I used to belong to a formal religion and did put labels on my individual experience based on that. Now that I've let go of those labels, I do feel like I've mostly maintained my inner spirituality, but it isn't based on anything externally structured by someone else. It is based on two types of meditative experiences.
The first is the experience of being alone and connecting with nature. I have done this since I was 13 years old and my soul withers when I don't have a place I can go on a daily basis to regenerate in this way. I just sit alone in the quiet, away from all other humans, and just look around. What happens is that a deep, possibly infinite, beauty emerges. Suddenly all of the colors become brighter, I become aware of every one of my senses and in some way everything feels like part of the whole. I remember as a teenager sitting on the edge of a wheat field, looking at the sea of gold under an azure sky, and hearing the birds chirping a two note melody, and i felt the warmth of the sun and a cool breeze on my face. It was as though all of reality was simplified to this duality, and there aren't words to define it, but there was a feeling of comprehension. In this state I come to understand what compassion is when I don't feel I have any left, I become aware of feeling connected, I feel a sense of the fleetingness of reality along with a glimpse of eternity. I feel incredibly small, but somehow seen, and incredibly safe. In this state i see everything that was a void in the rush and confusion of daily interaction with everyone.
A second type of meditative state has to do with sensory deprivation, and I experience it in the dark, in warm water, and in silence. I close my eyes, imagine myself letting go of everything as I fall into an infinite, black abyss. In this state I get really intense imaginings that seem to compensate for whatever is lacking in life. During a healing process for myself, I could envision powerful metaphors where I could see myself healing. In one I'm on an alien planet, sitting in a pool of water, and completely and perfectly alone in a feeling of soul soothing. When intensely fearful for the life of a friend of mine, and someone whose plight leaves me feeling completely powerless, I reached out my intention into the blackness of the void and after a while I heard millions of voices chanting with me. It is difficult to explain exactly the sound, but it is a little like the sound of the Tardis from Doctor Who, except that it is an ongoing chanting. It felt like I was momentarily connected to all life and intention in the universe, that it heard me, and focused its intention in the direction I was focusing mine for the safety of my friend and for the elimination of the source of her harm. It feels like there is something ancient in the universe, much older than what we think of as darkness and "evil". It felt like that is a young occurrence and that is something very ancient, patient, wise, something that feels similar to the way a forest of trees feel, but not trees, but something beyond words that has wisdom and awareness and can be called upon. I call it the "Dark Trees".
I do not relate to these experiences as "facts" or even "truths" or anything that is useful to put into words or try to define. They are states of consciousness that are experienced in my being for whatever the reason. I don't have to know what it is. I don't have to find words to define it or set it inside a structure of philosophy or belief. It helps me to regain whatever I have lost It helps me to feel a connection and gives a source of hope. I don't have to know more than that.
It took me a long time not to literalise my story-telling about what happened then 
