Spiritual But Not Religious

[Thinker]

I’d like to collect & consider writings, clips, ideas and songs that are spiritual but not religious.

To start it off, a Catholic monk responded to the apparent trend of people who are spiritual but not religious. He suggested people are not being spiritually fed from religions & religions are self righteously insisting on their way or the highway (authoritarian) & are not getting along with other religions which is another turn-off. https://youtu.be/XNkUcGtk4iw

One thing he claimed that I disagree with, is that religion offers people a foundation rather than “a completely infinite number of possibilities to choose from.” Yet isn’t the latter, part of God? Why would I want to worship a dictating religion over a free-will loving God? Just because religion pretends to be like my parents when I was a kid - and I pretend they know it all?

[Reluctant Watchman]

Define spiritual and define religious. I'd be curious to see where you make the distinction.

[Thinker]

Define spiritual and define religious. I'd be curious to see where you make the distinction.

Good question! Thank you.

Spiritual: Spirit-based, including study of the soul (psych-ology), seeing how everything including materialism fits in, while focusing on the immaterial.

Religious: “ a range of social-cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements[1]—although there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.”
(Aka their own “monopoly” rules and DOGMA - unquestioned ideas assumed as fact)

[Original_Intent]

It's interesting and cool that you bring this up, Thinker. I always love your posts and you should post more!

I have been thinking a lot about the four races, the four stages of alchemy, and lots of things along those lines.

The native Americans believe that mankind came out of the earth after the great flood near the four corners region in the United States.
There were four races - black, white, yellow and red. Note these are the four colors associated with alchemy also, and in fact one of my favorite works by Carl Jung is a painting that has many little wheels divided into these four colors.

Anyway, each race was given an element that they were supposed to learn all that they could about.
Black race was to study water. (I don't know much about this.)
White race was to study fire. As has been observed by many, much of our invention such as internal combustion engine, the light bulb, and on the destructive side the most destructive weapons on earth have been developed by the white race.
Yellow race was to study air. Think of the breathing techniques and the various learnings, especially regarded to meditation and such that are about air.
The red race was to study earth and again think of how they have focused much of their sacred teaching on living in harmony with the earth.

The races each went in one of the cardinal directions and then turned left. There are many images that show this if you google "Native Americans four directions" I like this one.


I have studied quite a bit of the sacred beliefs of the white, yellow and red races. I haven't neglected the black race, but I have had a harder time finding material, or perhaps throughout my life, very little of that has come to me.

I think it would be wonderful if people compiled a library of sacred writings of all people and possibly even wrote a book that at least introduced the other material. An abridgement, if you will.

From my studies, I have not been pulled away from the LDS faith, but my understanding of many principles within the LDS faith have been greatly enhanced. Recently what I have been hearing a lot is "If you are being added upon by something, embrace it, and if you are not being added upon or taken away from by something, ignore or reject it. At least for now, it may simply not be the right time for you to learn a specific thing.

I do think it is important, as do the native Americans, that we all come back together and share our teachings with each other. Not to convert but to inform and to add upon others and to be added upon.

One of the things I have enjoyed listening to Chief Midegah is he says a lot about each person having their bit of water, and that we should not reject someone because of their water but celebrate and share our water and (I am adding my own bit here) the water all needs to come together and be one.

[Thinker]

One thing I’ve noticed in religious, non-religious, political & other circles, is the common tendency to want a “guru” or a parental substitute “authority.” But it’s important to remember that nobody’s perfect & no set of ideas are perfect.

For a while, I was impressed with Aristotle, Cicero & others. Then in studying about their lives I realized they had flaws. Jordan Peterson similarly… even Carl Jung who I think is probably the best, also had flaws. Nobody is perfect - nobody can be trusted as if they were god. Only God can be trusted.

Also, ideas cannot always be trusted. I will likely share some stuff by Wayne Dyer because he’s pretty spiritual but non-religious & offers some wisdom. Some ideas may not have been the best though. Eg., He talked a lot about letting negativity go & focusing on the positive. And often that is good but “feelings buried alive never die.” There are times when we need to address negative thoughts or feelings in order to then release them. Wayne Dyer died of cancer. I know that illness involves multiple factors, and 1 of them is placebo/nocebo effect. It’s suggested that the metaphysical part of a cause of cancer is “things eating you up inside.”

So, again the lesson is to study things for ourselves and go by the spirit as to what is best for us in the moment.

[Thinker]

It's interesting and cool that you bring this up, Thinker. I always love your posts and you should post more!

I have been thinking a lot about the four races, the four stages of alchemy, and lots of things along those lines.

The native Americans believe that mankind came out of the earth after the great flood near the four corners region in the United States.
There were four races - black, white, yellow and red. Note these are the four colors associated with alchemy also, and in fact one of my favorite works by Carl Jung is a painting that has many little wheels divided into these four colors.

