Spiritual Not Religious

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I’m growing less religious by the day. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that I want no part of any one particular religion. My growing hesitation concerning all things religious is not a product of some sort of bitter disdain for any one religion in particular, but rather my growing appreciation for our planet’s colorful compilation of religions and spiritual expressions. In fact, I think it would be proper to say that I am a spiritual person, but not religious. Yes, that might sound like an easy, modern, or perhaps even new age answer, but I assure you it is is not. It took me years to arrive at this conclusion and I can honestly say my arrival was anything but easy, modern, or new age. In fact, it has cost me plenty. It will cost you too, if you decide to chase it. It is worth the cost.

Right now, I am so captivated by life and living that I find most religious expressions unnecessary and at times even counter-productive. I have posted about this very phenomenon a few times in the course of the past few weeks.

I wrote a post titled “Ride On Two Wheels” wherein I revisited a theme I’ve been playing with concerning the inherently transient aspects of religion and our need to know when it (religion) should be discarded. Yes, I do think that religion’s greatest usefulness can only be found when its utter uselessness is realized (much like Christian pastors, to be honest). In other words, religion should be embraced – and it is – when we find ourselves in a position in life that lacks hope, vision, passion, and purpose. Most Christian converts, for example, convert when their lives are in the bottom of the proverbial bucket, so to speak, or if they start to age and begin worrying about their mortality. In these instances, religion serves a useful purpose, but it becomes a detriment if that usefulness is never realized and actualized in the setting of real life and living. If this realization and actualization never occur, and if the convert never moves beyond the most basic usefulness of their religious expression, then those people simply become emotional victims of their own self-inflicted objectification (it’s better to be objectified than deal with life, for some). Self-inflicted objectification, be it of a religious sort or otherwise, reduces the individual to a useless object that is used (i.e., a sense of purpose is fixed on something totally removed from personal or individual potential such as ideology, mission, church, a divine goal, etc.) and never permitted to live as a subject (Self-actualization, or realizing one’s full personal potential and living it). Any religion can reduce individuals to objects; a healthy spirituality will not only remind us that we are subjects, but also demand to be itself discarded so a life lived as subject can be authentically embraced.

I also wrote a post titled The Buddha’s Parable of the Raft. This post features a parable attributed to Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) that not only speaks of the very human need to know when to let go of something when it’s usefulness has expired, but also, and perhaps more importantly, our need to understand that everything in fact has its own purpose and it is our responsibility to realize when that purpose has been served so that we can move forward for our own sakes and for the sake of that which has served our immediate purpose. A tool used beyond the purpose that has been invested into it is no longer a tool; it is blunt object used to beat, pound, or chop things into a position that suits our personal whims more so than the reality in which we live. This happens a lot in life, but it’s really observable in religion and religious expression.

I suppose what I’m trying to say can be summed up in one word: GROW!

So many of us embrace religion or a particular religious expression and never – ever – move again. We die there in that immutable place thinking that we have not only encountered exhaustive truth, but also have laid hold of it, permanently! The truth caught in our gripped fist is ours and it is not going anywhere! Truthfully, that is a most unfortunate place to live, if it can be called living at all.

Those of us restless souls who weave in and out of any religious expression that we encounter are often said to be weak. I would be quick – very quick – to disagree. I am convinced that if a complete picture of life and living can at all be glimpsed (not grasped) then the only snapshot of this available to us can be found in the journey taken by the other. It is only within our experiences of the other that we can truly see ourselves, and perhaps more importantly, what it is we are actually doing. This event may be called a lot of things by a lot of people who think they do not need such an experience, but “weak” is not one of them.

I have grown to so appreciate the journey of the other that I can no longer align myself with any one particular expression. Such alignment requires too much spiritual energy and verbal gymnastics to be considered personally edifying, in my humble opinion. Also, I honestly believe that if our generation’s spiritual needs are going to be authentically met, then we have to begin the hard work of writing our own story. Our world’s compilations of Sacred Literature are incredible examples of the universal human need to do just that … Sometime, hopefully soon, more of us will be courageous enough to actually take our great compilation of Sacred Literature seriously enough to actually begin living like the people who recorded it rather than simply appropriating their work and their journey.

Personally, my new year will be dedicated to doing just that … I’m also in a new church where all that I’ve talked about in the above is not only embraced, but is also celebrated! I also have a new job that gives me plenty of time to work on a few literary projects that have been on the back-burner for some time (including a children’s book based upon a myth my own children grew up hearing from me, a screenplay about life in Western PA, and a confessional memoir tentatively titled “SIX”). There is a lot more going on life that is so good, but I’ll spare you dear readers of those details. I guess what I’m trying to say as I close this post, is that none of these things happening in my life right now would be happening had I not realized that life and living is the point. I’m sure I would never had realized this truth had it not been for my time spent as a religious human being, but I do realize it now. I am not an object to be used, I’m a living, breathing human being who is finally realizing that the quest for full personal potential is a mark of spiritual maturity.

I thank you, religion, for pointing me towards this transformational truth, but now it’s time for you to be set aside. Your usefulness has run it’s course. Thanks for pointing me back towards the life that was always there for me to live during a time when I could not see it. I see it now. Bye.

Related posts:

• Ride On Two Wheels

• A Mezuzah and a Bodhi Tree

• Possibilities for Over One Hundredfold More Spiritual Info

• An Unexamined Faith

• Be Heretics