To be Religious or Spiritual?

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Everybody is spiritual to an extent.  We are souls possessing a body.  Being religious has several, often contradictory connotations.  A person may be religious by virtue of adherence to an organised faith tradition, in which case, it is adherence to human interpretation of the Divine Intent.  Or he could be religious by virtue of adherence to textual interpretation, which is subject to our biases and limitations.  This is actually a false dichotomy, since it is predicated on us accepting or rejecting doctrine on the basis of our preferences, not knowledge of taste. 

For the true seeker of Divine Truths, it cannot be one or the other.  It comes together.  A spiritual man with no religious framework is a ship on a wide ocean, looking for land somewhere out there, but with no means to navigate.  A religious man without spirituality is person with the means to navigate, but on a leaking ship.  We are becalmed on the oceans of dunya, Driven by the winds of Divine Providence, looking at the stars for a means of knowing where we are and where to go.  That ship is shari’ah.  The means to navigate is thariqa’.  The company of those who have seen that land we seek is ma’rifat, and those who have set foot on that shore, are at haqiqah. 

As such, it is important to have a chart, which is the Qur’an, and a skilled navigator, which is knowledge of understanding it, and someone with the means of charting the course, which is our adherence to its precepts.  The crew is our good works, and the more deeds we have, the larger the crew.