CHENNAI: Nowadays, many people across the world identify themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’. The term might be new to Indians, but research shows that perhaps one in every five persons living in the USA describe themselves as spiritual but not religious.
The meaning of this phrase differs from person to person. However, the whole confusion stems from the fact that the words ‘spiritual’ and ‘religious’ are mistakenly understood as synonyms.
This is mainly because both connote belief in a higher power of some kind. Both also imply a desire to connect, or enter into a more intense relationship with this higher power, and, finally, both connote interest in rituals, practices and daily moral behaviours that foster such a connection or relationship.
Now, before exploring the difference between religion and spirituality, we must first define the two terms and understand that they are different from each other.
Religions generally have a preponderating amount of faith which, often, may or may not find any support from reason and which may even be opposed to facts known through proper enquiry, experimentation and evidence.
Also, religions have a lot of rituals, ceremonies, acts and paraphernalia of worship. On the other hand, spirituality, as compared to this, is without these trammels or has a very negligible amount of these.
The main substance of spirituality is values, virtues and rational spiritual beliefs that enlighten a person about the self, the meaning and drama of life, the role, goal and the method of bringing purity and quietude to the mind in a simple, rational and experiential way. Spirituality gives man a wider vision and it takes the whole world in its embrace.
It has no touch of extremism or hatred, and is altogether free from violence. One would be justified to say that spirituality is the universal core of all religions. It is a treasure of all that is the best in religions.
It is the essence of all wisdom. The opposite of spirituality is gross materialism which breeds cut-throat competition and selfishness and leads to struggle for survival. It is spirituality that leads to harmony and peace.
If it does not give all these benefits, then it is not spirituality; it must be pseudo-spirituality. Religions, in its pure form, gives solace and satisfaction to its true adherents.
The aim of every religion is to make a person pious and a good citizen. But as time passed, every religion degenerated. So, it would be wrong to condemn all religions or to reject everything in any religion.
However, if any religion instigates its followers against others or gives its votaries some kind of frenzy and makes zealots who would pull out swords against followers of other faiths, then that religion is not religion in any sense.
Fanatics who have no deep religious experience but raise slogans and get provoked at the mere fall of a leaf and begin to attack others are, in fact, the real enemies of religion.
In true sense, they are the ones who have done the greatest disservice to religion and brought a bad name to their founders. So, when many people emphasise that religion and politics should not be mixed up, they say this because of this background.
India has a democratic set-up where people elect the government through adult franchise. Every citizen has been given the right and freedom of religious belief without any kind of interference by the government. The Indian polity is, therefore, known as secular.
Inspite of this fact, we have witnessed many riots since independence, most of which were a result of religious intolerance.
It is thus imperative to say here that spirituality under such a crisis can play a pivotal role to maintain calm, peace and harmony in society where people speak different languages, follow different religions and have different lifestyles as it removes all kinds of bias and prejudices and demolishes the walls of castism, cultism and meaningless customs, and gives all men a sound basis for a deep feeling of brotherhood.
But, why spirituality? Because it is impeccable; it implies universal love, non-violence, compassion, virtue, simplicity, honesty, detachment and attitude of humanity and service — all in one. Thus, it should not be difficult to understand that if spirituality is ensconced at the centre of politics, all would be fine and the world would be a better place.
Remember, one cannot have humility, detachment, compassion and freedom from hatred, jealousy and violence without spirituality because it is spirituality that sows, in a person’s lake of mind, the lotus of love without any selfish motive and brings simplicity, sincerity and attitude of service.
So let’s embark on a journey of becoming a spiritual being through self-realisation and introspection, and live a fulfilling joyful life amidst all chaos and crisis around.