Thread: Why religion is an obstacle on the road to spiritual freedom

How many times have you heard the phrase from one religion or another, "The way to happiness is to give, not to receive," or something to that effect. While meanings have changed to sins and hells and heavens and all sorts of nonsense, from a philosophical perspective most religions state that giving love is the really feeling we're after when we're looking for love. It's a pretty simple idea, when you fall in love you get a really warm feeling inside, but if they don't love you back this feeling reverses into heart break as you go through love withdrawals. Even if they do love you back, the relationship becomes vulnerable to decay from this idea of fairness; we'll only give as much affection was we receive.

But to simply give affection without asking the question "What about me?" Is not easy. It requires wisdom which usually comes from the pain of experience. It requires courage to choose love over fear and to forgive everyone and everything around you. One must learn to stop taking anything personally. Ask yourself how much you need to be rejected before you give up on needing to be loved by anything but yourself? That's how much rejection is required.

And yet religion teaches you it's simply a sin to be selfish. It teaches you to be selfless and go to paradise, but looking out for your own immortality is another selfish act. It's not a sin to be selfish, it just makes you unhappy. It's that simple. If you give because you're trying to go to heaven, you aren't getting anywhere. The trick is to reverse your perspective on what's good for you. Ask yourself what you truly need to survive. Let go of people. You can't find freedom until you let go on this idea that other people need to give you love for you to be happy. Actually, it's the opposite. I've known this my entire life. I mean, I read it enough. It took me 21 years to truly understand it, and yet religion teaches you to just do it so you can go to heaven.