Does this path have a heart

Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, you must always keep in mind that the 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 lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is affront to oneself or to others in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition.

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:

Does this path have a heart?

All paths are the same, they lead nowhere. They are paths 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. ‘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 heart, the other doesn’t. One 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 a man finally realises that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point, very few men can stop to deliberate and leave the path.

A path without heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, path with a heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.

For my part, there is only travelling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length.

And there I travel, looking, breathlessly.

Don Juan, Apprentice to a Yaqui Sorcerer