It is not at all necessary to be part of any religion to reach spiritual heights. Religions are man-made institutions. One just has to follow the simple rules that are at its disposal, like the ones I give here or any wisdom they find, except that one has to remember that a great many people are just serving their own turfs, making things so easy that one might as well do without. There is indeed work to do to reach those spiritual heights, make no mistake about that.
One of the most difficult aspect of this willingness to reach spiritual heights is... oneself. Take for instance being surrounded by others. Whenever you are to complain about someone else behaviour, manners because they drive you nuts or just irritate you, make sure you are not talking about yourself. Most of the time what one is reproaching to someone else is also something one should look within oneself. It's there for sure. The other always acts as a mirror. It is shocking. It is unacceptable. Indeed! And yet there is no escape. Before (or at the same time as) changing the world one has to work on oneself and there are no better ways than confronting others which allows to react and act... upon oneself. First.
If we were or had to pay Jesus as an expert witness when he came around it would have cost around one million dollar per word he would pronounce. It's not every day we get to encounter someone coming from the highest of the highest spiritual lands visiting us. So before we killed him because we didn't like his line of thinking, he had the time to say a couple of things worth billions of dollars, because nowadays that seems to be all that counts: how much is it worth?
So check it for yourself and think about it for a moment. In Matthews 7.3 when it is reported Jesus said the following: "Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? 4. How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye?", he indeed gave us for free an incredible key to our spiritual endeavour. It didn't only mean: "Don't judge others", it meant and still means first and foremost we'd better check our own self THROUGH the reaction we trigger in ourselves while in the surrounding of others. The mirror. We are face to face with ourselves when we are with others. In a good way or in a bad way. If we feel comfortable with someone it is because we are alike and it pleases us. It is very easy to always stay surrounded by people just pleasing us but we don't learn much in terms of improving ourselves. Not that one should not see people pleasing them, but that one has to also encouter people not pleasing oneself if one is to learn something about oneself.
