Guest guest Posted May 11, 2005 Report Share Posted May 11, 2005 Haribol prabhus/mataji's I would like to post the following question - What is the difference between sprituality and religion? Can spirituality be realized/found/attained/gained without religion? Can you be "spiritual" without being "religious"? Can someone be religious without being spiritual? I would appreciate any feedback Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 11, 2005 Report Share Posted May 11, 2005 Religion is ritualism. It's a identifying with a sect. It could be believing that only Jesus is god (Christianity), Only Krishna is god & all the other gods have been cared enough to atleast provide a Level of relative ranking(Vaishnavism), Only Allah is god (Islam), When it snows in New york, it's chrismas wherever you are, Vise versa for Diwali etc. So long as these are not branded, these are good things. Today the differentiation between religion is not what's the one god & the ranking of the other gods, & it's not a measure of surrender which is challenged today by liberal suicides by piuos looking terrorists. It's acceptance. It's giving scope to spiritual thinking. It's by having a social outlook (this is different from psuedo gracefulness). Social outlook works best when there is consideration of 'apna' by one and all, and not to look society as 'look at these victims & look at those criminals'. Today most religions follow the philosophy of conditional expectations. Just the way how a friend responds to you based on what you do to him/her, the same way god also responds. Therefore the need to please bla bla, as though it's all a set of transactions. So the key words like 'God has a plan for you', 'God has surprises ready for you', etc.. are hot attention grabbers. This philosphy has become real as each one of us become conditioned to act this way. A philosphy becomes reality if you carryout actions based on it. The appeal of nishkama karma & so much more in bagavath geetha is all about making the philosphy of spiritual thinking a reality based on those principles of actions. Religion, ritualism & Bakthy are all good but one must continuously moving forward from it and graduate to spiritual thinking. It's like a rich man who has a horoscope. And when he faces a situation which beats the comprehension of a conditional expectation with god, then he lands at an astroleger. Who tells him to go to so many temples, and which may not be very convenient for a rich man. Slowly he grows to accept unconditionality, thus learns the true meaning of surrender. Feels the spirituality. Summary. Relion is a great begining and one must move forward from it to spirituality be it any relgion. Else stand at the door step, and become guru's of confused people to teach them more conditional expectation, fortune telling, and more ritualism. The greatness of Hinduism is that it's the only religion, which does not outcasts a follower, if he leaves the doorstep and moves into spirituality thinking and actions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 11, 2005 Report Share Posted May 11, 2005 Religion is (often) dogmatic spirituality is not. You can see from quite a number of posts that in the ISKCON movement there are those that have become Krsna Conscious (KC) in the true sense and those that engage in the chanting etc etc but have really become Krsna Unconcious (KUC). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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