5 things that happened when I left my religion

My first introduction to how my world came to be was through my religion which is organized. It provided me the basic fundamentals of compassion and understanding for others along with planting the seed of seeking to discover my self. As I grew older, I realized my understanding of what my world actually is was through finding the courage to understand and continually develop my own self and walk in my own light. If you care about the world, you must care about yourself first and constantly seek ways to develop your self by any means necessary. This only came about once I began to let go of my own religion. As a result, my world began to expand and I began to develop even more compassion for those around me and began to understand these things:

1.    I wanted to keep learning

My aim is not to limit myself in this experience, but to have a strong desire to learn and experience what I feel I’m supposed to with respect to life. There are continuous levels in understanding yourself at your core, and it’s no different than an actual education system. If you’re fortunate enough, you are able to go to kindergarten; elementary, middle school, high-school and college. After, you take your learned skills and apply them in the real world, hopefully learning about yourself but being open to new solutions to fulfill the experiences you desire for your own experience. I believe organized religion is one of the first steps, or an alternative introductory course to understanding your own existence, but I find it limiting. I don’t want to stop my learning experience there. I want to keep graduating to know myself by any means necessary. This can include teachings around other religions, philosophy, science, esoteric, etc.

 2.    I saw the influence of man

Anything produced by man is susceptible to emotion and error and should be questioned as no answer is necessarily right. From sexualizing God and calling him “Father”; to favoring one sex over the other or being force fed “influenced imagery”, man has had a great hand in my religion. I come from the Western world. For the most part, there was one religious figure that was force fed to me with white features irrespective of the typical traits of the his actual origins. There was a disconnect in the acceptance of him and a desire to actually know who this person was as their actual being was a reflection of influencers of a particular part of the world. As a result, I sought out the history of him rather than listen to what I was told and what I saw. These observations led me to understand that man’s own world is highly subjective and can influence my own understanding of the world subconsciously. I learned it was and is important for me to not just accept, but to find out more. 

 3. I sought tolerance

Divisiveness creates a space where assumptions can live and stereotypes can form. The end result is a complete misunderstanding or even fear of an individual/group that bleeds the same as you. While we create identities to make sense of the world around us, we subconsciously or consciously create barriers. The only barrier that isn’t, is love and when we have love, we have tolerance and respect. Through its figures and rituals, my religion introduced me to love but this feeling of love is innate and after I felt I had learned what I needed to, I graduated with the intent to understand love from different perspectives. Every barrier constructed by man is susceptible to error. Barriers will always be dismantled as I believe we subconsciously push towards love in all areas of our life. Love is the only force that can tear down walls. Now more so than ever, I believe we are tired of the violence and realize that there really is no other way. But it will always start with you first. 

4. I embraced the gift to question

This is the gift that makes us all human and it should not be wasted nor should we be afraid to do it. I asked and continually ask “Why?” My religion does have the ability to create fear but the real fear is not being able to have an open mind. Because it is organized, I believe that it can limit a mind from being fully tapped. I was brought up not to question God or the religious figures that I grew up with as this was wrong. What’s wrong is not being able to question your livelihood and to develop your own understanding of yourself for yourself. To act as if there is only one solution to seek enlightenment is limiting in every bit of the sense. 

5. I began to question what am I seeking?

I always keep coming back to myself. If you look around you, all of this is made up. We create our own worlds. But in the process of creating my world, what am I looking for with respect to fulfillment? Do I even need to be fulfilled? Do I need to believe in something in order to do this? I, like most people want meaning to my life and this experience, but what does it look like? What do I have to do to find it? My gut tells me that it always comes back to me; that only I can deliver myself this something that I can’t even explain. But perhaps this is a never-ending quest and is one of the greatest mysteries of life, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop because that would be limiting.

*I’d like to note, these are only my opinions reflective of where I’m at in my own life - and that organized religion has done great things throughout the world