When I met my wife 5 years ago I introduced myself as religious and she introduced herself as spiritual. I considered myself a Catholic at the time and I didn’t think very much of it. Then after a few years went by I realized that there is a huge difference between religion and spirituality.
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.
David Mathis Belief Systems Astral Projection, Lucid Dreams, Religion, Spirituality, Thought Provoking
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