I have always found the words ‘religion’ and ‘God’ quite annoying and I didn’t really know why until I started questioning their meaning and re-interpretation – or misinterpretation to be more exact. I never knew how the word religion was originally used and what it really meant: because it had never been truly explained to me, I never knew the true meaning of religion.
Having grown up sailing around the world, and having met many different people from different cultures and organised religions, I didn’t understand how they all had a religion with a ‘god’ and their god was better than someone else’s God. And their religions were all so different. It never felt right… like seriously, we are all essentially the same, we are all one humanity but how can we have so many people with a different idea about religion and who is to say which one is right? The various Gods and organised religions and all the stories made me feel a little uneasy and untrusting, as in which one is the right one? I didn’t feel that any really sat well with me so I decided I didn’t want a religion at all.
What I chose for myself instead was to connect to nature and to myself and to trust in what I felt. In nature, away from the busy-ness and distractions, I was most able to connect to me and be still.
So I was religion-less, or so I thought for quite some time, until I came across Serge Benhayon who presented on true religion and how the word religion has been bastardised, and then it all suddenly made sense to me. It was not religion that I had a problem with, it was its misinterpretation that I reacted to. It was the separation that I noticed around the world, that was created by “my religion is better than yours” and “you will go to hell if you sin etc.”
As I began to understand the real meaning of the word, I had to ask myself why I avoided the word or why it made me feel uncomfortable and why so many people react to it. Since then I have learnt that the religious way of being is the relationship I have with myself and nature reflects a divine design which inspires me to reconnect more deeply with myself.
My religion is about reconnecting to me first and foremost. We are all one and the same and we are all connected. The more I develop the relationship with myself, the more I will be able to understand life and those around me. So instead of needing a shrine, temple or church, all I ever need is a deep connection to me.
My religion is now The Way of The Livingness, and it is essentially about the relationship that I have with myself first and foremost and how that then has an effect on everyone else. It is forever expanding as do I, and there is no right or wrong but a constant returning back to who I really am, each and every day.
By Rosie Bason, Goonellabah, NSW
Related Reading:
What is true religion?
No Time For Religion
What hurts – Religion Itself, or the Bastardisation of Religion?
Words on Serge Benhayon 
“all I ever need is a deep connection to me” Deepening our connection to our inner-heart we re-connect to God.
I dislike intensely what we have all contributed and fed, the lie behind the word religion which to me is a returning back to something we once knew intimately our relationship with God which is our relationship with the universe.
There is a part of us that has willfully used the word religion to go to war, abuse, control, dictate, rob, maim, kill, slaughter, rape, suppress the list is endless as is the cruelty we have all engaged in. We have falsified the sacredness of God the universe which is a beholding love and replicated an ugly monster of our own making. Eventually we will discover that we have accepted so much less than the purity we all are, we have created a monstrous life and the only way to bring it under control is to stop feeding it with our emotional outburst, our abusive cruelty towards ourselves and others.
For me religion is the name for my relationship with God. That’s it. The first and foremost relationship in life. Could it be that people defend their religion so much because they don’t want to admit it’s not the whole, true, form of religion but as mentioned, a twisted, misinterpreted version.
It feels to me that we are never not in religion, and being ‘religious’ only means having that awareness of being in religion – just like the name The Way of The Livingness suggests, it is a way that is The Way.
“It was not religion that I had a problem with, it was its misinterpretation that I reacted to.” Thank you Rosie I only can agree. I very much appreciate that you wrote this wonderful and very needed blog about religion and what all comes with it. People can now choose what they want to believe or not!
I total agree with you esteraltmiks and Rosie, the word religion has been deliberately misinterpreted so that people are put off from ever wanting to reconnect to God, which is the truth of who we are. The energy used to resist our knowing of God is exhausting which is why there is so much illness and disease in the world. If we were to stop resisting, we would know God instantly because we are Gods ourselves.
True religion brings us to a sacred place where we are openly exploring life and the philosophy and science that a true religion brings, then as it all comes together our sacredness becomes our responsibility for everything.
Same Rosie, the word religion used to mean many things to me, now through Universal Medicine and the way of The Livingness I feel I have come home and understand what it is truly about.
Rosie this is the most simplest and most gorgeous way to describe religion and in this it keeps it totally accessible to us all. “My religion is about reconnecting to me first and foremost. We are all one and the same and we are all connected. The more I develop the relationship with myself, the more I will be able to understand life and those around me. So instead of needing a shrine, temple or church, all I ever need is a deep connection to me.”
If we have a problem with the word religion, it is not that we have a problem with the word religion but rather that we have a problem with the institutionalised version of this word. Hence why we can find religion oppressive or controlling or dominating or something we do not want to be a part of – but this is the false version of the word religion. And if there is a false version then there must be a true version to explore.
“. . . there is no right or wrong but a constant returning back to who I really am, each and every day.” If that way of living would be the base of each religion then the world would have only one religion as we are all one.
Rosie like you I have discovered that the word religion has been totally misrepresented to the point where I feel it doesn’t bare any resemblance to the true meaning of the word.
I am rediscovering its true meaning which I feel like you is a reconnection to me first this naturally enables me to connect to other people effortlessly because I can feel that we are all the same.
Once we start to truly connect within everything else unfolds ✨
To me religion is the connection within, the connection I have with divinity and how I live in accordance with this .. this is always work in progress for me.
At school we did RE….Religious Education and none of it really made sense to me because it was explained in a way that made all the stories sound like fairy tales and I couldn’t connect to any of them, so I dismissed RE and the word Religion as being almost mythical but not relatable to the modern day world. But like you Rosie I did connect to nature and the stars and when I had a problem in life this is what I turned to. Through The Way of The Livingness I now have a much deeper understanding of the true meaning of Religion and that we are returning to what we already know but have long forgotten.
‘It was not religion that I had a problem with, it was its misinterpretation that I reacted to. ‘ I wonder how many people in the world feel the same; deeply religious people who have been turned off or take the nearest fit to what they know to be true.
I ran away from religion for most my life as I could feel the fakeness in it. Now however I embrace it as I have found true religion, the religion that is in my inner heart.
Rosie I agree with you there are so many different religions with their version of God which one is true? The word God has been misinterpreted throughout history so that I don’t feel I have a relationship with the word anymore and to me that’s the trick to get humanity to be confused or turned off by the word so that we turn away from the only thing that can save us which is our connection back to our soul, divinity, the universe.
It’s such a trick to get us to turn our backs on the only thing that can save us, our connection back to soul, divinity and the universe.
Spot on Karin, for our true power lies in our deep connection, so if you trick people to seek outside of themselves then they will not access their true power.
Karin we have been sold so many lies we are held in a web of them, I agree with you the only thing that can save us is our connection back to our soul and the universe. This understanding will break the bonds of lies that entangle us.