Are We Religious or Spiritual?

By M L Satyan.

A few months ago, I read a news report about four nuns of a religious congregation taking their final vows in the northeast. The report mentioned that these nuns were trained by a priest on “deep spirituality” as per the bishop who celebrated the Mass on that occasion. The spontaneous question that came to my mind was: What is deep spirituality?

As an NGO consultant, I have worked with many religious congregations (both men and women). I have noted an important gap in their understanding. That is the “lack of clarity on what is religious and what is spiritual.” Most of the religious rituals, ceremonies, feasts/festivals and programs are considered “spiritual.” We need to understand that to be religious is one thing and to be spiritual is entirely a different thing. In this write-up, I have made a humble effort to show the difference between the two.

A religious person is one who belongs to a particular religion and follows its rules, regulations, ceremonies and rituals. The religious person focuses on caste, culture, language, rituals and ceremonies. But a spiritual person rises above religion, caste, colour, culture, language, rules, ceremonies and rituals. A spiritual person looks at the whole world as one joint family (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam) and prays “Loka Samastha, Sukhino Bhavanthu” which means “May the entire universe ever be filled with peace, joy, love and light.”

Religiosity focuses on priesthood and priestly tradition – only a few people are called or selected as priests. Churches and various institutions are built and the priests become the caretakers of the buildings. The whole system becomes oppressive. On the contrary, spirituality focuses on the prophetic call given to everyone. A person may become a priest after getting the so called ‘divine vocation’ and obtaining ‘academic degree’. But his illiterate parents can be prophets.

A religious person focuses on building ‘monument’ and prestigious infrastructure whereas a spiritual person focuses on creating ‘movement’. A movement does not require infrastructure. Since spirituality focuses on the prophetic and movement nature, it becomes liberative. Individual charism becomes very important here.

Religious persons are often fanatics, self-centred, indifferent and ambitious. They copy others or other things in life, go with the crowd (having crowd mentality) and become stagnant. Whereas spiritual persons are flexible, other-centred, get involved with the people and have a clear vision. They try to be original and creative always. They think, speak, live differently and become trend setters.

Religiosity focuses on competence – “I win and you lose” attitude. They crave for power, status and positions. The focus here is on ‘having’. Religious people become autocrats, hypocrites and maintain a lot of secrecy. There is no transparency at all. Whereas spirituality focuses on “being” and on character. Spiritual people become democratic. They give importance to participatory leadership. They are also open, transparent and authentic.

Religious people are orthodox and conservative. They are self-righteous, having “I am OK and you are not OK” attitude. They develop lot of guilt feelings and become pessimists. On the contrary, spiritual people are progressive. They give importance to self-realization or personal transformation and positive affirmation. They live with “I am OK and you are OK” attitude.

Religiosity focuses on uniformity in matters of dress, rituals, ceremonies, rules and laws. Moreover, religiosity divides people in matters of religious beliefs, practices and worshipping places. Spirituality focuses on pluralism and unites people. Pluralism is not tolerance of difference. It is acceptance, appreciation and promotion of difference.

I wish to highlight some personalities who were really spiritual: Mahatma Gandhi rose above religion and became a freedom fighter who adopted the path of non-violence. He always renounced to redeem. He had said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow and learn as if you were to live forever.” Mother Teresa lived the gospel message and saw Jesus in the poor and needy. She built a global infrastructure to alleviate loneliness, hunger and suffering. She said, “If I ever become a saint, I will be absent from heaven for those in darkness on earth.”

Rabindranath Tagore was more than a poet. He was a novelist, writer of some best short stories, a composer of songs and moulder of independent India’s intellectual inheritance. His poem — “Leave this chanting and telling of beads… is indeed a classic one. He could write this because he had risen above religion. Swami Vivekananda was a social reformer who harmonized the East and the West, religion and science, past and present. He said, “As long as millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every educated person a traitor for being insensitive”.

In the Bible, Jesus spoke about two paths. Being religious is the broad path. The majority prefer this path as they are not challenged. Being spiritual is the narrow path. It challenges our thoughts, words and actions constantly. It fine-tunes our life at every level and ensures a mature growth.

A religious person is not necessarily spiritual. However, there could be some exceptions. Likewise, all spiritual people are/and need not be religious. Jesus rejected religiosity which did not make people spiritual. He challenged the religious laws of his time and said, “Sabbath is for man and not man for Sabbath.” He made it clear that the last judgment will be based only on selfless love and service (spirituality) and not on religiosity.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, we find that the Priest and the Levite gave priority to their religious tasks which they had to accomplish. They did not bother about the wounded traveller. Jesus had no appreciation of their religiosity. Rather he praised the Samaritan for his spiritual characteristics such as sensitivity, ability to respond, willingness to take risks and sincerity to his call.

Every religion focuses on basic human values and challenges people to go beyond religiosity. In fact, religion can be considered as a ladder that can be used to climb up. In reality, most people feel happy to remain on the first step of the ladder unwilling to climb up. Only very few people make sincere and continuous efforts to climb up and move forward. This indeed is the real challenge and the need of the hour. Do we want to be religious or spiritual? The choice is ours.