In our last +1, we spent some time with Carlos Castaneda and his Toltec Warrior. Today, we’re going to spend a little more time with this eccentric teacher. I’ve always found one passage of his to be particularly powerful. THIS one: “Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore, a warrior must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if he feels that he should not follow it, he must not stay with it under any conditions. His decision to keep on that path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. He must look at every path closely and deliberately. There is a question that a warrior has to ask, mandatorily: ‘Does this path have a heart?’” “Does this path have a heart?” ← Well, that’s a powerful question, eh? How do we possibly answer that one?! Enter, some more Castaneda wisdom: “’But how will I know for sure whether a path has a heart or not?’ Anybody would know that. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes 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.” Yikes. (Hah.) That’s Today’s (confronting) +1. Your path have a heart? Of course, there will always be times when a path with heart doesn’t feel quite as heart-centered as it could. Those times often require some re-energizing and micro-adjustments and re-committing and all that. And… There are other times when we’re just not on the right path. Those times may require some zero-based thinking and Deep Work to figure out what path IS the right one for us. In all situations, I believe this is why Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Trust thyself. Every heart vibrates to that iron string.” Here’s to courageously walking our paths with heart with deeper and deeper authenticity. TODAY.
