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What is the difference between someone who is living a 'spiritual' life, and someone who is not? Not much, really. We all, at times, behave the same way. All of us have 'character defects' that come to the fore when we get scared. We may take care of ourselves at the expense of someone else. We may overeat or overwork or over-medicate in order not to feel our feelings, causing the people around us to suffer by our absence, be it physical or emotional. We may get tired of giving and insist that someone give to us, instead, just for a minute. We may become short with the people nearest us, perhaps speaking to them the way we speak to ourselves, not giving them a break, not cutting them any slack, not allowing them room to be human, to have foibles.
All of us at one time or another behave in a way that makes us feel less than proud of ourselves, a way that causes us to have to look at some aspect of our character, our personality, that still has room for growth and refinement. This is true regardless of whether or not we think of ourselves as living a spiritual life. What then puts us on one side or the other of this equation?
It is simply that, if we truly are living a spiritual life, we will take the time and the energy to step past our own defenses and excuses, the reasons we've given ourselves to explain away our behavior, and we will take responsibility; and this responsibility taking will not involve shaming ourselves and berating ourselves (which response, in the end, only leads to more 'bad' behavior on our part); rather, we will insist on knowing ourselves as we truly are--as expressions of the divine, expressions of nature--knowing our behavior as an aberration from this truth of our being, and doing the work to see how and why we got here and how we might be able to not get here again in the future.
This does not make anyone superior to anyone else. It merely makes some safer to be around, more pleasant to be around, more inspirational to be around than others. I can't insist that anyone I know behave perfectly and never make a mistake. I can, however, and I should insist that those I let in, as well as me, myself, be responsible when we do screw up.
Oh, yes, and also, insist on developing a sense of humor about the whole thing.
Today I will take responsibility when I screw up. And if today I find that I have been absolutely perfect in everything I have done, I will cut some slack for those around me who have not been quite as perfect as have I. (And I will remember the bit about the sense of humor...)
 Yucca Plant, Studio City
All material copyright Jeff Kober
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