Difference Between Spirituality and Religion
The term enlightenment from a yogic perspective is seen as the ultimate state of awareness that can be achieved by a human being. It is said, that the possibility of becoming enlightened in this age is an extremely rare possibility. Of those in ancient recorded history considered to be enlightened during this and prior ages there was the Adiyogi, Buddha, Moses, Jesus Christ, Guru Nanak, Muhammad. These were considered exalted human beings, avatars, saints and sages about whom various sacred texts were written. The Vedas, Poli canon, Bible, Guru Granth Sahib and the Quran, respectively are the texts through which the experiences, stories and the words were accounted for of these avatars. A large portion of our world’s major religions along with the foundational global consciousness and value system was built upon the interpretation of these texts.
In these religions, the enlightened being/deity/avatar is one who serves as the foundational symbology, inspiration and medium for God’s message within that belief system or paradigm. The texts and records kept are of the words, prophecies and behaviors described of the enlightened avatar by their followers and students. The enlightened avatar by way of the texts, offers teachings of a higher being (God/Allah/Brahma), or of a higher potential of being (Buddha Nature). The avatars and the texts themselves are not equal to the religions. Equally so, the religions are rarely reflective of the intended message of the avatar within the texts. In my opinion, this discrepancy is what has caused a severe disconnection of humanity from spirituality and is the cause of the main difference in distinction between spirituality and being the “member of a religion”. One can be religious and be devoid of spirituality. Additionally, one can be highly spiritual without having the need for, or interest in any for of organized religion.
In my opinion, one who is rooted in spirituality understands these and other enlightened beings exist(ed) and understands that the texts recounting the nature and behavior of the avatars is valuable to understand the nature of a spiritual and material existence. However, spirituality in its essence does not ascribe to any separating beliefs, socially separating practices, us versus them, my God is better than your God manner of belief, or behavior. Spirituality is an endeavor toward accessing and understanding that it is all one unique expression of the same power. Harmony and union, with respect and reverence for life are tantamount.
From a spiritual perspective, a religious, or dogmatic person is often apt to hold on tightly to belief systems and practices that create separation, exclusion, and adaptations that contradict the behaviors that align with the avatars teachings and the related texts. Religion often includes misinterpreted and misguided practices in the name of being the member of a religion. Just like being the member of a political party, or the “member” of a corporate agenda does. There is often an us versus them mentality and a consciousness of separation, that contradicts the unifying teachings of all of these spiritual avatars upon whose teachings these religions were built upon. Consider a religion who justifies and supports the mass killing, or mistreatment of non believers, or those who maintain differing beliefs, or a religion who proclaims their beliefs, teachings and practices to be rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ, while directly contradicting those teachings by engaging in, facilitating and covering up chronic abuse (sexual and otherwise) by the hands of its leaders around the globe. This behavior, within the religion is actually anti-Christ in nature and contradicts the values on a spiritual path as it perpetuates violence, deception, aggression and harm.
Often times I think people dismiss the world’s most well known spiritual texts because, understandably they lack respect for the “religion” built around that text. However in essence, religions are little more than a set of practices and rituals conducted by a group of people, based around their interpretation of the message presented in the sacred texts. Furthermore, a group could feasibly create deceptive narratives and declare it present in the sacred texts either by way of altered interpretation, or direct deception. Think about it, even if a person is self proclaimed as an atheist, in most cases they only came to understand atheism through their understanding of what atheism is not - oftentimes, organized religion and that organized religion’s definition of what God is. With that comes an ascribed definition of how one should live, act, behave, love, eat, vote etc. I think there are a good many people out there who shortsightedly define themselves as atheist simply because they reject the dogma of organized religion, not because they don’t believe in a higher consciousness, or the message present in these sacred texts.
