Spirituality with or without love

There are many people who seek spirituality. Before i continue this i need to clarify what i mean with spirituality. I make a difference between religion and spirituality. Religion is practiced in many institutions that call themselves religious. Religion in the original sense is a personal matter. It means the efforts that a person makes to reconnect to the origin, to God the Creator. Some people don't like it to call God 'God.' For them, there is a universal spirit, or an energy of love, or a primeval principle that explains all. I have no objections against seeing God in that way. I think it is personal how we experience God. For me, God fits all these descriptions.

Spirituality means the world of spirit. God is spirit, but God as Creator also created the physical universe. To only see God as spirit would diminish God. That's why i think that spirituality and religion are not the same. Both religion and spirituality can be practiced in a good way or a wrong way.

If religion means that certain religious leaders tell us that salvation can only be gained by following those leaders, i seriously doubt the sincerity of such practice of religion. We are all divine beings originally and therefore each of us has God in the deepest core of the heart. Though we can learn much from religious leaders, we don't discover our real selves when we put our trust in a human person without having a relation to God. How are we supposed to know which religious leaders we can trust and whom not? To know that we can eventually only rely on our own good intuition. I decide in whom i believe. When someone else decides that for me, then i still have made my own choice to do that. I myself am responsible for my choices and to know if my choice is right, i must be able to trust myself. I can only trust myself when i make that choice in all sincerity, from the deepest of my heart, which is where i can find God in myself.

The spiritual is an aspect of reality, just like the physical is another aspect. Many people believe that the spiritual world is only there for people who died, but the spiritual world is already there before we lose our physical bodies. Our lives have a spiritual aspect and have a physical aspect. Our bodies too have a spiritual aspect and a physical aspect. When the physical body dies, we are not gone. Our spiritual aspect lives on in the spiritual world. The spiritual aspect does not suddenly get into existence at the moment of death. The spiritual aspect is already there before we lose the physical body.

The question is then how we can get access to the spiritual aspects of life in such a way that we don't lose our relation to God. The answer is that this is only possible in love. I don't mean the kind of love that is self-centered, the kind of love that some people are asking for. I mean love that is to give for the well-being of others. This kind of love comes from God.

When you really love someone, you want the best for that other person. You don't only want that person to live a good life now, but also in the future. When that future extends to even life after physical life, we can speak about spiritual love. When we strive for that kind of love, the spiritual world opens for us in the right way.

Some people strive for spiritual knowledge and experiences. When you know how to deal with the spiritual, it is possible to get some kind of spiritual control over people. Other people just want to know a lot about spiritual stuff. This does not need to be bad, but it can be harmful for yourself if you don't practice that knowledge by giving out love.

Spiritual is not inherently good. Also in spirit world there exist beings who are out to control others. To open yourself spiritually and then to come under the influence of such self-centered beings does not do much good.