Non-religious spirituality.

How would you categorize without stating it as a belief?

It would be a belief, just not some belief adopted from any system of beliefs.

Hi Neo. Good to see you. I hope you don't mind me putting in my two cents about this. I don't think that spirituality necessarily has to be categorized in a religious sense, meaning linked to a specific "belief". The thing I see about "religious beliefs" is that it all falls very easily into categories because it is an actual "system" of sorts.

With rules, ideals, practices, that are taught and passed on from one to the other and so on down the line. Just because it is so with religion though does not mean it is so with everything else. One can be spiritual without attributing that "spirituality" to a specific "Creator" or belief system. Those kind of things actually bind and restrict because they inevitably say, "This is how it is. Period." Whether the person functioning in that realize it or not.

So for the person who does not attribute their "spirituality" to something specific it is more open and free. While wrapped up in the christian belief system my life was very regimented. It was very much, "You can do this... you can't do that... you can say this... you can't say that..." But now this "spirituality" that I hold inside is not attributed to what I do or don't do. Or how well I follow the definition of things as other humans have defined them.

Because to me at least that is what religion boils down to. How humans have defined "God". Their take on the bible, the sermon they heard last week, how they see other christians acting and so forth. Where as now I can sit back without the boundaries and limitations that religion sets and decide my own personal morals, my own thoughts on what's right and wrong, and I am also free to adjust those things as I see necessary.

Treya- Your last paragraph says it all. One does not need a godhead, a church, a book, or a preacher to live a moral, spiritual life. In fact, as you say, those things are limiting. IMO it is up to each individual to find his place in the universe, without constraint.

Re: Non-religious spirituality.

I categorize it either as "piano playing" or as "listening to music".

This is a very good topic. It's a way of thought that I've taken up lately. Religion's basic idea of spirituality is something I see as wonderful, but the religions themselves so constrict the spiritual. The way I see it is, there very well may be something or someone behind what goes on in the world, but I'm not about ready to let any religion try to harness it with a load of dogma.

Re: Non-religious spirituality.


Hmm mmm. Not sure if I understand what you are asking.

I'll give it a go nonetheless.

My experience is best described as Dizzying. Surprising.

Maybe at some point it won't be so much so. I have a lot of growing up to do yet.

When I'm doing things right - I suppose I would describe it as interconnectivity.

Spirituality to me seems to be nothing more than accepting and living according to how things truly are.

That is enough! We all have that responsibility - or burden - depending on how you look at it.

I characterize my spirituality as an amalgamated, bastardized pantheism. Everything and everyone are connected both physically and metaphysically.

There are are two main systems of belief...

One is sensual and the other is spiritual. We all are born out of the sensual and we become spiritual as we grow and mature. So it is a wrestling in the mind, spirit over flesh, the heavenly over the earthly and faith over fear.

Interesting replies here. Sorry I haven't been around for days, if someone's noticed at all. :wink:

I think of non-religious spirituality as the wonder and awr I experience when I look at the world. How big it is, that all is interconnected, as Mills says. When standing on a rocky slope by the sea, looking at where the waves wash onto the rock I get a sense of the immense forces that rule the universe. I am part of them, and they're part of me. It's almost fantastical...

Re: Non-religious spirituality.


I am probably another.

Like you, I feel the elegance and power of the natural world almost viscerally. My connection to everything is very strong. And I'm not bound by concepts of ultimate 'rights' and 'wrongs' so I'm free to make my own choices.

But for me, the core of what might be called spiritual about nature is recognizing that we, as thinking beings, are not only a part of it, but a 'natural expression' of it. There is a distinct difference in perception when we recognize that consciousness and thought were not imposed on nature by anything, but rather arose from nature as a part of what nature is.

It is this realization that bridges the gap between the physical world and the metaphysical for me.

Re: Non-religious spirituality.


What if the conclusions that are conferred by living a life focused on the natural world end up in the end to be both limited in scope and erroneous?

What if we are supposed to reject the natural world before we can find the spiritual world that underlies all that is?

1Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

I see myself as a Non Religious Christian.
I believe in Christ, GOD, and I try to follow what they actually taught in
the bible to the best of my understanding.
I only consider my self Christian as I follow Christ, I do not follow the Christian Church or their letter of the law teachings. I believe they have been misled and
are in turn misleading others.
I have no use for ceremony, dogma, or theology and I believe Christ taught the same
from what I have read in the bible and other writings.

Can't add anything to what many of you have said, but would like to post the words of others who have also helped me to clarify the differences between religious and spiritual:

“Native American spirituality is simply a walk in the woods…” --Rainbow Eagle

Spirituality says 'May the heavens open up and angels bless everyone with their own light.' but religion says 'Only Jesus got the light, you're full of ****, and in the dark. We're the only ones that got it, so you've gotta go through us to get it.' Man, in this life, the only thing that is holy is your relationship with your heart, your family and the air you breath... -- Carlos Santana

“Live fully, love well and let go…” Jack Kornfield

“How much easier it is to sprinkle yourself with a little blood and water than to purge yourself of malice, to secure salvation without disturbing one’s habits…” H.G. Wells

“After 45 years of trying to make religion fit my experience, then trying to make experience fit my religion, I decided to adopt Ludwick Wittgenstein’s motto: 'I prefer the world as I find it...' -- Stephen Heersink

“Give up your map of hopes and fears, and travel that clear road between desires and expectations by dealing with the world as it really is…” – re:Buddha

“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about god while one is peeling potatoes. In Zen, spirituality is simply to peel the potatoes…” -- Alan Watts

"Every morning before entering the world of chaos and competing beliefs, check the batteries in your bullshit detector..." --Sam Keene

"Uncertainty reminds me that I am always free to play with my options if I will give up my dependance on certainty..." --Billy Dean

"I don't want to believe. I want to know." --Carl Sagan

“Life is not about things—it is about the quality of our relationships and the meaningfulness of our work…” – Free Speech TV

"...encourage people to think philosophically about their beliefs, to cultivate epistemological skepticism..." The Pentacle Queen (A2K forum)

"Saying Yes! to life is being present in the here and now to experience it..." --Ram Daas

"It is the journey that enlightens, not the destination..." --Kwai Chang Caine

--Bill