SACRED JOURNEY OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR

by Dan Millman

“Each of the three selves is here to assist the others, integrating, forming a whole, greater than the sum of its parts.”

  THEN A MYSTICAL VISION played itself out in my mind, shedding light on her words: I saw a monk hiking through the foothills of a mountain range in late autumn. Multicolored leaves—red, orange, yellow, green—showered down from the branches, waving in the chill wind. Shivering, the monk found a cave and went inside, seeking shelter from the elements.

  Inside the cave, the monk found a large bear. They looked each other over; for a few tense moments, the monk didn’t know whether he would leave the cave alive. As the bear slowly approached him, the monk spoke. “Let us help each other, Brother Bear. If you let me live in this cave with you, and if you gather wood for the fire, I will bake bread for you every day.” The bear agreed, and they became friends—the man always warm, the bear always fed.

  The bear represented the Basic Self, and the monk, the Conscious Self. The fire, the bread, and the sheltering cave itself were all blessings of the Higher Self. Each aspect served the others.

  AFTER MANY DAYS OF INNER TRAVEL, returning from far journeys, I came back to earth and into my human form. Then I remembered the final gift given to me by the angel of destiny. Before going to sleep, I asked my Basic Self to reveal to me what this gift might mean, and to show me in a way I might understand.

  In the morning, I had my answer: I was told to examine the object I’d found in the underwater cave. All those loose ends came together, and I knew it was time to leave the hut.

  I stepped outside and squinted as a flood of sunlight stung my eyes and poured through me. I smelled the forest after a fresh rain. I had been in solitude for twenty-one days.

  Weak from lack of food, I walked slowly through the hills, feeling as if I weren’t quite made of flesh and bones—like a newborn, fresh out of my thatched womb. With a deep breath, I surveyed the sights and sounds of a new world.

  I knew that the peace and bliss I now experienced would pass. Once I returned to the everyday world, thoughts would return, but that was all right. I accepted my human condition. I would, like Mama Chia, live until I died. But for now, I bathed happily in the ecstasy of conscious rebirth.

  I passed a papaya tree just as one of the fruits fell. I caught it, smiled, and thanked Spirit for all of its blessings, large and small. Chewing slowly, I inhaled the sweet aroma.

  Then I noticed a tiny sprout nearby, rising through the red earth, pushing upward, toward the sun. Within the seed of this tiny sprout lay the mature tree and all the laws of nature. As that seed evolved, so would we all: Basic Selves evolving into Conscious Selves, expanding and refining their awareness; Conscious Selves rising through the heart to become Higher Selves by surrendering to the laws of Spirit; and Higher Selves evolving back into the very Light of Spirit.

  And each lifts and guides that which is below; each supports that which is above.

  If a tiny sprout could reveal this to me, would the sky someday reveal its own secrets? And what could the stones tell me, or the trees whisper? Would I learn the way of the flowing stream, the ancient wisdom of the mountains? That was still to be discovered.

  What did it all add up to? I remembered a story about Aldous Huxley. In his later years, a friend once asked him, “Professor Huxley, after all your spiritual studies and practice, what have you learned?”

  His eyes still shining, he answered, “I can summarize all I’ve learned in six words: Try to be … a little kinder.”

  Little things make a big difference, I thought. And I breathed a sigh of compassion for those people, stuck in the details of life, who had, like me, lost sight of the bigger picture, the liberating truth at the core of our lives.

  Then I remembered Mama Chia’s final words: “It’s all right, Dan. Everything will be all right.”

  My heart opened, and tears of happiness flowed, but also tears of sorrow for those who still feel alone, cut off, in their own huts of solitude. Then, in a rising wave, I laughed with joy, because I knew with absolute certainty that they, too, would be able to feel the love and support of Spirit—if only they would open the eyes of their heart.

  EPILOGUE

  There Are No Good-byes

  There are no maps; no more creeds or philosophies.

  From here on in, the directions come straight from the Universe.

  —Akshara Noor

  AS SOON AS I RETURNED TO MY CABIN, I reached into my pack and took out the encrusted object from Kimo’s cave. I spent several hours cleaning it, carefully scraping with my Swiss Army knife. After numerous washings and scrubbings, I began to make out, with growing understanding and awe, the shape of a samurai warrior, kneeling in meditation—revealing the next step on my journey—to Japan, or somewhere in Asia, where I would find the master of the hidden school.

