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The Way of the Spiritual Warrior
September 2001
The difference between the archetypes of the soldier and the spiritual
warrior is important to remember. It can be formulated as follows:
The warrior is a mindset, an attitude towards life, a way of life;
the soldier is a profession, a job.
The warrior's path is ultimately a spiritual path; the soldier's
path is not.
The warrior can be killed, but not defeated; the soldier can become
a prisoner of war.
The warrior thinks from the heart; the soldier follows orders.
This means, the soldier doesn't have to be responsible for deciding
if an order is a good order, he/she just has to follow it. The
chain of command can take the responsibility and/or blame. But
a warrior will question an immoral or unethical order.
The Way of the Spiritual Warrior is not really about war, battles,
fighting, or the toys that soldier-boys like to play with. It
bothers me to see so many soldiers in our culture, and so few
Warriors. You are more likely to learn the way of the warrior
these days by studying Aikido or Judo than then you ever could
by enlisting in the armed forces. Yes, that's an inflammatory,
opinionated statement: nevertheless, it is true.
It offends me that the armed forces of my own country do not defend
the warriors who appear within their own ranks, with for example
the stupid "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" anti-gay policy that they have
adopted in the past decade. This is a fundamentally immoral, unethical
policy, under which the number of discharges for soldiers being
gay has increased rather than decreased. It has attained the level
of a witch-hunt, but you don't hear about it much because the
soldierly mindset rarely chooses to embrace change, and even more
rarely to buck the system. Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said, "A
prophet is someone who interferes with injustice." Matthew Fox
reminds us, "A mystic is someone who is always in trouble"–and
many prophets are also Spiritual Warriors, because they cannot
remain silent in the face of injustice.
For role models of what the Warrior can be, read Gordon Dickson's
books about the Dorsai warrior culture, SF novels and stories
set in a distant future where humankind has splintered into several
subcultural groups. The Dorsai are the Warriors. The tales I recommend
where the reader might begin, are the novella "Lost Dorsai" and
the novel "The Tactics of Mistake."
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The Spiritual Warrior....
....only rarely starts a fight. The Warrior is primarily a defensive mindset, not an aggressive one. Aggression is a tool, another weapon in the arsenal, to be called up if needed. Soldiers are trained to be aggrezzive in all high alert scenarios; the Warrior by contrast learns to remain ever more calm. The Warrior will initiate a conflict to short-circuit a deadly buildup: a surgical pre-emptive action. But this is an extreme action, and a tactical action to prevent even greater damage that could happen otherwise. It is not to be undertaken lightly or casually–although it is undertaken spontaneously and full attention, like everything else the Warrior does. Present Moment action, always keeping in mind the bigger picture.
....will finish a fight, if someone else starts it. In Aikido we learn how to deflect an attack so that neither the attacked nor the attacker come to harm. You re-direct the energy of the attack, guiding the attacker's ki, to flow around you and bring them gently to the ground, pinning them harmlessly but effectively. Which leads to the next point:
....knows that the person who attacks is always the person who loses. The aggressor is, without exception, always the one to take a fall. The only successful resolution of conflict is a peaceful one. (cf. Thom Crum, "The Magic of Conflict") What the Warrior does is protect her/himself and others, including the attacker. This is a level of compassion for the enemy that soldiers can only rarely comprehend, because their training intrinsically de-personlaizes The Enemy. When an attacker gets hurt in Aikido, it is usually because they hurt themselves: running into the implacable will of the Warrior.
The Warrior does not return violence for violence: does not revenge: does not retaliate: does not strike back out of hatred or fear. The Warrior knows the fruitlessness of perpetuating the cycle of violence. The true Warrior would like nothing more than to retire from the conflict, as s/he always remembers that the only enemy, is the enemy within oneself. (cf. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon")
The true Spiritual Warrior seeks only peace.
•
The Spiritual Warrior....