This brings me to that famous question asked of Albert Einstein once. He was asked if he believed in God. This is a challenging question to ask a scientist. However the type of scientist Albert Einstein was rendered him still unable to understand some of the higher mysteries of the universe present in discoveries like entanglement. As as such he responded “I believe in Spinoza’s God”. Spinoza’s God was simply a less personified expression of the same energy described in more religious circles as God. Barauch Spinoza (1632-1677), who influenced the work of Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx, Freud and Einstein, was a critic of modern biblical interpretation. Spinoza posited that the God force was an all pervading power that infused everything in existence (pantheistim), instead of the reductive modern view that God was an individual personified entity (monotheism). Spinoza’s God allows for science and spirituality to live in existence together, support and explain each other’s existence. Spinoza’s God defines the power that allows, sustains and transforms the energy of life and consciousness through all of existence. This interestingly is no different than what the Vedas have described as the Brahma (creative), Vishnu (sustaining) and Shiva (transforming) God force. It is all pervading and can bring things into being, it cannot be created, or destroyed, only transformed. A widely known law of thermodynamics which is in harmony with Spinoza’s God, however is highly conflicting with a monotheistic perspective.
RAISED RELIGIOUS
Allow me to give a little perspective from my upbringing. I was raised in an Irish Catholic household. The Irish distinction is intended to reveal that there wasn’t much levity, lots of obligation, resentment, punishment, silence, guilt, shame, stoicism, alcohol and of course martyrdom. I was always amazed how much love, celebration, good food and emotional expression was present in the Latino and Italian Catholic families of my other Catholic friends growing up. The guilt and the martyrdom was still present - that held strong across the board. I went to Catholic school to receive an early education which included learning the teachings of Jesus, the Bible and receiving he sacraments. Additionally, one of my uncles is a Catholic Priest. Sin was something you came into this world with because of Eve’s mistakes (which I’ll discuss in more detail later). Sin was also something Grandma would vaporize off my sister and I, being doused in a gauntlet of holy water flicks as we walked into her house. The grime of sin could quickly accumulate just by a rebellious glance, or smart tone of voice. As you grew older the opportunities for sin were ever increasing. The cards were stacking up against you in puberty and the teen years. Every turn you took was an opportunity to collect shame and fear of God’s disfavor. It had a collective negative impact.
Through a set of disjointed practices, a propaganda based belief system and indoctrinating sacraments, I was trained at an early age to believe that God was all loving, all knowing and prone to punishing the disobedient. Blind faith was required to fill in the remaining gaps. What was revealed was that God was a man, with very little patience, a suspicious nature and the power to make your life both here on earth and afterward, a living hell if you were disobedient. Then there’s the whole ever-growing list of what being disobedient consists of. God lives far beyond the earth, has power over the sun, moon and all the other planets. In fact, he created them in 6 days and on the 7th day he rested from all that work, which is such a quaint tale. As if someone was watching to see if he’d show up on that 7th day for record keeping purposes, but nope - he didn’t show up, further investigation revealed that he rested on that 7th day. This teaching was never offered as metaphor, or as an interpretive allegory, it was presented as fact. Any questions asked, brought you right back to square one, that you must have faith that this happened. This perspective is what a large percentage of human beings still maintain as their foundational understanding of the nature of existence.
The story further goes on to detail that at some point in a large expanse of time, God got lonely and created humans in his likeness, Adam and Eve. Adam came first of course born directly of God, no mother to speak of and Eve was created by making one of Adams ribs. She was built of spare parts from man. They lived together happily in the garden of Eden until Eve and her tempting ways, caused Adam to sin and screwed everything up the Garden of Eden. From that point the future race of humanity would be shrouded in ignorance. Thanks Eve. In time, God became growingly disappointed with the state of humanity and sent his only son down to provide us with a much needed lesson. He sacrificed his son to die to help us learn this lesson, that we are still trying to piece together today, over 2000 years later. Its also worth mentioning that in addition to Eve, there were no shortage of supporting female characters in this historical accounting of human existence at the time of Jesus: the mother, the virgin and of course the prostitute.
Meanwhile, humanity has found many more interesting things to focus on than placing a critical lens upon the foundational belief systems that have come to shape our society. Therefore, shining light on the absurdity of some of these religious belief systems failed to become a priority. There is way to much to eat, do, see, consume, conquer, etc.
