The difference between spirituality and religion
I’ve had the luxury, the pleasure, of working with a Catholic priest of 40 years who has mentored me in ways and I have had the opportunity to mentor him. And through our time together, through our conversations, spirituality and religion came into focus. Well, what is that? What is spirituality, what is religion, defined in action, not just by definition. What is it, nouns and verbs really, so spirituality as I define it for myself and how I practice it is like this. Spirituality is my relationship with my Higher Power, how I behave within my belief system, towards myself, under my belief in my higher power. Religion is how I treat others under my belief system. See? Any belief system can fall into that place. It’s about morals and character and whether you live by your beliefs or not. Neither one is good or bad, neither one is better than the other, they are both equal. I also think spirituality is a poison pill for ego if we are only looking inward and not outward. I think spirituality can kill religion IF the spirituality, the point of it, is for selfish gain. To reflect on “wanting to be a better person” also means that you treat others the same way, how you treat others outwardly. Of course you protect your self and all that happy shit but you don’t negate other people’s experiences for your own enlightenment, I guess. There you go, we don’t negate others experience for our own enlightenment. That is what a lot of people who claim to be spiritual do. Right? They are too busy shooting down others because their beliefs aren’t like theirs, whether they do that directly or subconsciously. Just listen to the language. Religion isn’t a bad thing. It’s only as good as how we were taught.
