Difference between religion and spirituality.

We live in times where spirituality is the new buzzword and religion is seen by many as losing ground, yet at the same time, it is not clear what the differences between the two are. 

The religious approach can be summed up as a combination of desire for structure in life, respect for authority and the avoidance of ambiguity.  The spiritual path is based on the desire to discover the Truth for oneself by using certain teachings and practices.

All religions have a similar story, of the coming of a great teacher who is the incarnation of Divine Truth. This affords men the opportunity to make an organization of it, with its creeds, dogmas, its rules and regulations and a primitive concept of rewards and punishments. 

In the religious approach, God always remains external, a great power that must be feared, respected and obeyed, in the more modern teachings loved. In contrast, on the spiritual path, one engages in a selected set of mind body practices such as Yoga to realize the Divine inside as well as outside of our self.

All paths to the Divine require that one has faith, but in the religious approach, this faith often turns into the firm conviction that God is on our side and that whatever one is doing is part of “God’s plan for us”. If one succeeds, he proclaims, God’s grace is with me. 

This is a very simplistic view of life because the reality is much more complicated, since the choices that we make in daily life can lead us to an alternate future.

 Is there room for doubt on the spiritual path?

The path of Yoga requires a steady faith with a healthy self-doubt.  This attitude is quite different from the one advocated by traditional religions. 

The religious definition of faith is a belief in some Supreme Entity which will take care of us as long as one believes.  One is expected to hold this belief constantly and with intensity

The path of Yoga functions differently from the path of traditional religions.  Yoga begins with mental silence, progresses to an opening to the higher consciousness through the awakening of subtle centers of consciousness (i.e. Chakras) followed by a submersion into ones inner being, which will lead to a change of personality as one becomes established in the Divine consciousness within. 

The type of faith practiced in traditional religions can actually be harmful, since rigid beliefs, which are just consistently held thoughts on the outcome of some desired result can, if not realized, lead to doubt and in extreme cases hallucination.

What then is this faith required in Yoga? 

Faith is the ability of one to persist in spite of obstacles.

Faith in the existence of the Divine, although one may not initially know how this Divine Power acts or how to recognize it.

Faith in the principles and techniques of yoga that can be compared to the scientist who continues the experiments in the faith that the method he uses will eventually produce results.

This faith is not self-confidence or based on self importance, arrogance and ego. It is also not the belief of religion which is often rigid. Faith in the spiritual sense is a subtle and passive feeling of assurance, a sense of knowing.

In conjunction with this faith, one must also be willing to entertain a healthy self-doubt and questioning, for the practice of Yoga begins with an imperfect mental understanding which gradually changes as the mind itself becomes luminous. During the practice of Yoga, as the inner consciousness develops, one might have various inner visions, all such intermediate visions must not lead to excitement or pride, nor attachment, because a partially transformed personality can interfere and distort the experience with its own longings, (like a measurement errors in science) it can prevent one from reaching the goal of yoga, which is samadhi, oneness.   On the other hand, entertaining too many doubts can also create difficulties because the path of Yoga is like a walk across the desert wherein spiritual practice has to be rigorous and where one gets validation of progress in the form of visions and experiences only intermittently.   Effort has to be constant but it must be coupled with the understanding that with the Grace of the Divine one can open the path of the inner and higher consciousness.  

There are times when one wonders whether he is progressing at all or whether one is on the right path. All such doubts have to be reflected in the mirror of our faith in the Divine.  

In summary, doubts may arise from within oneself. Understanding may be necessary to overcome ignorance, but doubt in ones lack of progress should be avoided as one is encouraged to steadfastly move toward the goal of Self realization.

This interplay of faith and doubt has been outlined very neatly by Sri Aurobindo in the following passage:

“In the Yoga as in life, it is the man who persists unwearied to the last in the face of every defeat and disillusionment and of all confronting, hostile and contradicting events and powers who conquers in the end and finds his faith justified, because to the soul and shakti (soul energy) in man nothing is impossible”.

In the religious approach, the entire holy book is taken to be holy and has to be accepted in totality. This is known as literalism.

“Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills and the Spirit gives life”.

                                                                           (Corinthians 3:6)

A related problem is the belief, born primarily out of religious pride that everything science has discovered today already exists in the ancient scriptures of one’s particular faith.

The spiritual approach to reading holy books calls for a fine blend of critical thinking and interpretive insight, with the objective on how one must live and attain Divine union. One should view all proclamations as hypothesis which will be proved later by personal spiritual experience.  Many verses make sense only after experiencing a different reality through a change in consciousness. One begins to connect the dots only after one rediscovers the Truth. 

In reading holy books one should apply the yoga method of reading a text, which has three stages called hearing or reading, reflection and contemplation. 

The rationale behind this method is that texts which have been written by a person who has attained enlightenment carry a powerful vibratory message, which can be helpful in inducing a state of contemplation, improving attention and creating harmony within oneself. 

With an understanding of the differences between religion and spirituality and an insight into the objective and subjective meaning of the scriptures, one can realize inner harmony and peace.

“Persons who do not believe in the immanence of the Absolute in the relative world tend to become either sceptical or dogmatic, because in both cases religion is a matter of blind beliefs. Unable to reconcile the idea of a good God with the seeming evil in creation, the sceptics reject religious belief as stubbornly as the dogmatist clings to it. Belief is an initial stage of spiritual progress necessary to receive the concept of God. But that concept has to be transposed into conviction, into personal experience. Belief is the precursor of conviction; one has to believe a thing in order to investigate it; but if one is satisfied only with belief, it becomes dogma, a hindrance to truth and spiritual progress.”

                                                                      Paramahansa Yogananda