As such, religion is now more of an identifying label to help establish clarity around who you are, who your people are and who is on, or against whose team. Being a member of one of these religions based on absurdity often allows for the bandwidth to justify war, terrorism, murder, abuse, imprisonment, ethnic cleansing, genocide and misogyny in its name for the benefit of the “greater good”of God and country.
For many of us there comes a time when that story, or another version of a similar story, along with its supporting behaviors and beliefs, demands an existential and spiritual reckoning. “Wait a minute, that story, those practices and behaviors do not resonate, or align with my intellect, nor do they align with my inherent understanding of the nature of being. So then what is the truth, what is the lineage of consciousness from which humanity has sprung and are there any real answers out there? Furthermore, why is it so important for me all of a sudden to understand this more holistically?” Welcome to the realm of spiritual awakening.
THE RECKONING
My practice of yoga and meditation has been a powerful tool to assist me in gaining an immense amount of perspective and understanding spiritually. The teachings, Vedic and pre-Vedic texts of Yoga predate many of the religious scriptures that the western society is built around. Texts that were written in reflection of the teachings of the vedas, The Bagahvad Gita, The Puranas, The Upanishads and the 8 Limbs of Patanjali speak of a spiritual awareness that rings natural and true. It it allows me the freedom to cultivate a new appreciation and understanding of my self as a Spiritual Being having a human experience. Interestingly enough, it has given me perspective to reframe many of the Christian teachings that were presented to me, in a way that feels true, possible and real.
When I started familiarizing myself with the teachings of yoga I started to see a more crystalized, intact, unadulterated description of the nature of being and a cultivated understanding of how to maintain one’s own relationship with a higher power of consciousness, without the control & fear based co-dependance of religious practice and belief. I also understood that a regular practice of yoga, meditation and reflection on spiritual texts can continue to evolve a person to the degree that they can access higher states of consciousness. States of consciousness that have been ascribed to avatars like the Buddha, Moses, Jesus, Guru Nanak and Mohammed. In essence, these men were yogis and in addition to them, here have been many women and men who have reached and continue to reach levels of expanded consciousness that facilitates the abilities ascribed to such beings as The Buddha and Jesus. Milarepa, Neeb Karoli Baba, Anandamayma, St. Theresa of Avila, Parmahansa Yogananda, Maharshi Kartekeya and Amma to name a few. These are gurus, saints and sages claimed capable of the same miracles ascribed to the avatars of the main religions our world was built upon. They were able to connect to cosmic consciousness in a way that allowed them to be capable of things that were transcendent in vibration to the whole of humanities’ current level of consciousness - thus they were seen and described as saints, miracle workers and healers, because the collective’s current access to consciousness could not comprehend account for this awareness as being possible and accessible to the whole of humanity. I am not suggesting yoga should be a new religion, I am suggesting that a spiritual reckoning is prime to take place in humanity as a result of the seed of yoga germinating throughout the collective consciousness by way of popular culture and evolved practices of self care and preventative wholistic maintenance of health.
ILLUMINATION
The term enlightenment from a yogic perspective is described as the ultimate state of exalted awareness, or consciousness, that can be achieved by a human being. It is the state of “ultimate-realization”. ultimate realization is a quality of being that in many ways, is challenging for us to conceptualize and integrate into the way we currently experience our lives. For example, descriptions like: desireless, free of fear and pain, ultimate contentment, love without boundary, able to dematerialize, healing the sick, transcending time and space, having control of the elements and being beyond the cycle of life and death, certainly brings up an ability to intellectually discuss and entertain what that might be like, but such elevated states are not in most cases, not available through our honest experience in the collective of humanity. Those who do experience it are, best case discovered and approved by Oprah, worst case rendered mentally unstable and treated with medications, institutionalized and cast out from normal society.
Parmahansa Yogananda often spoke of the second coming of Christ which was referenced in the Bible, as manifesting into the collective. Instead of one enlightened avatar sending message of higher awareness, the second coming would involve a collective of people waking up to higher consciousness, call it enlightenment, illumination, ultimate-realization, Christ consciousness, whatever you like. I like to think of this prophecy coming true through every person who is on the path of yoga and meditation. A continued trajectory of a growing collective within humanity evolving themselves through this ancient technology to access their highest potential and wake up to their true nature.