Spirituality vs. Religion

What is Religion?
Religion teaches us how to live and about bhakthi (devotion) path. Bhakthi tells us to Surrender to God. It lets us to believe that there is one God. Some religions preach that even though there is only one God, you can worship in many forms and shapes, like Hinduism.

Religion gives us procedures and policies on how to live. Living is designed in certain way and the followers of that religion have to follow that path; otherwise, they are not part of that religion.

For example, if you are a follower of one religion where it does not preach you to pray God in any form or shape and you personally feel it difficult to pray by looking at air or by closing eyes without visualizing some form, then, you will be stripped off your stature from that religion.

Also, religion preaches to construct physical structures for people to gather and perform activities to please God.

What is Spirituality?
Spirituality is a concept of understanding other beings; let it be living creatures or non-living things. It tells us to see Us in other Things. It tells us that we are made up of the same matter as the other things including non-living things. It preaches us to have mercy at any living creatures. It also tells us that we need to elevate ourselves with consciousness.

It is Spirituality which gives us the awareness about universal laws like law of attraction, law of supply etc.

Spirituality tells us to gather together the like minded people to increase awareness about life and how to make it supreme life. It tells us that we need to live for others. It is Spirituality which teaches us to give more and live a purposeful life.

How Religion swallowed Spirituality?
In ancient days, Religion and Spirituality were two different entities. All religions were preaching only about God and how to reach Him using Bhakthi as a soft weapon. All the people, no matter which religion they belonged to; started understanding Spirituality. Then, the religious leaders took a copy of spirituality and made changes in words, terms and added religious flavor and made it compact and totally customized to reflect their religion. In this modern age, when you talk about Spirituality, people get confused with Religion. They think that you are talking about a particular religion.

As we know, Spirituality tells us to see ourselves in other beings, otherwise we will have imbalance in the Universe, this concept is customized by Religion, and it says, see God in all the beings; otherwise God will punish.

So, whatever you want to follow in this modern age, you are free to follow, but both will teach you to be more humane and gives you the knowledge to go to higher levels of awareness.


* Note * This article is based on fiction