Breaking Open Your Spirit

People commonly confuse spirituality and religion, but Elizabeth says it's important to understand the two are not the same. "If you think of the great spiritual founders of religions—Jesus or the Buddha or Muhammad or many, many other beings who came to this earth to teach—they didn't consider themselves religious people. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, so much so that they wanted to help other people find the same inner peace and awakeness that they had," she says. "They taught, and people wrote down their words and turned it into doctrine and books, and they're helpful and wonderful. But they are guideposts along the path. They are not the goal. The end goal is our oneness with spirit. [Religions] are ways to get there."

Oprah says that as she has become more spiritual, she has come to understand religion in a new light. "You can be spiritual regardless of your religious beliefs," she says. "I am religious—raised Christian, believe in God. But when I discovered my spiritual path, it awakened religion—Christianity—for me in a way that had not happened before."