I have just finished reading After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield. Mr. Kornfield is a Buddhist and he notes that after going to various retreats and obtaining various degrees of enlightenment, one still must go home and do the laundry. Doing the laundry is just his way of saying one must deal with life and other people.
Christians have the same issues. We can hold all the correct beliefs but we still must deal with life; we must put those beliefs into practice which is a whole lot more difficult than just deciding to hold a certain belief.
Mr. Kornfield also notes that the purpose of spiritual knowledge and enlightenment is not about gaining knowledge but about how we love others, how we can be of service to others. [1] In other words, spiritual development is more about our actions than our beliefs or enlightenment.
It does not matter what religion we adhere to or what beliefs we hold, at the core we suffer from the same human frailties—we all want to take the easy road by having the right beliefs or having a mystical experience instead of doing the hard work of changing our soul so it becomes like God.
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[1] Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, New York: Bantam Books, 2000, pp. 105 and 117.
