Broadly speaking the spiritual is that which relates to the spirit or soul and not to physical matter. Most people will associate spirituality with religion because religion believes in a supernatural power or supernatural powers considered to have control on human destiny. It both cases the transcendence of the physical is necessary. Spirit and soul are not palpable and the supernatural is not visible. Therefore only way the grasp a bit of the spiritual is by feeling and experiencing.
True religion is experimental and although the seeking of the eternal and supernatural is innate to human beings, only a few people really take it seriously because of society, family or obligations of all kind. Religion can be cultural or regional but the basic ideas behind all this are universal. The main goal of religion , that is to say, what individuals use religion to achieve is liberation and transcendence. It starts with questions like:
-Where did we come from?
-What are we doing here?
-Where are we going?
That is why the depth of religious concepts are explored mostly by people facing an existential crisis.
In the attempt to answer these questions, thinkers and men of religion have always been giving their proposals. Some have suggested that there is no purpose or goal to creation, others have claimed that to pursue full enjoyment and achievements is what is to be done here, others believe that it is best to ignore these questions and just live day by day.
There were studies about the correlations between faith and intelligence stating that believers are less intelligent and less successful in life than disbelievers. This may be due to society and not to faith itself because pure faith no matter how illogical and naive it might seem can bring the believer close to the transcendent. Religion has been used to enslave human beings but the sincere among them could see the truth and dismantle the enslavement. Becoming a slave of God only works with sincere inner motivation and submission to the will of the creator. Even-though till today humanity is not unanimous as to what the word GOD refers to, Those who will deeply experience faith through the search of the divine will come to merely the same same conclusion.
