The Difference between Knowing the Path and Walking the Path
The Path to Self-Discovery in the Matrix
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What is the Difference between Knowing the Path and Walking the Path?
1.1 Two Perspectives: Knowing and Walking
Context of the Quote
2.1 Neo Visits the Oracle
2.2 Neo’s Choice
2.3 The Moment Elucidating the Difference between Knowing the Path and Walking ItNeo Becomes the One
Applying This Lesson to Guidance We Receive in Life
I love to extract spiritual lessons and contemplate deep insights into reality, human society and life from movies. There are relatively few movies which provide this opportunity, but The Matrix is definitely one of the most famous. The Matrix has spawned many popular quotes and metaphors and it is one of the main movie references in spiritual circles and for people who are beginning to come to terms with the true nature of the reality we are living in.
For a long time I have wanted to delve into the meaning of one of my favorite quotes from The Matrix: “there’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” The reason this is one of my favorite quotes, is because I have such a comprehensive understanding of it from firsthand experience. It also illustrates with great clarity why it seems as though my guides lie to me sometimes. So without further ado, I’ll dive into this subject.
Spoiler Alert (by the way)
1. What Is the Difference between Knowing the Path and Walking the Path?
So the question at hand is, what does Morpheus mean when he says to Neo “There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” It’s easy enough to say what the difference is. In one single word, the difference between knowing the path and walking the path is perspective. It is the explanation behind this answer which reveals important insights.
1.1 Two Perspectives: Knowing and Walking
As I rewatched The Matrix with a focus on this quote, I found that the entire movie was essentially Neo’s personal path to self-discovery, the path to that which he is destined to become in life by means of the process of his self-discovery.
So to break down the meaning of Morpheus’s quote, I have focused on the role of the Oracle in the Matrix, because the Oracle represents our non-physical guides, and, ultimately, any guidance in life, be it intuition, following the heart, guidance we receive in meditations, etc. The Oracle represents those who know the path we are walking. With the Oracle being guidance, Neo, then, represents you and me, the ones receiving the guidance and walking the path of our own self-discovery to reach our full potential.
So the two perspectives in Morpheus’s quote are represented by the Oracle, who knows the path, and Neo, who, like us, is walking the path.
2. Context of the Quote
The context from which the “knowing the path and walking the path” quote emerges makes the meaning of the quote very clear. I found two scenes in addition to the scene in which the quote is spoken, which form the foundation to the meaning of Morpheus’s words.
2.1 Neo Visits the Oracle
From the very beginning of the movie, we learn that Neo might be “the One” who will save humanity from the artificial intelligence monstrosities that have enslaved the world. Morpheus tells Neo he is the One, and the other characters trust Morpheus as the wisest of them and as their leader. Neo, however, is doubtful and he is still processing a lot of information that has just suddenly been dumped on him. The Oracle, who prophesied about “the One” who is to save humanity from the AI monstrosities, is supposed to tell Neo whether or not he is the One, so Morpheus and Neo go to see her. Several lines of note are spoken during this segment of the movie.
Visiting the Oracle: Neo and Morpheus in the Elevator
The scene opens with Neo and Morpheus in an elevator on the way to meet the Oracle. Neo asks Morpheus about the Oracle and asks him if the Oracle is never wrong.
Neo: So is this the same oracle that made the prophecy?
Morpheus: Yes.
Neo: And she knows what? Everything?
Morpheus: She would say she knows enough.
Neo: And she’s never wrong…?
Morpheus: Try not to think of it in terms of right and wrong. She is a guide, Neo. She can help you to find the path.
Note that Morpheus responds by telling Neo not to think of the Oracle’s words as being right or wrong. The Oracle is a guide. She knows Neo’s path and she will say whatever she needs to say to Neo to ensure that he walks in the right direction on his path. Whether what she says to him is right or wrong, true or false is irrelevant, because she just needs to get him to do what he needs to do and choose what he needs to choose to walk his path for him to become the One, which corresponds to us fulfilling our destiny, or life purpose.
Visiting the Oracle: Neo Breaks the Vase
There are several important exchanges that take place between Neo and the Oracle during his visit to her. First, Neo breaks the vase:
When Neo enters the kitchen where the Oracle is baking cookies, he stands just inside the doorway and to his left is a vase on a small table. This dialogue ensues:
The Oracle [staring into her oven]: I know you’re Neo. Be right with you.
Neo: You’re the Oracle?
The Oracle: Bingo! Not quite what you were expecting, right? Almost done! Smell good don’t they! I’d ask you to sit down, but you’re not going to anyway. And don’t worry about the vase.
Neo [turning to his left to look for a vase, and knocking it to the floor]: What vase?
This little accident with the vase was really a set-up by the Oracle showing us, and Neo, that her predictions can sometimes be self-fulfilling prophecies more than predictions. After Neo breaks the vase, the Oracle says to him “what’s really going to bake your noodle later on, is would you still have broken it if I hadn’t said anything.”
It seems unlikely to me that Neo would have broken that vase if the Oracle had not said anything. She created that incident. We might conclude that there is therefore an element of deception in her guidance, and that if she had not given that "guidance," Neo would not have broken the vase.
Similarly, if the Oracle had not given Neo the guidance she was about to give him, he would not have become the One. So, the element of deception in her guidance here, would be that she’s not really predicting the future, and that’s not her job either. Rather, she is shaping the future by directing Neo’s thoughts and beliefs in ways that cause him to behave in the way he needs to behave to fulfill his life purpose of becoming the One.
