BONUS – The Path Already Knows the Way
On destiny, detours, and the quiet intelligence of alignment that guides every step
“Trust the All-Knowing Mind.”
— U.S. Andersen, Three Magic Words
There are moments when an old truth catches the mind at just the right angle, and something previously unseen comes suddenly into view.
Such was the case last week, when a single passage from U.S. Andersen’s Three Magic Words rose from memory: Trust the All-Knowing Mind.
The heading and accompanying paragraphs of Chapter Seven had me reflecting for some time on the journey through the phenomenal world each of us must make. The myriad roles we play, the lives we touch, the vocations we pursue, the wealth we either accrue or squander, the stuff we accumulate, the souls with whom we collaborate—for good or otherwise—in the form of friends, colleagues, family, even petty tyrants, and the host of decisions surrounding each we make along the way.
I recalled the story of the man standing before a forest, desiring to reach the lake beyond. He imagines a straight line as the shortest distance, yet every obstacle—a fallen tree, a swamp, a culvert—forces deviation. The man who trusts his inner guidance finds his way safely through. The one who insists upon his own route, ignorant of hidden dangers, courts misfortune. Think: Man plans; God laughs.
Reflecting on Andersen’s passage, my mind drifted to a well-known image of one’s Doctoral journey depicting peaks, valleys, obstacles, and finally a checkered flag suggesting goal attainment juxtaposed with a straight line through research and writing on to graduation. In short, one believes the journey will be straightforward, yet there are many twists, turns, brief U-turns, and challenges along the way that highlight the journey is never as straightforward as one initially imagined. The same may be said for Medical, Law School, or matriculating to a Trade School to become an Electrician, Plumber, Carpenter, etc.
Andersen’s allegory, simple yet laced with meaning for keen minds, seems to illuminate what has been posited by some as a perennial truth: our journey is not self-authored, only self-experienced.
The Certainty of Destination
Whenever one feels the subtle pull to move toward a persistent goal, it helps to remember: I may not know how—but I know that.
Each of us has what might be called an ultimate destination—not necessarily a physical place or worldly achievement, but a state of wholeness toward which life, in its wisdom, quietly draws us. The Vedic tradition calls this movement ṛta: the natural, self-correcting order of the cosmos.
Whether we name it God, Nature, the Unified Field, the All, or Pure Consciousness, there exists within creation an infallible intelligence that knows where each current must flow. The individual may mistake the bends for detours, but the river never loses its way to the sea.
Thus, it may be said that our destination is certain. We will arrive—if not through this lifetime, then through the sequence of unfoldments consciousness provides. The only question is how directly we travel.
Consciousness as the Variable
The determinant of that directness is consciousness. Every decision we make—every act of thought, feeling, or speech—either harmonizes with Nature’s intention or creates turbulence against it.
The more attuned we are to the All-Knowing Mind, the more gracefully life arranges itself. When the mind is still, Nature’s promptings become audible: a subtle inclination here, a quiet hesitation there. Acting from that inner coherence, one seems to glide rather than push, to be moved rather than merely moving.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi called this phenomenon “the support of Nature.” When consciousness is aligned with its source, even so-called coincidence becomes choreography. As Maharishi wrote in The Science of Being and Art of Living:
Through the practice of Transcendental Meditation, one automatically makes full use of one’s surroundings.
Cultivating what might be termed a transcendental brain, it is not that destiny changes; rather, the journey ceases to be a struggle.
Reflecting on Andersen’s passage and Maharishi’s insight, I am compelled to posit that every choice made in alignment with our highest and best draws us closer to our rendezvous with Pure Consciousness—whereas the lesser choices delay our arrival. Yet arrive we shall.
Nature, it seems, disturbs us only to awaken us.
This brings to mind a fortune-cookie message I received shortly before leaving Atlanta to matriculate at Maharishi International University:
No one is standing in your way anymore. It is time to move forward.
After seventeen years—and more than my fair share of fortune cookies—that single message remains the only one I kept. It arrived precisely when I needed to step into the next phase of my unfolding path. And unfold it has.
The Error of the Straight Line
Modern intellect often prizes linearity—the shortest route between two points, the measurable cause yielding predictable effect. Yet in Nature, progress rarely unfolds in straight lines. Trees spiral, rivers meander, galaxies turn in vast, recursive arcs—all under the guidance of the same force, or rather Mind, that gave rise to them: Pure Consciousness.
