The connection between religion and life satisfaction
The question we may ask is: Life satisfaction from what and for what?
Religion certainly does allow an inclined person, to feel stable and act without pretensions, and based on ethical deeds as well as genuine God fearing-ness (not out of scare, but out of humility and gratitude for the Creator.)
Here is how and why. For a good religious person to a) live and conduct oneself, via her/his conduct of every day virtues and b)focus on being accountable only to the Creator, rather than the world, its objects, events or people around oneself, are behaviors which can enable the person to be socially responsible and personally accountable.
The interesting thing is that spiritual-healing, is in fact, a modern version of the ancient and conventional sense of contentment with oneself, due to having a n existence which is based on religiosity and living it, not just being named as someone belonging to a given faith.
Religion may or may not be organized, but it should be original and not innovated either, and then one can have a real sense of self-control, because then, it is not our petty motives which misguide us, but our broader scope of vision, which allows us to see ourselves as a part of the big scheme of things as the destiny of the universe and our species in the context of our religious history, is recorded and that is what we are handed down, through our religions.
What we call, ability to reflect for a while on oneself, for guidance or seek the light from above, by reading a scripture to find solace within, is indeed, evidence of how powerful religious blessing can be, for a person who might just be needing a revival of her/his sense of self-confidence, to reclaim their forgotten stability within own selves.
Our personal, social, civic, familial, public, private and individual roles that we all live and fulfill, have something missing for sometime because we skip the religion out of our everyday lives, i.e., we exclude the thought that we are not everything, that the higher being above us, has created us and given us these moments in our lives, so we can’t resort to thinking that life ends and begins with who we are and what we as people can do, that religion is our life line, in many ways: it gives us a focus as outlined in a & b above and it also is the source of our humble but comfortable sense of being alive, that we have a purpose of being here, beyond monetary and tangible gains in the material world, that we must adorn an invisible cloak of pure humility, gratitude and most important of all, have an untainted conscience, God-fearing-ness, which should reflect in our interactions with each other to fulfill rights of each other, not hurt life and the planet for instance and
for our own deeds to be the net worth of our living, we must always keep the consequences of our actions and words, in minds. That it is absolutely necessary to remind ourselves that it is much easier and noble to keep our track records straight and clean, than to have to fill the void and make desperate grieved attempts to feel salvaged and redeem ourselves.
Most important from a worldly living point of view could be, are we life constructive and are we leaving a legacy for the next generations that will be good for them?
What are we teaching of morality and religiosity to our next generations?
That will definitely, when thought out correctly, enable us to feel a sense of life satisfaction for a life well lived.
And thus, it can be argued, that following true values of a religion [honesty, morality, truthfulness, honest living, respect for rights to safety for other peoples’ persons, privacy and property, belief in an unseen God / higher being than ourselves and all creation, belief in being given a final place in heavens or hell based on our deeds in this world, etc.], is all remembered by us.
Things like chronic depression, despair due to temptations and greediness, unfairness, cruelty, wastefulness, arrogance, self indulgences, lower self esteem due to wrong social comparisons, confusion about life’s decisions based on their right or wrong ness, desensitization to violence and kills around us, demoralization, slippery slope of amorality, innovation in religious teachings, too many unauthentic sources of self proclaimed religious leadership, an inner lack of belief in religion and consequent state of worldliness are all signs that we must be missing something truly needed for our souls to hold on. And besides all this, there goes on a circle of extreme self justification for all the wrong things that we do, because, we are so far away from religion. The pretext is, that living is this world, demands being world-smart. We don’t see the God and angels, so we put out the belief in their existence, altogether our selfish lives based on ulterior motives, social irre
sponsibility and un-ethics in stepping over and crushing other peoples’ rights.
Now, this definitely has spiritual benefit for us, once we as human beings with our limited powers, can make peace with and genuinely accept the rationale for destiny and the extent to which our free-will can have an effect in this, be it through our intentions or our prayers, our deeds or our thoughts and words.
Meditating on one’s relationship with God, is step 1, if you will, of being Religious.
Step 2, Listening to what God said in the holy scriptures or by the Messengers sent by God on this earth.
Step 3, Following what was told and admonished.
Step 4, Constantly replenishing one’s faith through prayers, reflection and good deeds.
Step 5, Being ready for taking full responsibility of one’s free-will, in this world, to be given an account of what we did here, when our souls will reach the next one.
Step 6, Through our actions, inspiring other believers to remain and act as true believers.
There is something about religion. It does not discriminate when followed truthfully and could heal even a guilty soul. It is not selected right away by us, when we take birth. But, we are given a religion, or later in life, we mold our sense of which religious ideology to believe in or not to become unassociated with any religion, or to adapt a new one. That is all a spiritual journey in its own right. And then, the movement of this thought that one needs to be humane and that is enough to not violate any religious teaching, that respecting life forms around us and their rights and our own bodies’ rights is good, to feel and think that we are not out of line, from religious teachings.
This is true that no one can be a judge of another, to claim that one is more religious than the other, because this is something that can only be seen and felt, not merely claimed verbally, while one’s actions depict an utter disregard for anything religious or admonished in religion of a person.
Finally, how to quantify, how religious are we, and thus, how much satisfied we are with our lives, in that context. One sane person could say that only as much as we indicate through our behaviors and that determines if we are in control or our lives or not and are our lives satisfactory for us or not. Personal well-being, the study of personal happiness and resilience can very well be connected to being religiously grounded on sure-footed foundation. Thereby, our sense of self control and control over our lives can actually begin to express itself, through our virtuous deeds and their effects on ourselves and on the world around us collectively and individually.
Perspectives and thoughts will be much appreciated.