The Oracle then asks Neo if he thinks he is the One and he replies that he doesn’t know. Then she points out a sign to him over the door that reads Know Thyself in Latin. The Oracle knows that Neo is the person who will become the One, but unless he himself knows he is the One, he won’t ever fulfill his destiny of being the One. He must go through a process, overcome certain challenges on his path before he is able to mature into his destiny of being the One.
Checking Neo Out
The Oracle checks Neo out and tells him in so many words that he is not the One—this, despite the fact that she knows he is the person who will become the One. Because she knew his path, she foresaw the choice he would have to make that would give him the experience that would transform him into the One. She also knew that for him to make the right choice in the critical moment, he had to believe that he was not the One. From our perspective, I think we would consider this to be a lie.
The last important thing the Oracle tells Neo, is precisely that he is going to face a choice. Morpheus will sacrifice his life to save Neo, because Morpheus believes that Neo is the One and Neo will be faced with a decision—should he save Morpheus’s life or his own? The Oracle says one of them will die, and Neo will have to make the choice that determines which of them it is.
2.2. Neo’s Choice
Later on in the movie, Neo finds himself in the exact situation the Oracle had predicted. Morpheus had gone into the Matrix to save Neo, and ended up getting captured by the antagonists of the plot and they were in the process of extracting critical information from Morpheus’s brain. With Neo and his “team” now safely out of the Matrix, and Morpheus still stuck in the Matrix, they decided that they would have to kill Morpheus before the antagonists procured the information they were extracting from Morpheus. But just as they were about to pull the plug on Morpheus and kill him, Neo says wait…
Neo: Stop! I don’t believe this is happening.
Tank: Neo, this has to be done!
Neo: Does it? I don’t know, I… this can’t be just coincidence, it can’t be.
Tank: What are you talking about?
Neo: the Oracle—she told me this would happen. She told me…that I would have to make a choice.
Trinity: What choice? … What are you doing?
Neo: I’m going in.
Trinity: No you’re not!
Neo: I have to.
Trinity: Neo, Morpheus sacrificed himself so that we could get you out, and there is no way that you’re going back in!
Neo: Morpheus did what he did because he believed that I’m something I’m not.
Trinity: What?!
Neo: I’m not the One, Trinity. The Oracle hit me with that too.
Trinity: No, you have to be.
Neo: I’m sorry, I’m not. I’m just another guy.
2.3 The Moment Elucidating the Difference between Knowing the Path and Walking It
This is the difference between knowing the path and walking the path. The Oracle, knowing the path and knowing it was her job to guide Neo on the path, lied to Neo to get him to walk the path. Neo, not knowing the path, had to believe the lie, or else he would have gone off the path in this critical moment. Moreover, it is the process Neo sets in motion with that very decision that turns him into the One.
3. Neo Becomes the One
This brings us to the scene of the quote that I began this post with. “There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.”
From this point on, Neo is now the One. At some point during the action-packed process of Neo saving Morpheus, he transitioned from not being the One to being the One. He has stepped into his full potential and life purpose, and in walking the path to self-discovery that brought him to that point, he came to know himself and came to realize that he is the One. Now he can dodge bullets, stop them in mid-air and do everything that, in a sense, was in his soul’s path for him to do.
So the Neo that the Oracle met in her kitchen, as she predicted, died, and the fully self-actualized version of Neo was born. Thus, in one sense, even the Oracle’s statement that either Neo or Morpheus would have to die was also a lie. A version of Neo died, but this is seldom how we understand the word “die.”
4. Applying This Lesson to Guidance We Receive in Life
So where does that leave us, as the “Neo’s” of our own lives walking the path to self-discovery to become what we are destined to become? What can we extract from the Oracle in The Matrix in terms of the nature of the guidance we receive and follow on our paths? You and I are walking our paths. The ultimate source of all of our guidance knows the path and knows what experiences and what suffering we need to go through to become that which we are destined to become.
We always judge guidance as to whether or not it is true information, or accurate, but we can see in the example of The Matrix, that what we perceive as the truth is not always what will get us to walk our path, so you may get guidance, which, in retrospect, you will think seemed to be a lie or bad advice. Yet in retrospect, you know that you would not have reached your present level of evolution without heeding the guidance you followed, regardless of whether or not that information was true at the time.
Our guides, whether they be non-physical beings we receive guidance from, or our own hearts, are those who know the path we walk, and it is not their job to tell us what we want to hear, to appease us, to help us evade suffering or even to tell us our version of what is true—their only job is to ensure that we walk the path we are here to walk, or perhaps more accurately, that we become the path to self-discovery that is our life.
The goal is for us to reach our maximum potential as spiritual beings in this lifetime—to fulfill our life purpose. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but guides may appear wrong, or seem to have lied in retrospect, but one of my guides once said this to me:
“Much of what humans deem to be truth is rooted in collective, agreed-upon belief systems, which, by cosmic standards are not immutable truths. Although a few things I tell you may not seem to you to be 100% true, and there are many things I won’t tell you at all at certain stages of your development, know that no matter what I tell you, everything I do tell you is in complete alignment with your soul’s purpose here and facilitates the best path for your spiritual evolution.”
So remember Neo and the Oracle when you fear you’ve made a mistake or feel betrayed by some source of guidance you chose to put faith in.
There is no spoon. :)