Adapted from The Top Ten Things Dead People Want to Tell You by Mike Dooley. Published by Hay House (October 2014); available at bookstores and online at www.hayhouse.com.

Religion needs spirituality.

Spirituality does not need religion.

Religion is man-made, time and illusion based, and exclusionary. Its origins were obviously noble and of good intent, as is true of God/Man. It was an attempt to explain the hard to explain, recognizing that there’s more to life than what the physical senses can perceive and more to science than instruments will ever detect. As it evolved, however, religions drew ever wider and more tangential conclusions, generally led by individuals who wanted to show that they were closer to God than other people – which was supposedly evidenced by connecting more dots than others did. And the masses, threatened, humiliated, and too overwhelmed with survival, ceded their power.

Eventually, religion began making up dots where no dots had ever existed. And from such connections men fashioned laws, rules, rituals, hierarchies, penalties, rights, and privileges, all for believers (unless they’re “bad”), and a total lockout for nonbelievers (even if they’re “good”). You either belong or you don’t. You will either be saved or you won’t. And pretty much anything done in the name of the religion is okay, including lying, dying, and killing.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is usually more of an acknowledgment than an explanation. “In God we trust” is such a sentiment, intentionally connecting the fewest possible dots. It’s timeless, needs no illusions, and includes everyone. More, it typically places God within “humanity” (and all things for that matter) rather than apart from Him.

You are not alive to be tested, judged, and sentenced. You’re alive to live and learn, in unending spirals of love. Everything plays to these greater goals, and every decision you make while living becomes the core study material for your fabulous growth and glory – right down to the time and method of your passing. And everyone, being of spirit, of love, of God, has the ability to know in their heart of hearts that there’s no such thing as a devil or hell.

Mike Dooley is a former PriceWaterhouseCoopers international tax consultant turned entrepreneur. He’s the founder of a philosophical Adventurers Club on the Internet that’s now home to over 600,000 members from 182 countries. His inspirational books emphasizing spiritual accountability have been published in 25 languages, and he was one of the featured teachers in the international phenomenon The Secret. Today Mike is best known for his free “Notes from the Universe” e-mailings and his New York Times bestsellers Infinite Possibilities: The Art of Living Your Dreams and Leveraging the Universe: 7 Steps to Engaging Life’s Magic. Mike lives what he teaches, traveling internationally to speak on life, dreams, and happiness. www.tut.com