I am wondering, can you really believe in God without being religious?
—Elijah, Europe
Absolutely you can believe in God without being religious! Many people these days are realizing this and are opting for the term “spiritual” to describe themselves. Too many religions today continue to confine the concept of God in the clothing of religious dogma. These clothes don’t fit because God is so much larger than anything human thought can imagine.
In the teachings of yoga it is said that God brought the created universe into being out of himself. Therefore He is in everything as well as being beyond everything. These teachings have evolved over thousands of years and through the direct experience of those who practice them.
As Paramhansa Yogananda said: “The truth simply is. It cannot be voted into existence. It must be perceived by every individual in the changeless Self within.”
Yoga asks the spiritual seeker to take up the practices it provides and to prove to himself, through his own experience, the concepts that it describes as being true. This is what I would suggest you do as well.
You might also like to read the book The Essence of Self-Realization, by Swami Kriyananda. It contains conversations he recorded of Paramhansa Yogananda on various spiritual topics. The chapters include “The True Purpose of Life,” “The Soul and God,” “One God, One Religion,” etc. I think you would find it very interesting and helpful.
In divine friendship,
Nayaswami Parvati
