Realizations 2

A thought just hit me. I can't believe I didn't think of it/comprehend it before.
I was sitting here, reading a book for a book club called Saffron Cross (I'll explain it in a bit) and eating my triscuits, searching for the religion that best includes my beliefs & values and shares my idea of God/what God is (I am still trying to figure that last part out), when I thought, "But I don't need a religion! Believing in God (however you picture/define what that is) does NOT require you to choose a denomination! You can just be spiritual." It's what my roommate has been saying in regards to her relationship with the divine all along! WHY HAS THIS NOT SUNK IN UNTIL NOW?!?! Answer: Because I didn't see it as the answer that applied until now. I thought that it was important to define oneself, to pick a label or box that suited you. But that shouldn't matter. Now, instead of the question being, "How do I see God and what religion views God in the same way?", it's "How do I see God?"
I don't have to pick a single religion to define myself by. Elements of many different ones, Eastern and Western, are intriguing to me, such as the idea that I came across in learning about some Eastern religions: All living things are holy. You are probably saying, 'Yes, but I'm pretty sure all religions think that.' And I think that, to an extent, you are right. But there are differing levels. For example, Christians are different from Jains because Christians do not wear masks over their nose and mouth to avoid breathing in tiny living things in the air, nor do they sweep the ground before they walk to avoid stepping on those tiny living things. But I went on a bit of a tangent there. Whoops. My point is that I don't need just one; I can take concepts and elements from many and just have a modge-podge of different ideas that I value and accept. It doesn't need to have a name.
Anyway, I wanted to share a excerpt that I really like from the book that I was reading when I had my realization. It is an element of the Hindu religion and way of life, at the very least; it may be an element in others as well. It is the idea that a person is not their body; a person is their soul. The soul is just within the body; the body is like a vehicle for the soul. I learned this in my last religions class at Hamline, but it really hit home when I read it in this book, Saffron Cross.
The full title of the book is Saffron Cross: The Unlikely Story of How a Christian Minister Married a Hindu Monk. It is very interesting. The author of the book keeps stating how both her and her husband's religions were strengthened by the other person's. Nothing in particular in it caused me to have this realization; I was just thinking about how I was trying to find a religion that I could fit into when I thought, "That's not necessary, though..." 
That's about it. I just wanted to share that.