Question: What is the difference between the spiritual student and almost everyone else?

Reply: Picture the ardent spiritual student getting up before dawn to read and reflect. It is dark. But the student studies in the dark and gradually the light dawns. Now contrast this with what most human beings do. They get up and clean their psychological guns, getting ready for another day or fighting with themselves and with others.

Also, the spiritual student has a whole new category of doubts and confusions. He is losing confidence in this world. He is wobbly and sometimes clumsy because everything old and familiar is falling away. He is like a puppet whose strings are being cut and he is sagging. The dedicated citizens of this world, by contrast, often appear very confident and sure of themseles. They have no doubts. Everything is settled. Their strings are tightly in place.