Survey on the Question How Religion and Spirituality are Related

Target Group: Young Religious of Divyadaan

Focus: To know the views of the Young Religious with regard to the question of how religion and spirituality are related.

Number of Participants: 20                                                                          Date: 04.10.2013

The Questions Presented to the Participants:

1.      What do you understand by ‘Religion’?

2.      What do you understand by ‘Spirituality’?

3.      Religion and Spirituality are one and the same and exist together. Yes/ No

4.      If yes, in what way they are same?

5.      If no, in what way they are different form each other?

6.      Is it Possible to have a Religion without spirituality or Spirituality without Religion? Explain why.

The Report:

            The concepts of Religion and Spirituality are often subjects of misunderstanding. Many tend to interchange the usage of the words for each other.  There are various understandings with regard to these concepts. In this Survey I have concentrated on knowing the different views concerning the two concepts and their relation. In the survey I found that the young religious who are belonging to the Salesian congregation and living in Divyadaan have different understanding of the concepts religion and spirituality. The charts show the different understandings of the concepts of religion and spirituality. Majority of the participants are of the opinion that religion is the way of life based on the worship of the divine.  Practically all are of the opinion that religion is a community of people.  It is very interesting to know their idea of spirituality: as you see in the chart titled spirituality, many are of the opinion that spirituality is the way of life centered on the God. Another view that is prominent is that spirituality is the living out of the religion either individually or as a community. However some are of the opinion that spirituality is not centered on any particular religion and it need not have the concept of God.  Majority are of the opinion as you see in the chart that spirituality and religion are not one and the same yet forty percent of the participants are of the opinion that they are one and the same.

With regard to the relation of religion and spirituality forty percent of the participants say that there can be spirituality without religion but there cannot be any religion that does not have spirituality. As you can see in the chart titled Religion and Spirituality thirty percent of the participants say that religion is only the institution, it is the spirituality that is present in the religion leads the people to the Divine. Twenty five percent of the participants are of the opinion that religion and spirituality are necessarily united and another five percent of the participants say that spirituality is always part of the religion.

Conclusion    

The survey clearly presents the understanding of the young religious of Divyadaan with regard to the question how the spirituality and religion are related. It also presents the different understanding of the concept of religion and spirituality.  The young religious of Divyadaan are of the opinion that religion and spirituality are not one and the same. Though few disagree to this factor the majority are of this opinion. They all consider spirituality that is the way of life centered on God is the basis for religion. With out this element of God spirituality cannot be called as spirituality. The element of God in the spirituality is an inseparable element in the spirituality. The major idea that I derive about the relation between spirituality and religion is that we can have spirituality without religion but there cannot be a religion without spirituality.