Loading ...Positive ThinkingAre You Religious or Spiritual?
“I am not religious but I am spiritual!” This is a rather popular statement today. I hear it from students, clients, friends and family members and for years, I used to say it myself. In truth, it actually makes no sense.
Spirituality could be defined as the esoteric core of religion. OK, too vague for your taste? How about this: Spirituality is the essential energy and experience that connects us to God and/or the Divine. Spirituality moves us and makes us open to life and brings compassion and transformation. Simply said, it connects us to Spirit.
Religion, on the other hand, to those who say they are not religious, is rigid, lifeless, irrelevant, and full of nonsensical rules, rituals and people who cannot think or feel for themselves. Religion, from this point of view, has no function other than control and manipulation — and should be discarded and avoided.
However, this point of view has holes in it, big ones. I want to name a few. If I get a good response to this theme, I will write more on the subject.
Think of spirituality as wine. (Wine = spirits). Wine has power to affect us in many ways. I assume you already know them. So wine as a metaphor for spirituality makes good sense.
Herein lies the first problem. All wine needs a bottle (I hope you don’t drink the kind that comes in a box!). Without a bottle, the wine cannot be carried or accessed. A bottle is essential to the use of wine.
Now if wine equals spirituality then what would the bottle represent? Right! Religion. Religion is the structure or the container for spirituality, just as a bottle is the container for wine. One needs the other. If we attempt to explore spirituality without a container then all we have is a mess.
Spirituality always comes with some sort of container/structure. If you have a spiritual experience, you need words and concepts (structures) to communicate it to others. As soon as you do that you have begun to construct a container. A complex and highly structured container for spiritual experience is called………a religion.
What is my point here? Religion (of some sort) is necessary for spirituality. One requires the other, like up and down or left and right. No one has wine without a bottle. Once we accept this reality, we can begin the rather difficult but essential process of finding a religious structure for the spirituality that is meaningful to us.
Jesus used to say that we need “new wine skins for new wine” because new wine will break the old skins. We all could learn from his wisdom on this one. If your spirituality is meaningful to you (and I hope it is) then it is up to you to find an appropriate skin/bottle/religious structure for it. Otherwise, your spirituality will become a useless puddle at your feet.
Am I telling you to become a Christian, a Jew or a Buddhist? No, not at all. I hope you will look to your heart and soul for that answer. I am saying that anyone who truly takes her/his spirituality seriously must find a meaningful container for it. Stop declaring the impossible, “I am not religious but I am spiritual!” and go in search of a healthy, strong and supportive container for your most precious wine.
[Ed. note: Dr. Matthew Anderson is an author (The Prayer Diet), counselor and national columnist/expert on weight loss, motivation, self-management and relationships. To find tough-minded, outside-the-box guidance for taking charge of your life and/or your weight including Eating to Kill, click here.]
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I do agree totally. But people are really protesting against both the wine and the bottles they’ve experienced and saying: I can make my own wine and my own bottles. I don’t need a church where I’ll be told what to believe.
Entered: September 2nd, 2008 at 10:13 am. PermalinkDr. Anderson,
You make an interesting argument and it reframes the concept of religion in an equally interesting way. I would argue, though, that the “container” is God/Source/Oneness–whatever we want to call the Numinous Presence.
Do we need to put our spirituality into words and communicate it to others? Many of us certainly do. But direct relationship with the Numinous is ineffable and words cannot begin to explain it adequately. Further, what constitutes the spiritual and what does not? We could argue that everything we experience has a spiritual component to it.
I don’t think there are easy answers. I love your thought process on this–even if I don’t quite agree with it. One thing you manage to do is to call into question the prejudices many spiritual people have about religion. And calling into question our prejudices is always a good thing.
Melanie Mulhall
Entered: September 2nd, 2008 at 1:16 pm. PermalinkAs the founder of Elevated Existence magazine, a new digital publication based on spirituality and self-help concepts, I was brought up Catholic and consider myself spiritual today. I do believe that many of my original ideas came from religion, but most “religions” I have studied or looked into do not work for me, as I don’t think they work for others.
Spirituality, on the other hand, is not about a container. I believe spirituality is about surpassing the container. When you pour wine from the bottle, it leaves the bottle behind. And if the bottle is religion and wine is spirituality, I believe religion is left behind because it does not work for many people anymore.
I think if we begin to take the free and open oneness of spirituality and try to fit it into a “container” to become a “religion,” it will lose everything that has attracted so many to it.
I enjoyed your column, and hope you will take a look at my magazine. Spirituality for me is based on many religious principles, but brings about a feeling of oneness and equality, while religion brings about separation. I do hope spirituality remains free, and people don’t start trying to define and limit it because in my opinion, it will be a move in the wrong direction.
Blessings and love to you!
Tammy Mastroberte
Entered: September 2nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm. PermalinkPublisher and Editor-in-Chief
Elevated Existence magazine
Dear Dr Anderson,
Entered: September 3rd, 2008 at 3:16 am. PermalinkLet us look at spirituality and religion differently - spirituality the stairs that uplifts and religion - the railings. Some of us need the help of railings to climb the stairs while others do not. Problem starts when we use the railing as stairs and think we can slide up ! Railings are just an aid for those who need their support. People can even climb up sitting on the stairs - maybe some other form of religion ! Railings can be in various forms but climbing up has to happen with or without it. One cannot just keep sitting on the railings and fight - they have to go up.
Yes I am spiritual and certainly not religious - however I will refer to any religion in my quest for spirituality - if need be.
Cheers
Lalitha Krishnamurthy
I really like the metaphor of the wine (spirituality) and bottle (religion). Perhaps I could elaborate it in this way: The problem that many people feel with religion is that religion often makes the bottle more important than the wine. When you drink wine, to be sure, you do need a bottle - but when the wine is done, you throw the bottle away. The bottle is not important in itself. It is merely a temporary container for the wine. On the other hand, many religious people pour out all the wine, and hold on to the bottle for dear life. What they are left with is empty . . . it contains no spirituality. They polish this bottle and display it to the world, but they have lost what is truly important.
Thank you for sharing this useful metaphor with us
In Peace,
Entered: September 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 am. PermalinkBrother Gi