“There are no easy or simple formulas. In our attitude toward everything we experience, we are obliged to feel a certain emptiness and painful ignorance…
But if your will is firmly anchored in the good and you are willing to suffer all the suffering when it is not quite certain what is good (and so it is, it seems to me, in 98.7 percent of cases), the subconscious will lead your consciousness one step forward in the right direction. In other words, you will do the right thing. But you will not be able to afford the luxury of knowing it at the moment of action. In fact, you will do the right thing precisely because you were willing to give up that luxury. And if this advice seems too vague to you, remember that almost always in the world, evil is committed by people who are absolutely certain they know what they are doing.”
— M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled and Beyond
We move forward on our Path, guided by good intentions, but how certain can we be that they do not lead to hell? Perhaps the first step toward the good is to relinquish the categorical conviction of our own rightness. The next is to pay the price of ‘painful ignorance’ until the moment comes to understand the truth by its fruits. It seems that soulful truth is only the truth one has personally suffered through — walking an untrodden path, without clear signposts, guided only by a quiet inner voice often drowned out by fears and external instructions.
