Spirituality: what does it mean to be spiritual, but not religious?

   Spirituality is understanding the universe and the power within oneself. Many people are not religious but believe in the power of spirituality and how that spirituality motivates each of us to experience an out of body experience. However, in context, spirituality is also desired through many materialistic ideas such as objects, social media, etc. that consumes and forces our bodies to react. The idea of being spiritual might not seem as a religion, but many aspects are connected like for example, the commercial we watched in class. We can all say that the commercial does not relate to religion, but looking closely at not only that Ad, but others as well influence our everyday social lives. Imagine for a second your favorite sports team, celebrity, or brand endorses some type of Material. Now, we see that information being broadcast by our favorite celebrity, sports team, etc. and we all have that urge to go out and support whatever it is that they are endorsing even if we don’t necessary need to. In Drescher’s text, one thing that stood out to me was that she says, “mostly absent formally defined public spaces within which to practice their spirituality, the unaffiliated have gathered across various imagined communities of spiritual practices” (99). Here, in my opinion, the unaffiliated may not be religious, but their practices, and coming together as a group that has no specific label, is a religion itself, whether one recognizes it or not. Take for example, the materialistic objects such as Jordan’s or iPhone.  On the release dates for the newest iPhone or the newest Jordan shoes, millions of people flock to the stores, and spend hours in line waiting, but right after the new releases are announces, there are online forum groups where people check for updates daily while conversing with others who share the same interests as they do. This example illustrates how the spiritual part of religion shapes and continues to modify how we desire to live a “happy” life as we continue to worship these materialistic things as a community.  A community for the spiritual does not consist of daily rituals, or going to Sunday services, but consists of everyday interest that are shared rather than labeled with a specific community that becomes the resource for spiritual improvement. Spirituality is not about confirming to some sort of religious beliefs, but about linking each person to one another and creating that feeling of “belongingness” to the universe and to others as well. Music is another resource that spiritual brings a group of people together without having religion involved. For some people church, the bible, and worshipping are their haven, but for others who still want and need that spiritual enhancement, they turn to music as an inspiration. Music, to me, can be very powerful and moving in the same way as worshipping a higher power. For example, my grandmother was very religious, but when I was about ten or so, I would go to church with her, and although I didn’t understand all the aspects of “God”, when they start playing the church hymns and the music started getting louder and louder I could feel something take over my body and I was brought to tears. Still today, music has impact me on a spiritual level, and that is my go to for everything. Music and spirituality, in my opinion does not need no special institution, but allows one to justify their relationship with spirituality without the confinement of rules to follow.  Just as in the clip we watched in class Stigmata, spirituality does not, and should not be based on an institution, but on the principles of finding oneself. Spirituality is the journey of who we are, who we see ourselves as in the future, and our identity, but my only question is: does being spiritual and not religious change people’s viewpoint of a higher power in the universe, or God?