People who are spiritual can adapt to new conditions and their discoveries throughout life. They are flexible in their beliefs. An important difference between religion and spirituality is believing against being. Religion emphasizes the content of the beliefs of followers and how those beliefs manifest themselves in their daily lives.
On the other hand, the focus of spirituality is on the process of being in tune with the inner self. The difference between a spiritual and religious person boils down to how they see God. For a religious person, the concept of God is predetermined, named, and comes with an established method of how to worship that God. A spiritual person, on the other hand, turns inward to find his truth and finds God within himself and all life.
You may have heard or even used the terms religion and spirituality interchangeably. But while they are not diametrical opposites, they are not equal either. Learn to tell the difference between religion and spirituality. As you can see, there are notable distinctions between spirituality and religion; however, these comparisons are not meant to be absolute or an attempt to polarize against each other.
Religious beliefs and spiritual beliefs differ in the way they are practiced. However, each practice serves as a vehicle to get closer to the truth you are looking for. Any path or combination of the two that you follow is the personal and subjective expression of your journey of awakening. You never hear a self-proclaimed religious person offer such definitions, and it is disrespectful for religious people to suggest that they would remain in a system without positive characteristics of any kind.
Because of this, someone who practices spirituality can continually change their beliefs throughout their lives. Or as Christina Puchalski, MD (leader in the attempt to incorporate spirituality into health care) puts it, “Spirituality is the aspect of humanity that refers to the way people seek and express meaning and purpose and the way they experience their connection with the moment, with oneself, with others, with nature and to the significant or sacred”. Most of us often use the words “religion” and “spirituality” interchangeably, but they are completely separate concepts. Spiritual and non-religious people say they have found inner peace apart from religious despotism, although they often see Jesus as loving and accepting.
This is a totally selfish way of approaching the subject and something that is only heard from those who describe themselves as spiritual. It is important to keep in mind the fact that many of the negative things people attribute to religions are, at best, characteristic of some forms of some religions (usually Judaism, Christianity and Islam), but not of other religions (such as Taoism or Buddhism). The recognized authorities of the religious group reinforce or communicate changes with respect to the ideologies to be followed by members of the religious group. In summary, spirituality has no rules while religion is based entirely on pre-established rituals and dogmas.
While spirituality does not threaten punishment for a life lived in contrast to a set of rules, it often addresses karma. So it can be said that every religion has truth in it and that many people can be both truly beautiful souls and religious at the same time; however, anything that separates them or creates division is not good for their soul nor for mankind's greater good. The goal of spirituality is to realize one's inherent power to combat all of life's challenges and connect with something greater than oneself. Therefore, the cognitive context of spirituality and the spiritual response are closely linked in reciprocal evocation and validation.
Christian spirituality points to one God, one truth whose evidence is both empirical and emotional. Spirituality focuses more on the quality of message offered than on differences in details of original story.
