I reject any spirituality that doesn’t allow us to be fully HUMAN too.

If “spiritual teacher” means someone who has transcended their awkward, vulnerable, juicy, messy humanity, I wish to have nothing to do with the label. It is meaningless to me, and a terrible, destructive lie.

If “spiritual teacher” means someone who sees the “fierce grace” (thank you, Ram Dass) in the pits of suffering, and the unspeakable beauty in our wounded and tender places, and the nonduality shining brightly in the damn chaos of duality, and the ever-present existence of a love so vast it cannot be understood by mind, a love that does not shame our shame, or fear our fear, or attempt to purify our “impurities” - a love that loves our imperfections and mistakes and embraces them in loving awareness in each and every moment of our lives - then sign me up!

If “spiritual teacher” means someone who reminds us to trust the night, and make sweet love to the darkness inside, and bear the unbearable in every new Now, and awaken to the sacred in the ordinary and the mundane, then count me in. Count me fucking in.

- Jeff Foster