Tina Sacchi - My Spirit Is Not Religious: A Guide to Living Your Authentic Life

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Tina Sacchi is a holistic & spiritual author, speaker, and teacher. Through her work, she has coached and helped people emerge and make a smooth transition to their passion. She is also the creator of a series of highly successful meditation and hypnotherapy CDs that have consistently remained on Amazon bestseller lists in their categories. She is an ongoing writer for various publications and is a radio personality, hosting her own programs. Learn more about Tina through her website: www.TinaSacchi.com

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We want love and peace now! All we are saying is, Give peace a chance. Religion is not doing this. Spirituality will accomplish it.

So who is with me?

Im moving forward, with or without you but I would much prefer it if youd join me on this enormous, essential mission. Im acting for love. Im living for peace. Whos walking with me?

Peace and love,

Tina

All major religious traditions carry basically the same message; that is love, compassion and forgiveness. The important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.
Dalai Lama

I was born into a religion, the Roman Catholic religion, to be specific. Now, I want to be clear that Im not out to bash Catholics. My personal experience has been Catholicism, and I can use only my experiences as references. If you were brought up with a faith other than Catholicism, you will likely still find correlations between the faith in which you were raised and mine. As a result, you may relate to many, if not most, of my experiences.

Im speaking of religion that does not work, religion that separates us from the Universe, the Divine, or what some people refer to as God. (For simplicity, I use the words God and Creator interchangeably, and I refer to God as male.) Whether this entity is female or male is unimportant especially in a conversation about religious beliefs that automatically define human beings as sinners. In law, as citizens we are innocent until proven guilty. In my religion and in most others, we are guilty until proven otherwise. I speak of religion that is hypocritical and inconsistent, religion that does not make common sense. religion that allows you to believe one way and act another. More often than not, this is known as organized religion.

You may experience the hypocrisy this way: you go to service/church, hearing from the pulpit that we are love, but so many fellow congregants then walk out the door with an attitude and energy of anything but love toward their friends, family, and neighbors. This experience seems to ricochet across belief systems; it doesnt matter whether you attend a church, temple, mosque, or synagogue. You may turn to religion for comfort but continue to find yourself wanting. Could this be because your religion is separating you from God, and you feel and see in your entire being that this is wrong? If that is the case, I urge you to move on.

Easy for her to say, you might be thinking. Moving on is easier said than done. I completely understand, my dear one, since Ive been there. For as long as I can remember, Ive always felt that religion was too confining, with too many rules, too much boxing in, too constricting, too judgmental and forget about fun. Ever since I was a young girl, I remember noticing Catch-22 situations. I felt God, I saw miracles, I had faith, I felt my guides and angels. And then I saw people creating havoc in their lives, in their families, with their friends, in the environment, society, and country it made no sense.

Throughout my life, organized religion was forced upon me by my parents, relatives, friends, nuns, priests, teachers, neighbors, and acquaintances. Amid it all, though, something was not sitting right in my being. I had a difficult time distinguishing what was right and what was wrong in every aspect of my surroundings. I was so confused. But Id been taught to respect my elders, since they obviously knew best....

My spirit felt caged in. I knew with my heart that religion was supposed to bring us comfort and love. It was supposed to be the place to find solace and express gratitude, a place of serenity, not a place of punishment. A place of joy and not sorrow. A place of harmony, not war. I couldnt abide by the fear of confessing sins to a non-nurturing stranger, or judging and condemning others because they didnt follow Jesus a particular way when I was taught that an all-loving Jesus would forgive and love everyone.

I, of course, did not express my views because I knew there would be grave consequences if I did. Instead, I went through the motions by rote, keeping my observations and beliefs to myself as I lived in my spiritual closet. This was a place of profound comfort, peace, and love. At any time, I could shut out anyone opposing my beliefs and choose to enter my virtual spiritual domain. The challenge was that no one else was allowed in because it was difficult to find anyone I could trust or who believed what I did. The result was that I was lonely, but safe, and I remained in my spiritual closet for quite some time.

EXERCISE

In the notes pages at end of this chapter, list some beliefs you received from your experience with organized religion with which you no longer agree. What are some spiritual options that can replace the beliefs that no longer serve you?

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I remember as a young child visiting my grandmother every year in Italy and watching her practice energy healing on others. People literally lined up at her door, waiting to see her all the time. Even at the young age of three, I knew in my heart that she was just going through the motions of attending church. I knew that if shed only had the courage to stand up to the church and the culture within which it was so deeply ingrained, she would have been able to step out of her own spiritual closet and practice a less conventional spirituality of healing and energy that her own Roman Catholic Church would never have acknowledged or sanctioned.