FURTHER UP THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

SCOTT Peck passed away not so long ago but in his most productive years, he left behind a legacy that many, many lives for the better. I would like to believe I was among one of the millions who has read his book The Road Less Travelled. Scott was a remarkable man, born to deliver a message that hope, joy and optimism is part of the human package.

ADMIT you know nothing. Self-realisation of ignorance is the beginning of
wisdom. Thus, Dr Scott Peck writes: "I don't know anything" in the opening
chapter of his latest book.
In his first blockbuster book The Road Less Travelled back in 1979,
Peck, a and psychiatrist by profession, lectured convincingly on the
interplay of psychiatry and religion. He told of the necessity of
suffering and the miracle of grace. By the last line of the last page, the
reader will wonder no more why it stayed on the New York Time's bestseller
list for 10 years.
Further Along the Road Less Travelled is a continuation of the
proposition that the road to spiritual growth is one that has to go
through the desert. To fully appreciate it, one should first read the
earlier book. If that one can be described as a `blast', then Further
Along the Road may be aptly termed the `fallout'. By the time Peck got to
writing it, he had, by his own admission, followed the call of a different
drum. He is now an evangelist.
Understandably, the "unending journey toward spiritual growth" is a
march towards religion and matters intangible. In the last paragraph of
the first chapter of Further Along the Road, Peck says:
"As we grow spiritually, we can take on more and more of other peoples
pain, and then the most amazing thing happens. The more pain you are
willing to take on, the more joy you will also begin to feel. And this is
truly good news of what makes the journey ultimately so worthwhile."
Peck's panacea for the ailing masses is laced with poems and mental
excursions into Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and other great
religions. The good doctors personal experiences also add an interesting
flavour. He tells of his own shortcomings. In a sense, his is a very
personal contribution to an impersonal world.
For most parts of Further Along the Road, which is an expanded
compilation of his lectures in recent years, the points about Self-Love
versus Self-Esteem, Taste for Mystery, Matter and Spirit, etc., are
thought-provoking and the doctors sentiments are splendidly noted.
However, doctors and psychiatrists may be in a better position than the
layman to understand fully the last chapter on Psychiatry's Predicament.
There are page's of Peck's ideas which may touch many a personal chord
but the message constantly being driven home is that "each of us must make
his own path through life. There are no self-help manuals, no formulas, no
easy answers."
Even though Peck's ninth book is not as forceful as his first, it comes
across like a faint echo from the Sermon on the Mount. It won't make you
go down on your knees and beat your chest, but it will probably open a
little that creaking door to your spiritual domain.