Blog 2
Introduction: The path of the Spiritual Warrior
“Arise, awake and stop not [until] the goal is reached.”
“The [foregoing] inspirational sloka was Swami Vivekananda’s message to the [Indian people] to get out of their hypnotized state of mind. The sloka was meant as a call to his countrymen to awaken their “sleeping soul” and propagate the message of peace and blessings given by the “ancient Mother” to the world. “Awake” also denotes the awakening of one’s real nature…”
(Wikipedia citing of Swami Vivekananda’s Rousing Call to Hindu Nation, By Swami Vivekananda, 1963)
With that admonishment, my fellow seekers, I begin my foray into Part 2 of whatever it is that I’m doing. While my first fifty-two blogs were dedicated to the theme of leading an examined life, I aim for these next blogs to focus on what it means to be a “spiritual warrior”, to hone my skills for the purpose of waking sleeping souls, including my own. Towards that end, I’m culling through the resources I’ve accumulated throughout two plus decades of spiritual study and practice to find and share the voices that inspired my journey and increased my understanding of spiritual warriorship. My aim is to provide you, the reader, with references and questions that contribute to awakening your true nature, your spiritual warrior, in an era when “spiritual peace and blessings” appear to be sorely
lacking.
Much inspiration is to be found in: Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Spiritual Warrior by Dorje Dradul of Mukpo, otherwise known as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I could spend a lot of time expounding on what a REALLY BIG DEAL it is that Trungpa decided to use his given name — Dorje Dradul of Mukpo, but instead I will simply say that this venerated leader and teacher chose to step away from his roles and religious affiliations in order to address his readers from the standpoint of an ordinary lay person, a fellow seeker, or “the average Joe on the street”. But a seeker who might be curious about what is meant by the “awakened state”. As am I.
So where to begin?
If I asked you to define a spiritual warrior you might call to mind a great crusader like Martin Luther King, or a saintly person such as Mother Theresa. And you would be right, partially. For here I am compelled to clarify that, to my mind it is not their external actions and achievements that belie a spiritual warrior so much as the inner work that ultimately shaped them into influential leaders and social change-makers. Gandhi, another great change-maker, would say their power and influence was built upon an inner congruence: their thoughts and feelings were congruent with their words and deeds. And they used them to the benefit of humanity.
Hence my understanding of the term “spiritual warrior”: I am first called to create an inner congruence, to gain mastery over the small “s” self that is, well, self-ish. If this makes a greater contribution to social justice and welfare, then so much the better. But if such changes stem from “unskillful means”, aimed at elevating one’s status or esteem (aka one’s ego), it will not bring about the transformation of which I speak.
In the short term, then, there is much work to be done in my own back yard. And this work is, first and foremost, about shrinking my ego. Which is no fun at all! My ego wants to be seen and heard, accepted and respected, and above all, to be counted a valuable (read indispensable) member of the community — all stemming from an ingrained need for survival and security — a personality aspect that thinks if “I” get rejected by the tribe, I’ll die.
Much of what I had learned up to a certain point in my life, namely the start of my spiritual journey, was about getting along or getting ahead in the aforementioned tribe. One of the first things I’ve had to understand is: it’s NOT. ABOUT. ME. And, sad to say, it’s not about you, either. It’s about getting out of your own way so that your essence, or what Vivekananda calls your “real nature”, can shine through. And this requires the courage to face your “near enemy”, the “you” that you think I’m talking to! Paradox is the language of self-transformation, and it begins by stepping away from thr “hard-wiring” of conditioned beliefs and preconceived ideas, with curiosity, resilience, and humility.
As Trungpa/Mukpo writes: “Warriorship here does not refer to making war on others. Aggression is the source of our problems, not the solution. Here the word warrior is taken from the Tibetan and literally means ‘one who is brave.’ Warriorship in this context is the tradition of human bravery, or the tradition of fearlessness.”
It is the fearlessness of suspending what you think you know, of bravely stepping into the darkness of the unknown, and learning to navigate life in a refreshingly different (albeit less self-assured) way. I think it’s called a leap of faith. Or as T.S. Eliot would say: “You should be satisfied to have sufficient light to secure the next foothold”. For me, the next foothold is to study the way of the spiritual warrior, to awaken my true nature or inner essence, and, ideally, to propagate the ancient Mother’s message of peace and blessings.
I hope you’ll be curious enough to keep me company