@sykochica Totally agreed! Labels only let us know how to approach a person and what words to use in order to connect with them more efficiently!

Beautiful read!

Highest Regards
@lordneroo

i like ur post
really is very amazing
good luck my lady @sykochica

My spiritual journey is somewhat simillar. I've digged deep into a lot of religions trying to find answers, but what I really got, is even more questions... every religion has different philosophies about life and it really makes your journey quite hard. I'm nowhere near of being a highly spiritual person, but I'm always trying to get there without any labels on myself or others...

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZb73wNgfxgAXJ3U28pv9TR6xjEEwCaBKpXQrhWgqfoA5/image.png)

The labels that society gives us are not nearly as destructive as the labels we slap on ourselves.    Be yourself, love yourself ....your true and beautiful self!!!    We love you :)

inspiring Post... Every one indeed has different opinion as regard religion, I have mine too. It's better to stay with what you believe in as long as it's working things right for you... God bless sykochica

We must continue to expand and grow. That is what life is all about in my opinion. Can't be put into a box. :)

Very well written, it completely resonated with me and explains a lot that I have tried to reason over myself in a clean and honest no loop holes way.  <-- important. This is something for everyone to realise themselves I now think, although I will be found trying to cram it down peoples throats at times. 

You do not need a book to tell you what kind of person to be, it is a simple rule .
>"Do not be a douche"

Well that was as much thought as I  at times gave this topic , thank you for broadening my view. 

*-I love the dune quote, because dune is awesome. -* 

Agree!  I love all religions, they're all supposed to be all about love.   it's some of the fundamentalists that spew hate that I have problems with.

You will rise above of it!! Take care @sykochica you are an inspiration for the majority of us!!!!!

@sykochica 
I can relate so much to this, although I was raised Baptist _(God's almost chosen people)_

Do you think the LSD helped out a lot in your spiritual journey? I am very curios to know about your experience and what you may have gained from it.

Thanks for sharing a bit of your philosophical outlook with us, @sykochica. I am not Wiccan, but I know people who are, and I like their moral code the best I think: 

>Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill: an it harm none, do what ye will.

My question for you today is: if you are agnostic, why do you continue to refer to "G-d" as such? As I understand, this is most common among Jewish folk, due to some doctrine requiring anything with the deity's name on it to be holy.

Is it force of habit, or Pascal's wager, or a bit of both?

I really like the way your parents decided to raise you. It is very similar to how I was raised with Christian parents. They told me about it, but didn't force it on me.

Awesome....For me,i took that bold step to discovering me and accepting my real nature....My religion is Love.

Have you ever looking into Laveyan Satanism?
It's atheist and philosophy based, you might get some enjoyment out of reading about it.

Have you watched The Believer with Ryan Gosling? Gosling is a covert Jew leader of a Neo Nazi gang. Yeah, you read that right. Gosling is intense. The movie deals with identity. Gosling confronts his origins. I think you'll like it. I did

Such a beautiful piece. LOVE IT.  There were a few things that I really really liked from it

* *My 'working answers' are still on going*
This this this... This all day.  Many times I find it hard to adequately explain this to people.  I've literally been called out on this by significant others in the past with passive aggressive statements such as "Well, yea, this is what you believe today"..... Ummmmm... And? Life around us evolves, it moves, it's circular but linear, linear but circular, it's full of so many mind blowing things.  I think life would be a truly truly truly depressing place if the thoughts and beliefs I hold now will be the same ones I have and hold forever.  The opposite of growth is stagnation.  Even water, the very essence of life, when stagnant becomes putrid and potentially death to any who drinks of it.  Love this, really hit home.

* *The picture in the middle with the quote*
This reminded me of *Allegory of the cave* by Plato, and really is a continuation of the idea of evolution, growth, etc. being necessary to life.  Loved this.

* *I finally realized it wasn't me that was lacking, the labels were*
So much truth in this post.  I've always had issues with labels.  The thing about labels, any and all, is they lack nuance. Even more than that though, they are just words.  Life,  consciousness, etc.  These things are unknowable.  We experience these things, but it is impossible to peg them down.  We can make allegories, stories, parables, etc.  BUT at the end of the day all of these words pale in comparison to the magnificence that underlies all of it.  When we try to label, or define, that which lacks definition, we will always get ignorance.  Loveeee love love this post so much.

