Very often I meet people in this day in age that say something along the lines of “I’m not a religious person, but I’m spiritual”. Every time I hear this I identify with the same notion, but deep down inside I wonder what it really means. The only thing I can compare it to is a feeling or a loving energy that wraps me up and connects me to the essence of the vastness of the universe or multiverse or however big it all is. Religion for me is a set of beliefs or faith in certain deity’s, god(s) and creation stories. Spirituality seems to fit within that context somewhere fairly easily as well but may appear separate from it too.

I was visiting Nepal during the monsoon season, sitting in a restaurant close to our Airbnb. The street was a gushing ankle-deep river so we could not venture far. The food was a mix of Nepalese food and French cuisine. As we finished our fried paneer in a red wine chutney sauce, we struck up a conversation with another traveler. An Indian man who had become an American citizen and who was doing a solo pilgrimage to Mt Kailash in Tibet. I had never heard of it. I came to learn that this pyramid shaped mountain was the mecca not only to Hinduism but Buddhism, Jainism and Bon (the last 2 religions I had never even heard of). As he told us about how you don’t summit it, but you walk around it some 26 miles, he mentioned to us that he was not a religious man, but he was spiritual. This struck me as intense and curious. To make such a journey from the US, by himself to wait in Kathmandu for a week for a Chinese visa; to then drive 10s of hours to a mountain to hike for 3 days for no religious reason but what felt like for a spiritual feeling or summoning he was experiencing. This seemed a little bonkers. but we could relate in our own way.

My fiancé and I had been traveling on what we call our wedding moon, getting married in 11 destinations around the world and discovering what love and marriage means to these different cultures. Or goal being to explore the sacredness of matrimony and what I had begun to find was that that sacredness was very often rooted through the dense soil of religion. We had wrapped up Morocco and Egypt, 2 countries with very Muslim faith present. You could spy people praying in designated spaces everywhere 5 times a day, or see women remove their burka or headscarves in the ladies bathroom at the airport, washing their hands and feet and preparing themselves for prayer. There was so much tradition and ceremony present, that I had never seen before. I was personally raised Christian in my home country of the USA. Although in my later adolescence my mother took us to a Unitarian church which I identified more with and had a powerful impact on me. In this church we would sometimes meditate instead of receiving a large sermon, we would burn sage, we would explore messages from the bible, but other positive message and outlets too. My mother wanted to give us a foundation of spirituality. It was important for her as our mother to give us something to believe in.  When I was a young women I would sit broadly in the pews thumbing the bible, looking for proof, that all these hours at church had a deep and powerful validation hidden in the pages, That I would find secrets there that would be undeniable, I found some pretty good stuff in the bible but what I often found were things that confused me, like in the book of Leviticus I was informed that when I got my 1st period I would have to go bathe myself in the holy river of Judah, how was mom ever going to get me there? Why did I have to go so far? Or when I read for the 1st time that in the beginning god made only man, which seemed so odd to me because we were just learning in school that the dinosaurs were here on earth first, why were they left out? It seemed like they didn’t even know about them, wasn’t the author of this book supposed to know everything? It seemed like I was getting so much conflicting information and nobody had a good enough answer for me, and I heard everywhere to just have “Faith” which seemed like they were saying to ignore the things that don’t make sense, just act like its true so as to reap some sort of spiritual benefit or promise of a wonderful afterlife and forgiveness for my humanness which I was learning was awful, that humans had to be forgiven all the time.

Merriam Webster’s definition of spirituality is thus:

“1: Something that ecclesiastical law belongs to the church or cleric as such

2.Clergy

3: Sensitivity or attachment to religious values.

4.The quality or state of being concerned with religion or religious matters. “

To me this does an average job of describing the vibe I get around spirituality. To me spirituality seems more vast and broad. Merriam Webster seems to almost be describing spirituality from a completely Christian perspective. I mean Clergy? That word alone is about Christian holy men.

Another definition for Spirituality I could find posted on google dictionary was:

“The quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. “

But the best one I could find was found on the University of Minnesota’s website:

“Spirituality is a broad concept with room for many perspectives. In general, it includes a sense of connection to something bigger than us, and it typically involves a search of meaning in life. As such it is a universal human experience- something that touches us all.”

