Keeping to a spiritual path is not as easy as it looks. Meditation, staying in the now, keeping mindful, reading the latest “it” book, reading one of your past “it” books that got you started into all of this. The list doesn’t seem taxing. Yet it can be surprisingly difficult to remain on a clear spiritual path.

On the song, “When He Returns,” from the album, Slow Train Coming, Bob Dylan sings, “Truth is an arrow, and the gate is narrow that is passes through.” The entire album is Born Again Christian spirituality, but the idea of truth as an arrow and the gate is passes through being narrow applies to any spirituality.

I can fall asleep spiritually very easily, and when I fall asleep, the arrow is gone. When I turn my attention back to my spirituality, it is there waiting. It goes nowhere. I’m the one who goes away. At times, I had nodded off for years.

When I’m not paying attention to my spirituality, my life doesn’t go very well. When I’m paying attention, things are fine in my life – most of all my life isn’t really my life any more. The sense of “me” diminishes and the world grows large. I disappear into the arrow. And the view from the arrow shows that everything is cared for.

Getting back to my spirituality is not a climb, it’s a fall. A release and letting go.

The truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow that it passes through. Beyond that lies nothing. Beyond that lies everything.