The Relevance of Spiritual Development to Our Religious Life
The Relevance of Spiritual Development to Our Religious Life
The relevance of spiritual development to our religious life is that spiritual development gives substance or meaning to our religious life. It is also the bond which unites all the groups of different religions in the world. Unless our religious life is accompanied by spiritual development it is merely following a set of doctrines and practices. It will have no lasting, beneficial effect on our way of life. Unless we develop our spiritual life the different groups of religion will always be fighting one another on grounds of teaching and practice.
We are all born into a society which has a definite set of religious beliefs and practices. As we grow we imbibe these beliefs and practices. These define our religious identity, our religious life. For most of us we do not question these. If we are Christians we believe in God and in Jesus Christ. If we are Muslims we believe in Allah. If we are Hindus we believe in Brahman and his diverse manifestations.
But if we do not grow in our spiritual life we take these beliefs and practices for granted. We do not question them nor do we internalize them, we do not make them our own personal beliefs and practices. We believe in them and do the things we are told to do by our religion because we simply think that those are expected of us. And because we have not internalized these beliefs and practices they do not really influence our lives. They are as it were a covering which makes us appear so to others but deep inside we are not what we appear to be.
I will take an example from Christianity. In Christianity we are taught to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. We find this in the Christian Bible, particularly in Matthew 5:44. A Christian can memorize this and agree to this. But as we all know, not many Christians have internalized this teaching and practice. The two world wars were begun and waged by people who professed they were Christians. In our own society we know that so called Christians do not in general love their enemies nor do they do good to those who hate them.
The reason for this is because they have not really developed their spiritual life. They may have developed their religious life. They go to church regularly, read their bibles, give to the support of their leaders, etc. They do this not because they have internalized the teaching of their religion, but because they think that this is what is expected of them.