Life Without Religion
Have you ever thought about what life would be like without religion? – Imagine, just for a few minutes, what life would really be like without religion and in order for us to do that, let us just re-cap on the meaning of the words religion and spirituality.
One Definition of Religion Is:
‘the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods, whilst supported, or dictated to, by religious doctrines’
So if we can strip away the doctrines and dogma that surrounds religion, we can bring it down to its essence, which is to honour something that surpasses our understanding, something that is so great that we can only glimpse a small piece of how great and wonderful it really is. When we strip religion down to its essence, we are left with spirituality. So what does spirituality mean?
If we break down the word spirituality into separate components we are left with:
Spirit – u – ality
We all know what we mean in one form or another with the word Spirit, referring to God / Jesus / Universal Spirit / The Essence etc etc.
Next, we have an abbreviation of the word ‘you’ we have u and finally, we have the last part of the word, ality, which is a suffix, meaning ‘having the properties of’. The suffix is really a combination of two suffixes:
al: a common ending for adjectives of Latin origin and ity: a common ending for nouns of Latin origin, expressing a nature, state or condition.
So in this case, spirituality is about U – having the nature of, the properties of – Spirit!!!
Spirit + u + ality (its nature, its properties).
So when we drop the religiosity, the books, the rules, the dogma of religion, and bring it back down to its core essence of spirituality, what that means is, that when we confess to have, or follow that spirituality, we are actually professing to ‘have the nature of, the properties of that same Spirit’!………………
So spirituality is about being like, being the image of, being of the same nature of God / Jesus / Universal Spirit / The Essence etc etc.
So if we all are believing what we are confessing and professing, then the core element is exactly the same for us all, because there is only one Thing, one Essence, call it what you may, there is only one governing Spiritual Energy that created all.
So basically, spirituality is having the nature of, the properties of a super consciousness, which many call God. So without adding the trimmings or baggage of religion, without adding the doctrines, the rules, the beliefs etc, we can clearly see, that spirituality ascends religiosity, meaning that spirituality is more about being, or being like, what we believe is super-natural.
So once we remove all doctrines and beliefs, we are all left as equal, all believing in a greater power, call it what you may. If we all own the same type of car, it doesn’t make one wrong just because they call their car Jack when I or you call yours Fred!! What I call the colour black, you may call charcoal, the name is not important, the ESSENCE IS!
The time has come for us to surpass our limitations and start to embrace the idea that if we are to walk our walk and walk our talk, then we will need to drop all judgements. If we all concentrate on being that what we follow, Jesus, God, Buddha, etc and live our lives with the essence of that which we worship, that which we follow, that which we confess to love and desire to become, then we would all be coming from a place of LOVE. There would not be any need for violence, for wars, for other atrocities in the name of God etc; or rather, in the name of Religion.
So when we drop the clothing of religion, we are left with a much more peaceful approach to spirituality.
So does that mean we can’t have our own beliefs?
No it doesn’t mean that, we all know that we all construct the world differently, it truly is a matter of perspective, but what it does mean is that if we shift our focus from our religion, religion being the doctrines and dogma and place our focus on becoming like the essence of that which we worship or aspire to, then it permits love, harmony and compassion to flow more freely.
When we cease making something or someone an intermediary between ourselves and the Divine Essence, we then make it our responsibility to engage with the Source PERSONALLY. As long as we rely on someone or something else as a go between, we will never TRULY get to experience the ultimate sensation of when we connect personally.
Some will say ‘no-one comes to the Father except through me’ (Jesus). For me personally, what that means is that no-one comes to the Father except through a Christ-Like consciousness, because without that same type of consciousness we would not comprehend spiritual truths and the more we develop a Christ consciousness or Buddha consciousness, or God-Like consciousness, the easier we will find it to connect with that same consciousness or God, the Divine Essence.
Christ was born as a normal man with a calling, to show people how to live a life connected to the Source, to the Essence, if we live and learn from our spiritual predecessors, we too, can be like them.
Jesus didn’t come to preach religion, he walked a spiritual life, as a spiritual being in a human body, we too need to cease preaching religion, walk a spiritual life as a spiritual being in a human body. Jesus WAS a real person who DID walk the earth as far as I am concerned. Jesus WAS a Shaman in the true sense of the word, he healed, he taught, he counselled, he offered natural remedies, he prophesied and he was a historian; he meets all the true requirements of a Shaman.
