ix

My first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, relates my adventures,training, and tests with an old service-station mechanic whom Inamed “Socrates.” Readers of Peaceful Warrior will remember how,after expanding my view of life, he sent me away to assimilate histeachings and prepare myself for a final confrontation described atthe end of that book.

This period of exile, preparation, and initiation that I amabout to relate begins with personal struggles that send me on aquest to reawaken the faith I had found with Socrates, then some-how lost.

Sacred Journey stands alone, and it can be read independent ofWay of the Peaceful Warrior. However, you should understand thatthis story takes place not after, but within Peaceful Warrior. Inother words, you could read Way of the Peaceful Warrior to page, then read Sacred Journey in its entirety, and then read the restofWay of the PeacefulWarrior.That’s how the saga actually unfolds

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

P R E F A C E

in chronological order. It is not necessary to read them this way,but at least now you understand where this story fits within thelarger picture.

In the future I expect to write other books in this series. Butnow we turn to Sacred Journey.

I have, in fact, traveled around the world, had unusual expe-riences, and met remarkable people, but this book blends fact andfiction, weaving threads from the fabric of my life into a quilt thatstretches across different levels of reality. By presenting spiritualteachings in story form, I hope to breathe new life into ancientwisdom, and to remind you that all our journeys are sacred, andall our lives an adventure.

D A N M I L L M A Nx

xi

A Sugges t ion f rom Socra tes

Late at night in an old Texaco service station, during trainingsessions that ranged from meditation to cleaning toilets, fromdeep massage to changing spark plugs, Socrates would sometimesmention people or places I might someday visit for my “continu-ing education.”

Once he spoke of a woman shaman in Hawaii. On otheroccasions, he referred to a school for warriors, hidden somewherein Japan or China, and of a book or journal he had lost some-where in the desert.

Naturally, these things intrigued me, but when I asked fordetails he would change the subject, so I was never certain whetherthe woman, the school, or the book actually existed.

In , just before he sent me away, Socrates again spoke ofthe woman shaman. “I wrote to her about a year ago, and Imentioned you,” he said. “She wrote back — said she might be

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

P R O L O G U E

willing to instruct you. Quite an honor,” he added, and suggestedthat I look her up when the time felt right.

“Well, where do I find her?” I asked.“She wrote the letter on bank stationery.”“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 aboutthose other people and places you mentioned?”

Socrates glared at me. “Do I look like a travel agent? Just fol-low your nose; trust your instincts. Find her first; then one thingwill lead to the next.”

Walking back toward my apartment in the silence of the earlymorning hours, I thought about what Socrates had told me —and what he hadn’t: If I was “ever in the neighborhood,” he hadsaid, I might want to contact a nameless woman, with no address,who might still work at a bank somewhere in Honolulu; thenagain, she might not. If I found her, she might have something toteach me, and might direct me to the other people and placesSocrates had spoken of.

As I lay in bed that night, a part of me wanted to headstraight for the airport and catch a plane to Honolulu, but more

D A N M I L L M A Nxii

immediate issues demanded my attention: I was about to competefor the last time in the NCAA Gymnastics Championships, thengraduate from college and get married — hardly the best time torun off to Hawaii on a wild-goose chase. With that decision, I fellasleep — in a sense, for five years. And before I awakened, I wasto discover that in spite of all my training and spiritual sophistica-tion, I remained unprepared for what was to follow, as I leaped outof Soc’s frying pan and into the fires of daily life.

xiiiP r o l o g u e

Where Spirit Leads

The important thing is this:

To be ready at any moment

to sacrifice what you are

for what you could become.

— Charles Dubois

B O O K O N E

Out of the Fr y ing Pan

I was married on a Sunday in the spring of , duringmy senior year at U.C. Berkeley. After a special dinner, Lindaand I spent our brief honeymoon in a Berkeley hotel. I remem-ber waking before dawn, unaccountably depressed. Withthe world still cloaked in darkness, I slipped out from under therumpled covers and stepped softly out onto the balcony so asnot to disturb Linda. As soon as I closed the sliding glass door,my chest began to heave and the tears came. I could not under-stand why I felt so sad, except for a troubling intuition that Ihad forgotten something important, and that my life had some-how gone awry. This sense would cast a shadow over the yearsto follow.

After graduation, I left the familiar college routine and myathletic career behind me. Linda was pregnant, so it was time for

Enlightenment consists not merely

in the seeing of luminous shapes and visions,

but in making the darkness visible.

The latter procedure is more dif ficult,

and therefore, unpopular.

