spirituality

Religion and Spirituality are not the same.
Because religion is self-enclosed, so are religious studies. The point of asking questions, is frowned upon it seems, one must believe what is written in the holy books. Don’t ask questions. Call it belief for belief's sake. Does a religious scripture have the freestanding power to change the world? Does it make us more alert, more skeptical, more humble, and more open? What are scriptures? Does a piece of writing achieve divine status by virtue of its intrinsic quality, or only as a product of social consensus? Spirituality on the other hand means awareness, it is useful because it wakes us up from the sleepwalk of self-involvement—of plans, anxieties, resentments, habits, the fog that clings to our eyes as we stumble through the day, stumble through our lives—and shows us the world, shows us ourselves, shows us life and experience and the reality of other people, and forces us to think about them all. The pleasure of spirituality is not escape or fantasy; it is this very shiver of consciousness, this troubling exhilaration. Thinking and feeling, both at once and both together, simultaneous and identical...
As for Religious scriptures, the only people who read them are the ones who make a career out of studying them (Parsons), and the believers who attend the sermons.