* *A good person is a good person, regardless of label of faith*
This is probably the largest issue I have with my significant other at the moment.  Not necessarily the faith part, but any group or tribal identity.  So many people, especially those in college now or just getting out, are so caught up in these identity politics that they lose sight of this exact message.  Just because someone doesn't identify with you, or doesn't believe the same things, doesn't share the same political viewpoint, etc.  That doesn't make them a bad person.  We have to allow space for more nuanced ideas and beliefs and stop clumping everything into a black and white, left or right paradigm.  It's not beneficial in any way.

* *Now when asked "What religion I am,"*
My favorite thing to do is to return the question, or if I already know their religion is to say that I am also a member of that religion.  I have studied enough about practically all religious faiths, as it seems you have, to understand that practically none of them exclude anybody.  Even Christianity, Jesus says *"For everyone who does the will of my Father who is in Heaven, the same is my brother and my sister and my mother.”*... Which makes it clear, that whoever does the will of the father, which we are ALL made in "his" image, which is the spirit, is a true follower and family of Christ. Hence, I am a Christian because I follow my spirit, my path, etc.  The same can be said of practically all religions. 

Anyway, I absolutely loved your article... Sorry for the book I just wrote, lmao, but it just really had me thinking a lot and reallllyyy digging into my thoughts. Loved it.  Thank you so much!

I love you just the way you are and I don't even know you.  Complicated? I listened to a lecture years ago on all this religion and life stuff from a Vietnam vet. In his closing he posed the question stating isn't it interesting that the 3 essential questions of life can be answered by what God told Moses on Mt. Sinia: who am I?  (I am),  why am I here? (I am),  what for? (I am that I am).  I adopted the philosophy myself and find comfort in it.  As for what church when asked, I tell people I go to the church of the movie stigmata from the quote The kingdom of God is within you and all around. Not in buildings of wood or stone.  Lift a piece of wood and you will find, pick up a stone and He/She will be there.  God is just that. ... Enough of my ramblings.. Peace.

I came from a catholic family; very devoted ones. But I cannot really see myself being an actual "catholic". I am born, baptized and raised in this religion; even sent to school in a catholic school but I still have too many questions in this religion that I am not satisfied with the answer... and my parents are pushing me to just believe without any doubt. It kinda sucks and it pains me that they push me to service.
But anyway, as long as it makes my family happy, why not, right?

we all are complicated an its better to be like that otherwise its no fun

I had some similar experiences, I had experienced LSD in my college which made me question most of the religious beliefs, I cannot say I'm an agnostic, as in Hinduism I have found most of the answers. 
I feel the baseline is similar in all the religious beliefs and that if what you have specified in your post.
But still I think there is something deeper into it. We don't know why we exist, why only our planet has life, why are we here? I think answers to all those question cannot be answered till you visit and explore the spiritual side.
I believe in Karma and have seen that my life was decided before my birth. I regularly look into vedic astrology also, which I think is a beautiful science. If you are completed try researching in vedic astrology may be it could help you know your path, and answers your question.

>The most use I found from labels was just knowing what vocabulary to maximize the likelihood of someone understanding what I was saying

I think this is an ultimately defining conclusion. Something I've been on to recently is that the way most people think about "being" in the 21st century is hopelessly simplified to finding something that pre-exists to align oneself with. 

It seems self-evident to me - from having lived even a few years into adult life, and from studying things like music theory and philosophy - that this is backwards, that the words we associate with things come after the things themselves in virtually all cases. 

Seeing that the trend of choosing ones labels as opposed to earning or growing into them is so recent, and that looking throughout history, language primarily has been used ontologically and developed as such, I'm lead to the pretty (in my view, at least) obvious conclusion that most if not all major religions were simply describing phenomena and experience through things like allegory and symbolism. 

Obviously each religion varies in what it deals with (with Buddhism for example dealing more in states of consciousness, where Christianity deals more with people and society), but most of them have overlap, and when stripping names from concepts and identifying correlations - especially metaphysical ones, it starts to become clear that a lot of ideas that seem different on the surface are actually functionally identical.

I think where that leaves us in terms of modern spirituality is with the entire world's history of religion and philosophy at our fingertips to sort through. If there are universal human truths - which I certainly believe there are, there's no good reason to preemptively completely dismiss any sufficiently established and documented system of religion, faith, or spirituality in pursuit of those truths, since those *must* be the foundations of any potential world unity, going forward.

Anyway, this post was insightful and thought provoking, thanks for sharing. Really dug the Dune quote too. You might find writings by Carl Jung (Psychological Types, especially) and the integral metatheory of Ken Wilber pretty interesting - they both get very very deep into the common elements and phenomenological referents underlying articulated systems of belief.