Anyway, each race was given an element that they were supposed to learn all that they could about.
Black race was to study water. (I don't know much about this.)
White race was to study fire. As has been observed by many, much of our invention such as internal combustion engine, the light bulb, and on the destructive side the most destructive weapons on earth have been developed by the white race.
Yellow race was to study air. Think of the breathing techniques and the various learnings, especially regarded to meditation and such that are about air.
The red race was to study earth and again think of how they have focused much of their sacred teaching on living in harmony with the earth.

The races each went in one of the cardinal directions and then turned left. There are many images that show this if you google "Native Americans four directions" I like this one.


I have studied quite a bit of the sacred beliefs of the white, yellow and red races. I haven't neglected the black race, but I have had a harder time finding material, or perhaps throughout my life, very little of that has come to me.

I think it would be wonderful if people compiled a library of sacred writings of all people and possibly even wrote a book that at least introduced the other material. An abridgement, if you will.

From my studies, I have not been pulled away from the LDS faith, but my understanding of many principles within the LDS faith have been greatly enhanced. Recently what I have been hearing a lot is "If you are being added upon by something, embrace it, and if you are not being added upon or taken away from by something, ignore or reject it. At least for now, it may simply not be the right time for you to learn a specific thing.

I do think it is important, as do the native Americans, that we all come back together and share our teachings with each other. Not to convert but to inform and to add upon others and to be added upon.

One of the things I have enjoyed listening to Chief Midegah is he says a lot about each person having their bit of water, and that we should not reject someone because of their water but celebrate and share our water and (I am adding my own bit here) the water all needs to come together and be one.

Thanks, OI. I appreciate your insights.

That is fascinating about the 4 races & each’s contribution or specialty. Later, I’ll look into Chief Midegah. Fitting analogy. It also fits with the idea that as we each have strengths, so do bigger groups - & also in the spirit realm.

You remind me that I want to learn more about Asian ideas, especially Chinese medicine and principles.

“Among the minor schools, the School of Medicine is the least famous but among the most significant. It was supposedly founded by the legendary physician Qibo who served the Yellow Emperor, among the mythical Five Emperors said to have ruled c. 2852-2070BCE. Qibo's works were thought to have been developed by the physician Bian Que (d. 310 BCE) who may have founded the school. It emphasized the importance of health through diet and self-care and Bian Que, or one of his disciples, composed the Huangdi Neijing (Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor), among the oldest medical treatises in the world.”

I have a hypothesis that I still need to explore, that our religion - Mormonism based on Christianity based on Judaism - is rooted in ancient Chinese religion. I think so partly because of Chinese characters pointing to biblical stories & how Chinese language is older than Hebrew. One of the Greek philosophers said Judaism was simply Hindu gods repackaged. The Silk Road (200 BC on) probably helped spread religious ideas & may be partly why some of Jesus’s teachings have a “wise men of the east” flavor.

[ajax]

I enjoyed these thoughts from a talk I recently read:

https://restorationarchives.net/pdf/201 ... script.pdf

So, let’s go back and read that verse again: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are
on earth, in Him (Ephesians 1:10 KJV, emphasis added).

All things. I don’t know how many of you sitting here today, hearing those who have
spoken about Buddhism or speaking about the Native American tradition or speaking about
Messianic Judaism, I don’t know how many of you sitting here today have thought, “That
speaker has said something true, and I believe that.” Whether you think that may be part of
Christianity or the teachings of Christ or not, when you hear truth…
The dispensation of the fulness of times, which has to occur before the return of the Lord,
has to gather together in one all things. If that thing to be gathered has been fractured and
lost to Christianity but preserved in Hinduism, if that thing to be gathered is a truth lost to
Christianity, broken away, and preserved in Buddhism, if that thing to be gathered into one
appears anywhere, then in the dispensation of the fulness of times it all must be brought
back and gathered into one.

If you take a piece of art—sculpture—and you fracture the sculpture into bits and then you
gather the bits and you reassemble them, you will not have the unity and the perfection of
the original until every piece has been found, every piece has been gathered, and every
piece has been put into its proper perspective—only when they’ve all been gathered, and
only when they’ve all been put in their proper place. Because the sculpture ought not look
like Picasso and the Cubists. It ought to look like what it was when originally formed.
When that happens—so that you can now see the beauty that’s there—then you’ve
completed the gathering.

