Eightfold Path

“ Dear brother, one path, and one path only, leads to what all men desire—peace and happiness. One path, and one path only, leads to what all men know they ought to seek—purity and godliness. We are like men in the backwoods, our paths go circling round and round, we have lost our way. 'The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, for he knoweth not how to come to the city.' Jesus Christ has cut a path through the forest. ”

“ And there they walk the rather that others also may follow them, and departing from evil may be joined to them in the highway to heaven.—Jermin.
Every man has a highway of his own. It is formed, as our forefathers formed their roads, simply by walking often on it and without a pre-determined plan. Foresight and wisdom may improve the moral path, as much as they have in our day improved the material. The highway of the covetous is to depart from poverty and make for riches with all his might. In his eagerness to take the shortest cut he often falls over a precipice, or loses his way in a wood. ”

“ Now this way to the other world is not, as Aeschylus says in the Telephus, a single and straight path—if that were so no guide would be needed, for no one could miss it; but there are many partings of the road, and windings, as I infer from the rites and sacrifices which are offered to the gods below in places where three ways meet on earth. The wise and orderly soul follows in the straight path and is conscious of her surroundings ”

“ Even in the midst of houses, the path suggests school-children with their luncheon-baskets, or workmen seeking eagerly the noonday interval or the twilight rest. A footpath cannot be quite spoiled, so long as it remains such; you can make a road a mere avenue for fast horses or showy women, but this humbler track keeps its simplicity, and if a queen comes walking through it, she comes but as a village maid. ”

“ SHORT CUTS.
Did you ever know a path across a level field to be straight, when formed by the feet of wayfarers alone? There is the opposite stile which you seek, there is nothing to turn you to the right hand or to the left, but your own swerving fancy; and that makes the field-path crooked, invariably. It seems as if no one could walk straight alone, nor indeed correct himself, once for all, when wrong. The moment he becomes conscious of a deviation from the true track, he leaves it again in the other direction. ”

“ That narrow foot-path led to civilisation, and has broadened into the highway because human fellowships and needs have multiplied and directed the countless feet that have beaten it into permanency. Every new highway has been a new bond between Nature and men, a new evidence of that indissoluble fellowship into which they are forever united. ”

“ In paths which they saw not, who thought me prisoner, in the paths of Thy righteousness, in the paths of Thy commandments....For every path is a way, but not every way is a path. Why then are those ways called paths, save because they are narrow? Broad is the way of the wicked, narrow the way of the righteous. ”

“ You will come across many rough and difficult places, but do not turn aside, though the path leads you over them. You may see other paths that lead round them, but don't turn off from the narrow one. Don't take the others; they don't lead up, they lead down. The straight path is the only right one. ”

“ Then the dim lips of the shadow moved—I heard a faint voice call:
‘On! on! Time must never linger; Death, the king, is end of all.’
So along the path we wandered—oh! the bliss of those short hours!
Youth and Hope and Joy together 'mid the everblooming flowers
That on life's smooth path were glowing soft beneath my naked feet,
Till I envied nought in Heaven, thinking here my lot complete.
As I raised the flowering branches that across my path would stray,
Lo! I found amidst the blossoms at my feet Love sleeping lay. ”

“ The path the iron worker daily treads at the edge of the sandy platform, that narrow path that lies between running streams of fire on the one hand and a sheer drop on the other, is but an emblem of the Road of Life along which he must walk. ”

“ Our path lay through a wood, and as twilight deepened we sometimes doubted whether we had not gone astray through the gloom of the thicket. You know that a mile of unknown road, with some suspicion hovering in the mind as to whether you are in the right path, becomes at least three, or rather one feels as if it would never end. ”

“ Or, even, as in Antony’s case, she will leave us to imagine there is one route and one route only by which we may reach our goal. And then, whatever our choice, she may suddenly plant a huge barrier across the path, labelled,—No thoroughfare to your goal in this direction.
Sometimes it is possible to defy fate, retrace 258 our steps, and start anew towards the goal. Occasionally we will find that we have burnt our bridges behind us; we are up against an obstacle, and there we are bound to remain helpless. And here fate appears at her worst trickery. ”

“ This is the straight Path, the fixed and immovable foundation. Whatsoever is raised on this foundation, the changes and chances of the world can never impair its strength, nor will the revolution of countless centuries undermine its structure. ”

“ THE LOVE STORY of ABNER STONE I
It is a long path which stretches from forty-five to seventy. A path easy enough to make, for each day's journey through life is a part of it, but very difficult to retrace. When we turn at that advanced mile-stone and look back, things seem misty. For there is many a twist and angle in the highway of a life, and often the things which we would forget stand out the clearest. ”

“ Our thoughts are so rarely turned to the road where every stile and path is familiar, but more often they run amuck wherever we catch sight of anything that bears a likeness to a trail, and we’re ready to swear it’s the King’s highway. ”

“ I note this as a characteristic of the Road, quite apart from the more obvious considerations; such as, that primitive man would seek a ford; that he would seek gravel rather than clay; that he would try to pass as high up a river as possible, and that, other things being equal, he would keep to the general alignment of his path as much as possible in crossing a river. All these are self-evident without the test of experience, but this characteristic of which I speak is one that would not occur to a traveller who had not tested it with his own experience. ”

“ Whatever path we take, it will be curved. But amongst the various possible paths which lead from one point to the other on the farther side of the hill, there is one—and only one, as a rule—which is shorter than any of the others, as we could prove by means of a tape. ”

“ It is rolled up into the present and projected toward the future. Still less is there a path or several optional paths definitely laid out ahead of us in the future. We break our own paths as we go forward. It is like the big snowballs that we boys used to roll up to make forts out of; all the snow it has passed over is a part of it, and in front the snow is trackless. ”

