The Path: A New Look at Reality - Hardcover

The First Walk
 
 
WHEN I WENT FOR A WALK on the day I met the man, my state of mind was dark.
In addition to the problems of my own life, conditions in our country and the world had thoroughly depressed me.
If I had been asked that morning to comment on the meaning of life, my response would have been, "What  meaning?"
Life, in general, seemed virtually meaningless to me.
* * *
There is a path I follow when I walk. Several miles in length, it winds through the community I live in.
I had barely started along the path that morning when I saw a man ahead of me.
He was strolling so leisurely that I overtook him in less than a minute.
As I began to pass him by, he spoke. "Good morning," he said.
I grunted disparagingly. "Not very," I responded.
"Why do you think that?" he asked.
I had no desire for conversation. "Nothing specific," I answered, starting to move away from him.
"May I walk with you?" he asked.
My inclination was to say in a curt, dismissing manner, "No; please don't."
But his tone of voice was so disarming that I didn't have the heart to do it.
"I wouldn't be much company," I warned him.
"Not so," he said. "I think you'll be very interesting company indeed."
I had no idea why he would say such a thing, not knowing me at all. But I shrugged and made a submissive sound. "It's up to you," I said.
"Good." The man sounded so genuinely pleased that it made me feel guilty for my unfriendly behavior toward him.
He extended his hand as we walked on together. "Delighted to meet you," he said.
That I didn't understand at all. Why should meeting me delight him?
I let it go and, briefly, grasped his hand, looking at him.
He was approximately my height, which is six-foot two, his age somewhere in the middle or late forties, I estimated. He had brown hair and light blue eyes and was wearing an outfit predominantly white--shirt, trousers and jacket. He was a handsome man but it wasn't that which struck me most. It was the expression on his face which took me by surprise.
He seemed the most deeply serene-looking man I had ever met in my life, as though he was possessed of such an inner knowledge and tranquillity that nothing in this world could touch him, much less harm him. I could not help but feel a sense of awe in his presence.
"You live around here?" I asked.
"No." He smiled and shook his head. "This is the first time I've been here."
I presumed that he was staying with someone in the community and said no more. To be truthful, I wasn't interested.
"So," he said. "What is it about the morning that makes it not very good?"
I made a scoffing noise. "What is there that makes it good?" I challenged.
"A beautiful day?" he suggested.
"In a country where one out of every five of our thirty-one million adolescents has at least one serious health problem and can't get basic care?" I said. "In a country where the yearly cost of basic pre-natal care, nutritional guidance and counseling for all prospective mothers can be spent on one day of war?"
"You read that article in the morning paper," the man said.
"Yes," I answered, glumly. "I read the newspaper every morning while I'm having coffee. I don't know why I bother. All it does is anger and depress me.
"The article also said that each year half a million children under the age of three go without immunization against the most common childhood diseases. That each year, seventy-five thousand women receive pre-natal care for the first time at the moment they enter the delivery room. That the infant mortality rate increases every year."
"It's inexcusable," he said.
"To say the least," I muttered. I blew out aggravated breath. "Schools closing. Teachers underpaid or fired. Mass illiteracy. Child care limited or non-existent. Homeless people mounting in number. Unemployment rising steadily. The wealthy growing wealthier. The poor growing poorer. Drug sales running rampant in the cities. Streets filled with violence. Corruption in politics and business. Military expenditures soaring in the hundreds of billions. Gigantic debts assumed by this generation to be paid off by the next. Stagnant economic growth. The infrastructure collapsing--roads, highways, bridges, airports, sewers, water supply systems. Air and water pollution of every sort. Destruction of the environment. Ongoing international chaos. Did you say it was a beautiful day?"
We walked in silence for a while before I said, "I'm sorry. I had no right to take that out on you."
"Not at all," he said. "I sympathize. These things are painful to consider."
"You feel as I do then?" I asked.
"Entirely," he said. "These problems could be terminal."
"Is there any answer to them?" I asked. "Or will they just go on until man is extinct?"
"There's always an answer," he replied.
* * *
"I'd like to know what it is," I said.
"The people," he told me.
"You mean the voters, don't you?" I asked.
"Primarily, yes," he answered. "Most voters are passive though. They attach themselves to some party, then leave it to their leaders to manage things. They never investigate what's being done. They believe what their leaders say. The voter will likely never make the least effort to know what the man he voted for has actually done in his official capacity."
"I won't argue with that," I told him. "Party politics dominate the country."
"Indeed they do," he said. "In political campaigns, voters become agitated about their party, not about the interests of good government. The most successful party politicians are those who can best reach and control voters through their appetites, weaknesses, selfishness and prejudices."
I looked at him in curiosity. His words seemed fully as provoked as mine. Yet, to my surprise, there was no sign of anger in his voice or expression. How could that be? I was unable to speak of these things without becoming incensed. Yet he seemed perfectly composed.
"Bad government will continue while those who are governed are selfish, indifferent and uninformed," he continued. "So long as people/remain blind to the fact that they get what they give individually or as a whole.
"The collective desire of the people will be changed only when people refuse to countenance party politicians who appeal to them for what they know to be wrong.
"Are you saying that we shouldn't have party politics?" I asked.
"Party politics is an enemy to the people because it divides them," he said. "Causes them to be against each other and prevents them from having a united government."
* * *
I made a sound of quizzical amusement.
"Can't say I see that happening," I said. "The end of party politics? Not likely."
He smiled. "Not for a while at any rate," he agreed.
"You really think," I continued, "that everyone is involved in politics only to the extent of his own personal interests?"
"Almost everyone," he said. "Almost everyone adds to the general tendency towards corruption in public institutions."
"Good lord," I said. "Even I hadn't thought it was that bad." From being totally cynical, I felt somehow defensive now.
"Oh, it's not that there are no men at all who would be good officials/' he said. "The problem is that the people don't appreciate or uphold such officials. They forsake them and leave them disappointed. Force them to protect themselves by complaisance or by corruption."
"Is it all hopeless then?" I asked. Odd how my position had been altered from outrage to appeal by the finality of his words.
He smiled at the sound in my voice and doubtless the look on my face.
"Not at all," he said. "While it's true that the majority of people are uninformed, their thoughts largely superficial or callous, there are, among humanity, many who have fundamental virtues; whose thoughts have made them honest,...