Sanjeev Patra
2 min readJan 13, 2020

Religion and Spirituality

A learned man was once asked to explain the difference between Religion and Spirituality. His response was profound:

▪ Religion is not just one, there are many.
▪ Spirituality is one.

▪ Religion is for those who sleep.
▪ Spirituality is for those who are awake.

▪ Religion is for those who need someone to tell them what to do and want to be guided.
▪ Spirituality is for those who pay attention to their inner voice.

▪ Religion has a set of dogmatic rules.
▪ Spirituality invites us to explore within and get attuned to the Universal Rules.

▪ Religion threatens and frightens.
▪ Spirituality gives inner peace.

▪ Religion speaks of sin and guilt.
▪ Spirituality leads us on the path of emancipation!
 
▪ Religion represses everything which it considers false.
▪ Spirituality transcends everything, it brings us closer to our Truth!

▪ Religion invents.
▪Spirituality helps us to discover.

▪ Religion does not tolerate any question.
▪Spirituality encourages searching questions.

▪ Religion is human. It is an organization with rules made by men.
▪ Spirituality is Divine, without human rules....leads us to the Causeless Cause!

▪ Religion divides between us and them.
▪Spirituality unites.

▪ Religion follows the concepts of a sacred book.
▪ Spirituality seeks the sacred in all books.

▪ Religion feeds on fear.
▪ Spirituality feeds on trust and faith.

▪ Religion makes us to live in External Reality.
▪ Spirituality lives in Inner Consciousness.

▪ Religion deals with performing rituals.
▪ Spirituality has to do with the Inner Self.

▪ Religion feeds on internal ego.
▪ Spirituality drives to transcend beyond self.

▪ Religion makes us renounce the world to follow a God.
▪ Spirituality makes us live in God, without renouncing our existing lives.

▪ Religion is a cult.
▪ Spirituality is inner meditation.

▪ Religion fills us with dreams of glory in paradise.
▪ Spirituality makes us live the glory and paradise on earth.

▪ Religion lives in the past and in the future.
▪ Spirituality lives in the present.

▪ Religion creates cloisters in our memory.
▪ Spirituality liberates our Consciousness.

🌹
We are not human beings, who go through a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings, who go through a human experience.

🙏🌹🙏

Sanjeev Patra
Sanjeev Patra

Written by Sanjeev Patra

Believer in Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga and His Vision of Universal Unity and Supramental Consciousness. “Man is not final, He is just an intermediate being”.

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