A Look at “Eclectic Spirituality”
The Difference Between Spirituality and Religiosity

by Gabriel of Sedona

As all of us living on the planet today are faced with the trials and tribulations of the world, we see more people turning to religion and many forms of so-called “spirituality”—many eclectic versions of “spirituality.” But can true spirituality be so “eclectic?” Perhaps “eclectic spirituality” is really a misnomer for “eclectic religiosity.”

In the seriousness of the times, many millions hopefully are looking inward and Godward for answers about life, eternity, religion, and spirituality. With many people who start a religious walk at some point in their life, it may actually take them many, many years before they truly begin a spiritual walk.

Religion involves knowledge, and formality, and traditional practice, no matter what form of religion you may be in. Spirituality involves true inward change and virtue seeking. A person may be very religious but not very spiritual. The individual may have an outward appearance of spirituality, but to someone with true spiritual insight, he or she would be able to know the difference between religiosity and spirituality.

Often, in a young soul's search for God on a fallen world like ours, individuals are lost and entrapped in religiosity. They become victims of dogmatism, traditionalism, and practicing forms of religion. They may wear clothing to identify with their practice. They may wear robes or collars. They may shave their heads. They may fast on what they consider to be the Sabbath. They may practice lifelong celibacy. They may practice being in a cloistered community. They may enter an ashram. But the question is: Do any of these religious practices really make a person spiritual? In my opinion, I don't think so.

Jesus Christ called those who practiced such beliefs without truly seeking to change themselves inwardly “hypocrites.” He said they were “self-righteous.” Of its numerous references to the true nature of religion, The URANTIA Book includes this:

A godless humanitarianism is, humanly speaking, a noble gesture, but true religion is the only power which can lastingly increase the responsiveness of one social group to the needs and sufferings of other groups. In the past, institutional religion could remain passive while the upper strata of society turned a deaf ear to the sufferings and oppression of the helpless lower strata, but in modern times these lower social orders are no longer so abjectly ignorant nor so politically helpless.

Religion must not become organically involved in the secular work of social reconstruction and economic reorganization. But it must actively keep pace with all these advances in civilization by making clear-cut and vigorous restatements of its moral mandates and spiritual precepts, its progressive philosophy of human living and transcendent survival. The spirit of religion is eternal, but the form of its expression must be restated every time the dictionary of human language is revised. (1)

So the true spiritual seeker must see religion as the practice of inner change to promote social change and spirituality as the fruits of true religious practice. Jesus said the fruits of the Spirit of God are “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance” (2) and include “loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace.”(3)

It's easier to practice an evolutionary religion. It's not that demanding. All one has to do is abide by the traditions of the practice and not make any real inward changes. On the outside one can appear to be very spiritual but on the inside can be very spiritually a child. Often in religions that are centuries-old and have become established and incorporated into society, true spirituality is actually hindered because, by rote, a person may be born into that religion and never be genuinely born-again in the Spirit of God. In a religion that is fused with the status quo, a person may receive an enlightened thought or concept but may not be able to practice it or speak out because it would upset the proverbial “apple cart.”

And so, throughout the centuries, those true spiritual seekers had to leave existing evolutionary religions and sects. Thus, we have the beginning Reformation in Christianity and the various sects in Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. There are more than 2,000 different sects in Christianity, all considered “non-denominational,” each with a different slant on religiosity. Many in those Christian sects truly had a revelation of God in the beginning of their spiritual walk, but once incorporated in the religiosity of that denomination or non-denomination, they unknowingly exchanged their spirituality for religious approval. This is the condition of the Christian Church today.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said, “The most spiritual human beings, assuming they are the most courageous, also experience by far the most painful tragedies; but it is precisely for this reason that they honor life, because it brings against them its most formidable weapons.” (4)

Jesus said, “Are you to be a pleaser of man or a pleaser of God?” Throughout history, those who have tried to buck the religious system to seek true spirituality have been martyred for their beliefs. They have been ex-communicated, imprisoned, stoned to death, and burned at the stake. In modern times, they are usually misrepresented by the corporate press and/or those in power. In modern times, because of materialism and the great wealth of the United States and Western civilization on a whole, the doctrine of prosperity—as recently mentioned in TIME magazine—has become part of religious practice and belief.

