A striking contrast between the spiritually-based life and the religiously-based life is that religious adherents tend to relate to non-believers in one of two ways.

The first way is to see themselves as the possessors of some ultimate truth, which either the tenets of their faith or simple human charity compels them to press upon non-believers, even if the non-believers don't want to hear that truth. These religious adherents do appear sincerely to love other people. But they seem to love them in such a way as to want above all else to persuade others to their own point of view.

The second way that religious adherents relate to non-believers is to stay away from them. Possessors of the truth themselves, their faith commands them either to isolate themselves from non-believers or to regard them as inferior -- and even unredeemable. These believers withdraw themselves from non-believers and practice their faith in detachment from the unsaved.

What's odd about this is that the founders of these faiths often demonstrate neither of these propensities. Jesus Christ seems to have been equally at home among believers and unbelievers; he told people what he believed if they wanted to know, and otherwise he left them alone. The life of the Buddha is one of constant mixing with those who were followers and those who weren't.

Our own Step 12 suggests that this should be our path as well. Our growth in wisdom, as we practice Steps 10 and 11, should be accompanied by the carrying of the message to others. Our meditation practice is not a means of isolating us from the world and other people, but of enabling us to see that we are that world and we are those people.