But the prediction is that it will be gathered together in one in
Christ. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a Hindu and you think Christ is outside (He is “other
than”) our tradition. Your tradition must be gathered home also into Christ because it fits
there. And if you’re Buddhist and you say, “Ours is not a religion but a philosophy, a way of
thinking, a way of disciplining the mind,” that way of thinking, that way of disciplining the
mind likewise must be gathered together in Christ for it to find its home. Because the
purpose is the salvation and eternal life of every being, of every person. Until we gather all
the parts, it is not possible to gather in one all things that belong with Christ. The search
must be global; the search and the invitation must cross cultures, traditions, religions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The highest aspirations, the highest ideals of Buddhism are present in the gospel of Christ.
The highest ideals of Hinduism are present in the gospel of Christ. The problem is that in
that disunity/in the fracturing, some of the bits of the sculpture that left Christian
awareness and departed into the East (but were retained by the Hindus) are understood by
them, are practiced and accepted by them, but they’re outside of the typical Christian
awareness. You will not understand the sayings of Jesus the same if you could put on Hindu
eyes for a moment and read what is in the sayings and the teachings of Jesus Christ and of
His followers. You’ll not understand the teachings of Christ as well until you’ve put on
Buddhist eyes, and you’ve relooked at the gospel of Christ through that prism, because part
of the picture will be missing. Christianity may be disciplined and had its story down, but it
lacks the depth, the richness, the kindness, the texture—it lacks the meditative power that
you find in Buddhism and Hinduism. As you heard from the people practicing those
philosophies, religions, viewpoints today, the fact is that they’re fractured, too. Part of
reunifying everything in Christ is gonna reunify the Hindu world as well, reunify the
Buddhist world as well.

The title that my talk was given is, “What is God up to Today?” He’s up to the work and the
challenge of reuniting all things in one, in Christ—not by exclusion and subtraction and
coercion, but by openness and by addition and by tolerance.

Thank you.

This obviously goes hand in hand with Joseph's “… Mormonism is truth, in other words the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, is truth. … The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.”

[Thinker]

I enjoyed these thoughts from a talk I recently read:

https://restorationarchives.net/pdf/201 ... script.pdf

So, let’s go back and read that verse again: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times He
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are
on earth, in Him (Ephesians 1:10 KJV, emphasis added).

All things. I don’t know how many of you sitting here today, hearing those who have
spoken about Buddhism or speaking about the Native American tradition or speaking about
Messianic Judaism, I don’t know how many of you sitting here today have thought, “That
speaker has said something true, and I believe that.” Whether you think that may be part of
Christianity or the teachings of Christ or not, when you hear truth…
The dispensation of the fulness of times, which has to occur before the return of the Lord,
has to gather together in one all things. If that thing to be gathered has been fractured and
lost to Christianity but preserved in Hinduism, if that thing to be gathered is a truth lost to
Christianity, broken away, and preserved in Buddhism, if that thing to be gathered into one
appears anywhere, then in the dispensation of the fulness of times it all must be brought
back and gathered into one.

If you take a piece of art—sculpture—and you fracture the sculpture into bits and then you
gather the bits and you reassemble them, you will not have the unity and the perfection of
the original until every piece has been found, every piece has been gathered, and every
piece has been put into its proper perspective—only when they’ve all been gathered, and
only when they’ve all been put in their proper place. Because the sculpture ought not look
like Picasso and the Cubists. It ought to look like what it was when originally formed.
When that happens—so that you can now see the beauty that’s there—then you’ve
completed the gathering.

But the prediction is that it will be gathered together in one in
Christ. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a Hindu and you think Christ is outside (He is “other
than”) our tradition. Your tradition must be gathered home also into Christ because it fits
there. And if you’re Buddhist and you say, “Ours is not a religion but a philosophy, a way of
thinking, a way of disciplining the mind,” that way of thinking, that way of disciplining the
mind likewise must be gathered together in Christ for it to find its home. Because the
purpose is the salvation and eternal life of every being, of every person. Until we gather all
the parts, it is not possible to gather in one all things that belong with Christ. The search
must be global; the search and the invitation must cross cultures, traditions, religions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The highest aspirations, the highest ideals of Buddhism are present in the gospel of Christ.
The highest ideals of Hinduism are present in the gospel of Christ. The problem is that in
that disunity/in the fracturing, some of the bits of the sculpture that left Christian
awareness and departed into the East (but were retained by the Hindus) are understood by
them, are practiced and accepted by them, but they’re outside of the typical Christian
awareness. You will not understand the sayings of Jesus the same if you could put on Hindu
eyes for a moment and read what is in the sayings and the teachings of Jesus Christ and of
His followers. You’ll not understand the teachings of Christ as well until you’ve put on
Buddhist eyes, and you’ve relooked at the gospel of Christ through that prism, because part
of the picture will be missing. Christianity may be disciplined and had its story down, but it
lacks the depth, the richness, the kindness, the texture—it lacks the meditative power that
you find in Buddhism and Hinduism. As you heard from the people practicing those
philosophies, religions, viewpoints today, the fact is that they’re fractured, too. Part of
reunifying everything in Christ is gonna reunify the Hindu world as well, reunify the
Buddhist world as well.

