Spirituality Vs Religion (I am not an atheist)

I would like to begin this post with a quote which made me 'THINK' a lot,

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg

I would like to open this post with a note that I am not an atheist.  I have strong faith in my religion and my religion has taught me a lot about virtues like peace, love, compassion and definitely no violence at all.  My religion is all about showing love towards fellow humans.  I would like to not to boast on my religion as I am afraid that my valuable readers would find this post to be biased towards my religion.  This topic is a  very critical topic which I believe would be valuable to diverse group of people having different religious faiths.

RELIGION = PEACE [Is it reality?]

Basically, religions date back to thousands of years and so do religious scriptures.  Every religion has its  major divisions with conflicting opinions on their scriptures.  Religion and spirituality sound like similar terms, but they are not.  I strongly believe religion should always be accompanied by spirituality to make the  world a better place.

What is religion?

We all know what religion is, but still I referred many dictionaries and came across so many definitions.  The main keyword is 'belief' in something that one strongly believes to exist and abide by its way - God.  Religion is supposed to control one's life, steer his or her life in the right direction.  So basically there is nothing wrong in religion - then why do conflicts rise in the name of religion.  A religious person believes in rituals - obviously rituals are not wrong as they are part of religion (but not spirituality) . Likewise,  some religious people spend more time in reading scriptures and tend to misinterpret them.  This leads to chaos and shakes the fundamental purpose of religion - peace and a better world for everyone.  Religion does not encourage doing something bad or evil in the name of God, it reflects love and love and hate can never coexist.  Some people are very good enough to find "hate scriptural lines not based on God or religion but by their own perspective."   This  is done by so called religious leaders of all religions. The love of a particular religion and the set of beliefs should never lead to formation of evil cults which indulge in fighting and killing people in the name of religion.  One cannot achieve martyrdom by being a suicide bomber  and destroying other religious monuments - no offense intended on any religion.  Religious conflicts are like a chain reaction and it is very hard to break the chain - but can be prevented.

What is spirituality?

Most people equate being spiritual with being more religious, being more close to God, believing more in God and more.  That is true and acceptable, but spirituality cannot exist without reverence.  Reverence is the feeling of profound awe and respect and often love (American Heritage Dictionary).  Spirituality is a simple concept than religion - but hard to understand.  Spirituality looks upon scriptures using inner mind's enlightenment.  Only a person who has discovered himself or herself will be able to take the path of spirituality.  Religion closely coexists with spirituality.  Spirituality is never influenced by extrinsic factors, so it is more divine.  To define spirituality in a sentence, spirituality is the feeling of accepting God in one's heart and believe that God lives inside them.  All scriptures portray God to be very kind and forgiving and through spirituality a person can attain this perspective of looking at life.  When religious beliefs  are powered by spirituality a person would have no hate towards members of other religions.  This leads to peace in a community, city, state, nation and world.

What is religious tolerance?

Religious tolerance helps to control the bloodshed based on religion.  Spirituality helps a person to be more tolerant towards other religions as spirituality is based on reality and inner mind - inner mind is always pure and good in a spiritual person.  Religious persons are not very tolerant towards other religions because they rely more on literature and inspired by speeches given by their religious leaders.  Still many religious leaders have been able to have considerable amount of tolerance towards other religions - but far less than the spiritual ones.  In reality, spirituality increases religious tolerance and thereby unity.

I don't want to extend this post any further as there is no shortage of religious and spiritual leaders across the globe.  They preach to millions of people.  If these individuals are able to embrace spirituality plus religion, human race will never be divided based on religion.  If people follow their religions with a spiritualistic approach, it is the path of love which would lead the world to peace.

All religions must be tolerated... for... every man must get to heaven his own way. 

~Frederick the Great