There is a common belief, in the Western World at least, that religion and spirituality are completely separate entities.”Spirituality is good.It is uplifting and energizing.Religion is bad.It causes division and conflict”. That is the basic paradigm.
My first glimpse into the falsehood of this doctrine was during my paticipation in The Sufi Order of the West and its leader Pir Vilayat Khan,for whom I still have great respect and affection.However,there was a bias towards spirituality in that group and religious practice always seemed secondary and non-essential.Then I began, on my own, studying the lives of all the saints that Pir Vilayat extolled-from Ibn Arabi to Jellalludeen Rumi in Sufism to St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa d’Avila in Christianity to Ramakrishna and Raman Maharshi in Hinduism.All of these saints were pious practioners of their own religious faith-whether it be Islam,Christianity or Hinduism.So this dichotomy did not hold up in reality!
Then I arrived at my own Islamic Sufi path in Jerusalem.And the first page of the first teaching I received said the following “In this way we walk on two legs-“Shariah” and “Haqiqat”.Shariah is religion and Haqiqat is spirituality.The two are inseparable!Dossier complete!
Given this conviction I looked around for analogies that might best represent this complementarity.My two favourites were:”The garden and the Fence” and “The setting and the precious stone”.If the garden of spirituality has no fence ,the wild animals will ravage it quickly and nothing will be left for the grower.If the precious stone is missing its setting ,it will be damaged or lost.Both the fence and the setting represent the religious practice.
During one of my prayers yesterday,a new analogy came to me by inspiration.It was about the automobile .If the car is missing the steering wheel or the brakes,the driver is in serious danger,no matter how well-designed the engine is or how refined the fuel.The steering wheel(that keeps us on the straight path) and the brakes(that establish limits) represent the religion.We have seen numerous examples of this play out in the West in the last century-people like Chogyam Trungpa and Rajneesh (Osho) and Da Free John,amongst others, who regularly broke the rules of their own traditions to the detriment of themselves and all of their disciples.Let us take note and learn from those tragedies.
Hope that is helpful to your path.Salaams,Ibrahim