Religion is, in my opinion milk for the baby, but as we all know, once the baby starts to grow a little bigger, it then needs to eat something more substantial in order to continue to support its growth. Relying on religion year after year is like the baby drinking only milk; sooner or later it will become weak and the milk will not be enough to sustain it, it will become weak and eventually die.
Relying on religion to get us through our spiritual life is like relying on our own story to get us through our physical life. We all have a different story, our stories are part of what makes us what we are today, but we ARE NOT our stories. Personal stories are what helped us get through; they are what helped us to understand our life.
Religion for me is just the same, we are not our religion; it is our spiritual story which helped us to understand the spiritual aspect of life. As long as we continue to be our religion we will be held back by doctrines, by laws by this and that, perhaps even by ourselves.
There comes a time when even the eagle has to grow up and leave the comfort and security of what it has known in order to continue to grow and fly. The eagle doesn’t naturally want to leave the comfort of the nest, no matter how confining it may be, it needs helping out of the nest, and perhaps it is time for you to help yourself out of your nest, to move away from religion and into the arms of spirituality more fully in order to start to build a truly personal relationship with your God.
You know, there comes a point in everyone’s life when we have to realise that we are good enough and able to talk to our own Father, our own God ourselves, without using big brother to talk for us. That doesn’t mean we will never speak to big brother again, but it means we recognise our equality, our divine heritage, our responsibility and that we too are worthy of talking directly to our Father, our God etc.
We need to develop a connection with the Divine, you can call it what you like, there comes a time in all of our lives when we need to take off the robes of religion and cloth ourselves with humility and build our own personal relationship with the Creator, with Spirit in order to learn directly from the Teacher, directly from the Essence.
Religion, in my opinion keeps us safe but bound, and not always safe, much bloodshed has happened under the name of religion!
If someone took away your spiritual guide, your Bible, your prayer book etc and all you were left with was the opportunity to connect directly with the Source, how would you do that? Would you do that? Could you do that? For many that would be a scary thought. For some that would mean they would actually have to start living what they profess! For others that freedom would be the air beneath their wings.
I encourage you all to be brave, to be courageous enough to step out of the box of religion this week, or perhaps forever, but be willing to step out of the nest, out of your comfort zone this week and start to develop your own relationship with the Divine essence, with the Creator, with the positive guiding force that animates your spirit.
Build your trust in your intuition so that you can use that inner god, that inner sun, that guiding light within to guide you on your way. If your motives are pure, if your intent is pure, you will only grow good fruit, you will live from a place of compassion. Build that inner relationship and permit the Divine Source the space to personally guide you.
That doesn’t mean the Divine Essence can’t use the Bible to speak to us or any other text for that matter, it just means that we permit the Divine Essence to guide us to the spiritual meat we need in our life to assist us to grow, to evolve into the spiritual beings we are designed to be. That may mean that just like the camel or the butterfly, we may be fed water from many wells, or nectar from many flowers.
That doesn’t mean we can no longer attend a Church, often we gain much from the fellowship of Church. But what it does mean is that we are no longer governed by doctrines and dogma but are growing into a spiritual being that can and does listen to a Super Human Consciousness often called God; which gives us the strength to stand on our own two feet. It is time to take back the responsibility of our own spiritual growth, of our own personal relationship with the Divine Essence.
It also means that we will change for the better; you will change for the better, it will show you the things that need to be changed in order to evolve and it will give you the strength to go through that change. What it won’t do, is permit you to remain in a stagnant place. Where Spirit is there is life, and life more abundantly, and with such life comes change, the two go hand in hand simply because the guiding force of the Universe, the Creator, the Infinite power, the Divine Source is a continuous moving, creative energy, like a flowing river; the only stillness is felt deep within. Outward things may change their appearance, but the stillness of the Father, the stillness of the Divine, will be felt deep down in the depths of your spirit.
Take time out this week and dare to connect directly with the Source, we are part of that same Source, we are legitimate stake holders in Divine Essence, we don’t need to WANT to be like IT, we just need to remember that we are ALREADY PART OF ‘IT’ and from ‘It’ comes only good, the Spirit of the Universe is that of love and compassion, it contains only good.
Always Walk in Peace – Kenzo
