{"id":329,"date":"2023-06-29T21:41:05","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T04:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/?p=329"},"modified":"2023-06-29T21:42:11","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T04:42:11","slug":"sbnrorjusthungry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual But Not Religious- why aren’t these the same?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Religion is everywhere in India. Growing up, I didn\u2019t think much about the question in the title, \u201cWhat is \u2018spiritual but not religious?'\u201d Myriad Gods with their own stories, sundry festivals with their rituals. Temples, mosques, and churches all around, some old and forgotten and some newly marked on the side of the road, just as an orange blob on a stone with flowers. Religious leaders, the Gurus, the Shankaracharyas, the Fathers, and the Moulavis\u2026 were all representatives of some brand of after-life. Spirituality and religion were synonymous to me then and continued long after I left home. \u00a0Now I know better, if only a little better.<\/p>\n

Can Spiritual Hunger Be \u00a0Satisfied by Taste?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All food is not the same.<\/strong><\/h3>\n Mexican food tastes very different from Chinese, and both taste different from Italian food. Eating makes hunger pangs disappear- this is common to all cuisines. When we are hungry for food, we\u2019re not specifically hungry for Italian or Indian food. We may crave a particular taste, but our hunger knows no taste. It\u2019s an experience that demands fulfillment, a question that begs an answer. Hunger wants to be replaced with fullness.<\/p>\n There\u2019s another kind of hunger.<\/h3>\n A kind of hunger that cannot be answered by eating<\/strong>. This hunger makes us feel incomplete, unfulfilled, and unfinished. We look for ways to satiate this hunger, but all efforts fail. This is spiritual hunger.<\/strong> It cannot be expressed in words, but everyone knows the experience. A yearning, a hope, and an emptiness that screams out a cry for completion. Every external quest to answer this spiritual hunger goes unanswered. It remains just as it was. Questioning. Like a question received on text, waiting to be answered.<\/p>\n Some solve their spiritual hunger and become whole.<\/strong><\/h3>\n There are people through the ages that have addressed their spiritual hunger permanently<\/strong>. When they first experienced this unending peace for the first time, they knew that the spiritual hunger was gone. They had become \u201cwhole,\u201d these holy men, and there was a method that got them there.\u00a0 <\/span>These methods became the recipe handed down to their followers from generation to generation.<\/p>\n Changing Taste Buds.<\/strong><\/h3>\n Now the cultures all have recipe books remembered loosely as the religious traditions of their culture. The ingredients may have shifted over time, and fusion cuisines were created to be more palatable to the changing tastes of the cultures. Religious traditions are just cuisines from different cultures for this spiritual hunger. Maybe you grew up in the Hindu tradition, and the Hindu religious tradition offers hope for your spiritual hunger temporarily. Maybe you\u2019re a global citizen eager to try other tastes from other traditions.<\/p>\n Hunger and Taste. <\/strong><\/h3>\n It doesn\u2019t matter what your taste in food is. The hunger that these religious traditions try to solve is of the spiritual kind. When I hear someone say they are spiritual but not religious, l hope they know their spiritual hunger is beyond a matter of taste.<\/p>\n Religion\u2019s role as spiritual food is not just to be palatable\u2014 it must make us whole.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Religion is everywhere in India. Growing up, I didn\u2019t think much about the question in the title, \u201cWhat is \u2018spiritual but not religious?’\u201d Myriad Gods with their own stories, sundry festivals with their rituals. Temples, mosques, and churches all around, some old and forgotten and some newly marked on the side of the road, just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4804,"featured_media":332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,104],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-spiritual","tag-spiritual-but-not-religious"],"yoast_head":"\nSpiritual But Not Religious- why aren't these the same?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Religion is everywhere in India. Growing up, I didn't think much about the question in the title, "What is 'spiritual but not religious?'" Myriad Gods\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spiritual But Not Religious- why aren't these the same?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Religion is everywhere in India. Growing up, I didn't think much about the question in the title, "What is 'spiritual but not religious?'" Myriad Gods\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Watcher on the Hill\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-06-30T04:41:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-06-30T04:42:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1594\/2023\/06\/Watcher-on-the-Hill-2.