When I was younger, one of my favorite movies was “Hell in the Pacific”, which tells the story of two men, one American and one Japanese, marooned on a small uninhabited island in the Pacific. They survive by accepting their differences and working together, despite the fact that their two countries are at war. At the end of the movie, after calling a truce, a magazine brings their conversation back to religion and war and therefore ending the truce and they begin fighting again. Minutes later a bomb lands on them and blows them to pieces. Last night’s discussion reminded me of this movie.

Our main disagreement stemmed from a hypothetical person who chooses a predefined organized religious path versus one who simply chooses his own path and how this choice will ultimately lead to “The Ultimate Truth”. The one thing that we both agreed on, is that neither of our beliefs or paths made sense to the other.

My current observation is that there may or may not be an “Ultimate Truth”; however, my logical but currently limited human brain tells me that there most likely is. What doesn’t make sense about all of this is when a person expects his religion to make sense to others and tries to force it on them. Based on the information I have collected, no one knows what the “Ultimate Truth” is or even if it exists. There are various religions of various popularity, spread across virtually every culture, all attempting to discover “The Ultimate Truth.”

My personal belief is that Earth and humans are a VERY small part of the overall picture, and confining oneself to one physical world, or even worse, to one religion, will limit one who chooses to do so. Be happy if you have found your path, even if it is a limiting path. It’s fine to share your discoveries with others, but realize that not everyone will be or will want to be on that same path and all paths may “Ultimately” lead to the same truth in one form or another.

It seems that the truth gets lost in interpretation, or perhaps the truth IS the interpretations which exist in religious silos. It’s possible that the “Ultimate Truth” lies in the absence of any interpretation. I think that the key here is to respect others for what they believe even if it doesn’t make sense to you, because it’s very likely that what you believe doesn’t make sense to them either, and that’s ok.

I recently added my blog to a directory in an attempt to share my personal experiences with others and once again I noticed that spirituality was nested under religion. The concept gets tied to a religion and faith on a regular basis and that’s fine, however what we see is that while spirituality can stand completely on it’s own, religion must be tied to spirituality. Interesting! So why do we need religion?

Recently, by reading about the personal experiences of others and through my own personal experience, meditation and astral projection I came to realize that when I let myself fall into belief systems I only create huge chains which limit my spiritual growth. I let these beliefs dissolve and by doing so I completely liberated myself from the spiritual confusion and suffering that came with the religious ties of the past.

There are several differences that I have noticed between religion and spirituality. The biggest difference is that religion takes a firm stance based on the views and opinions of other people and their perception of events that have taken place. When a religion’s participant begins to think outside the box they are considered odd, a sinner or even worse. Spirituality and self discovery “by itself” does none of these things. I find it interesting that in the early days of astronomy the scientific discoveries challenged the views of the church and as a result the church felt threatened. Now in modern times it’s ironic that it’s all been completely reversed and now everyone is caught up in science, and religion must fit into science. I think that it’s time that we open up our minds to new possibilities and focus and how religion and science fit into spirituality and then throw out all of the unnecessary nonsense including the fear and the arguments about things that can’t be proven either way.

While I was throwing out the rules you may have guessed, and the guess would be accurate, that I don’t believe in a deity these days. So if I don’t believe in deity then what do I believe in? I believe in a collective consciousness that consists of love, love possibly being a faint perception of the collective. I have no real religion but I may be a cross between mysticism and esotericism while agreeing with some of the Buddhist philosophies. This brings me to another difference which is religion creates a set of rules to follow while spirituality “by itself” allows one to keep an open mind.

The last difference that I would like to point out is that most religions provide no means of validation. Spirituality “by itself” does. Our awareness in waking life is focused on the physical and during our sleep our awareness detaches from the physical and we face our inner self, our soul. We can train our self to be lucid when we detach from the physical and begin teaching our self to remember. It seems that this will inevitably lead to path of truth and discovery while religion might lead us to an understanding of another person’s viewpoint.

In conclusion, it seems that we as the human civilization think that we are advancing at a rapid pace because of cell phones, fancy SUVs and computers. We cling to these physical things, which include our physical body and the ones we love around us. Worst of all we cling to the writings and beliefs of other people, never opening our mind to all of the possibilities presented to us. This ends up restricting us in our ability to choose our own path towards enlightenment and ultimately, recognition of who we really are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with many religions and belief systems but remember that they are exclusionary and limiting. My current view may change, but it appears that it’s only when we realize that we are all connected and that we are more than a physical body or even a separate soul that our light as a whole will shine brightly and we will be free. We have the tools that we need, all we have to do is look inward.