Matt Licata has a book out called The Path is Everywhere. I love the title, and I love his approach, so I plan to get it. (Although because of my brain fog, I’ll likely not read it in full. In general, I can’t read more than very short texts or excerpts.)
When I hear book titles or read quotes – or anything – I like to use it as an opportunity for exploration.
What does this title bring up in me? What do I find when I explore it as a pointer?
THE PATH IS EVERYWHERE
This is the path. What’s here is the path.
In a direct sense, it’s all happening within and as what I am. It’s happening within and as the consciousness I am. Whatever path there is – whatever content of experience there is, however the world shows up to me – that’s the path.
Also, what’s here is the only path. Any other path only exists in imagination, in mental representations.
In a conventional sense, what’s here are the ingredients for the meal I can make out of it.
So whatever path I am on and however it looks, this is the path. In that sense, the path is everywhere.
THE OPPORTUNITIES HERE
Whatever is here in content of experience, my nature can notice itself.
Whatever is here, it’s an opportunity to notice that my nature has formed itself into it. It’s all the consciousness I am taking these forms.
Whatever is here, it’s an opportunity to relate to it with a little more kindness.
Whatever is here, it’s an opportunity to be a little more sincere and honest with myself.
Whatever is here, it’s an opportunity to find a little more healing for my human self.
In this sense too, the path is everywhere.
GOING OFF MY PATH
This is something I have explored a lot in my own life, not the least because I felt I got profoundly off track – at a very human level – more than a quarter of a century ago.
I went against a very clear inner knowing on a major life decision, felt I got profoundly off track in life, and I am still recovering from it. I made a choice that was not authentic and based in fear, and I got to live the consequences.
At some point, I had the thought that I had gone against the divine will, although that’s clearly not true. I went against my own inner guidance. Whatever happens, including that, is life moving. Whatever happens is, in a sense and if we want to use that language, divine will.
It has profoundly humbled me, and it has somehow – through a lot of messiness – gotten me here to this life.
DIFFERENT PATHS
We can definitely go off our path in terms of what’s authentic, what our inner guidance tells us, and so on. I would never advice anyone to go against their own inner guidance since it has consequences, and sometimes far more profound consequences than we imagine.
At the same time, life creates a new path and we never know where it will take us. As they say, our path is made as we walk.
We never know what could have been or what will be. I have no idea what would have happened if I followed my guidance on that major life decision. It’s not a given that it would have been amazing in a human sense. Similarly, I would never have imagined it would lead me to develop a food forest in a beautiful place in the Andes.
And, as Matt Licata says, the path is everywhere. It’s everywhere in several different senses.