....masters the self. "Your greatest opponent is your own self" – Bruce Lee, Musashi, Ueshiba, and many other great martial arts teachers have all agreed on this. No matter who you love, if you don't love yourself, you cannot love another. If you have only anger and hate in your heart, you will fail. The Warrior who fights out of anger always loses; the Warrior who fights out of love cannot be defeated. The Warrior empties the self to obtain the Self. (The dark night of the soul leads to the creative awakening which leads to the way of transformation and action in the world.) The goal of the Spiritual Warrior is to make the world a finer place. Sometimes, this is best accomplished at home instead of on the world stage–but, believe me, the energy we bring into the world in our own homes does affect the global field. One drop of Light brought into your own backyard can avert a nuclear disaster. We do have that much power, as Individuals who live Symbolically, over events that happen here in the Matrix. (cf. Starhawk: "Dreaming the Dark"; cf. Matthew Fox: "Original Blessing")
....is a prophet who speaks out against injustice, even at great personal risk and sacrifice. Rabbi Heschel says, "A prophet interferes with injustice." A Warrior, having tested the self and been through the refiner's fire of personal ordeal, has the responsibility to act against injustice. To speak out; to defend; to aid. This does not always mean fighting (ignore those stupid Hollywood action movies, please)–sometime it means refusing to fight. Sometimes it also means laying down your weapons, and just being peace. "I will fight no more forever." – Chief Joseph.
And sometimes, it does mean engaging in battle, as the Warrior's purpose and reason for being is to fight the good fight. The Warrior fights for those who cannot, and the perfect Warrior fights with the knowledge that duty and destiny are intertwined. Krishna said to Arjuna, when he hesitated on the field before engaging, "Your karma is to wage war, even against these cousins whom you love. It is your duty, and your destiny." (cf. the Bhagavad-Gita)
....will sacrifice herself/himself as the last one on the battlements, keeping the enemy at bay while everyone s/he loves escapes. Self-sacrifice does not mean throwing your life away for any one cause. It especially does not mean stubborn pride. It does mean being willing to take a hit, personally, for the sake of the highest good, universally. This means the Warrior must keep the big picture in mind, having an overview of the entire situation, not only his/her corner of the tactical battleground. Perspective and perseverance. You choose the outcome of the battle. You choose when to take the road that might lead towards personal death. "It is a good day to die." – Native American saying.
....knows that true strength is soft and supple and flexible: not hardened and petrified and rigid with rippling muscles and mighty thews. True strength is strength of character, of purpose, of intention, and of will. One translation for the Japanese character for ki, which refers to the life-force that we talk about in Caroline Myss's energy anatomy terms (and is the same as the Chinese character "qi")–one translation is "will in action." Your will-in-action is your very being. Your entire energetic system, including your chakras and your body, when mind and body are acting in coordination, is your will; and your will is acting in the Present Moment.
....can be killed, but never defeated. (What would Gandhi do?)
....will kill, if necessary, and in self-defense. But the Spiritual Warrior does not kill by making the enemy a faceless, demonized non-person upon whom is projected everything hateful and hurtful from within our own Shadows. The Warrior will stand face to face with the enemy in personal combat, run her sword through the enemy's heart, and look him in the eye as he falls to ground, loving the Divine Spirit that is within him: I see the God/dess in your eyes as I kill you. I am killing myself.
You kill only with love. For the sake and preservation of your own soul, you kill with love–never with hate. If you kill with hate, you kill a piece of your own soul; if you do that enough times, your soul withers and shrivels up and dies, leaving your body an empty, numb, emotionless husk. A true killing machine; an automaton. This is often the difference between a soldier and a Warrior: a soldier follows an order, without question; a Warrior retains the ability to think for her/himself, and decide if any order is a just order. Thus, many soldiers can become automatons: and recovering from PTSD is often about calling back your spirit, recovering your soul. Soul-retrieval. (cf. Arnold Mindell, "City Shadows"; cf. Diane Duane, "The Door into Shadow")
To save your own soul, never kill out of hatred, or revenge, or fear, or anger.
•
"Courage means being scared to death and saddling up anyway." – John Wayne
"Those who would exchange liberty for security deserve neither." – Benjamin Franklin
"The spear in my brother's heart is the spear in my own heart." – old Chinese saying
"The eye with which I see God is the eye with which God sees me." –Meister Eckhart
A Spiral Dance essay, © 2001 Arthur Durkee/Black Dragon Productions.
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