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From Religion to My Own Kind of Spirituality

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  • #73315
    Paula
    Participant

    Hello,

    I’m wondering how many people have experienced growing up in a religious home only to one day decide to no longer be religious and instead pursue your own kind of spirituality?

    I would love to hear about your experiences, particularly with regard to your family relationships.

    To give you some background on myself, I grew up in a Southern Baptist home. Both sides of my family are devout Christians with one of my grandfathers being pastor and the other long-time choir singer. I’ve shared with my mother and grandmother about my leaving religion. They sought me out asking questions to which I honestly replied, otherwise I might not have shared with them. I have yet to explicitly discuss this with the remainder of my family, but I do not shy away from discussing my belief in Universal power and other spiritual matters on my blog and for my business.

    I’ve learned a lot from simply sharing with my mother and grandmother about the power of staying true to one’s self. I’d love to hear how you have handled similar situations, if you’ve yet to divulge this info to your family or any other experiences.

    With love,
    Paula

    #73324
    Annie Lin
    Participant

    Hi there! I, too, was raised in a “religious” home. My family is Roman Catholic. I was baptized as Catholic and I attended three Catholic schools from grade one until now. I’m 17 and I’m a self-proclaimed Buddhist. When I was like 14 or so, I was very active in our church. I joined the choir and even read the liturgy every Sunday mass. But as I grew older and wiser, I just knew at age 16 that Roman Catholic is not the right religion for me. I drastically stopped going to church. I only go when my relatives force me to but I usually don’t go inside the church anymore. I just stay outside, so they let me be.

    I, personally, have a lot of doubts in the Catholic church. They teach love and acceptance but don’t actually show it to the LGBT community. They discriminate people because of being “gay”. So what? In their Bible, there’s even a gay couple… Also, there was an unwed teen mom in our country who baptized her child, and guess what the priest told her? “What you did was worldly. You allowed yourself to sleep with a man who is not your husband? Have you no shame?”. That’s only a few.

    However the idea of Buddhism shook my family and relatives. They thought that I was only rebelling (for I am a problem child) and that Buddhism is a dumb religion. It’s a very hard transition for me. Imagine not being able to express myself at my own house. I even need to “sneak out” just to go to a temple. Fyi, the “nearest” temple is far far away from my home. But I did’t care of what they think. I set up my own altar and light incense. I meditate sometimes to bring me inner peace. But still, my “Catholic” relatives feel that I’m joking. And say things like “Buddha is just fat. Not worth to be worshiped” and I’m like… Woah you don’t even know his story and how Buddhism works.

    And I believe that each one of us has the right to choose his/her own religion. Being raised in a Catholic or Christian home doesn’t mean you have to be one. We are free to believe in what we believe in. 🙂

    #73354
    Kadampa
    Participant

    I too grew up in religious home. My mother grew up in a fundamentalist Southern Baptist family. While in college in the early 1950’s her future husband impregnated her. In a culture of shame, she was shunned by both her family, and her church. My parents got a shotgun wedding and moved away. The child she was carrying died in childbirth. My mother took this as a punishment from God. In the six year period between this event and my birth she had two miscarriages; again she saw this as God’s punishment for her transgressions. She began bartering with God, “If I can have a live birth, I will dedicate his life to you.” Lucky me! Mother Dearest, did a damn good job of trying to keep her promise to God. As the Second Scion, I was allowed to have no “sin”. She constantly criticized and punished me for the normal behaviors of childhood. In her attempt to be the Virgin Mary, she brought me up using an electrical cord and a leather belt as implements of the Lord. Couple that with a constant volley of criticism and demeaning, and Jesus JR. was well on the way;on his was to mental problems and Avoidant Personality Disorder. We all know the myth that Jesus died a virgin. Mom did a damn good job putting me on that path. I was immersed in a baptism of sexual shaming. Sex was evil and I was to have no part of it. It’s no surprise that I’ve always has sever sexual and intimacy issues in my life. Thank-you Christianity.

    Some time in my twelfth year I began to pull away from my mother and her religious insanity. At church I’d manifest medical symptoms which would necessitate me going home. Psychiatrist refer to this as a conversion disorder, the somatic expression of a psychological problem. My mother was a registered nurse who took excessive pride in her professional skills. By pandering to this portion of her pathology I managed to escape church. She wanted me to come back to the Lord, but I wore her down.

