The relation between religion and spirituality

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): My sister believes in Christianity and she has also changed her religion. Now, she says that I am on the wrong path. What is the right path and how religion and spirituality are connected?

Acharya Prashant (AP): When the subtle becomes gross, rather the subtle is turned into gross, then all these religious prejudices are born. So when someone says, “Jesus”, one has to first ask, “Who is Jesus?” What do you mean by Jesus? The son of Mary? Who is Jesus?

When somebody says, “I have found my path”, the question to be asked is, “Whose path?” From the gross, inquiry must move to the subtle. And that is also the relation between religion and spirituality. The Truth is subtler than the subtlest. Spirituality is subtle. Religion is gross.

We get attracted to names, forms, conventions. Jesus is not the name or form of Jesus. Who is Jesus? And if you look at the Bible closely, then there is enough in the Bible to clearly see and demonstrate that those who are ardent evangelists are the ones who, probably, missed Jesus the most.

There are two kinds of missionary zeal. One is, when you have really dissolved, really found, and then what you have found disseminates itself from…