Religion, Spirituality, and Their Optional Coexistence
Being someone raised in a religious home with a religious education, I had always closely associated religion and spirituality, and limited my spiritual practices to those outlined by my school and church. We are taught as kids that the uses of astrology, tarot, and crystals were at best, silly, fantastical pastimes, and at worst, dangerous and blasphemous. I learned that mindfulness of one’s inner self was only reachable through religion and prayer, and that life’s ultimate goal and purpose was to serve God in your words and actions.
However, once my peers and I reached a certain age, we began to grow tired of the repetitive rhetoric used by our school and their attempts to shape us into well-behaved young people of faith, who relied on ancient traditions and scriptures to form their morals. As many young, rebellious private school kids did, we began to search for other ways of thinking and acting, and that was when my best friend (in fact, the editor in chief of this magazine) introduced me to a new kind of spirituality.
It took the form of exciting, physical objects that I had never considered to be spiritual before, like crystals, sigils, candles, herbs, mantras, and horoscopes. Thanks to a magical website called Tumblr, we were exposed to a fascinating community of people who rejected monotheistic, tradition-based organized religion, and found wonderful fulfillment and inner peace in their own way.
The allure to this kind of spirituality for me was its physical existence. I had been taught all my life that there is no tangible way to practice faith, and this new way of practicing reflection and prayer offered me a stronger connection with physical objects that I could hold and see. Decorating my desk with crystals, writing sigils on my notebooks, and looking at a horoscope helped me to better understand my thoughts and feelings, and find relatability in who I was and what I was going through. These practices were far more fulfilling, and frankly, much more exciting for me than traditional, organized religion.
A main difference that I seemed to notice as I moved from religion to spirituality was my replacement of the word “God” for “the universe.” It’s essentially the same concept: a higher power or powers that watch over the world in ways that we as humans cannot grasp. While I previously perceived God as a singular, male, and frightening presence that required worship and obedience, “the universe” seemed like a much more gentle, ungendered, benevolent being that I felt more comfortable getting in touch with. This also seemed to be the case for my peers, as they struggled to come to terms with their relationship with God and religion as a whole.
After a number of years spent casually practicing spirituality in this way, I made the decision to pursue higher education at a religious university. In order to get my required religion courses out of the way, my first semester I took a standard entry-level religion course, expecting it to be similar to my high school and elementary classes. However, I noticed that the university was taking a much different approach to religion than my previous schools, one that seemed far more spiritual than institutional. It was clear that they were in no way imposing belief or doctrine on their students, and encouraged them to use faith to grow in their own spirituality, mental health, and well-being.
Through this new mindset, I began to introduce the concept of faith and religion back into my life, adopting this new perspective where I didn’t feel so confined by the way I was supposed to be practicing. I’ve been able to incorporate my favorite spiritual practices of journaling, tarot, and crystals into some traditional religious practices like prayer. Frequently interchanging the words “God” and “the universe” give me a great sense of balance, and that both of those concepts can coexist. In the same day, I can ask God for strength, and then ask the universe to send me a sign of how to approach a situation.
My point of telling the story of my spiritual journey is that both religion and spirituality are entirely personal. There are innumerable ways to practice them, and they can coexist as much or as little as one feels they should. Researching the spiritual and religious traditions of cultures around the world can help you find different practices that help you become your most healthy, happy, and aligned self. The most powerful spiritual tool that we have is each other, and sharing experiences, hardships, joy, and advice amongst ourselves can help us all become a little more in touch with God, the universe, or just our inner selves.
