Religion v. Spirituality

Spirituality is inclusionary and unbound, religion is exclusionary and confined.

Most humans are drawn to religion in the earliest stages of their spiritual curiosity. Confrontations with confounding or confusing events and information usually provoke the awakening of what is called "divine discontent." Divine discontent is the nagging and persistent desire, or need, to seek answers to recurring questions to confounding areas of ignorance or confusion. The group energy and "proven" history of many religions is an easy and quick entry to access answers to many of the most common, generally confounding ontological questions. The politicized manipulations of religious organizations with their fear-based teachings and tactics, and even of religious dogma, however, can lead some people to question the motives of, and then, the information dispensed by their usually ancient texts. The content of these texts have quite often been adulterated and manipulated during the process of passing them down through generations and across language and cultural barriers. Thus the interpretations of various versions of source materials as provided by authoritarian and often-self-intersted religious leaders, pundits, and 'experts' can be suspect. Also, we humans are not forever blind to the hypocritical and duplicitous foibles and facades that people "with religion" try to hide; once an individual has discovered the flaws in religious group participation it is not difficult to find oneself noticing other fresh, new, or enticing ideas coming from people, groups, books, etc., outside of one's affiliated religious group. Once curiosity is awakened, it is only time before one finds new ideas, beliefs, values and ideologies that one feels drawn to, feels more comfortable with. Or their new ideas and beliefs make them feel less comfortable with their current friends, and organizations. So, they stop showing interest. They stop attending events. Eventually they stop attending altogether--often creating, consciously or unconsciously, new interests which keep them "busy" enough to give them excuses for disengaging from their former group.
    This phenomenon can be attributed to a molting, a cracking and peeling away of a layer of old thought and belief patterns, as curiosity--the Divine energy of the "divine discontent"--creates a demand for an increased flow of spiritual energy. The presence of this increase in spiritual energy causes a nudging reminder to the Ego/Personality of the True Reality, a reminder of the fact that the "reality" that the Ego/Personality attaches itself is just a cumulation of layers of illusions. This reminder, in turn, causes "cracks" within your current belief, value, and attention patterns. The bodymind begins to shed some of its old beliefs and mental constructs in order to make way for new ideas, expanded consciousness. It's like the adjustments that the Department of Transportation has to make in order to accommodate an increase in traffic in an area experiencing a growth in population: at the very least main roads will have to be widened and some new roads may have to be created. Old structures will have to be torn up to make way for greater demand in flow.
     Unfortunately, as religions become organized, they take specific forms. At first those forms are flexible and changeable as they adapt to changes in the world, changes in leadership, changes in the makeup of membership populations, changes in perspective, changes in the number of new and different ideas encountered. The religion assimilates and accommodates all of this new information, eventually choosing to include the ideas that seem to support and strengthen its form and shape--and which encourage its growth and perpetuation. But then it also chooses to reject many ideas--ideas that are judged weakening to or in conflict with its foundational beliefs and values. Eventually, the religion's forms and structures become so layered and so reinforced that they become less able to adjust to and accommodate change. They become recalcitrant and inflexible in thinking that they have been so tried and true, so well tested and established, that their structures and rules become self-defining and, they come to believe, of necessity, self-perpetuating. Unfortunately, this just means they've also become stiff and self-confining. To be a member of the religion, you have to either take it all on blind faith and try to live with the accumulation of guilt that comes from the lies you try to hide with the accrual of missteps and hiccups in your human behavior, or you leave and either wallow in your own self-pity and drown your sorrows of isolation and separation with addictive behaviors. Or you find another "fold," another religion or group.
     Independent thinking and behaviors create independent beings. At first this can be quite scary and worrying. Eventually we tend to attract the ideas, information, and experiences that will best support our growth and progress. We begin to meet books, and art and people and ideas that strengthen and reinforce our new path. New groups, new organizations, new traditions will cross our paths. We may allow ourselves to be drawn into new commitments to learn from immersion and head-on "harmony through conflict." Stop the car, get out, and walk into the store or bar. Or we may dabble in a wide variety of groups and ideas--play the field, so to speak--stay on the road of travel and adventure.
     Along the way we will invariably meet and feel attracted to follow people and ideas that feel "powerful" and teacher-like. This is quite natural. So we stop and study with them. For a while. Eventually, with continued growth and progress, with continued expansion of our access to Spiritual energy, we outgrow these relationships--they get used up. Some people get caught in patterns of loyalty to people or a cause or ida, or patterns of devotion to ritual, or logic and science. These are the people who then find it hard to let go, to 'risk' going outside their comfort zones. Their thought and behavior patterns become so ingrained, so familiar and comfortable that they've built their identity and self-definition upon them. This, again, is an indication of the strength of Fear that the Ego/Personality holds onto. Remember, the Ego/Personality is built, constructed, brick by brick over quite a long time. Starting with the culture of the family, the human bodymind is molded and shaped in ways that are very difficult to change as one attains self-awareness and the notion of self-control. The Ego/Personality is already quite strong by that point. Every change a person makes "bucking the traditions" it has been conditioned by takes tremendous will and effort. Society doesn't always help. Often the patterns and paradigms coming from "outside" us are the most restricting and reinforcing of our Ego constructs. Again, we Monadic Beings created quite a clever quagmire in which to try to achieve Self-awarenss, Self-realization, and Self-actualization. But create it we did. And we created it with an infinite number of ways--and every intention--of being able to figure out how to extricate ourselves from it.
     Thus, the Ego/Personality has trouble with change, with remodeling, and especially with starting new. It is most comfortable with its old familiar shapes and forms--even when faced with their flaws and their crumbling materials and structures. It is that Inner Voice, that constant hum of Spirit, that is crucial to taming and overcoming the Ego. Every day, every minute, we are bombarded with reminders of the Truth. The Modern Ego is constructed to block out and ignore those messages. It is the essential element of our foundational choice to participate in the Illusion of Separation--that core belief that allows us to feel as if we are alone, as if we are different, as if we are separate from others, separate from our Divine Source, and even separate from our power. The Ego has to be exposed to experiences that shake this core belief--experiences of unity, of comradery, of joy, beauty, truth and love, in order to show it the flaws in its thinking, the flaws in the Illusion of Separation. And, again, these experiences are bombarding us daily. It's just a matter of time before the proverbial "straw that breaks the camels back" hits us and causes a crack in the Ego's constructs.
     For some of us, the exposure to social, familial, educational, media information has been greater than for others. For these people, your Ego constructs will be stronger than someone who was exposed to less of the "civilized world's" indoctrinations. Thus, your Ego will be tougher to overcome. You will find yourself more in tendency to continually build upon your protective layers with stubborn or addictive habits which serve to further cloud and numb your bodymind to the inputs of Spirit. It is such an ingenious system that we have created! Again, though, I will remind you: We will all get There; we will all re-discover our True Selves; we will all experience ever higher, ever more inclusive, ever more Illusion-disabling forms of Beauty, Truth, Joy, and Love, until, finally, we will re-discover our God-ness and become re-united with all things; we will find release from the Game of the Illusions of Duality and Ignorance.
     Religion is but a stepping stone in that process. Spirit will take what it can get but I must caution you:  Spirit is infinitely more patient than religion . . . because Spirit has an Infinite Infinity with which to work!