Most religions talk about the truth.  And most religions encourage their adherents to follow the truth.  As I read, as I have many times, some of the Bible and the Qur'an's verses concerning such things, I got to wondering, as I have many times, how does one do this?  How does one "follow" the truth?
     It seems that if there is truth, and most of us would like to think that there is, it can only be one thing.  Otherwise, it would not be truth.  If all things were true, and if all things were truth, nothing would really be true or truth.  Furthermore, if we are to "follow" the truth, truth must be not just a black and white proposition but an experience, something into which we can step and know.  We can read scriptures, but unless we can experience them, they remain, at best, words.  Wonderful words, perhaps, but words nonetheless.  Without history or cultural and societal connections, words, any words, make no real point.
     So truth must be something we can access if it is to be useful to us.  This applies to scientific as well as literary, philosophical, and religious truth:  it must be tangible and applicable to our lives.  How could it otherwise be truth?  Most of us have read something about the history of religion, humanity's many and often troubled attempts to come to grips with the perceived presence of the truth.  More often than not, the religions that have given people the most meaning have been those which have provided the clearest way for people to "know" the truth.  Only then would they have been able to "follow" in the truth.
     To follow the truth, then, is to experience it in such a way that it becomes palpably real in our lives, so much that it moves us in ways we cannot foresee or imagine.  If we could control truth, it probably isn't truth.  Truth should control us, not we it.  That's what makes it truth.
     So does Jesus say in John 8:32 that, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."  God doesn't want us to mistake him for ourselves.