The Innocent Warrior

Siddhartha Gautama spent years in the forest. He tortured his body. Deprived himself of food. Drank his own urine. And sat in the rain.

What did this get him?

Emaciated and on the verge of death.

It was only when he realized that this had gotten him nowhere that he found the true road to enlightenment.

It is the same with the professional athlete and the CEO. It is the same with everyone.

What exactly do I mean? What is the same with everyone?

The idea of penance. The idea of sacrifice. The idea of a “hard work.”

The most pervasive idea throughout the world is the idea that “if you do This, you will get That.”

The idea that “if you just keep doing what they say, be patient and one day it will come to you.”

Nonsense!

Go to your rooftops, open your windows, look down from a helicopter . . . and take a look at all the people in the world. That is exactly what they’re doing.

Doing a prescribed something in exchange for a future promise.

If you buy into this idea, then why don’t you go to the supermarket tomorrow, pay for your groceries and tell the cashier that months or years into the future, when they get around to it, they can deliver your groceries to you.

Everything we’ve been told is a sham.

One giant hoax.

Half-truths have ruined the life of man.

Do you know why you’ve been told to “work hard?” Because they didn’t want you lying around on the sofa.

Do you know why you’ve been told to do penance and pooja and prostrations and worship? So that you could ingratiate yourself to the gods.

Let me ask you something. Have you ever even seen God?

Listen, I don’t know if he exists or not. But one thing I will tell you is that I will not allow myself to waste my time asking such an irrelevant question.

Whether he exists or not, what does that have to do with You?

The only God you will ever have is You!

I’ll say that again. Even though I know you don’t believe me.

The only God you will ever have is You! And instead of exploring him, you abandon him in search of one who lives in the stars that are (conveniently) millions of miles away.

And the reason that you’ve been told that he lives there is because the people who told you this knew you didn’t have a spaceship. And since you didn’t have a spaceship you’d never be able to prove them wrong.

Hard work, penance, worship, and striving are nothing more than Ineffective Habits.

Then what is it that allows a human being to arrive at the very spot he wishes to arrive?

What it is that allows him to achieve and realize anything his heart desires?

An innocent journey.

What is an innocent journey?

An innocent journey is one that is walked with the heart and without the mind.

The heart says Go There! And the mind says What if something happens along the way?

The heart says this is what I’ve always wanted. It brings tears to my eyes. It consumes me. It fills me with life. And the mind says But is it practical?

The heart says this is where I’ve always wanted to go. And the mind says Do you know how that will make you look?

The heart cuts straight to the core. The mind says There are rules you must follow.

The heart says I want it Now. The mind says Others want it as well, so what makes you so special?

You see, hard work is not authentic. It is actually a clever manipulation in order to pacify the mind’s insistence upon rules and penance.

But the innocent journey is a very difficult one to walk.

And the reason it is very difficult to walk is precisely because it is too simple.

You see, man has become accustomed to the idea that that which is not achieved through sweat and complication cannot be of any value.

But what he doesn’t understand is that the sweat and complication were only anxieties superimposed like whip cream on the fundamentally innocent journey. But walking the innocent journey without complication or fanfare is “too easy.” There isn’t enough of a sacrifice or a payment that gives one the feeling that he has “earned” it.

The innocent journey can only be walked by an innocent warrior.

He is “innocent” because he walks a path directly toward his vision. And he does so for no other reason besides the fact that this is what his heart truly craves.

He is a “warrior” Not because he destroys everything in his way or because he is courageous and strong. He is a warrior because he has chosen to walk the knife-edged Himalayan peaks without entertaining the thought of falling.

He is a warrior because his only companion is his heart. And he has found it within himself to leave the mind behind.

His journey is not one of striving or hard work or hope. For the thought of not getting to his destination has never really occurred to him. And it is precisely this that liberates him from the burden of having to work “hard.”

The road may lead him through an inferno. And across treacherous ice crevasses 2000 feet deep. But this will not be “work.” It will not be a penance. It will not be a striving.

These will be innocent natural milestones in his wholly innocent journey.