In the previous article I wrote about the concept that was introduced by Jesus, the narrow vs. the wide road:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Mt 7,13-14

Here’s what it’s about. The huge majority of people will say that they desire salvation. However, they aren’t willing to go much out of their way to attain it. They want to keep their old life, and add salvation to all the great things that they perceive there. That’s the wide road.

The narrow road is to perceive that there is nothing of value in your old life. All is already lost, and trying to preserve anything is insane, like someone being born a pig and trying to preserve his piglets and pigpen.

People who think they already have something of value are disinclined to invest effort into salvation, and will perceive it as a sacrifice. They will see their shackles as jewelry. The people who understand their problem will not see investment of effort into spiritual practice as time and effort taken away from their worldly life, they will see it as the singularly important thing, and everything else as time and effort lost.

Jesus actually talked about that, too:

When one of those who were reclining at the table with Him heard this, he said to Him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”
Parable of the Dinner
But He said to him, “A man was giving a big dinner, and he invited many; and at the dinner hour he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come; for everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’ And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’” Lk 14,15-24

That is the meaning of the other frequently quoted section:

“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it. Mt 10, 37-39

Also, that is the meaning of “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Mt 19, 24

The Zen version of that would be that in order to put something in a cup, it’s better to start with one that is empty. If one thinks he already has something of value, he will seek everything else only as an addition. Such people then obviously make half-assed attempts at spirituality, and they of course fail. You can’t organize your life so that you fuck yourself up for 16 hours and then sleep, and expect to attain high spirituality. No more can you expect to replace one of those 16 hours with some spiritual practice, as a compromise, and attain high spirituality. No, you must find a way to make the largest possible part of those 16 hours into a spiritual effort. You don’t need to quit your job and live in a cave for that to work. However, you need to have your priorities straight. Washing dishes is one of the most important tools for learning how to meditate during daily activities, and I was surprised to find out that all my students failed at that. It’s not about washing dishes, it’s about being able to occupy the body with a repetitive task that takes time and you’re not bothered by others, during which time you can meditate as deeply as you could if sitting in some asana in a cave. Part of the lesson is what the great Ram Gopal told Yogananda: if you have a room in which you can lock yourself in and be alone, there’s your Himalayan cave, there you will find the kingdom of God. Another part is that meditation can become the norm of your consciousness, rather than the exception. It’s the foundation of karma yoga: the form of yoga where you act as an expression of meditation, act by following the inner spiritual guidance. This is the highest, most demanding form of yoga, but it is also the form of yoga that is most likely to result in high spiritual achievement, because it is inherently immune to bullshit. In every other form of spirituality you can deceive both yourself and others, but in karma yoga, that doesn’t work, because reality of daily action gives a harsh feedback and if you’re doing something wrong, you will either be unable to meditate or you will be unable to work. If your actions are wrong they will snap you out of meditation, they will switch you out of inner alignment. If your meditation is crap, it will interfere with the things you have to do and you’ll do shoddy work.

However, in a realistic situation, it might be the only way for most people. It certainly was the only way for me, to the point where you can live with me 24/7 and not see me meditate, not because I don’t, but because it’s so expertly hidden in everything I do, it’s never obvious. It started with things where I had to do something repetitive and could be left alone – washing dishes, vacuum-cleaning the place, washing the car. Then I added things where I was surrounded by others, but without interaction; taking a ride in a bus, walking through the city, sitting somewhere in a crowd. Then I added intellectually demanding tasks (Object Pascal coding). Eventually, I added interaction, and it didn’t take all that long – it took me less than a year, perhaps, to make meditation the foundation of everything else that I do, instead of an addition that tries to squeeze itself into some miraculously vacant time slot, which never works. That’s the thing about the narrow path, that’s less travelled: instead of finding excuses for failing, you find ways to succeed. There are no important, static elements that can’t be rearranged or removed if necessary. It’s all a matter of priorities.