Everything is in constant motion. Nothing ever stands still. Even the so-called laws of the universe are in constant flux.

We are either jumping up, or falling down. We are breathing in, or breathing out; gaining, or losing fitness; growing, or decaying; learning, or forgetting.

So it is with spiritual progress. There is no standing still: we are either moving forward or we are falling backwards.

To ensure we move always forward, there can be no holiday from the spiritual life, for meditation is not about what we do, but who we are. We eat every day to nourish our bodies; we meditate every day to nourish our consciousness. We eat on weekends and holidays, because our bodies are with us: so we must meditate wherever our consciousness accompanies us – everywhere, every day.

There are no straight lines in Nature. Everything is curves, spirals, pulses and waves – even light, time and space. Our spiritual progress never proceeds in a straight line of continuous and even development. It proceeds rather in a spiral. If you follow the spiral groove of a screw from its base to its point, you will notice it goes up on one side, and down again on the other, yet the overall trend is always upward. Each high point on one side is always higher than the previous high points, while each low point on the other side is higher than the previous low points.

So never be disheartened by a dip in the quality of your meditation. Persist. Take it as a temporary lull preparing for a fresh surge of inspiration and aspiration to carry you upwards to a higher, vaster awareness.

No holiday! When we stand still, we drift backwards. Face forward, strive forward and stride forward, ever forward to the goal.