The world is a book, and he who does not travel reads only one page. (Mar­cus Aure­li­us)

What may one expect from a jour­ney? Wis­dom – in the end; exper­i­ences – along the way; and the anxi­et­ies of pre­par­a­tion – before­hand. What a com­mon­place it is that life is a jour­ney. It is a spir­itu­al com­mon­place of the same kind that the path of the soul's growth is a path too. I walk my path… My path… I seek my path… but it is not enough to seek; one must also find. And if you do find, then you must also act and prac­tise. For it is not enough just to set out; one must arrive…

For cen­tur­ies, per­haps mil­len­nia, such has been man's think­ing, and such our words. True, pro­gress and change express life's change­ab­il­ity, which is the beauty of it, and its tran­si­ence, which is rather more troub­ling. With change comes uncer­tainty, which often gnaws at man; at other times, in self-defence, we take no notice of it.

Why is sta­bil­ity lack­ing? Why can worldly exist­ence be grasped only in its chan­ging con­di­tions? To be on the way is to be head­ing from some­where to some­where and yet, at this moment, to be nowhere. One has set out, but not yet arrived. And it is true that in life change is the only cer­tainty, but change is pre­cisely the mir­ror image of per­man­ence. Yet this is so only in this rel­at­ive world. Only here does it mat­ter to get from here to there; here one must pro­gress, grow – what high-sound­ing words! Here one must face the changes. Per­haps it is pre­cisely because of its con­di­tions and lim­its that earthly exist­ence is held to be wretched. Gran­ted, there is joy in it, but its change­ab­il­ity, its tran­si­ence, its lim­it­a­tion are fright­en­ing all the same…

In con­trast to this lim­ited world, there must be a sphere where it is not change that is per­man­ent, but per­man­ence that embraces the beauty of change, of vari­ety, without los­ing its sta­bil­ity and full­ness. From the abso­lute point of view, being on the way is as much an arrival as stay­ing in one place is pro­gress.

Fear, dis­trust, weak­ness – these turn man to dross. The path of puri­fic­a­tion means facing all of this, and even being unmasked before ourselves. If we become bet­ter, then here, at last, the change­ab­il­ity of the world gains mean­ing! We ought to free ourselves from the shad­ows, for weak­ness is not the same as ten­der­ness, just as chop­ping wood is not the same as cut­ting mar­quetry.

The pre­par­a­tions for a jour­ney fill you with a good deal of excite­ment: you try to pre­pare for everything, which of course is impossible. You pack your things, but the inner pre­par­a­tion is slow in com­ing. There is a hold­ing back in you, a ques­tion welling up from the depths that, even if you try to shoo it away, comes back to greet you: why set out again at all, what awaits me, what should I pre­pare for? And there is anoth­er ques­tion in you, an insist­ent ques­tion that returns again and again, which con­cerns not pass­ive expos­ure but act­ive desire: what is it that you your­self expect from the jour­ney? Inspir­a­tion? Rechar­ging? Enough ammuni­tion for spir­it and soul to last a long while?

You run, you seek, you search – but what is it you find? The love that radi­ates from people is cap­tiv­at­ing whichever way you turn, and see, in every corner of the world man struggles with the same troubles: des­ti­tu­tion, nar­row-minded­ness, suf­fer­ing, unbe­lief, love­less­ness… there is noth­ing new under the sun. The points of col­li­sion, it seems, are alike every­where. And if on your jour­ney you meet oth­ers and see how they live, you can dis­til a great deal from it all. As you med­it­ate on your own feel­ings and on those of oth­ers, very great heights become humanly attain­able: a fiercely glow­ing indif­fer­ence, a dis­tance kept for a life­time, great fer­vour, read­i­ness to act, or ten­der­ness too may des­cend upon you and become yours to live. Per­haps that is why it is said: if you stay at home, you come to know the world; if you set out on the road, you come to know your­self…