When, at times, the spiritual aspirant feels as though there’s no reason to go on…because he can no longer believe in an imagined good somewhere ahead of him, he comes to what seems a complete dead end. And yet, it is exactly in this place that he must step through himself, and persist in the work of doing what is right and true simply for the sake of a Goodness yet unknown, barely realized.

But by what will can he pass into and through this place of emptiness? He is without the fullness, the motivation provided by hope in things seen; he has no force of his own to summon. His heart is dry, his mind barren of reason other than why he should accept what seems an obvious end to his quest.

And so, he stands in a strange desolation. He is double stricken, for his is the poverty and the paradox of somehow knowing that even though he can’t do a single thing to increase his stature…nevertheless, somewhere within him, just ahead awaits a great prize: the realization, inheritance, and authority over worlds untold.

And so, summoning a will not his own… he steps into the unknown.