A HARE KRISHNA

Bill Glick, 59, has made such cobbling his life's work. Raised Jewish in a Miami family he describes as ``extremely spiritual but moderately religious,'' Glick became a Hare Krishna in college after reading the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu scripture.

Today he devotes his time to studying and educating people about the commonalities among religions. At his website, www.equalsouls.org, he writes about ``equality based on the soul, one God with unlimited names.'' The soul, he likes to say, is neither Jewish nor Catholic nor Hindu.

``My parents' generation experienced horrible wars and a depression, so they stuck together more,'' Glick says. ``They took shelter in conformity.''

Boomers, on the other hand, have found multiple and complex ways to be spiritual without being religious, says Wade Clark Roof, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara and the author of Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion (Princeton, 2001).

This has resulted in practices -- the secularization of the Jewish mystical discipline Kabbalah, for example -- that combine religious traditions with therapeutic movements, shifting attention from institution to individual.

As boomers separate spirituality from institutions, mainline religions face challenges winning them back. The Pew report found that many left traditional faiths because they thought religious people were too judgmental or hypocritical, religious leaders too focused on power and money and their institutions too hung up on rules.

``Organized religions are going to have to reevaluate if they want to remain relevant for this generation and future generations,'' author and attorney Greer says. ``People are no longer willing to be told to do something and to just take it on faith. Boomers in particular are askers of questions.''