Today's Affirmation

"I follow my Light.  The Universal Source of ALL that is good and true and pure always supports me and provides ALL the opportunities that I need to follow a path of rightness."

 

I'm taking a break from my Angel series today to talk about the difference between religion and spirituality.

 

Religion is man-made.  It is man's interpretation of the Universal Source.  But man being man, infantile in his capacity to wrap his mind around the entirety of the mysteries of the Universe, sees one side, one aspect, and then fully develops his belief system on that small portion of his understanding.

 

Picture a glass bowl, if you will, think of it as the entirety of the Universe, think of it as ALL there is, ALL there was, and ALL there will ever be.  Even that is hard for our human minds to encompass. 

 

Now imagine dropping the glass bowl on a hard surface.  What happens?  It splinters into innumerable shards, almost impossible to reconstruct into one solid bowl.  This is religion.  Individual shards of the whole.  No one can possibly understand the whole, but he can understand one tiny, miniscule shard.  It is these shards that have developed into the different world religions.

 

The problem is that each group who embraces a shard is under the impression that his shard is the only shard, the correct shard, and that all other shards are incorrect.  Thus, each individual religion believes it is the ONLY correct belief and that all others are wrong.

 

Religion, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.  It binds people together, creates a strong community, provides guidance and support.  But, if man created religion, and he did, then man creates it so that he has control over it and the people who participate in it.

 

The Universal mystery may be Source given, but the rules are man-made.  Look, I am a supporter of the guidelines for moral human behavior-Commandments.  These are good and viable guidance for all people regardless of religion.  They are the basis of our own societal laws.  Most people would agree that there are certain codes of morality that should not be breeched.  The ten guidelines for human behavior create a basic code for appropriate human behavior.

 

My objection to manmade religion is that each one believes it is exclusive and encourages man to divide himself into  groups that focus on differences.  These differences then serve as a basis for hatred and condemnation and, as we have seen historically, violence.  More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason.  How can this possibly be good?  It isn't. 

 

Man-made religion is filled with regulations that man himself has constructed in order to control the people who participate.  This is done through fear and punishment.  Additionally, many religions are only supportive one gender.  It encourages gender inequality and puts the burden of all things wrong on women.  It is a man's way to keep his women under his control.

 

In this way he retains ALL the power and ALL the control, he manipulates the original goodness that his religion embodies and imposes severe regulations on women so that women carry the burden of all wrongdoing.  So, not right.

 

For today, I leave you with this thought:  The Universal Source, in its purest essence, is a loving and compassionate source.  It is loving and compassionate of all humanity, not just men, not just women, EVERYONE, equally.

 

Love and Light,

Robin