Spiritual Path answers:

I agree that one's spirituality can be separated from one's religion. One is a spiritual being first - then finds the path (which maybe a religion) to explore that spirituality

Spirituality is a deep yearning within to be at one and live in harmony with the highest power in the universe and to know ones place with in this universe.

Religion lays down rules and ideas that often have to do with how we are supposed to act in society, which is always open to interpretation by who is in power at the moment. Such rules come about through man's limited knowledge and thinking and have often been intolerant of other modes of living and thinking.

I do believe that most of the main branches of religion do have universal truths within them and can help you on your spiritual path. In fact, most main religions have a mystical or esoteric core that complement one another and are not in that much disagreement. You can be a very spiritual being within any of the named religions, but just being a member is no guarantee to such a state of being. It is up to you to develop your own spirituality and a real sense of doing everything for the greatest and highest good.

I feel there is a spark of spirituality that lives within all of us. That indeed, we are soul - and soul exists because God loves it.

For all of us, there is a struggle to remember our spiritual self and some do a better job of recalling than others. There is a tendency to repress that inner yearning for a deeper knowledge and way of being - and replace it with just the physical living and fulfilling of desire.

I also believe that spiritually, happiness and contentment can go hand in hand. The Dalai Lama said that "the very purpose of our life is happiness, the very motion of our life is towards happiness."

I feel that to be the best that we can be, is the secret to happiness and that must surely involve knowing ourselves as true spiritual beings and evolving with that at our core.

Spiritual Path answers:

Here are a couple of links that might stir your imagination - part of spirituality is the ability to harness our own creativity...

http://www.cuew.org/thefivepoints.html

http://frikkiebotes.homemarker.com/index.html

Jesus said investigate all things, but keep the good...

Spiritual Path answers:

Here is a secret - spirituality is learned by experience. That is one of the reasons why to some, it is real, while for others, it is imaginary. Science is a way of describing the universe. Spiritiuality is a way of experiencing the universe. These are not mutually exclusive...

Spiritual Path answers:

Religion is a structured path to God - where, often, someone else tells you what your relationship with God should be. The spiritual path is a private path to God, where you take responsibility for your relationship with God.

The structured religions can help guide you - they can help you to meet the Christ or the Buddha, for example. Spirituality, for me, is just another way of saying one's own personal path to God.

There are universal truths and rules in this universe. Religions were created to help us know and understand those universal truths, so that we could go further and faster on our path to God. But like many institutions, they often forget their true purpose, which is only to guide and not to dictate...

Spiritual Path answers:

You ask questions that take many books and many years to answer... Just Google Taoism and Buddhism for Chinese religion and google Shintoism and Zen Buddhism for Japanese religion.

Shintoism is the ancient Japanese religious practice of venerating their ancestors tgrough nature and is as old as Japan itself, while Zen Buddhism is an offshoot of Chinese Chan Buddhism and was the religion practiced by most of the Samurai during Japan's medieval era.

To follow the Tao is to follow the center path between dualities - to be one with the moment of now at all times. It seems to me that in Kung fu, etc., one is striving to be the master of one's own fate and to be the instrument of the universe at the same time...