I was confronted by Merriam Webster’s definition, had Merriam Webster never been anywhere else in the wide world? Or was their vantage point honed in on the Christian religion as the only form of spirituality in the known world?

What I was slowly discovering on my travels was that there are MANY religions, ones I had never heard of. According to Wikipedia there are an estimated 4,200 known religions in the modern world. Some of which span before the birth of Christianity, Islam or Judaism (which are known as the Abrahamic religions). When I started learning about Islam through my travels and sheer curiosity, I found that a lot of the same characters were within the walls of all of the Abrahamic religious stories. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all had Jesus in their books, some just more than others; also Moses, Abraham and job are all found in all 3 of the different Abrahamic holy books. It started to seem in this weird way that certain regions started playing a game of Chinese whispers and maybe there was a common theme or message taken from the same place but the person that brought that message to the people was then imbued as a sort of demigod to be coveted and revered, and his personal recollection of events or lessons became a story by which people found a faith. Perhaps some regions of Mesopotamia just liked some prophets more, so they gave them the glory over others, thus a religion was formed.

I admire the teachings of most religions if the root is pure and positive and I feel its truth within, or if the religion gives a swift kick in the butt to do good things in this life. Maybe this is how religion started in communities from the dawn of human civilization. Religion being a rule book to keep people in line and give themselves hope and connect themselves to something bigger or maybe the planet.  I sometimes dream about taking beautiful traditions, messages and prayers from all of the religions and forming a sort of universal one or maybe just a personal family one, so we can explore all of the ancient knowledge in which humankind has been exploring themselves for thousands or maybe even 10’s of thousands of years.

A friend of mine recently stated very confidently over dinner that she believed in Jesus Christ and I said more or less  “I do too, I believe he existed and that he tapped into a godly energy and did some pretty magic stuff and got a hell of a following for it, but I also believe he isn’t the only one that tapped into that godly energy and made magic and impacted his relative region and eventually globally and he isn’t the only one that a regions people memorialized and worshipped him because of that magic.” I actually had never had that as a solid thought until I said that to my friend. It almost poured out of me like something I had been hiding for a long time. It felt so good to say it, because it was the only truth I could come to terms with about Christianity after all of this time.

On another side of the coin a small group in Mali, Africa known as the Dogons, have protected the caves in a village for thousands of years because of their ancient religion. They protect this cave because of very special drawings of the Sirius star system. The drawings were done before modern man had the tools to look at or understand such a constellation. The Dogons believe they receive their spiritual messages from beings in another star system, the Sirius Star system. Religions like this are most curious because they seem so unreal, but think, this religion is as significantly impactful and complex to these people as any other coveted or faithful religion.

The Hindus believe in multiple dimensions and universes and the reincarnation of souls, they worship just about everything happily. Religion is wildly interesting, especially when looking at it completely open minded and not shrouded in the idea that other cultures or religions are a failed attempt at our own because of some dogma or ego had about it. Maybe through the exploration of all of these faiths we will discover a hidden gigantic picture of the truth, of our purpose, or at least how we arrived here to this plain of existence.

What if the truth about humanities journey was splayed out like a giant jigsaw puzzle for us to figure out and we are still looking for all of the pieces but through technology, travel, science, the remnants of all of the ancient religions and dare I say spirituality again, we can put the huge puzzle together. I’m not saying to reject your faith or stop believing in the beliefs that give you tingles or a sense of connection, but I’m saying to maybe look just beyond the horizon like a sailor exploring unknown lands, there may be puzzle pieces for you to pick up along the way and their value could shape the oncoming generations or bring us to fill the void of truly understanding where we have come from, just a little bit more than yesterday.

Now, when I hear people say “I’m not religious, but spiritual” I nod and smile at them because I think to myself, They are also searching to look at the bigger picture, but they don’t know what it is, and no one book of religion satisfied that dull ache inside. No story about creation, or the worship of one deity over another seemed true enough to proclaim their undying devotion. What I find is that, we as humans are truly analytical, and we are looking to be proven right or wrong to manufacture solidness around ourselves.

I wish you all luck in the unraveling of the spiritual journey that is humanness, even in atheism there is a strong set of beliefs thereby it is still religious in nature however simple.

If I ever meet you, I’ll be sure to share my puzzle pieces with you, if you will share yours with me.