  THAT NIGHT, I dreamed of an elderly man, an Asian, his face sad and wise. Something weighed heavily on his heart. Behind him, acrobats somersaulted through the air. And I knew I would find him—not only to receive, but to serve.

  I SAID QUIET FAREWELLS, without ceremony, to each of the friends who had become so dear to me—to Joseph and Sarah, to Sachi and little Socrates, to Fuji and Mitsu with their baby, and to Manoa, Tia, and the others I’d come to know and care about deeply.

  Joseph had told me the location of a small boat Mama Chia had left for me, anchored in a shallow cove hidden by trees at Kalaupapa, the leper colony. This time, I brought sufficient provisions to take me home. On a warm morning in November, with the sun rising out of the sea, I tossed my pack under the seat, slid the boat down the sand into the shallow surf, and climbed in. A breeze caught the sail.

  Out past the surf, on the gentle rise and fall of the sea, I looked back to see rain streaking the cliffs with myriad cascades, some exploding into wind-whipped mist and rainbows before they reached the sea.

  A larger rainbow, glorious in its colors, formed and stretched the length of the island as it arched across the sky. Then, gazing once more toward shore, just for a moment, I saw the limping figure of a large, rounded woman emerging from the curtain of trees through the mist. Her hand raised in farewell, then she was gone.

  I TURNED FORWARD, into the wind, tacking across the channel toward Oahu.

  On that little island of Molokai, guided by an unexpected teacher, I had seen the invisible world, the larger view of life, with eyes that see no duality—no “me” and “others,” no separate self, no light or shadow, nothing within or without not made of Spirit—and that vision would illuminate all the days of my life.

  I knew the visions and experiences would fade, and the restless feeling would continue, because my journey wasn’t over—not yet. I would return home to see my daughter, clear up unfinished business, and put my affairs in order, just in case. Then I would find the school in Japan, and discover another part of Socrates’ and Mama Chia’s past—and my own future. Throwing my life to the winds, I would follow, once again, where Spirit leads.

  THE ISLAND BEGAN TO FADE, then disappear under the cover of clouds. A gust of wind filled the sail, and a sweet fragrance perfumed the air. I looked up, gazing with wonder, as flower petals of every color rained down from the sky. Awestruck, I shut my eyes. When I opened them again, the petals had vanished. Had this shower really happened? Did it matter?

  Smiling, I gazed out to sea. About a hundred yards away, a great humpback whale, rarely seen this time of year, breached the surface and slapped the water with its magnificent tail, sending a wave to greet me, pushing me onward, sending me surfing, like the ancient Hawaiian kings, toward home. And I knew that, like this small boat, Spirit would carry me, as it carries us all, inexorably, toward the Light.

  A Special Afterword

  for the Revised Edition

  I want you to feel what I felt.

  I want you to know why story-truth

  is truer sometimes than happening-truth.

  —Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

  ONE OF THE GREAT BLESSINGS of fiction is
that it enables us, both reader and writer, to live more than one lifetime—to inhabit different bodies and lives—to gain experience and perspectives we might never see through our own eyes.

  Now that you’ve read this story, it has become part of your story, and Mama Chia is now a part of you, too. And, if you’ve read Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Socrates is also your teacher and a part of your experience. I am glad to have the opportunity to share my teachers with you in this way, because we are ultimately in this together.

  Every book has a deeper tale to tell about its conception and birth. And now I can relate some of that story. In the process, you may find some truths about my life that shed light on your own.

  While much of this work is fiction, I did receive a grant from Oberlin College to travel around the world. I did travel to Hawaii and experienced, in one form or another, elements similar to those described in this book. But in contrast to what I implied in earlier editions of this book, I never left my family for years in order to “find myself.” In fact, I traveled only through the summer. But those three months changed the course of my life.

  On the first leg of my journey, I participated in a forty-day intensive training created by a Bolivian master, exploring a unique array of practices, including meditation techniques, relaxation, breath work, concentration, and tools of self-observation. This experience contributed to an expanded awareness, a more relaxed and energized body, and a greater openness to the Divine Spirit that pervades self and world.

