Spirituality Versus Religion

I read many works which purport to be spiritual. Most of these are actually thinly disguised religious works and it seems that many cannot differentiate between religion, which is an organized system of belief, and spirituality, which is a conceptual awareness of one's position and role in creation. Those are, of course, my definitions and what I mean by the word 'creation' is, I expect, very different from what many would accept. I do understand that, for anyone with a well formulated religion, spirituality is likely to be experienced and expressed within the structure of that religion. But spirituality, I believe, is largely a very personal thing and is only truly meaningful at that level.

The problem with religion and spirituality is that the very framework and language of the religion tends to define the form that spirituality takes. Not only that, but the religion and the officers of that religion actually start to define what spirituality is and how it is to be achieved. By defining an accepted standard form for spirituality and ascribing specific meaning to it, like a relationship with God, spirituality becomes devalued as something personal to the individual and, probably, harder to attain.

The officials are forced, through the responsibilities of their office, to relate spirituality to the structure and tenets of the religion that they support - these are, in fact, very abstract and starts to break the relationship which exists between spirituality and the nature of the planet as a whole. In particular, creation myths do nothing to cement us, as living creatures, into the planets ecostructure. Those that believe the creation myths blind themselves to the wonder of how closely interwoven life is on Earth.

They do not understand the beauty of a world that has evolved around us and in which we are an integral part. Part of the wonder is our ability to appreciate this. The process by which life originally came about and then gradually evolved giving rise to emergent phenomena such as intelligence is amazing and it is a shame that many cannot see beyond the crass explanation that we were plonked on the planet by a supernatural agency that felt a bit bored with nothingness.

It means something to belong; to be a part of the entire process, rather than just an afterthought. If evolution is true then the entire planet is, in a sense, one big family and I can see some hope for the future in an understanding as deep and fulfilling as that. We are not particularly special, beyond our arrogant belief in our superiority and anything which tells us otherwise will, ultimately, mislead us.

Spirituality is not about scoring religious points: it is not quantative, but qualitive. It is also not about any particular struggle between good and evil - spirituality does not exist in the same way as those concepts.

We should be more humble: religions which inculcate a belief that we have some personal relationship with God do not help us to think in a scalable way; contemplating a heavenly battle between good and evil upon some higher plane trivialises small acts of kindness here, where we live, and it is precisely those small acts of kindness which may end up making a difference - not some great plan to be lifted up on high singing the praises of God whilst despising the one home that we have been truly given because it has been contaminated by the life that it supports.

I can think of one reason only that we would be taken away from this planet and it would not be for our salvation, but to prevent the harm that we do daily to it. We may think ourselves at the pinnacle of evolution, but that is a very subjective view and the future may still belong to the ants - depending upon exactly how we measure success, maybe the present already does.