Hello,
And welcome back to Unleash Your Peace.
My name is Ellie Shoja.
I am your host.
I'm a positive mindset coach,
A personal transformation expert,
Deliberate creator,
And I am your peace trainer.
And this podcast over here,
Unleash Your Peace,
Is your peace training.
Every single week,
We pick a different topic about the internal world to dive into.
We do that over the course of five episodes,
Which I then release Monday through Friday.
Now,
These episodes are really short.
They're under 10 minutes long.
That way,
You have something uplifting,
Something inspiring and thought-provoking every morning,
Every day,
On your walk,
On your drive to listen to.
Hopefully,
It'll inspire you to look inward.
Hopefully,
It'll set your day up for success.
And hopefully,
It will help you shed all of that weight of the unwanted pain you're carrying so that you can find lasting internal peace and live your best life yet.
When we live from this place of joy and peace and connectedness to our internal self,
To that infinite,
Non-physical,
Potential part of ourselves,
We don't just incrementally improve the quality of our lives.
We actually exponentially innovate every aspect of our experiences on this physical plane.
That is my wish for you.
I want you to level up.
I want you to become your whole beautiful,
Powerful self.
And I want you to live the life of your dreams.
When you live your dreams,
You're going to inspire others to do the same.
That's just how it works.
Now,
We are on week eight together.
Seven whole weeks are behind us.
I hope you have been enjoying them.
This week,
Week eight,
I debated about this topic,
To be honest with you,
Whether or not I wanted to do it.
It is kind of a big topic.
It is a controversial topic.
And it is something that might kind of rub you the wrong way.
I'm going to do a little disclaimer right now.
If you get emotional,
If you get upset by the things that I am sharing with you this week on this week's topic,
Don't shut down.
Don't close the door.
Realize that this is necessary contrast for your expansion.
If it is upsetting you,
It's creating contrast for you.
And we have talked about this time and time again.
All of the contrast always is for your benefits.
It's for your expansion.
So if you do get upset,
If this topic does bother you,
Use this opportunity to go deeper into yourself,
Into your own belief structure.
Figure out why you're getting defensive.
Figure out why this is bothering you so much.
And comment,
Write to me,
Talk to me about it.
Let's have a dialogue.
Let's figure out where your blocks and resistance points are so that you can continue your journey of expansion.
So what is this week's topic?
You're wondering.
And this week's topic is religion versus spirituality.
We know religion is one of those topics that you don't talk to people about because usually people who are very religious,
They are set in their religion.
They're happy with their religion.
They get defensive about it.
They want everybody to convert into their religion.
And now I'm saying this whole week,
We're going to talk about religion and we're going to talk about it in the context of spirituality,
Of course.
Now this question actually came up during my lecture at my friend's high school.
I came on to speak about the Alchemist,
Which is one of my favorite books.
If you haven't read it,
Paulo Coelho's Alchemist is absolutely incredible.
It has so many of these spiritual teachings embedded right into it.
So I came on and I started speaking to these kids.
This topic of religion versus spirituality came up during that dialogue.
What is the difference between religion and spirituality?
And the easiest way I can define that is that religion describes the social,
The public,
And organized means by which people relate to the divine.
So it gives you an organized method of worship.
It gives you the rules of that worship.
It's basically your relationship with the divine institutionalized.
So it's organized and it's structured.
Now spirituality is a little bit more personal.
Spirituality is basically your relationship with that infinite potential part of you,
That non-physical part of you,
That beingness of you.
We can call it the spirit,
We can call it the inner being,
We can call it your soul,
We can call it God,
You can call it divine.
It doesn't matter.
You can even call it the universe.
It doesn't matter what you call it.
Your relationship with that non-physical is a spiritual relationship.
It's a spiritual practice.
Now are religion and spirituality one and the same?
In my opinion,
Religion is a form of spirituality.
People say spirituality is a form of religion.
I disagree with that.
I believe religion falls underneath the umbrella of spirituality because what religion does,
It provides a pathway into a spiritual practice.
It provides an avenue for you to find that relationship with the divine.
And in that sense,
All religions are the same because all religions provide that opportunity to find the divine within yourself,
To build and form that relationship with the divine within yourself.
Religion is not necessary for this kind of spiritual connection with the divine.
You can be an atheist and you can still have a very robust relationship with the God within yourself.
You just call it something different and it doesn't matter what you call it.
It doesn't matter if I say the air I breathe is air or if I say it's nothing,
I don't breathe anything.
You're still breathing air and it's going still into your lungs and it's still replenishing all of your cells.
It doesn't matter what you call it.
If you experience that relationship,
It is your relationship with the divine and it is a spiritual relationship.
It's a spiritual practice.
Spirituality is something that defines who you essentially are because it connects you to yourself.
We are spiritual beings because we are made of the spirit and the more connected we feel to that divine,
To that spirit within us,
The happier we are,
The more joyful we are,
The more at peace we are and that's why this journey into the self is always a spiritual journey.
It's always a journey into finding our spirit,
Into finding our inner being,
Into finding our true selves.
So in this episode,
I simply want to leave you with that,
That distinction between religion and spirituality.
There's nothing wrong with religion and I told those kids that whatever religion you are,
It doesn't matter.
It's beautiful and whatever religion your neighbor is,
It's beautiful because that religion is a pathway into your true self,
Into your spirituality,
Into that connection with the divine within yourself.
And if you can look at another person regardless of their religion and come to them with this understanding that whatever they're practicing is an opportunity for them to connect to their true self,
Then you'll see the beauty in whatever they're practicing.
And it doesn't matter if they are a Muslim and you're a Christian,
If they are a Jew and you're a Muslim,
It doesn't matter if you're an atheist and somebody is a Baha'i or Buddhist or whatever,
It doesn't matter what we call it on the surface.
It's like saying,
I'm going to drive to Hollywood and am I going to take Santa Monica Boulevard or am I going to take Wilshire or am I going to take whatever else street that goes there?
It doesn't matter which road you take as long as you get there.
And if you come to your neighbor,
To your friends with that attitude of connectedness,
Of inclusion,
Of love and compassion,
Then we have a chance at actually having constructive dialogue.
So I will leave you with that.
I don't know if you agree with it.
I don't know if you disagree with it.
I would love to hear from you on this topic especially.
It is kind of a sensitive topic because we do get so defensive and protective of our own spiritual and religious beliefs.
I hope that if you are feeling triggered in any way,
You don't become defensive and you actually use this opportunity to go deeper into your own practice because that's what happens if you are feeling triggered.
You're going to hit a plateau and then you're going to go deeper if you allow yourself to go deeper and ultimately it's all for your benefit anyways.
So if this is bringing up any questions or any points of resistance,
Do reach out to me.
You can reach out to me through my website peaceunleashed.
Com.
I love hearing from you and engaging in dialogue with you.
You can also find me on Instagram.
Com under peaceunleashed and read some of those love notes that I share with you on there and those are meant to uplift and inspire you throughout your day.
Until we come back tomorrow and go one layer deeper on this topic,
I wish you a peace-filled day.
