Long ago a young traveller walked through a great forest, and at the
heart of it he came to a place where the path split in two.
He stopped. An old woman sat beneath a banyan tree at the fork, her
eyes bright as a bird's, a walking stick across her knees. She seemed
to have been waiting there a very long time — longer, perhaps, than the
forest itself.
"Two roads, grandmother," the traveller said. "Which is the right one?"
"Both are right," she answered. "And both have always been here. These
are the world's two oldest paths. They were here before your
grandfather's grandfather, and they will be here long after you and I
are forgotten. Nothing wears them away. They are eternal."
The traveller looked down the first road. It climbed gently upward, and
far off it seemed to brighten, as though it led toward an open sky full
of morning light.
He looked down the second road. It wound away level and pleasant,
curving among soft green hills — but he noticed something strange:
after a while it bent, and bent again, and began to circle back toward
the very fork where he now stood.
"The bright road," said the old woman, watching his face, "goes up and
out and onward. Whoever truly takes it reaches the great Light and never
comes back to this fork. The other road is gentle and full of rest, but
it is a circle. Whoever takes it travels a long, happy while — and then
returns here, to begin again."
The traveller was quiet for a moment. "So one road sets me free, and the
other brings me round once more."
"Just so," the old woman said. "That is how the world is made, child.
Two roads, forever. The only question that has ever mattered is which
one your heart prepares you to walk — because when you reach this fork,
and everyone does, you will take the road you have practised for all
your life."
She tapped her stick on the ground. "Now. Walk wisely. And mind your
heart along the way — it is choosing already, with every step you take."
