Peace, love and light reader. I believe that everyone has the right to their faith. I'm here to explain the meaning of spirituality and religion. Spirituality is freedom of self-expression without guilt or embarrassment while religion kept me in a bind to fit in. With spirituality, I was free to let go of my fears by being all of me, and take a big leap of faith into the unknown. With religion, I did my best to follow every word within the holy books. When I wanted to be myself I begin to feel ashamed, which is who I thought that I was supposed to be. Well, spirituality allowed me to put the book down and ask myself who am? I began to look inwards for insight and inspiration.
I suffered less when I became spiritually aware because now I feel guided. Spirituality is so powerful that I was able to put my ego aside, but religion kept me in the same old emotional patterns because I was trying to be so good for God. I was very hard on myself, this manifested as my emotional baggage. When I was religious I felt stuck in the state of self-judgment, I never felt good enough because of my past actions, so I allowed my emotional baggage such as regrets, guilt, shame, and grief to cloud my judgment.
When I was religious I was afraid of anything that was outside of the book, but things changed for me when I started to experience Buddhism, yoga, tia chi gong, meditation, and magik. My spiritual journey going inwards then coming outwards helped me see things clearly because I began to understand my ego. I began to see that everything that was going on in my life was coming from inside of me, but we must look inwards to find the why.
So spirituality is about learning from the inside then coming out, observing my spirit, but religion kept me distracted by looking outside then inwards. My physical awareness made me think that everyone else and life was the problem. This is the external awareness that says that life is just happening to me as if I am a victim. All along life was not happening to me from outside, it was my state of mind that attracted all of my circumstances. My negative thoughts and negative outlook manifested within my own reality not others.
I was behaving in such a way that it was unhealthy for myself and others, selfish. I stepped back inwards and learned to observe my thoughts and then my actions. I was only making bad choices based on my past especially the traumatic ones, this is why the society seems to be unconscious, meaning unaware of their sadness that's causing their actions in the Now. Looking inwards I began to see my fears from past traumas, and how my fears were causing my insecurities, then how I interacted with others. I wanted to change my negative attitude into a positive one because I did not like my fearful behavior patterns. I had to let go of the belief that I will go to hell to relax.
I learned in Christianity that Jesus sacrificed himself to save us, I have adopted the same ideas and over sacrificed myself for others while hurting my own self. Spirituality allowed me to see that I was the cause of my own suffering, not the devil. This allowed me to see that hell is only a mental experience. I had a hard time accepting myself, this meant that I was ashamed of myself.
Because of my religious views, I perceived myself as an imperfect person in God's eyes, therefor others mistreated me based on my own self-dislike. Since spirituality is not judgemental I was able to be proud of myself, this allowed my self-confidence and self-esteem to mature, others started treated me better. In the church, I was told that I should give my all to God in his glory, but then I had nothing left to give to myself, this also extended into relationships. I thought the meaning of love was we must keep giving and trying to save others, but I received nothing in return.
Spirituality moved me out of regrets and guilt too, Instead of thinking that the creator is angry at me, I noticed how my actions were dire so that I could learn from my past actions. To become a better person I had to make countless mistakes, self-reflection is part of growing spiritually. When someone abused me that was meant to happen to help me learn to love myself, not stay in grief and bitterness. I have hurt others too, this was a must for them to grow too. We need positive and negative experiences to evolve, we are all working together by divine order, no exceptions.
The more I tried to be good, the more I subconsciously judged and criticize myself. This made me hard on others too because I was hard on myself. While spirituality allowed me to move past shame into unconditional love, this way I accept others as they are without trying to change and control them. It was hard for me to experience God internally by only adhering to religious dogma. Christianity turned god into a man that does impossible things that we know we can not do, they gave us a superficial character walking around in the white robe, saying he is the way.
I have never seen anyone turn water into wine, walk on water, or even heal a blind man with his bare hands. It is said that he was the only perfect man that has ever lived, but no one on planet earth is like this. Religion kept me striving for perfection while spirituality showed me how perfected I already am now. I no longer tried to keep up appearances for God and others, because I feel a total sense of self-acceptance regardless of my past actions. Spirituality showed me that holy means to be our whole entire self, loving and accepting my weaknesses and my personality flaws.
I feel beautiful because I have found my true self, not the false image that I created to fit into a religion. Religion caused me to act while spirituality cause me to just be. During my spiritual journey, I've realized that everything that has happened in my life was my doing, therefore there's no reason to wait for someone to save me from my own mess that I put together.
When I was religious I made so many excuses because I was waiting for God or others to save me from my own mess. It was easier to judge and criticize others when things went wrong, instead of taking accountability then responsibility. The soul is the most powerful part of our being, it knows us very well. I began to see all the infinite possibilities, this is why I love being a free spirit versus being contained in any belief system.
I no longer ignore the power of the human spirit. PEACE COMES IN PIECES.