    From this point forward in my life I developed a visceral hatred of all things Christian. Momma tried to raise me better but her pleading I denied, leaves only me to blame cause momma tried (Merle Haggard).

    In my late 40’s I had a complete mental melt down. As part of my treatment my psychologist introduced me to meditation, the aspirin of mental health treatment. I found it to be very effective, and went on a search to learn how to develop and refine my ability to meditate. I took classes at my HMO, New Age workshops, and spent two years taking evening meditation classes with what I’m pretty sure was a cult. Then I hit pay dirt! On meetup.com I found a Buddhist meditation group. I went there and immediately found a home, and for the first time peace in my life. I joined this sect about three weeks before my mother died.

    The Kadam at my center performed a Powa for my mother. He collected the ashes from the ritual, put them in a plastic bag and told me to release them into a river when I was calm enough to do so. Three weeks later, on a Sunday, I went to the river in our town and sat under a freeway bridge doing Buddhist meditations in preparation to release her ashes. I had a mystical experience. I saw two currents in the river colliding at the bridge support pylon, producing a turbulent flow down stream. I know this was a representation of our individual Karmas colliding to crash into turbulence.Our mental continuums were driven to collide at this point in time. walking down to the stream to place the ashes in the river I saw a salmon swimming past, going upstream to complete it’s cycle of life and death. I put the ashes in the river, but I saved a small amount to use to perform a christian ritual in deference to my mother’s religious beliefs.

    I walked to a different part of the river bank to give my mother a “Christian Burial Service”. I could not remember the Lord’s Prayer. There was a lady and her dog playing in the river. I walked over to her and explained I was putting my mother”s ashes in the river as a funeral service and asked her if she knew the Lord”s prayer. She said, “Yes, I know it very well, I’m an Episcopal Priest.” She walked me through the prayer and then performed an Episcopal funeral service for my mother. I was crying and she looked at me and,said, “You know this didn’t happen by mere chance.” I knew she was correct. I asked her for a hug and walked slowly away. Mom always said the Lord works in miraculous ways, she was right. I have been blessed by that which is responsible for all creation, no matter how we try to explain it.

    #73365

    Hi there! This is an excellent topic. Thanks for starting this thread. Like all of you, I was given a set of religious beliefs at birth. There was no room for questioning. I was supposed to have “faith.” When I did begin to question (the Catholic church and its doctrine) at a young age, I felt like an outcast. I thought I was defective because it seemed all of my family accepted the teachings and loved God, etc. without question. I lived in silent doubt for years.

    It took decades —and Buddhist study —for me to discover a sense of “God” that made sense to me. Today, I consider myself “spiritual not religious.” I am one of the “Nones,” which compose about 1/3 of US adults today (according to the Pew Center study.)

    Like a lot of folks, only when I hit a major wall in my life, did I begin to embrace a need for a spiritual practice and principles. Although strictly speaking, Buddhism doesn’t attest to a Creator God, I honestly have a greater sense of a divine presence in my life today than I ever have.

    The bottom line is this: The God I was given at birth did not make sense to me. I needed to find a God of my understanding (as they say in 12-Step parlance.) To me that means a source of compassion and love that transcends any limited concept my human brain can comprehend. In moments when I am at my most honest, present and authentic self, I believe I experience and share that love.

    In a BBC interview in the 1940s, Carl Jung famously stated, “I don’t believe in God. I know God.” By this, I believe he meant he had seen a power greater than him at work in his life. He had no need for blind faith. He experienced “God” on a daily basis and knew his ways. Today I consider myself omnitheist, which means I strive to see the hand of the Divine in everything and everyone.

    I believe the nature of the spiritual journey is to move from a place of certainty to a place of uncertainty and then, to be ok living in that sense of knowing-unknowing. Sounds like we are all somewhere on this path.

    BTW, there are a number of excellent books that parallel the teaching of the Buddha and the Christ. (Thich Nhat Hanh’s is wonderful.) I admire anyone who is sincerely trying to live a loving, compassionate life.

    (You can read more about my journey from Catholicism to Buddhism and back again on my blog http://southernbuddhistcatholic.blogspot.com/)

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