What's the practical difference between being "spiritual" and being "religious"?
A lot of the other posters already touched on what I would say, but I'll add that I see religion as a sort of object lesson, an externalized form that symbolizes an internal realization. I see religion as largely something which is external to one's self. It's something you conform yourself to through a system of fear of punishment, rewards, or social conformity.
It's "making clean the outside of the cup", as Jesus put it when speaking to the religious pious of the day who followed the rules to a T, but whose hearts within them were not transformed, still hating, envying, lusting, etc. That is like the rule/role stages of early moral development in children, who have not yet internalized the actual source of moral behaviors within themselves.
I see spirituality as "making clean the inside of the cup". It's about developing a perspective of the world and reality that is beyond the self as the center of all reality, beyond the egoic identity, and experiences life as a whole, and others as extensions of their own self. It's about love, and connection, and groundness within themselves in the world, as the source of all external actions.
"Love works no ill", or "Love is the fulfillment of the law", means that if we have a strong spiritual center of gravity, as opposed to the egoic needs as the center of gravity, we naturally would not do harm to anyone else, anymore than we would our own selves. That's quite different from externalize rule/role conformity. You don't choose to be good, you just are good.
But spirituality itself goes beyond actions, as above. Those are just the manifestations, the byproducts or the 'fruits'. Spirituality is about awakening that which is within us beyond the separate egoic self.
That's not to say we still don't have an ego, but it is to say that that is not the center of gravity in our life anymore. A young child identifies himself with his body, when asked to point to "me". Adults tend to point to all those things that define themselves socially, emotionally, and likes and dislikes as "me".
And it's those that are those mental constructs of the separate self that we call the ego. Spirituality, is the field of reality that we move into in transcending that. It's living life freed from the constraints and concerns of the separate egoic-self as the center of our self-identification.
And when people say "I'm spiritual, but not religious", what do they actually mean? I assume they mean they're religious, but not part of an organised religion, but it's all so vague.
I think SBNR (spiritual but not religious) best describes me. By saying I'm not religious, that means that I don't participate in any formal religious practices; codified beliefs, practices, ritual forms, group practices in any formal sense of the word.
That doesn't mean that I reject some of the principles they teach. But I see it for myself as the focus is much more upon integration and understanding internally. I suppose some of that would have to do with the fact that what I was part of I outgrew, and to echo one of the psalms, "I understand more than all my teachers".
That's not to say of course there aren't teachers out there I can learn from! Of course I can, and I do find those I can learn from in books, or videos, and so forth. But "going to church", has limited value for me. I developed a bit of an allergy to organized religions from my experience with them. Much more a hindrance, than a benefit. I see all of creation itself as "going to church".
