Spirituality and Being Spiritual...

Looking at my profile or looking at the way I describe myself, many a times my friends or acquaintances had asked me – what you mean by you are spiritual than religious?

Who is a religious person? If one want to be a religious person, one should believe in his/her religion (in case of many Hindus, they might show interest in some other faith also, at least thy don’t oppose other religions), follow the customs and rituals or believes in it. Reads their scripture (even if it’s a verbal exercise, many a times) and most of the times their faith is blind and not logical…they fear to question it, visits their place of worships on a regular basis…., many a times ‘God fearing’ and not God loving (I remember one recent incident – a relative offers a sweet to my son, which was ‘prasadam’ (sacred food offered from temples or after a puja). He rejected that and that person said – you will get ‘dosham’…. I don’t know the English word for dosham its sort of ‘bad’ or anger from God or deity etc etc). If in a situation where milk or wine or sweets or anything like that which is part of any religious service is offered to a religious person, even if he/she is not medically advised to not to take such things (due to specific reasons like sweet for a diabetic person), he/she might take it, though it will do only harm and not good and this happens mainly coz of fear to reject it. A religious person’s religious activities are external, which has something to do with physical objects and activities….. one way or another they ‘believe’ in a religion, which is mostly founded by a single man ......these are only some of the identities of a ‘religious’ person…

A spiritual person is not ‘bound’ to religion, even though one might stay in a religion. Religion is not the primary thing for him/her. He/she is not ‘God fearing’ but ‘God loving’. They look at the meaning of life than blindly following some rituals. They don’t need a place of worship to pray. They believe in a higher power which is beyond names. Some worship music, nature, some believes in a secular community, they too might pray….. Spirituality doesn’t have s single definition but may be it has more to do with ‘spirit’ than ‘body’…

One major distinction between a spiritual person and a religious person is that, a spiritual person looks inside (at the self) and the religious person looks outside. A spiritual person’s main tool is his/her mind and meditation. There is more silence in spirituality and there is more ‘sound’ in religion…

But these days, efforts are being taken by many religious bodies to bridge the gap and they also started implementing the practice of meditation.

This is only a short note on what I mean by being spiritual than religious. The personal definition of spirituality might change from person to person, but spirituality is a dynamic process and it also is a constantly evolving internal journey………