Spirituality without religion is a growing trend!

Every religion is based on the principles that cater to the welfare of its followers. Most of the religions provide a guidance or knowledge -the enlightenment- on how to get closer to the God. The religion and spirituality often go hand-in-hand. The religion provides commandments or ‘rules’ on how to be a better human being; a basic foundation of spirituality.

However, there is trend amongst modern generations of finding ways to be spiritual without being religious. According to a Newsweek Beliefnet poll in USA, about 24% of the population identifies itself as ‘Spiritual but not religious.’

Rather than looking for God, more and more of us are looking for ‘how to improve ourselves’ or ‘how to be better human being’ or ‘how to find peace in life’. If you look around, more and more of us are searching for a balance in life.

In today’s society, everybody is very busy – may be too busy for no reason, but that is a topic for some other time :) . Gone are the days when going on pilgrimage was part of ‘thing to do’. Instead, most of us are looking for some answers in our own backyard, within our own soul. Rather than saying an hour-long prayer – without knowing the meaning of the words in it, focus is shifting to self improvement, being a better person.

Our priorities are shifting with time. Instead of looking for ‘enlightenment’ or searching for ways to guarantee a place in the ‘heaven’, the focus is on the present life and what comes with it – the daily challenges, the daily dilemmas, the daily rewards, the daily karma…

There is an argument for and against being spiritual without being religious. The diehard followers of any faith or religion will always swear by..umm their God, that path to spirituality without religion is just like looking for sunshine while ignoring the sun. However, there are others who firmly ‘believe’ that religion and spirituality should be treated separately; a faith is just that – a belief.

You can believe in God, or you can believe in yourself without believing in God. The debate always has been: Can you find God without a religion? And then there is a bigger debate – or may be a statement: My religion is better than yours. These debates will always go on –one way or another. Don’t expect a consensus any time soon. :)

However, the new trend is sidelining these debates and these religions altogether. People are probably fed-up with the politics of each and every faith. Without worrying about religion, the focus is increasingly toward finding inner peace, finding a balance in life – a step toward spirituality without religion.

As long as nobody is getting hurt and you are at peace with yourself, do I really need to complain about what you do? As a sane human being, the answer should be - NO, I should not care; good for you. However, I need to complain. After all, you are stealing the spotlight from my religion; you are putting my religion in danger.

That is the real world – not so sane, you might say! :)

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