The title that my talk was given is, “What is God up to Today?” He’s up to the work and the
challenge of reuniting all things in one, in Christ—not by exclusion and subtraction and
coercion, but by openness and by addition and by tolerance.

Thank you.

This obviously goes hand in hand with Joseph's “… Mormonism is truth, in other words the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, is truth. … The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.”

Thanks Ajax. BTW, good to see you around again.

Someone in an authoritative position in our extended family suggested that I should stop studying everything and just focus on the lds church’s (repackaged rewarped bs… they didn’t call it that) approved teachings. Of course I didn’t obey their advice but it bothered me & made me think how evil that church notion is of information control. Though church leaders have said similarly, the 1st lds leader said the opposite…

“Whatever principal of intelligence we obtain in this life will rise with us in the resurrection.” - Joseph Smith

[Momma J]

I am very spiritual but walked away from organized religion quite some time ago. May 6-7 years ago, I was contemplating the salvation of some very "GOOD" people, who were not LDS. It seemed odd that these individuals, who were living in a very Christ-like manner, would be denied... while LDS members, who were living a less than Christ-like manner would be "saved."

I pondered and prayed and was comforted by the knowledge that we are not being judged upon our affiliations. Good is good and would be judged accordingly.

edit to add: The LDS church gave me a solid foundation for prayer, service, kindness, ...

[A Disciple]

The thesis of the Mormon religion is the union of personal revelation with authoritative revelation. This is what makes Mormonism distinct from other Christian faiths. Catholics are heavy on the authority angle. Protestants and evangelicals emphasize the personal spiritual journey. Mormonism says you can have both!

The Book of Mormon is mostly a manual on how to obtain personal communication with God and how one's relationship with God will play out. Multiple stories, especially the one of the Zoramites, challenge the idea that any group can claim to be more privileged of God. As Nephi argues to his brothers, any blessing a people has of God is due to their Faith & Righteousness, and not their genetics.

Where Mormonism suffers and blocks spiritual growth is that too much weight is placed on religious authority. Watching general authorities teach spiritual growth is painful as the authority must always establish guardrails. For the spirit is Truth and the Light of Truth reveals iniquity wherever it exists. The church leaders cannot have that discovery occurring in its members! Thus the guardrails to insulate the church from the spiritual enlightenment of its members.

[Thinker]

I am very spiritual but walked away from organized religion quite some time ago. May 6-7 years ago, I was contemplating the salvation of some very "GOOD" people, who were not LDS. It seemed odd that these individuals, who were living in a very Christ-like manner, would be denied... while LDS members, who were living a less than Christ-like manner would be "saved."

I pondered and prayed and was comforted by the knowledge that we are not being judged upon our affiliations. Good is good and would be judged accordingly.

edit to add: The LDS church gave me a solid foundation for prayer, service, kindness, ...

I can relate on both points.
I have known many people who have shown more compassion &/or integrity than most lds. As someone said, “Some people are better off without the lds church.”

One of my best friends (& former roommate) is Muslim and from Kenya. I was just looking at a map of the spread of Islam (including Kenya) & it hit me how we tend to affiliate with whatever religion is most popular where we live. If my friend happened to have been born in Thailand, she’d probably be Buddhist. If she was born in the US, she’d probably be Christian. As it is, she is very set on Islam, though she too recognizes problems like cult aspects. And for most of my life, I was set on Mormonism mostly because I was born into it. No choice really - it’s just whatever religion you inherit!

So true also that the church offers good. It’s kind of like a somewhat dysfunctional but caring parent that helps you until you get on your feet & grow up. Actually the church is indeed stage 3 of Fowler’s faith stages which is generally a stage reached in adolescence.

[Thinker]

….Where Mormonism suffers and blocks spiritual growth is that too much weight is placed on religious authority. Watching general authorities teach spiritual growth is painful as the authority must always establish guardrails. For the spirit is Truth and the Light of Truth reveals iniquity wherever it exists. The church leaders cannot have that discovery occurring in its members! Thus the guardrails to insulate the church from the spiritual enlightenment of its members.

I definitely agree and see this damming or holding members back from the God of TRUTH - as evil, more evil than some blatant evil, as it’s deceptively portrayed as if god itself. Members are made to worship the church over God. It seems to make members luke warm or passive - assuming since they jump through the church’s hoops, they have a guaranteed ticket to heaven & they don’t care about learning more because they think they know it all already. Pride & willful ignorance - that deadly duo.

What’s so sad is that so many members are suffering - starving for spiritual nourishment. Some may be fed if they are just beginning but many are not & yet they fear looking anywhere but to the church for spiritual help. And the church may be more blind than they are.

The way is indeed narrow that few find, maybe it’s the general law of nature & spirituality. If it were easy, then it wouldn’t strengthen through the testings and need of discernment.