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Religions and their practices are really the same as `spiritual` practices. Meditation as a hindu or buhddist is the same as meditating but not being a hindu or buddhist, prayer as a christian or as a spiritual person is the same. What it is down to is the intent accorded to the practice by the individual.
Many people outside of religion are there because they don`t have the discipline to follow the practices, so they leave. Don`t get me wrong, there are many people who are in religions who do not immerse themselves into the practice, they pick and choose what is easiest for them. Or thye pray hard in church or a temple but rip off people in business. This isn`t because they are in a religion, its because of where they are in their development.
If you immerse yourself into changing yourself and your trying to find god/ realisation in any religion, then you will grow. The moment you start trying to `convert ` others to your path, the ego walks in and takes over and things start to slide. Religions arent bad, as long as you are working on yourself with their practices, once you try and change others or avoid working on yourself then the problems occur.
Having said that, the free wandering `I have my own path` spiritual hippies are usually deluded people too weak to undertake serious spiritual discipline to grow, so are equally as misguided as those religious fanatics.
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