With a good compass, you don't need the map

That little tidbit came out in a conversation with a good friend today. I've long had this feeling that the only really crucial step for a human being to make in the course of awakening is learning how to listen to the heart. What a terribly cliched but immensely meaningful statement. It's not the easiest thing to do. It requires inner stillness, awareness, and courage, especially because awakening to your intuitive guide means overcoming the inertia of short-comings, poor behavior, self-centeredness, etc, etc.

And yet there is still the terrible, gnawing tendency for our rational minds to think and scheme and know the plan, to eliminate the uncertainty that lies ahead of us. Sometimes a job or relationship gives us the feeling that our life is "on track" or that we know exactly where we are heading; sometimes life throws strange curves and eludes every attempt to be controlled or put back "on track." The thinking mind gets nasty vertigo when it contemplates the void of not having a plan. For most people this dis-ease leads to a kind of existential nausea. For those who tend to over-strategize and over-plan their lives, the mental gears will fly until the brain overheats, searching desperately for an answer.

Balancing in stillness, beholding uncertainty. How can you ever plan without knowing what's to come?