“ To what state or place does The Path lead? Let us attempt to answer by asking you to imagine a series of millions of circles, one within the other. Each circle means a stage of Life. The outer circles are filled with life in its lowest and most material stages—each circle nearer the Centre holds higher and higher forms—until Men (or what were once Men) become as gods. Still on, and on, and on. does the form of life grow higher, until the human mind cannot grasp the idea. But what is the Centre? The MIND of the entire Spiritual Body—the ABSOLUTE! ”

“ To this the son: "What thou sayest about main roads is true. [6] For on a certain day when my companions and I wished to arrive in the city by sunset and were still a long way from it, we saw a footpath which it seemed would shorten the journey. But we met an old man and inquired of him about the course of that path. The old man said: "The footpath leads more direct to the city than the highway and yet you will arrive there more quickly by the highway.' When we heard this we considered him a fool, and letting him proceed along the highway, we turned into the bypath. ”

“ I wonder if there is ever a real No Thoroughfare if one faithfully keeps to the path as he sees it through life? Is it that one, going with dulled eyes, fixed only on some preconceived notion of where he thinks the path should go at some given point, simply misses the clue? Which may be there if he could see it? Take the next step—no matter if for the moment it seems to lead nowhere. ”

“ When they fancy they recognise a path, they will not leave it under any pretext, certain that if they Were so imprudent as to turn to the right or left, they would not fail to lose themselves, and have infinite difficulty in finding their road again. ”

“ I know that right and wrong are here comparative; and that it may be wise to continue in a path which you have already trodden, though it may not be the most direct, or the least rugged, rather than encounter the hedges and ditches which may lie between you and the straight and even road. But if you can satisfy yourself that the advantages of the direct road will, in all probability, more than balance the labour and risk of getting into it, you would be foolish not to make the change. ”

“ My union with you, my love, was only of the wayside; it was well enough so long as we followed the same road; it will only hamper us if we try to preserve it further. We are now leaving its bonds behind. We are started on our journey beyond, and it will be enough if we can throw each other a glance, or feel the touch of each other's hands in passing. After that? After that there is the larger world-path, the endless current of universal life. ”

“ I must do as you do? Your way I own
Is a very good way. And still,
There are sometimes two straight roads to a town,
One over, one under the hill.
You are treading the safe and the well-worn way,
That the prudent choose each time;
And you think me reckless and rash to-day,
Because I prefer to climb.
Your path is the right one, and so is mine.
We are not like peas in a pod,
Compelled to lie in a certain line,
Or else be scattered abroad.
’Twere a dull old world, methinks, my friend,
If we all went just one way;
Yet our paths will meet no doubt at the end,
Though they lead apart to-day. ”

“ For the crooked path has no roads, but has many pathless places and stumbling-blocks in it, and it is rough and thorny. It is injurious to those who walk therein. But they who walk in the straight road walk evenly without stumbling, because it is neither rough nor thorny. ”

“ Of necessity a path must begin somewhere and have a destination. Of necessity it must cross certain country, overcome obstacles, or go round them. By nature you come at new views from a path and so obtain fresh suggestions. A path entails labour, and by labour ease. It must have a purpose, and so must originate in an inspiration. And yet the man who makes a path ignores, as a rule, the high importance of his task. ”

“ Every path but your own is the path of fate. Keep on your own track, then. ”

“ Each of them moves in the same path― not in many paths, but in one only, which is circular, and the varieties are only apparent. Nor are we right in supposing that the swiftest of them is the slowest, nor conversely, that the slowest is the quickest. ”

“ Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth." Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.Then said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching. ”

“ By this occasion the path is very narrow, just wide enough and high enough for one man to walk upright. They have hollowed, as they found it easiest to work, and have carried their streets not exactly where were the ancient ones, but sometimes before houses, sometimes through them. ”

“ From their climax you look over the whole world, and you feel your journey to be adventurous and your advance to have taken some great definite step from one province and people to another.
I would not be bound by the exaggerated zig-zags of the road, which had been built for artillery, and rose at an easy slope. I went along the bed of the dell before me and took the forest by a little path that led straight upward, and when the path failed, my way was marked by the wire of the telegraph that crosses to Belfort. As I rose I saw the forest before me grow grander. ”

“ But what will be the path which it pursues? We are so accustomed to see a stone thrown into the air moving in a curved path, that we might [Pg 145] naturally think a body projected into free space will also move in a curve. ”

“ As our honor parts us. But often in the woods we find a place where the road ends in a field or hill, and there the tracks cross and intersect each other, and in this hour I feel that my path has come to an end. ”

“ But how will you find good? It is not a thing of choice: it is a river that flows from the foot of the Invisible Throne, and flows by the path of obedience. ”

“ Such cannot abide habit-hedged wildernesses. They follow the Open Road, they see for themselves, and will not accept the paths or the names of the world. And Sight, kept clear, becomes, curiously, Insight. A thousand had seen apples fall before Newton. But Newton was dowered with the spirit of the Open Road!
Sometimes as I walk, seeking to see, hear, feel, everything newly, I devise secret words for the things I see: words that convey to me alone the thought, or impression, or emotion of a peculiar spot. ”

“ The platonising Philo addresses this Logos as Christ, "As God is the first and only king of the universe, the way to Him is rightly called the 'Royal Road.' Consider this road to be philosophy ... the road which the company of the ancient ascetics took, who turned away from the entangling fascination of pleasure and devoted themselves to the noble and earnest cultivation of the beautiful. The law names this Royal Road, which we call true philosophy, God's word and spirit." ”