How SPIRITUALITY is different from RELIGION? What does it mean to be SPIRITUAL?

A spiritual person can be religious and a religious person can be spiritual, so the question is: What is the difference between spirituality and religion then?

As I was raised Catholic and became spiritual in my mid-30s, I think I’m in a good position to answer this question today, and I hope I can help you to understand better what the main differences are between being religious and being spiritual!

Before I start the content, let me clarify one thing because religion can be quite a delicate subject: I’m nobody to tell you what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s best for you! Anything you believe that helps you to navigate through life, that’s great, I’m glad you found something that works for you!

At the end of the day, the truth is the truth, no matter what we believe! I already asked myself many times in the past, what if everything I believe isn’t true? And my conclusion was, it doesn’t matter! As long as my faith helps me to have a better life and become a better person, it’s serving its purpose!

Inherit X Seek

Going back to the content, the main difference between religion and spirituality is that religion is usually something you inherit from your family, and spirituality is something you have to seek!

External X Internal

Religion happens in a more external way! You need to go to places to pray, to read holy books, to do rituals and even to be part of an entire community. Spirituality is more internal, it’s about going inside yourself and seek for the meaning of your existence and your relationship with God!

Separation X Union

In religion you experience more separation, especially with different religions and between you and God. In spirituality you experience more connection, with yourself, with other people and with the universe!

Follow X Validate

In religion, you are like a follower of someone’s teachings, whether it’s a prophet or a religious figure, and you accept it without question, which requires blind faith! You also have a set of rules to follow!

In spirituality, you look for the same things the masters were looking for, you follow their footsteps, and you validate the teachings through your own inner experiences! And there’s only one rule to follow, don’t do to others what you don’t want to be done to yourself!

Judgment X Karma

In religion there is a lot of fear because of the ideas of right and wrong, judgment and punishment, and in spirituality no! It’s all a matter of experience, there is no right or wrong, they can be positive or negative! And anything you do requires you to experience the other side of the coin, to balance the energies and to learn your lesson! Which is more aligned with the concept of karma.

God as a Being X God as a Whole

The understanding of God is also different! In most religions, He is a supreme being, separated from us! In spirituality He is the total consciousness, the source of creation! He is everything that ever was, is and will be! He is the creator and the creation, which includes all of us! And that’s why many spiritual people refer to God as the universe!

I have to admit that the first time I experienced God as a total consciousness in one of my meditations, and me being part of it, I initially thought it was a blasphemy from my side! But after integrating the experience, I was finally able to understand what most religions say that we are all one and we are all connected! God knows everything because he is in everything and everyone!

This is a great example of what I mentioned earlier about validating the teachings through your own inner experiences! When I had this vision, I began my meditation with the intention of knowing God and understand Him better. During the meditation, I saw a massive sun at the center of the universe, and a clear voice in my mind told me: He is the source of everything! Everything comes from Him, everything comes back to Him! He is all there is!

When this happened, I was not familiar at all with this kind of concept, I still had the classic view of God according to the Catholic Church, and I was shocked by what I saw! It took a long time for me to digest and integrate the experience!

Heaven X Hell

The concept of heaven and hell is also different! In religion, they are places you go after you die. In spirituality, they exist within you because it depends on your state of being!

If you ever had depression or some very intense emotional pain in your life, for sure you know what I’m talking about! It burns and consumes you from the inside and it’s literally like living in hell!

And the opposite is also true, if you ever had blissful moments like connecting with nature, watching the sunset, or even looking at your child for the first time, for sure you’ve experienced heaven on Earth!

Eternity of the Soul

Now, there’s something they all agree on, the eternity of the soul! They just see the journey in different ways!

Some religions believe in just one life and then heaven or hell, others believe in reincarnation. Spirituality believes in the eternal journey of the soul, where it experiences everything possible in creation so it can reintegrate back into the source!

That’s quite complex, I know, so let me simplify it! Just imagine that God is the entire ocean, and as you explore it by becoming the plant, the fish, the shark, you expand your awareness and become able to understand the totality of everything that He represents!

Creation may be infinite, but you have the rest of eternity to explore it! As I said before, regardless of what we believe, the truth is the truth! And at some point in our existence, we will all figure it out!