"Spirtuality is a personal journey"
Some would argue spiruality and religion are different ways to say the same thing. But, once you make a concious effort to focus on your spirtuality you find that they don't have to be linked. In fact I've seen in some cases where spirtuality and religion are mutually exclusive.
Spirituality is your personal journey in experiencing your inner self and gaining a greater wisdom in regards to God and your relationship and understanding of the higher power. It's an important aspect of ourself that we need to focus on in order to feel balanced and complete (see blog "Happiness is..."). For many (most?) of us, that aspect of ourselves is ignored for a good part of our life. And it's true that for many the first introduction to spirituality is through religion.
I've seen more than a few people become ecstatic when they initially join a particular religion. It's the first time in their lives that they feel that loving connection to their inner spirit and God and they feel that unexplainable excitment. They were so starving for that spiritual connection for so long that when they find it, they take it in like a starving person takes a loaf of bread.
Then because they finally feel happiness and the balance that was missing for so long, they feel that this religion must be the answer to their happiness. And they focus a large part of their lives in the short term into this new found religion in order to keep that happiness going. And they try and convert as many friends and family to this new found found religion so they can also feel the same ecstacy that they fealt.
In many cases, they unfortunately focus too much time on their new found spirituality, at the expense of one or more of their equally important emotional, social, physical, or mental aspects of their lives. Which makes them feel like something is missing from their lives again and they feel unhappy once again.
Spirituality is our personal journey to God. Our personal experience is the great teacher. When the wisdom of our personal experience conflicts with the knowledge given to us by some one or some group, our personal experience takes precidence. Your experience of God is the truth.
Religion is a particular groups interpretation and belief of God. Your spirtual growth is limited to the particular groups interpretation of God. When your personal experience of something conflicts with the groups interpretation of that event, its the religions interpretation of the truth that always takse precidence.
For example, a particular religion believes that dancing is blasphemous. It is evil. You've belonged to this religion your entire life, but see your friends having a great time dancing. They go out as a group and have a fun time socializing and dancing together. You go against your guilt and try dancing for yourself with your friends. And you find you love it. It doesn't feel evil. In fact you experience that you have great rythym. There are even certain songs that touch your spirit when you danced to them. You approach your religious elders with the fact that you went dancing and loved it. You tell them that far from feeling evil, it fealt fun and there were even some songs that touched your spirit while you danced. They inform you that you committed a great sin and must not dance again. The groups interpretation of the truth takes precidence over personal experience.
Be spiritual and use your personal experience of God and your inner spirit to guide your journey. If you find a particular religion that touches your heart and speaks to your beliefs, then feel free to follow your heart. But never underestimate or undermine the wisdom of your personal experiences.
