Religion Versus Spirituality

Religion Versus Spirituality

The term ‘religion’ as distinguished from ‘spirituality’, seems to have a certain stigma about it that people would avoid it for as long as they possibly could.  “I am not religious, but I am spiritual,” is a claim we often hear people say nowadays.  What is it about religion that people avoid like a plague?

I think some of the most common misconceptions about religion that people avoid are the following:

• Rituals one is forced to perform in obedience to one’s religion
• Being old-fashioned and not as open minded and intellectual as ‘spiritual people’ are nowadays
• Threat of damnation by an angry God
• Judgment and condemnation if one fails to meet the mark

Religion is ‘out’.  Spirituality is ‘in’.  Religion talks about a ‘distant’ God.  Spirituality talks about a god within your reach, even ‘within you’, for you are god.

The word ‘religion’ seems to have come from the word ‘re-ligare’ where ‘ligare’  means ‘to bind or connect’. Hence, ‘religare’ meaning ‘to reconnect’ or to ‘bind again’.

People seem to have a fear of ‘being bound’, of having their freedom curtailed, and so the claim, “I am not religious, but I am spiritual.”

One of my previous teachers had her own definition of religion too, which had always stuck  to my mind.  She said that ‘religare’ is a term to denote having a ‘relationship’ with God.  That’s what I’ve always remembered, and it’s only now that I’ve learned that ‘religare’ actually meant ‘to reconnect’.

Thinking about it though, having a relationship with another person, is actually being able to ‘connect’ with that person.  Relationships are about connections, about the ties that bind us to people we care about the most.

In my own experience, these relationships are the best things that ever happened in my life.  Without these people, life would be absurd and meaningless, and even if I gain the whole world, it wouldn’t mean a thing because I wouldn’t have anybody I could share it with.

I guess I’ll stick with this definition of religion, ‘to have a relationship with God’.  It’s something you can carry with you even beyond this life, even unto eternity, knowing that you are not alone, knowing that you are loved.

Spirituality is meaningless to me if it does not include having this kind of a relationship.  Without relationships, how could you say that you have love?  How could you ever love? Love is what matters most.

“After all the searching, I’ve found out that the meaning of life is in one simple word – love.  And heaven?  A place where we could love without end.”

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