Spirituality Without Organized Religion

by Lee Duane FitzSimmons

With the religious freedom that is now enjoyed in many parts of the world, a new form of spiritual thought is becoming popular. This new type of spiritual understanding can be understood as "spirituality without organized religion." In order to analyze this phenomenon more thoroughly, it would be prudent to define both of these key terms and then focus on the various elements of this spiritual paradigm. While the key terms of "organized religion" and "spirituality" will now be defined for the purposes of this article, these definitions will not be asserted as being the most universal usages of these words in the modern day world.

First, the concept of organized religion will be defined: Organized religion is a group of people that uses a strictly organized set of spiritual beliefs as a code of behavior. The many different entities that can be called religions tend to focus on these sets of beliefs in such a way that entire paradigms of reality are established. Thus, the minds of their followers are allowed freedom from the more difficult questions that encompass the higher ideological realms. The followers of these religions have all of these questions answered with very simple dogmatic explanations, and intense philosophical queries are not necessary. Thus, they are free to focus on the difficulties of daily existence.

The word spirituality will now be defined: Spirituality can be fathomed as the intuitive and intellectual understanding of the metaphysical realms. A strictly defined set of beliefs is not required in order possess a high amount of spirituality although there are many religious people who are very spiritual. There are also many individuals who profess to be religious but in actuality are not very spiritual at all. There are also many people who belong to no organized religion and are far more spiritual than most individuals who claim to be religious. Thus, spirituality is something that can be achieved by a single person without the aid of anyone else.

One of the primary reasons why this movement of "spirituality without organized religion" is gaining popularity is the fact that most of the organized religions promote the differences that exist between all of the various religious entities. They then exploit these differences in order to gain political and economic advantage. However, spiritual individuals that profess no official religion are usually tolerant and tend to promote unity among all of the various cultures all over the world.

Organized religion promotes war. Spirituality without organized religion almost always promotes peace. War is bad; peace is good. The practice of spirituality without organized religion can be seen as a higher evolution of the human intellect.

The practice of spirituality without organized religion can be seen as a higher evolution of the soul.

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