Myths About Spirituality: My Journey from Ignorance to Clarity

Sowmya Rangarajan
Dec 27, 2025
5 min read

For the longest time, I didn’t understand the concept of spirituality.

I used to hear the word and immediately picture something distant—something meant for “other people.” People who live in caves. People who meditate for hours. People who have renounced the world. People who follow a strict religion. People who look calm all the time.

But my learnings through Redikall—and everything that unfolded thereafter—helped me see spirituality in a completely different way.

Not as a concept to memorize.

Not as a personality to perform.

But as a *divinity-filled, freeing way to live life*.

This blog is my journey from confusion to clarity—through the most common misconceptions I carried, and the myths I still see around me.

Misconceptions About Spirituality (And What I’ve Come to Understand)

1) “Spirituality is religion-based.”

This is one of the biggest misunderstandings.

Many people assume spirituality and religion are the same thing. But they aren’t. Religion can be a path, a structure, a tradition, a community, and for many people it is deeply meaningful. Spirituality, however, is more like the inner experience—your relationship with truth, consciousness, compassion, healing, growth, and the deeper intelligence of life.

You can be spiritual within a religion.

You can be spiritual without following any religion.

You can be religious and not spiritual.

And you can be spiritual and still respect every religion.

Spirituality isn’t about labels. It’s about living with awareness.

2) “Spirituality is a rigid practice.”

People often think spirituality is a “tough routine” you must follow perfectly—like an achievement program.

But spirituality is not meant to feel like a punishment. It’s not a strict syllabus. It’s not a test of discipline where you fail if you miss a day.

If anything, spirituality becomes real when it’s livable—when it meets you in your actual life: your stress, relationships, emotions, patterns, triggers, healing, and choices.

Yes, practices can help. But spirituality isn’t the practice—it’s the shift inside that the practice supports.

3) “Being spiritual means constant meditation.”

This myth makes spirituality feel impossible.

Many presume that to be spiritual is to be in meditation all the time—calm, silent, detached from ordinary life. But spirituality is not only what happens when you close your eyes.

Spirituality is also:

* how you respond when you feel hurt

* how you speak when you’re angry

* how you treat people who disagree with you

* how you handle disappointment

* how you come back to yourself after you fall apart

Meditation can support spirituality. But spirituality is also what you do with your mind, heart, and consciousness outside the meditation.

4) “Spirituality means straying away from our roots.”

This is a fear many people hold silently.

Often there is a misconception that being spiritual means drifting away from the religious faith we were born into—or abandoning family traditions. But spirituality doesn’t have to be rebellion. It doesn’t have to be rejection.

For many people, spirituality actually deepens respect:

* for roots

* for culture

* for rituals (when they are understood)

* for devotion (when it is alive, not forced)

Spirituality can either remain neutral toward religion or become a deeper inner connection within it. The key is freedom—not fear.

5) “Spirituality is escapism.”

A lot of people assume spirituality is about escaping a tough, unmanageable reality.

But true spirituality doesn’t numb you. It doesn’t make you avoid your life. It doesn’t tell you to pretend everything is okay.

It helps you face reality with more courage, clarity, and inner support.

Spirituality is not running away from pain.

It’s learning how to *meet pain* without getting destroyed by it.

6) “Spirituality is an impossible concept.”

Many people misunderstand spirituality as being in a constant sublime state—always blissful, always high-vibrational, always peaceful. And because that seems unrealistic, they conclude spirituality itself must be unrealistic.

But spirituality isn’t a permanent mood.

It’s not about never feeling fear or sadness.

It’s about not being imprisoned by them.

Even clarity has waves. Even growth has messy days. Even healing has layers.

Spirituality becomes possible when we stop trying to become “perfect” and start becoming *present*.

7) “Spirituality makes you indifferent.”

Some think that spirituality makes people emotionally cold or indifferent to the world around them—as if spiritual people don’t care.

But real spirituality doesn’t remove your humanity. It refines it.

It can deepen:

* compassion

* responsibility

* sensitivity

* integrity

* courage to do what’s right

Indifference is not spirituality. It’s often unresolved emotion disguised as distance.

8) “Spirituality is isolation.”

Spirituality is often looked at as a lonely path—alone on a quest, disconnected from people.

But spirituality doesn’t have to isolate you. Sometimes a person may take space to heal or reflect, yes. But the deeper purpose isn’t loneliness—it’s connection.

Connection:

* with yourself

* with your inner truth

* with life

* with others, from a healthier place

In fact, spirituality can improve relationships because it helps you understand patterns, triggers, and the emotional roots behind conflict.

9) “Spirituality means renunciation.”

This myth scares people: “If I become spiritual, will I have to renounce everything—family, relationships, desires, comfort, life itself?”

Spirituality isn’t necessarily about renouncing life. Often it’s about renouncing *what enslaves you*.

For some people, renunciation is external.

For many others, it’s internal:

* renouncing compulsions

* renouncing self-sabotage

* renouncing ego patterns

* renouncing the need to suffer

You don’t have to abandon love to be spiritual. You often become more capable of love.

10) “Spirituality is primitive, cultish, or flaky.”

This one is common, especially among logical minds.

Being tuned into a spiritual way of life is sometimes perceived as cultish, unhinged, or “too airy.” And yes—there are spaces where spirituality becomes performance, marketing, superstition, or blind following.

But spirituality itself is not the problem.

Authentic spirituality is grounded. It’s practical. It changes how you live, how you heal, how you treat yourself and others. It doesn’t demand that you stop thinking—it invites you to think deeper, observe honestly, and live consciously.

What spirituality has become for me :

For me, spirituality is becoming a way of living where:

* I understand myself more honestly.

* I become freer from inner knots.

* I shift from unconscious reactions to conscious responses.

* I heal patterns instead of repeating them.

* I experience life as more meaningful, more guided, and more alive.

Not always easy. But deeply freeing.

Over to you

*What other myths did you have?

*What other myths do you observe in people around you?

*What is spirituality for you?