(Wk 8) Religion Vs Spirituality Part 3 Of 5 - Unleash Your Peace Podcast

Hello and welcome back to Unleash Your Peace.

My name is Ali Shoja.

I am your host.

I'm a positive mindset coach,

A personal transformation expert.

I'm a deliberate creator and I am your peace trainer.

Now this podcast over here,

Unleash Your Peace,

It is a peace training of sorts.

Every single week,

We dive into a different aspect of the internal world.

We do this with one intention,

To go inward so that we can start shedding all of that excess weight of this unwanted pain that you are carrying so you can find lasting internal peace and live your best life yet.

When we live from this place of joy and peace and connectedness to that infinite greater grander part of ourselves,

That non-physical part of ourselves,

We don't just incrementally improve the quality of our lives,

We actually exponentially innovate every aspect of our experiences on this physical plane.

We become whole,

We become uplifters because we become uplifted.

We live the lives of our dreams and we help everyone around us do the same.

It is simply what happens when we connect to ourselves.

And that's exactly my wish for you.

Now this week we have a pretty sensitive topic.

We're talking about spirituality and religion.

It is kind of a tough topic.

It took me a little bit of self-convincing to do this topic,

To talk about this because it is sensitive and a lot of people have very strong opinions about it.

And on day three,

I can tell you that I am absolutely glad I opened up this dialogue simply because the emails I've been receiving,

The messages I've been receiving have been spectacular.

Even the ones that don't agree with the things I am talking about are so thoughtful,

They are so open,

We are able to have very open,

Nice,

Thoughtful dialogue about topics that are not always easy to speak of.

So in the last two days,

We've talked about how religion and spirituality are similar and also how they are different.

So we've talked specifically about religion and spirituality,

But this dialogue about spirituality and religion would not be complete without talking about science as well.

Ever since the 1600s when Galileo had to defend his discovery that Earth is actually round and it revolves around the sun instead of the other way around,

There has been tension between science and spirituality.

But really I should say science and religion,

Organized religion.

For me,

It is always very confusing when scientists think that somehow science and spirituality are separate from each other.

And that is because scientists,

In my opinion,

Are actually very spiritual beings.

Think about it.

What they do is they spend hours,

Days,

Years,

An intense concentration focusing on one aspect,

One thing,

And a lot of times they are studying and observing nature and natural elements and people and thought processes and so on.

And we cannot be that present,

That focused,

That single-minded without tapping into a spiritual connection because that spiritual connection lives in the space of concentration.

When we learn how to focus our minds into the here and now,

We open ourselves for spiritual connectedness.

This is what the purpose of meditation is.

When we meditate,

We focus our minds,

We train our minds to be in the here and now,

We train our minds to concentrate on one item or one thing in the present moment.

When we do that,

We actually become aware of the thoughts that are running through our minds and we stop being governed by those thoughts.

We also start recognizing that we are not those thoughts.

We are the thinker and not the thought itself.

And we're able to release those thoughts.

We are able to come back into the present moment.

And why is the present moment so important?

Because it simply raises our vibration.

And when our vibration rises,

We come in the vicinity of our inner beings and we are able to tap into dialogue with our inner being,

With that greater,

Grander part of ourselves.

So we actually are developing and nurturing and deepening our relationship with the non-physical by coming into the present moment.

And scientists do this all the time,

Especially experimental scientists who have to be present in the here and now,

And they are studying natural phenomenon and natural elements.

They are meditating all the time.

And so they are connecting with their inner beings all the time.

And so they're receiving inspired thoughts.

And so many scientific discoveries are inspired discoveries.

They are those aha moments that come out of nowhere.

Where does that come from?

That aha moment is your spirit whispering to you.

It's your inner being literally telling you an insight,

Giving you an inspiration,

And you're then translating it into the thought,

The idea that it turns into.

For that reason,

For me,

It's very strange that scientists are so adamantly a lot of times against this notion of being spiritual as well.

And there's this separation of the church and state.

For example,

As in the US,

There's this separation between science and spirituality,

Science and religion.

Now,

I do want to just really briefly talk about one scientist who is just such an interesting person.

This is a professor at UC Irvine.

He won the Templeton Prize in 2010.

He's an evolutionary biologist,

And his name is Francisco Ayala.

Now,

Professor Ayala,

In the 60s,

He became an ordained priest.

So you would be safe to assume that he has very strong roots in religion.

Did he have to become an atheist in order to become a biologist,

An evolutionary biologist?

Far from it.

According to him,

Science and religion are two different windows through which we see the world.

So we're looking at the same exact world through two different perspectives.

And he has this analogy that he uses that I think is so profound.

He says,

Imagine if you and I are looking at this one painting,

And one of us describes all of the physical attributes of this painting exactly as it is appearing on the canvas.

That is like science.

That physical description is like science.

It makes sense of the painting in a very pragmatic and physical and real way.

But this description does not tell you what that painting means,

What its purpose is.

So it is,

On its own,

Incomplete.

He also argues that while science does not prove the existence of God,

It does not disprove it either.

And that science has nothing to do with the supernatural.

They are simply two different ways of looking at the same thing,

Of making sense of the same thing,

The same way that if you were to watch the same movie with your three-year-old son or daughter,

What they would understand from that film is going to be different than what you would understand with your adult eyes.

So in this podcast episode,

I simply want to challenge that idea that somehow science and spirituality,

Science and religion have to be separate.

Now I understand if you're touchy about religion itself,

A lot of scientists were Einstein,

Newton,

Mary Curry,

They were all spiritual,

But they did not necessarily fit into the religions that they were brought up with.

None of them was an atheist.

None of them denied the existence of a higher intelligence,

But they all had a different notion of that higher intelligence than the religion that they were brought up with or the religion of their times.

So I totally get it.

If you have an issue with a specific religion,

I understand that.

But what about spirituality?

Spirituality is not denominational.

Spirituality does not have a church.

For spirituality,

The place of worship is exactly where you are sitting right now because any moment,

Anywhere you are,

You have an opportunity to connect with that infinite beingness that is within you,

That inner being,

That true self,

That infinite consciousness that observed you into existence,

That observed this universe into existence,

And that is literally you individualized.

Now I will leave you with all of that.

If you have any kind of thoughts on this topic,

I welcome them.

You can email me.

You can find me on my website.

It's called peaceunleash.

Com.

There's also articles on there.

There's one on this topic specifically.

Every week there's an article that goes along with these podcasts.

That's kind of an overview of them.

So if you want to send that out to anyone,

Please do so.

If you want to put a comment on there,

Please do so.

You can also find Peace Unleashed on Instagram and read some of the love notes that I share with you on a daily basis.

Those are meant to simply uplift and inspire you,

Give you something really beautiful and loving to receive throughout the day.

And if you are enjoying this dialogue and you want more people to find it,

Please leave a review on iTunes for this podcast.

I really appreciate it.

And until tomorrow when we come and take this dialogue,

I've been a little bit deeper.

I wish you a peaceful day.