12.  The Spiritual Into the Mundane

How do you infuse your spiritual ideals into the mundane world of making a living?

Bringing spirituality into daily life is my objective. Since my work occupies one of the largest chunks of my time, it’s obvious that work has to be a major focus of integrating spirituality into ordinary life.

A wise man was once asked, "How can I tell anything about a man’s relationship with God?" He answered, "Look at his relationship with you."

This anecdote illustrates what I think is one of the most important things about bringing spirituality into practicality. It has to be found in my relationships with those who are around me.

That means that if I happen to be in a position where I direct the work of others, I have to make sure that I treat them with love and respect, and not as mere objects to do my bidding. For instance, if I find that an associate has analyzed a point of law or a factual situation carelessly, I could choose either to snap at him and suggest that he’s not competent enough to hold a license to practice law or else I could clearly, calmly and patiently go over the error in a professional way and with the view to teaching him something to avoid a repetition.

Similarly, if one of my partners yells at me for something that he perceives I did incorrectly, I could either defend myself and get into a pitched battle with him or else take another approach. For instance, in one case I remember just plain getting something wrong. My partner asked me incredulously, "How could you possibly do that?" To which I answered, "I made a mistake." I could tell that he had been ready to knock down all my excuses and justifications, and when I honestly reported that I had none, we then moved quickly to correcting the mistake.