Andersen’s “man who predicts the way the Subconscious Mind must work” represents humanity’s insistence on controlling the unknown. But control is not mastery; it is resistance disguised as intelligence.
The spiritually mature traveler learns that detours are designs in disguise. The path’s curvature protects as much as it instructs. The fallen tree prevents a greater fall; the swamp preserves humility; the snake at the culvert warns against haste. Even an impeded departure can lead to a chance encounter offering vital guidance for the road ahead.
Many of us have lived such moments, though not all recognize them for what they are.
To force the straight line is to deny the wisdom of the curve.
The Science of Trust
Neuroscience increasingly affirms what the mystics have long known: that intuition—those seemingly spontaneous insights—arises not from guesswork but from deeply integrated brain functioning. When the mind is rested and coherent, the brain’s prefrontal cortex, thalamus, and default-mode network synchronize, allowing perception to expand beyond linear reasoning.
This physiological harmony, often observed in long-term practitioners of TM, mirrors Andersen’s “trust in the All-Knowing Mind.” It is trust as a neurobiological state—the brain becoming a faithful instrument of universal intelligence.
In such a state, one doesn’t need to predict the future; one participates in it. Decisions feel less like analysis and more like resonance, less like risk and more like recognition.
As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi observed in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990):
What slips below the threshold of awareness is the concept of self... Loss of self-consciousness can lead to self-transcendence, to a feeling that the boundaries of our being have been pushed forward.
Through such coherence, we fall into alignment with Nature—and, in so doing, become points of reference for possibility rather than impossibility. The shift from impossible to I’m possible is more than wordplay; it is consciousness realizing itself.
The Law of Alignment
From the perspective of consciousness, the journey’s quality depends on one’s degree of alignment between the personal will and the cosmic will.
The ego insists, “I know the way.”
The soul whispers, “Be still and let the way know you.”
To the extent that we identify with the ego, we experience friction, delay, and exhaustion. To the extent that we rest in the Self, the path organizes itself around our movement, like iron filings around a magnet coherence is achieved.
In Masonic parlance, this is the transition from the rough ashlar to the smooth ashlar—from raw, self-assertive material to a consciousness refined by the Great Architect’s hand. The individual remains active but now moves in consonance with Nature’s design.
When the Path Walks You
There comes a moment—sometimes sudden and sometimes gradual—when the seeker realizes that he or she has not been walking the path at all; the path has been walking them.
Each decision, each seeming misstep, was itself part of the choreography of awakening. The delays trained patience; the obstacles shaped discernment; the heartbreaks opened compassion; the process itself produced wisdom.
At this point, destiny ceases to be an external endpoint and becomes an inner frequency—a vibration of fulfillment that accompanies every step. One no longer asks, “How far is the lake?” but rather, “How deep is my trust?”
This is enlightenment not as arrival, but as awareness that arrival was never in question.
Suggested Practice: Trusting the Curve
The next time life appears to deviate from your plans, pause before resisting.
Close your eyes and ask inwardly:
What intelligence might this curve conceal?
Breathe deeply and recall Andersen’s wisdom: “He who conceives his goal with faith and never falters no matter the bends in the road will surely arrive at his destination; and always by the most perfect path.”
Trust is not passive; it is participatory. It is the conscious choice to align with the All-Knowing Mind, even when reason sees only detour.
Closing Reflection
The lake awaits.
The fallen tree and the culvert are not delays, but designs.
The All-Knowing Mind has already mapped the way.
Our task is not to redraw the forest, but to move through it with reverence—listening for the whisper that says:
“Walk on. You are being carried.”
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About the Author
Dr. Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a consciousness scholar, executive coach, and Certified Teacher of Transcendental Meditation® based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His work—spanning The Model for Perpetual Growth and Progress and The Seven Layers of Manifestation—explores how Pure Consciousness, neuroscience, and social-systems transformation intersect in the evolution of both the individual and society.
He is the Founder and Director of Radical Scholar Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to consciousness-based research and public scholarship, and President of Serat Group Inc., the parent company of Transcendental Brain, a consulting and educational platform bringing consciousness science into leadership and institutional development.
Alongside his wife, Mina, he co-directs the Cambridge and Metropolitan Boston TM Program and serves as Host and Founder of International Meditation Hour (IMH), a quarterly global gathering dedicated to the unifying power of silence.
He writes from the conviction that the most important race is not between nations or machines, but between the conditioned mind and the awakening soul.
To learn more about him, visit: https://www.barutikmtsisouvong.com/.