By: Sujit Mahapatra
What is the difference? Spirituality and Religion both the terms are used many times by people. We generally do not discriminate between them. But are they the same? No, They are not! They are two very different ideas as it will be explained in this article. While religion is the most used term, spirituality is often misunderstood. People often misunderstand spirituality as part of a particular religion. But spirituality is nowhere linked with religion. Religion can be termed as a way to get closer to [your] God, but spirituality is a way of understanding your soul. Religion and religious differences are the cause of many conflicts, spiritual people will find conflicts within themselves.
Spirituality deals with understanding of the Soul. Existence of a subtle you, within you! No one can really take you near to your soul, it is already within you. Now priests of a temple or pastors of a church can be religious, but might not be spiritual. They might remember many religious hymns, phrases, books etc, but might not understand their own soul. You don’t need to remember anything to be spiritual. You actually need no outside assistance at all to be spiritual. There are no set rules for spirituality. You need not follow any given procedure, wear, eat, sleep in a certain way. Spirituality deals with the understanding of what is good for you, not just for the short run, but for the long run. Spirituality tells you that the spirit or soul inside of you is immortal, it does not age, it does not die. Spirituality tells you to be brave and do what you believe is good for your soul. There is no soul that actually dies. A soul might change from one body to another, if a body is too old or worn out that it cannot sustain a “life”.
Religion has many dos and don’ts. For an example, there are many things in islam that is haram or forbidden. There are many wars fought in the name of religion. Wheather it is the islamic jihad, or the crusades, there has been a great deal of violence that has happened because of religion. In fact in ancient India, Ashoka is known to have killed many hundred jains because of his belief in Buddhism. One knowledgeable in history will note that there were many religious prosecution by Muslim inveders and rulers of India. There were many thousands of lives lost, many temples broken, many converted. Is there any “conversion” that is possible in spirituality? No, not at all! There is no your soul vs. mine. Everyone is equally distributed there. Everyone has their own soul, so obviously there are no conflicts there.
There have been many cases of narratives being built based on religion. For example, After the World War 2, the British wrote the history of the war as is the case with every winning party. It is always the case that the winner writes the history! The symbol of the NAZI party was the Hakenkreuz which translates “Hooked Cross”. Hooked cross is a christian symbol that hitler used in nazi flags, air planes, uniforms etc. But after hitler was defeated and died, the British could not term this symbol as a christian one. So they came up with this idea of calling the hooked cross as Swastika, as both the symbols are somewhat similar. The idea was obviously to hide the fact that hitler was a devout christian and was using a christian symbol in all his wrong doings, especially his prosecution of the jews. This is how religion plays a part in building narratives in ways that are very unfortunate.
In religion there will always be conflict between right vs. wrong, Where both parties will think themselves as right! So they obviously will fight against the wrong party.
This is where spirituality provides a solution. Spirituality is not bound by any religion, any geographical location, any race, etc. Spirituality is individualistic. It is all about you, and you only. It is extremely simple to follow. Unlike religion which can be very complex, and hard to follow. Spirituality simply asks you to sit quietly, and meditate. While meditation is now a widely accepted practice now to reduce stress, increase productivity, it is much more than that. Meditation allows you to immerse yourself to be able to understand the more subtle form of you. Just like being quiet and attentive you can realize your heart is beating, same way taking that to a much deeper extent you can realize your soul.
It is also important to understand the difference between Philosophy and Spirituality. Philosophy comes from the mind, from your intelligence. Spirituality specifically asks you to relax your mind, try not to use it at all! Spirituality asks to shut down as much physical and mental activity as possible. Meditation is a sure way of spirituality. But meditation too takes time and practice. It is not easy to deeply meditate if you are not used to doing so. You will notice, it is especially difficult for your mind to not to work. Mind is impossible to fully control, but one can try to relax, take deep breaths and focus. You could compare it to the process we follow to go to sleep, the only difference is that during meditation you don’t lose consciousness, you don’t fall asleep.
Spirituality has many benefits. As explained earlier of all the complexities and conflicts associated with religion, none whatsoever exists in spirituality. Spirituality makes you calm, lessens your ego, makes you a good human being. Part of spirituality is the realization that you are a minute minute part of the colossal cosmos. And also the understanding that happiness or sadness is just how we perceive facts. Physical pain is only to the body, not to the soul. Indeed, your world is just how you perceive it. Spirituality is all about looking inward, rather than outward. Trying to understand what is in you, other than what is outside of you.
“Be a seeker, not a believer” – Sadhguru
Sujit'z World 