  All of that occurred more than thirty years ago. Things change; everything has its time. I’ve since set aside esoteric methodologies to simply live in direct relationship with life as it unfolds, moment to moment. Daily life has become my spiritual practice, and this moment has become my life.

  Each of us, particularly those of us involved in the arena of personal and spiritual growth, are shaped by our own specific lineage of mentors and life experience. In my case, each new source opened a floodgate of information, insight, and practice that generated, in turn, a new phase of my teaching work. After learning the way of the Hawaiian kahunas, I intended to write a sixty-page booklet entitled “Awakening the Three Selves.” But then I thought: Why not use Molokai as the setting of a story? Thus, Sacred Journey was born, and a new teacher, Mama Chia, came into being.

  While the character of Socrates is based upon a wise old mechanic I met in a service station decades ago, Mama Chia is modeled after a gifted intuitive named Bella Karish—about ninety years old at the time of this writing—who has for years provided “Three Selves Readings” for countless people. I wrote Sacred Journey to convey a clear understanding of the three selves, and to describe, in a fresh way, that ascending scale of human awareness and evolution known in Chinese and Hindu traditions as the chakras.

  Since 1990, after the first edition of Sacred Journey was published, whenever I was exposed to unique models, methods, or other illumined perspectives, I would, as Socrates had advised, integrate the material into my own life until I had sufficient clarity to write about it. My books No Ordinary Moments, The Life You Were Born to Live, The Laws of Spirit, and those that followed reflect these successive waves of insight and information.

  But after all the methods, models, theories, and esoteric “secrets” are revealed, one eternal law of reality remains: The quality of our lives is shaped by what we do, moment to moment—by each choice we make and each action we take. Will we choose the main highways or the back roads of life? Will we travel the mountain paths or seek the forest wilderness? Will we contract or expand, struggle with or embrace life unfolding? Each of us must answer such questions for ourselves and make our own choices on this sacred journey, as the winding path appears beneath our feet.

  My next book in the Peaceful Warrior saga will be a major novel about the life of Socrates—how the peaceful warrior found his way. And as the years unfold, I intend to write more stories that reflect the triumphs and heartbreaks that remind us of our common humanity, our courage, our spirit.

  Dan Millman

  Spring 2004

  Acknowledgments

  I WROTE THIS STORY IN SOLITUDE, yet any book is a collaborative venture, completed with the support of editor, designer, typesetter, research assistants, initial manuscript readers who provided feedback, and former teachers on whose shoulders I stand.

  My deep appreciation to the following people who contributed, directly or indirectly, to this manuscript: Michael Bookbinder, editor Nancy Grimley Carleton, research assistant Sandra Knell, Hawaiian historian Richard Marks. Special thanks to my friends and publishers Hal and Linda Kramer for their encouragement and enthusiasm, and for this new edition, my appreciation also to Munro Magruder, Jason Gardner, Mary Ann Casler, Kristen Cashman, Michael Ashby, Monique Muhlenkamp, Cathey Flickinger, Tona Pearce Myers, and the team at New World Library.

  As always, love and gratitude to my wife, Joy, who for three decades has illuminated my life.

  About the Author

  DAN MILLMAN’S BOOKS have inspired millions of readers in twenty-nine languages worldwide.

  A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, he is a former world trampoline champion, Stanford gymnastics coach, and Oberlin College professor. In 1994, he was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

  Years ago, Dan traveled around the world, practicing various forms of yoga, martial arts, and other methods of personal and spiritual growth. He studied with an unusual array of teachers. Over time, he began to write and speak about ways to cultivate a peaceful heart with a warrior’s spirit, using the challenges of daily life as a means of personal evolution and global transformation.

  For two decades he has spoken to groups small and large, across America and around the world. His talks and trainings continue to influence leaders in business, health, psychology, education, politics, sports, and the arts. His practical approach to living has helped countless men and women to clarify and energize their personal and professional lives.

  Dan continues to reach across generations to redefine the meaning of success and demonstrate how to live a meaningful life in the material world.

  For further information about Dan Millman’s books and seminars, or to schedule him for a presentation, please visit his website: www.peacefulwarrior.com or call (415) 491-0301.

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