Religion has benefitted greatly from the concept of God. It has been religion’s masterstroke — marketing genius, if you will. Without the concept of God, religion would be weak and optional. The God concept makes religion relevant, potent and powerful.

Now, there is no denying, the concept of God has helped people. Knowing there is a God gives solace and comfort to people. God is someone whom they can pray to and share their problems and ask for resolution. Faith, belief, and devotion to God can and has brought a lot of peace to people.

However, there is a problem. This push to find happiness through an invisible God has led people away from the real, most powerful and permanent source of happiness — themselves. Every human on Earth has an incredible attribute — the ability to experience incredible bliss within themselves.

The ability to experience this bliss has little to do with the concept of God, it has to do with our DNA. We are wired to experience this amazing phenomenon. It is single-handedly, the most amazing aspect of a human being’s life. Sometimes called as the “God-Experience” this phenomenon is certainly out-of-this-world. But the God-Experience within has little do with the external God-Concept.

It is the greatest irony. By drowning the discourse with the God-Concept, religion has overshadowed and distracted people away from what they possess and what they should focus on in life.

Thousands of years ago, the sages in ancient India discovered this phenomenon — when you quiet the mind, when the mind is completely quiet for an extended period, your being is filled with inexplicable, indescribable, infinite bliss and happiness.

Quiet your mind, is the simple message the ancient Indian sages gave mankind. They did not turn it into a religion, they did not decorate or embellish it with the concept of God. Their work predated God and religion. It was purely a scientific pursuit and discovery. They discovered the science of spirituality!

Spirituality is independent of religion and it is distinct from religion. Atheists can experience spirituality just the same as the religious. Spirituality does not discriminate. It cannot! Rich or poor, saint or killer, religious or atheist, man or woman, gay or straight, everyone has equal access to experience their bliss within. No one can be denied.

Religions should have delivered this message front and center, instead they have confused the issue and hampered the Truth from reaching the people. Everyone can experience spirituality. Spirituality is everyone’s birthright and destiny. When we experience the infinite bliss within, we reach the ultimate state in life.

If we spend our lives chasing the external God-concept, we will not achieve much. We must turn inwards and experience the infinite-state within.

If over the ages, religion had reminded people to focus within as opposed to focusing externally, we probably would be living in a heaven on Earth.

— Ravi Kathuria, Author, “Happy Soul. Hungry Mind.”