An honest reflection on why I stopped believing in religion and a personal God and how Vedānta revealed that spirituality is not about belief, but direct awareness of the Self as consciousness itself.
1. The Unraveling of Belief
I was raised, like most of us, to believe in a God who rewards the good, punishes the bad, and keeps an invisible ledger of morality. I repeated prayers, followed rituals, and feared sin more than I understood life. But somewhere between ritual and reasoning, I began to ask dangerous questions:
If God is perfect, why does He need worship?
If truth is universal, why do religions divide us?
If God is everywhere, why do we confine Him to temples and texts?
The more I looked, the more I saw fear dressed as faith. Religion promised heaven but built hells of guilt. It offered belonging, yet separated believers from non-believers.
And so began my quiet rebellion not against faith, but against blind belief.
2. Religion as a Structure of Control
History shows how easily religion intertwines with power. Kings ruled “by divine right.” Women were silenced “for purity.” Wars were justified “in God’s name.” What might have begun as a genuine longing for the sacred became a system of control.
If people can be made to believe an omnipotent eye is watching, they can be ruled without resistance. Fear became the leash; obedience, the virtue.
“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
Over time, religion taught people what to think, not how to awaken. It made humanity kneel before God instead of realizing the divine within humanity.
3. The Turning Inward
At some point, I stopped believing in a distant deity and began to feel the presence of something vast not outside, but within. When I stopped praying for miracles and started witnessing the miracle of being alive, something shifted.
Silence became my temple. Awareness, my prayer. No scripture, no image, no promise, only presence. And that’s when I unknowingly stepped into the path that the ancient sages called Vedānta.
4. Vedānta: The Science of Consciousness, Not Religion
Vedānta does not belong to any faith. It is not Hinduism, nor any “ism” at all. It is a map of human consciousness, a call to realize, not to believe.
Its core declaration is simple yet revolutionary:
अहं ब्रह्मास्मि : Aham Brahmāsmi – “I am Brahman.”
The Self within me (Ātman) is not separate from the totality (Brahman). This is not poetry, it’s ontology. Vedānta says the divine is not someone watching from above, it is the very awareness through which you watch.
There is no “me” and “God.” There is only consciousness appearing as both.
5. Religion as the Ladder, Not the Summit
Vedānta honors religion as a useful beginning, a ladder to discipline the mind and open the heart. Temples, mantras, prayers these can purify emotion, but they are not the destination.
The Upaniṣads say:
“As a man who has crossed the river leaves the boat behind, so should the wise abandon rituals once the other shore is reached.”
Religion helps you swim, realization teaches you that you were never drowning.
6. Saguna and Nirguna: Two Faces of the Divine
Vedānta recognizes two views of the divine:
- Saguna Brahman – God with attributes: forms like Krishna, Shiva, Devi. These are helpful symbols for meditation, for minds that still need form.
- Nirguna Brahman – God without attributes: the formless, infinite consciousness beyond name, gender, or belief.
The way, sensing intelligence in everything but rejecting a personal deity is pure Nirguna Vedānta. This have stepped beyond worship into oneness.
7. Faith vs. Inquiry
Vedānta does not demand blind faith. It invites fearless inquiry.
It says:
“Neti Neti – Not this, not this.”
Reject everything that is not you, body, mind, emotion, belief until only awareness remains. That awareness is God.
Where religion says, “Believe,” Vedānta whispers, “Look within.”
Where religion says, “Obey,” Vedānta says, “Know.”
8. When the Temple Moves Inside
In Vedānta, outer rituals are metaphors for inner states. Lighting a lamp means awakening awareness. Offering flowers means surrendering the ego. Reciting mantras means dissolving mental noise into silence.
When you understand this, you realize: the truest temple is your own consciousness.
No priest can open its doors; only your stillness can.
9. The Body, Mind, and Awareness
Spiritual awakening is not an escape from the human experience. It is an intimacy with it.
The body, once seen as sinful in religion, becomes sacred in Vedānta, a vessel of realization. The mind, once seen as an enemy, becomes a tool of inquiry. Awareness is the thread holding it all together, infinite, silent, self-luminous.
“That which cannot be seen but because of which all things are seen, know That alone to be Brahman.” – Kenopaniṣad
10. My Way of Spirituality
I no longer pray for favors. I observe the flow of cause and effect. I no longer chant for liberation. I sit in silence until I remember I was never bound. I no longer look for signs. Life itself is the sign.
My spirituality is not belief but being, to breathe consciously, love compassionately, and live truthfully.
When I walk in nature, I feel no need to thank anyone, the gratitude arises by itself. When I meditate, I don’t seek peace, I notice that peace was never gone. This, for me, is spirituality: awareness without boundaries.
11. Beyond God, Yet One With All
The word God feels too small now. It belongs to language; what I feel belongs to silence. When I sit quietly, I sense that everything, every sound, every life, every atom, hums with the same consciousness. Not a father in the sky, but the sky itself.
I found that when you stop believing in God, you don’t lose divinity, you rediscover it everywhere.
“The moment you name God, you lose the truth.” – Lao Tzu
12. What Vedānta Ultimately Teaches
Vedānta’s final insight is breathtakingly simple:
सच्चिदानन्द : Sat-Chit-Ānanda – Existence, Consciousness, Bliss.
That is what you are, not a body, not a soul traveling through time, but timeless awareness itself. There was never a need for belief when you yourself are the living proof of the divine.
13. Reflection
Ask yourself:
- What remains if you let go of all beliefs?
- Who am I when I stop identifying with my roles and names?
- If God is consciousness itself, am I not already divine?
When you look deeply enough, the seeker, the search, and the sought dissolve into one awareness, still, vast, luminous.
14. Closing Insight
I no longer believe in religion or a personal God. But I try to understand the existence itself, the same awareness that breathes through trees, oceans, and hearts.
Religion divides, awareness unites. Belief limits, realization expands. Fear binds, love frees.
Vedānta taught me that the divine is not to be worshipped, it is to be recognized within everything, including myself. And in that recognition, I found what the sages promised all along: not a heaven after death, but peace in being alive.
“You don’t have to believe in God to live spiritually.
You only have to awaken to that is already living as you.”
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