I believe that Jesus taught that true spirituality had nothing to do with material gain. As a matter of fact, material wealth can actually be the ruin of a soul who is not ready to have such capital gain. An older and experienced soul usually learns to be a servant of humankind before God blesses that soul with material gain. Material gain is given so that the person of true spirituality can distribute that gain for the good of humankind. One can be spiritual and have material wealth. One can also be spiritual and be very poor materially. One cannot be both spiritual and have material wealth unless that person distributes that material wealth to others. True spirituality does not seek wealth; it seeks virtue. Wealth may or may not come, depending upon God's destiny for the individual and the individual's astral experience which includes the ascension of the soul over past lifetimes.

Below is a relevant excerpt from The Cosmic Family, Volume I, Paper 210. (5)

What is Spirituality?

First of all, we will tell you what it isn't. It isn't a dress code. No form of dress makes a person holy, or wise, or indeed spiritual—not robes, not collars, not turbans. It is not the way a person walks. It is not their height or their weight. It is not in their ability to speak, nor their intellectual acquirements. No degree given to man or woman can make them spiritual. No university on this planet can proclaim in their schools of theology that a person is now spiritual. No fasting over a period of time or sacrifice can make a person spiritual. Neither can the diet of certain foods or vegetarianism as opposed to meat eating make a person spiritual. No substance found in the earth and ingested can make a person spiritual. No modern chemical injected can produce a spiritual personality. No amount of wealth, fame, or prestige can bring spirituality to a person. No appointment of position by man to man in any capacity can make a person spiritual. No self-sacrifice, no matter how great, alone can make a person spiritual—not the giving of a son or daughter or their rightful husband or wife to God, nor the giving of one's income, nor the continued public announcement to others that you are God's chosen. No amount of adulation of man for man can make another spiritual.

True spirituality or virtue is a process that begins based upon certain universe laws and procedures. True spirituality cannot be defined so simply. For example, even those who appear to present the fruits of the spirit may not be so spiritual at all. The virtues said to bring about the fruits of the spirit can be disguised at various levels of deception in the third dimension. It is not so simple, and many factors have to be taken into consideration.

Virtue for an ascending son or daughter is an acquired thing. It is learned over a period of time and that time may be hundreds, thousands and, indeed, millions of years. It does not come upon you as the Baptists and Pentecostals say, in a moment of time upon the reception of the Spirit of Truth, making you perfect. It is an eternal process. When you reach finality you can begin to say that you are spiritual. Throughout the grand universe the degree to which you are truly spiritual is the degree of your own individual blessedness. Blessedness is the beginning of individual happiness, but blessedness is higher than happiness, for one can be happy in sin.

For too long on Urantia [Earth], Lucifer has tried to replace spirituality with other things, thereby decreasing happiness for so many millions at whatever level they could acquire happiness. Whatever level your spirituality is, it creates the reality in which you find yourself and what you have and what you have not. It separates that which you desire from that which you will get. As your spirituality increases, your desires that are based upon the desires of God will become manifest.

The Spirit of Truth is the beginning of higher spirituality on Urantia, and the hearing of it—moment to moment above all else—is the activation of that spirituality which leads to your individual happiness and fulfillment. Spirituality is a golden box and within it can be found treasures—treasures that cannot be bought by ascending sons and daughters, for this golden box is owned by the Supreme Deity, and its gifts are bestowed based upon each individual's willingness to seek his or her God in whatever way one can, based upon that search and knocking on the door of the heart of God, and then the golden box begins to be filled.

References:

1. The URANTIA Book, p. 1087:02-03. © 1955, Urantia Foundation, Chicago, Illinois.
2. Ibid., p. 381:07.
3. Ibid., p. 2054:03.
4. The Columbia Dictionary of Quotes. © 1993 by Columbia University Press.
5. The Cosmic Family, Volume I by Gabriel of Sedona. © 1993, Starseed and Urantian Schools of Melchizedek Publishing, Sedona, Arizona.

© 2006, Aquarian Concepts Community. Gabriel of Sedona, published author and musician, is co-founder of Aquarian Concepts Community EcoVillage, farm, and gardens and co-founder of the Soulistic Medical Institute (includes medical doctor & clinical psychologist), both in Sedona, Arizona. For more information, email info@aquarianconceptscommunity.org, visit www.aquarianconceptscommunity.org, or call (928) 204-1206.

Printed in the December 2006/January 2007 issue of Innerchange.