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gaurav Rastogi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gaurav Rastogi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/\",\"name\":\"Spiritual But Not Religious- why aren't these the same?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-06-30T04:41:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-30T04:42:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#\/schema\/person\/dbd3abc685f41c5167289cb1f06c4ef1\"},\"description\":\"Religion is everywhere in India. Growing up, I didn't think much about the question in the title, \\\"What is 'spiritual but not religious?'\\\" Myriad Gods\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Spiritual But Not Religious- why aren’t these the same?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/\",\"name\":\"Watcher on the Hill\",\"description\":\"Gaurav Rastogi's column observes current events from the perspective of an uninvolved observer, a "watcher on the hill". The observer is a Hindu, Yogi, Technophile interested in Spiritual Care for the community. Name comes from the Sanskrit word "Kutastha" (that which remains unchanged).\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#\/schema\/person\/dbd3abc685f41c5167289cb1f06c4ef1\",\"name\":\"Gaurav Rastogi\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98755bfef64ca9c4c3d90538326e01ef?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98755bfef64ca9c4c3d90538326e01ef?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gaurav Rastogi\"},\"description\":\"Gaurav Rastogi is an entrepreneur with 25_ years of executive experience. As a professional, Gaurav Rastogi has led executive roles in large companies and has also founded (and sold) an AI startup. Mr. Rastogi holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad (India's #1 program) and a mechanical engineering undergrad from Delhi Technological University (formerly DCE). He is the author of three business books, most recently with Oxford University Press, discussing the relevance of Karma Yoga in the age of distraction and distraction.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/author\/grastogi\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Spiritual But Not Religious- why aren't these the same?","description":"Religion is everywhere in India. Growing up, I didn't think much about the question in the title, \"What is 'spiritual but not religious?'\" Myriad Gods","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Spiritual But Not Religious- why aren't these the same?","og_description":"Religion is everywhere in India. Growing up, I didn't think much about the question in the title, \"What is 'spiritual but not religious?'\" Myriad Gods","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/","og_site_name":"Watcher on the Hill","article_published_time":"2023-06-30T04:41:05+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-06-30T04:42:11+00:00","og_image":[{"width":500,"height":750,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/1594\/2023\/06\/Watcher-on-the-Hill-2.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Gaurav Rastogi","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Gaurav Rastogi","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/","name":"Spiritual But Not Religious- why aren't these the same?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-06-30T04:41:05+00:00","dateModified":"2023-06-30T04:42:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#\/schema\/person\/dbd3abc685f41c5167289cb1f06c4ef1"},"description":"Religion is everywhere in India. Growing up, I didn't think much about the question in the title, \"What is 'spiritual but not religious?'\" Myriad Gods","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/2023\/06\/sbnrorjusthungry\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Spiritual But Not Religious- why aren’t these the same?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/","name":"Watcher on the Hill","description":"Gaurav Rastogi's column observes current events from the perspective of an uninvolved observer, a "watcher on the hill". The observer is a Hindu, Yogi, Technophile interested in Spiritual Care for the community. Name comes from the Sanskrit word "Kutastha" (that which remains unchanged).","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#\/schema\/person\/dbd3abc685f41c5167289cb1f06c4ef1","name":"Gaurav Rastogi","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98755bfef64ca9c4c3d90538326e01ef?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/98755bfef64ca9c4c3d90538326e01ef?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Gaurav Rastogi"},"description":"Gaurav Rastogi is an entrepreneur with 25_ years of executive experience. As a professional, Gaurav Rastogi has led executive roles in large companies and has also founded (and sold) an AI startup. Mr. Rastogi holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad (India's #1 program) and a mechanical engineering undergrad from Delhi Technological University (formerly DCE). He is the author of three business books, most recently with Oxford University Press, discussing the relevance of Karma Yoga in the age of distraction and distraction.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/author\/grastogi\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4804"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/watcheronthehill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}