Path With a Heart

Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions.  To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life.  Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is no affront to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do.  But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear.

I warn you.  Look at every path closely and deliberately.  Try it as many times as you think necessary.  Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question.  This question is one that only a very wise person asks.  My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it.  Now I do understand it.  I will tell you what it is; does this path have a heart?

All paths are the same; they lead nowhere.  There are paths going through the bush or into the bush.  In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere.  My benefactors question has meaning now.  Does this path have a heart?  If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.

Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t.  One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it.  The other will make you curse your life.  One makes you strong; the other weakens you. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when you finally realize that you have taken a path without heart, the path is ready to kill you.  At that point very few can stop to deliberate and leave the path.

A path without a heart is never enjoyable.  You have to work hard even to take it.  On the other hand, a path with a heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it. For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart.  There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenges is to traverse it’s full length.

And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly . . .

Carlos Castaneda