what you may be losing in your relationships. 

There are a variety of ways to gain a greater understanding of your life and the meaning behind it: Participating in a church group, engaging in different healing meditations or taking time to discover who you are and why you are here.  Religions and other spiritual paths have helped many discover the potential that was otherwise hidden beneath unresolved emotions and issues.  This potential is the ability to live peacefully, in harmony with the soul's needs and desires and thus in alignment with the universe. However, it is not necessary to participate in a group, join a Temple or enroll in any program in order to create a life of peace and tranquility; that ability is inherent within each soul.  In fact, the premise of my teachings advocate that the soul has within all it needs to evolve and know its self as one with All That Is.  

Why do we create such painful situations and circumstances if we already have everything within us?  We do this to perfect the ability to create a beautiful and meaningful existence.  Thus, the soul will deliberately create difficulties in order to evolve and grow on the earth plane.  Relationships are a wonderful way to allow our soul the opportunity it needs to evolve further and advance to higher levels of consciousness. Relationships serve as one of the most profound opportunities a soul can have to evolve and truly know itself. Our interactions with others reflect back to us what aspects of our selves we may not have had enough opportunities in the past to fully come to know, and therefore are re-creating to ensure that the Soul ascend to the level of consciousness it deserves to dwell in.

Without relationships there is very little growth. The process of knowing that we are love, believing that we are the creative principle and expressing our divinity is not an easy one.  It involves much forgiveness, acceptance and tolerance, thus the value of having to live and work with one another is more precious than gold.  The value is an expansion of consciousness that can be taken with you upon the death of your physical body, gold on the other hand is very hard to carry if you do not have any hands at all.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cherise_Thorne

Spiritual Insight - Extraordinary, Yet Very Ordinary

By Anagarika Eddie 

A direct experience of spiritual insight will change your life, a fact which is irrefutable and well documented. But spiritual searching, rather than spiritual insight - well, that's another story.

Most people who embark upon a spiritual quest aren't satisfied with answers that they are getting from their various sources, and therefore, feeling that they are not getting the real, deep information that will satisfy them, they search for that which will resonate with that unique inner thirst.

For example; someone may feel a certain way about spirituality and want to go deeper, yet their friends and relatives may feel differently, satisfied with the status quo and typically so caught up with a busy life that deeper thought seems superfluous. The person who wants to go deeper will then either believe his or her peer's conclusions, accept them as truth and get on with a typical life, or strike out on their own and see if they can find a person, philosophy, or religion that is more in tune with their innermost feelings. They want more; more than making money and having fun. Because they can already see that the fun doesn't last, and they wonder about that.

The fact is; the truth is all around us, very close actually, but we can't always see it. Therefore, the truth is very ordinary, because the truth is all about ourselves. But the actual seeing of this truth, seeing exactly what we are - this is extraordinary, because the mind must be very calm and still for the truth about ourselves to surface. You see, the self or ego taints what we see and experience all the time, and this kind of busy, clouded mind will remain in its deluded state regardless of what it sees. On the other hand, a clear, calm mind will penetrate everything to its core and see the absolute reality of life.

Even though we involve ourselves with different facets of spirituality, it is the actual seeing the truth of things that is at the root of spiritual searching. Lectures, study, practices all may help indirectly to lead one in the direction of direct seeing, but the danger here is when one thinks that talks, books and practices alone can do it. Talks, books, and practices are confined to surface consciousness - thought, memory, emotions, etc. - which is not direct seeing. Direct seeing occurs outside of consciousness; it's that infinitesimal split second when something hits the mind like it came out of left field, it's when the mind realizes something very deep for the first time,it's that moment of truth when the light bulb goes off and you say to yourself, "Oh my!"

We have to look no further than this five or six feet of body that we are in. It's more fun to read books and do practices, and these may help still your mind so that you can actually look at your body calmly and without prejudice, but it's the looking and investigation with a clear insightful mind that counts in the end. Unless you can penetrate into the delusion of the body and your perceived ownership of it, the world will continue to be the puppeteer, yanking on your strings, which are your attachments, and the number one attachment is your own body and mind.

The reason that we are so susceptible to lightning is because our bodies are basically a big bag of salt water, which conducts electricity very well! Our bodies are made of the elements of the earth, and when it dies, it will again melt into the earth. We actually are the earth, and not something special living upon it.

Then there is the mind, that which puts all its mental and physical inputs together; mental inputs such as when our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, brain contacts a sense object and records it, then mind will either be neutral to the object, reject the object by pushing it away which lead to emotions of anger, hatred, etc., or embrace the object by attaching to it and thinking of ways to own it, which lead to emotions of love, avarice, lust, jealousy, anger, hatred, etc.

And out of all these mental inputs, such as memory and discursive thought, arises our idea of a self. It seems more than just a body and mind, it becomes our personality that we have to defend, and a body that we have to protect. This is our constant burden of stress, and regardless of how attractive our religions depict the next world, without direct insight into what the body and mind is now, we will never have the authentic freedom to let go of them, and instead be caught up in an endless web of fear and uncertainty.

Without insight one will see their personal world as unchanging from what it is now, as if it will go on indefinitely, and consider any stress in their lives as temporary, just until they get things straightened out. They will also insist that this body and mind is theirs, that they a re behind it all as an individual spirit of some kind that is indestructible.

True insight will see it differently. There is no personal world, only a psycho-physical existence that changes moment to moment, and is under stress without let up. There is no owner of this psycho-physical phenomena; it was born, will grow to maturity, decline, and change from its present form into elements, no different from all other bodies in the entire physical, materiel universe.

Did I mention that true insight requires courage? To hear these things without the protection of the flash of insight that discards materiality and self-belief is like pulling the rug out from everything that one holds dear. And this is the point; everything that one holds dear, holds one imprisoned. It's a dichotomy to be sure, but true. Because unbounded freedom has nothing to do with the material world with which we are familiar. We are not that body or mind. These things are too fragile. What we are was never born, has always been, will never die - it is eternal.

What we truly are can be touched by direct insight, and when it is, your world will be changed irrevocably.

Anagarika eddie is a meditation teacher at the Dhammabucha Rocksprings Meditation Retreat Sanctuary (http://www.dhammarocksprings.org), and author of "A Year to Enlightenment." His 30 years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk.