Preface
Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior
What if you slept, and what if in your sleep you dreamed,
and what if in your dream you went to heaven
and there you plucked a strange and beautiful flower,
and what if when you awoke you had the flower in your hand?
Oh, what then?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
My first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, relates my adventures, training, and tests with an old service-station mechanic whom I named “Socrates.” Readers of Peaceful Warrior will remember how, after expanding my view of life, he sent me away to assimilate his teachings and prepare myself for a final confrontation described at the end of that book.
This period of exile, preparation, and initiation that I am about to relate begins with personal struggles that send me on a quest to reawaken the faith I had found with Socrates, then somehow lost.
Sacred Journey stands alone, and it can be read independent of Way of the Peaceful Warrior. However, you should understand that this story takes place not after, but within Peaceful Warrior. In other words, you could read Way of the Peaceful Warrior to page 184, then read Sacred Journey in its entirety, and then read the rest of Way of the Peaceful Warrior. That’s how the saga actually unfolds in chronological order. It is not necessary to read them this way, but at least now you understand where this story fits within the larger picture.
In the future I expect to write other books in this series. But now we turn to Sacred Journey. I did indeed travel around the world, have unusual experiences, and meet remarkable people, but this narrative blends fact and imagination, weaving threads from the fabric of my life into a quilt that stretches across different levels of reality. By presenting spiritual teachings in story form, I hope to breathe new life into ancient wisdom, and to remind you that all our journeys are sacred, and all our lives, an adventure.
Dan Millman
Brooklyn, NY
Prologue
Sacred Journey of the Peaceful Warrior
Free will does not mean that you establish the curriculum;
only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.
A Course in Miracles
Late at night in an old Texaco service station, during training sessions that ranged from meditation to cleaning toilets, from deep message to changing spark plugs, Socrates would sometimes mention people or places I might someday visit for my “continuing education.”
Once he spoke of a woman shaman in Hawaii. Another time he referred to a special school for warriors, hidden somewhere in Japan. He also told of a sacred book of wisdom, somewhere in the desert.
Naturally, these things intrigued me, but when I asked for details he would change the subject, so I was never certain whether the woman, the school, or the book actually existed.
In 1968, just before he sent me away, Socrates again spoke of the woman shaman. “I wrote to her about a year ago, and I mentioned you,” he said. “She wrote back — said she might be willing to instruct you. Quite an honor,” he added, and suggested that I look her up when the time felt right.
“Well, where do I find her?” I asked.
“She wrote the letter on bank stationary.”
“What bank?” I asked.
“I don’t recall. Somewhere in Honolulu, I think.”
“Can I see the letter?”
“Don’t have it anymore.”
“Does she have a name?” I asked, exasperated.
“She’s had several names. Don’t know what she’s using right now.”
“Well, what does she look like?”
“Hard to say; I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Socrates, help me out here!”
With a wave of his hand, he said, “I’ve told you, Dan — I’m here to support you, not make it easy on you. If you can’t find her, you’re not ready anyway.”
I took a deep breath and counted to ten. “Well what about those other people and places you mentioned?”
Socrates glared at me. “Do I look like a travel agent? Just follow your nose; trust your instincts. Find her first; then one thing will lead to the next.”
Walking back toward my apartment in the silence of the early morning hours, I thought about what Socrates had told me — and what he hadn’t: If I was “ever in the neighborhood,” he had said, I might want to contact a nameless woman, with no address, who might still work at a bank somewhere in Honolulu; then again, she might not. If I found her, she might have something to teach me, and might direct me to the other people and places Socrates had spoken of.
As I lay in bed that night, a part of me wanted to head straight for he airport and catch a plane to Honolulu, but more immediate issues demanded my attention: I was about to compete for the last time in the NCAA Gymnastics Championships, then graduate from college and get married — hardly the best time to run off to Hawaii on a wild goose chase. With that decision, I fell asleep — in a sense, for five years. And before I awakened, I was to discover that in spite of all my training and spiritual sophistication, I remained unprepared for what was to follow, as I leaped out of Soc’s frying pan and into the fires of daily life.
Within the pages of Dan’s first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Socrates sends Dan out into “the fires of daily life” to learn what he must. During this time of difficulty and disillusion, Dan’s is given a grant to travel around the world. Sacred Journey relates the first part of his travels, as Dan searches for a mysterious woman shaman in a Hawaiian rain forest to find a critical clue that will direct him to a hidden school-the next step on his journey.
In the process, he learns the secret of the three selves and experiences the tower of seven levels, finding joy and grief, insights and love as he explores the hidden realms of the mind, the body, and the spirit.
Comments by Dan:
I first intended to write a small book about “awakening the three selves.” But this story appeared, and my fingers started typing. Written ten years after Way of the Peaceful Warrior, and reflecting new and hidden teachings I had since learned from an unusual teacher, Sacred Journey takes readers to a deeper understanding of our lives.
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