— Carl Jung

C H A P T E R 1

3

me to grow up and find work. We moved to Los Angeles, where Isold life insurance. I felt as if I were inhabiting someone else’s life.Then I learned that a coaching position had opened up atStanford University. I applied for and got the job. We moved backto northern California; our daughter Holly was born. To allappearances I led a charmed life — so I continued to deny thefeeling that something felt fundamentally wrong.

Four years passed. The Vietnam War. The moon landing.Watergate. Meanwhile, I immersed myself in the insular world ofuniversity politics, professional aspirations, and family responsi-bilities. My experiences with Socrates — and his words about thewoman in Hawaii, the school in Japan, and some kind of book inthe desert — faded into the dark recesses of my memory and thenwere lost in the shadows.

In I left Stanford to accept a faculty position at OberlinCollege in Ohio, hoping that I might outrun my depression andstrengthen our marriage. But these new surroundings only servedto clarify our diverging values: Linda was at home in a conventionalworld that repelled me for reasons I couldn’t explain. I envied hercomfort. I looked at myself in the mirror of our relationship, and Ididn’t like what I saw. I had once viewed myself as a knight in shin-ing armor. Now the armor had rusted. Even as I played the role ofa wise college professor, I felt like a charlatan.

Despite Socrates’ lessons about living in the present moment,my mind buzzed with regret and anxiety. I was no longer goodcompany, not even for myself. Overstressed and out of shape, Ilost my physical edge and self-respect. Even worse, I was goingthrough the motions, having lost any sense of the deeper purposeor reason for my existence. I started to wonder: Could I continueto pretend that everything was well when my heart and guts toldme something else? Would I have to pretend for the rest of my life?

D A N M I L L M A N4

Linda sensed my discontent, and we drifted further apart —

she found other, more satisfying relationships, until the weaken-

ing thread that held us together finally snapped, and we decided

to separate. I moved out on a cold day in March. The snow had

turned to slush as I carried my few possessions to a friend’s van

and found a room in town. Lost and miserable, I didn’t know

where to turn.

A few weeks later, while glancing at a faculty newsletter, an

item caught my eye: It was an invitation for interested faculty to

apply for a travel grant to pursue “cross-cultural research.” A sense

of destiny coursed through me — I was certain that I was meant

to do this. Two hours later I had completed the application. Three

weeks later, I was awarded the grant. A window had opened; I had

a direction once more, if only for the summer.

But where would I travel? The answer came during a yoga

class I had joined to get back into some kind of shape. The breath-

ing and meditative exercises reminded me of techniques I had

learned from Joseph, one of Soc’s students who had owned a small

café in Berkeley before he died. Joseph had lived in Mysore, India,

for a time, and had spoken positively of his experiences there. I

had also read books on Indian saints, sages, and gurus, as well as

on Vedantic philosophy. Surely, in India, I might rediscover that

transcendent sense of freedom I had experienced with Socrates.

I would travel light, taking only a small backpack and an open

airline ticket for maximum flexibility. I studied maps, did some

research, and got a passport and immunizations. My plans made,

I told Linda the news and explained that I would send our daugh-

ter postcards and would call when possible, but that I might be

out of touch.

“That’s nothing new,” she said.

5O u t o f t h e F r y i n g P a n

On a warm spring morning just before the school year ended,I sat on the lawn with my four-year-old daughter. “Sweetheart, Ihave to go away for a while.”

“Where are you going, Daddy?”“To India.”“Where they have elephants?”“Yes.”“Can Mommy and me go with you?”“Not this time, but someday we’ll go on a trip together — just

you and me. Okay?”“Okay.” She paused. “Which way is India?”“That way,” I pointed.“Will you be gone a long time?”“Not so very long. Just the summer — maybe a little longer.

You’ll have summer camp.”“But I won’t have you. Who will read to me before I go to

sleep?”“Your mommy will.”“You’re funnier. And why can’t you move back home with us?”I had no answer to that. I could only say, “Wherever I am, I’ll be

loving you and remembering you.”“Do you have to go, Daddy?”It was a question I had asked myself many times. And

answered. “Yes, I do.”She sat with this for a few moments. “Okay. Will summer

camp be fun?”“I expect it will.”“Will you send me postcards?”“Whenever I can,” I said, putting my arm around her. We sat

this way for a while, and I think it made us both happy and sad atthe same time.

D A N M I L L M A N6

A week later, the school year ended. After a bittersweet good-bye to Linda, I hugged my little daughter and slid into the taxi.“Hopkins Airport,” I said to the driver. As we pulled away, Ilooked back through the rear window to see my familiar worldgrowing smaller, until only my own reflection remained, staringback at me in the rear window. I had the summer to search, andto see what would unfold.

7O u t o f t h e F r y i n g P a n

From the book SACRED JOURNEY OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR. Copyright © 1991, 2004 by Dan Millman . Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com or 800/972-6657 ext. 52.